II

I have now reached the point which for me is fundamental. Historical materialism is not and cannot be a new philosophy of history or a new method; but it is properly this; a mass of new data, of new experiences, of which the historian becomes conscious.

It is hardly necessary to mention the overthrow a short time ago of the naïve opinion of the ordinary man regarding the objectivity of history; almost as though events spoke, and the historian was there to hear and to record their statements. Anyone who sets out to write history has before him documents and narratives, i.e. small fragments and traces of what has actually happened. In order to attempt to reconstruct the complete process, he must fall back on a series of assumptions, which are in fact the ideas and information which he possesses concerning the affairs of nature, of man, of society. The pieces needed to complete the whole, of which he has only the fragments before him, he must find within himself. His worth and skill as a historian is shown by the accuracy of his adaptation. Whence it clearly follows that the enrichment of these views and experiences is essential to progress in historical narration.

What are these points of view and experiences which are offered by the materialistic theory of history?

That section of Labriola's book which discusses this appears to me excellent and sufficient. Labriola points out how historical narration in the course of its development, might have arrived at the theory of historical factors; i.e., the notion that the sequence of history is the result of a number of forces, known as physical conditions, social organisations, political institutions, personal influences. Historical materialism goes beyond, to investigate the interaction of these factors; or rather it studies them all together as parts of a single process. According to this theory—as is now well known, and as Marx expressed it in a classical passage—the foundations of history are the methods of production, i.e. the economic conditions which give rise to class distinctions, to the constitution of rank and of law, and to those beliefs which make up social and moral customs and sentiments, the reflection whereof is found in art, science and religion.

To understand this point of view accurately is not easy, and it is misunderstood by all those who, rather than take it in the concrete, state it absolutely after the manner of an absolute philosophical truth. The theory cannot be maintained in the abstract without destroying it, i.e. without turning it into the theory of the factors, which is according to my view, the final word in abstract analysis.[6] Some have supposed that historical materialism asserts that history is nothing more than economic history, and all the rest is simply a mask, an appearance without reality. And then they labour to discover the true god of history, whether it be the productive tool or the earth, using arguments which call to mind the proverbial discussion about the egg and the hen. Friedrich Engels was attacked by someone who applied to him to ask how the influence of such and such other historical factors ought to be understood in reference to the economic factor. In the numerous letters which he wrote in reply, and which now, since his death, are coming out in the reviews, he let it be understood that, when together with Marx, upon the prompting of the facts, he conceived this new view of history, he had not meant to state an exact theory. In one of these letters he apologises for whatever exaggeration he and Marx may have put into the controversial statements of their ideas, and begs that attention may be paid to the practical applications made of them rather than to the theoretical expressions employed. It would be a fine thing, he exclaims, if a formula could be given for the interpretation of all the facts of history! By applying this formula, it would be as easy to understand any period of history as to solve a simple equation.[7]

Labriola grants that the supposed reduction of history to the economic factor is a ridiculous notion, which may have occurred to one of the too hasty defenders of the theory, or to one of its no less hasty opponents.[8] He acknowledges the complexity of history, how the products of the first degree first establish themselves, and then isolate themselves and become independent; the ideals which harden into traditions, the persistent survivals, the elasticity of the psychical mechanism which makes the individual irreducible to a type of his class or social position, the unconsciousness and ignorance of their own situations often observed in men, the stupidity and unintelligibility of the beliefs and superstitions arising out of unusual accidents and complexities. And since man lives a natural as well as a social existence, he admits the influence of race, of temperament and of the promptings of nature. And, finally, he does not overlook the influence of the individual, i.e. of the work of those who are called great men, who if they are not the creators, are certainly collaborators of history.

With all these concessions he realises, if I am not mistaken, that it is useless to look for a theory, in any strict sense of the word, in historical materialism; and even that it is not what can properly be called a theory at all. He confirms us in this view by his fine account of its origin, under the stimulus of the French Revolution, that great school of sociology—as he calls it. The materialistic view of history arose out of the need to account for a definite social phenomenon, not from an abstract inquiry into the factors of historical life. It was created in the minds of politicians and revolutionists, not of cold and calculating savants of the library.

At this stage someone will say:—But if the theory, in the strict sense, is not true, wherein then lies the discovery? In what does the novelty consist? To speak in this way is to betray a belief that intellectual progress consists solely in the perfecting of the forms and abstract categories of thought.

Have approximate observations no value in addition to theories? The knowledge of what has usually happened, everything in short that is called experience of life, and which can be expressed in general but not in strictly accurate terms? Granting this limitation and understanding always an almost and an about, there are discoveries to be made which are fruitful in the interpretation of life and of history. Such are the assertions of the dependence of all parts of life upon each other, and of their origin in the economic subsoil, so that it can be said that there is but one single history; the discovery of the true nature of the State (as it appears in the empirical world), regarded as an institution for the defence of the ruling class; the proved dependence of ideals upon class interests; the coincidence of the great epochs of history with the great economic eras; and the many other observations by which the school of historical materialism is enriched. Always with the aforesaid limitations, it may be said with Engels: 'that men make their history themselves, but within a given limited range, on a basis of conditions actually pre-existent, amongst which the economic conditions, although they may be influenced by the others, the political and ideal, are yet, in the final analysis, decisive, and form the red thread which runs through the whole of history and guides us to an understanding thereof.

From this point of view too, I entirely agree with Labriola in regarding as somewhat strange the inquiries made concerning the supposed forerunners and remote authors of historical materialism, and as quite mistaken the inferences that these inquiries will detract from the importance and originality of the theory. The Italian professor of economics to whom I referred at the beginning, when convicted of a plagiarism, thought to defend himself by saying that, at bottom, Marx's idea was not peculiar to Marx; hence, at worst, he had robbed a thief. He gave a list of forerunners, reaching back as far as Aristotle. Just lately, another Italian professor reproved a colleague with much less justice for having forgotten that the economic interpretation had been explained by Lorenzo Stein before Marx, I could multiply such examples. All this reminds me of one of Jean Paul Richter's sayings: that we hoard our thoughts as a miser does his money; and only slowly do we exchange the money for possessions, and thoughts for experiences and feelings. Mental observations attain real importance through the realisation in thought and an insight into the fulness of their possibilities. This realisation and insight have been granted to the modern socialist movement and to its intellectual leaders Marx and Engels. We may read even in Thomas More that the State is a conspiracy of the rich who make plots for their own convenience: quaedam conspiratio divitum, de suis commodis reipublicae nomine tituloque tractantium, and call their intrigues laws: machinamenta jam leges fiunt.[9] And, leaving Sir Thomas More—who, after all, it will be said, was a communist—who does not know by heart Marzoni's lines: Un' odiosa Forza il mondo possiede e fa nomarsi Dritto....[10] But the materialist and socialist interpretation of the State is not therefore any the less new. The common proverb, indeed, tells us that interest is the most powerful motive for human actions and conceals itself under the most varied forms; but it is none the less true that the student of history who has previously examined the teachings of socialist criticism, is like a short-sighted man who has provided himself with a good pair of spectacles: he sees quite differently and many mysterious shadows reveal their exact shape.

In regard to historical narrative then, the materialistic view of history resolves itself into a warning to keep its observations in mind as a new aid to the understanding of history. Few problems are harder than that which the historian has to solve. In one particular it resembles the problem of the statesman, and consists in understanding the conditions of a given nation at a given time in respect to their causes and functioning; but with this difference: the historian confines himself to exposition, the statesman proceeds further to modification; the former pays no penalty for misunderstanding, whereas the latter is subjected to the severe correction of facts. Confronted by such a problem, the majority of historians—I refer in particular to the conditions of the study in Italy—proceed at a disadvantage, almost like the savants of the old school who constructed philology and researched into etymology. Aids to a closer and deeper understanding, have come at length from different sides, and frequently. But the one which is now offered by the materialistic view of history is great, and suited to the importance of the modern socialist movement. It is true that the historian must render exact and definite in each particular instance, that co-ordination and subordination of factors which is indicated by historical materialism, in general, for the greater number of cases, and approximately; herein lies his task and his difficulties, which may sometimes be insurmountable. But now the road has been pointed out, along which the solution must be sought, of some of the greatest problems of history apart from those which have been already elucidated.

I will say nothing of the recent attempts at an historical application of the materialistic conception, because it is not a subject to hurry over in passing, and I intend to deal with it on another occasion. I will content myself with echoing Labriola, who gives a warning against a mistake, common to many of these attempts. This consists in retranslating, as he says, into economic phraseology, the old historical perspective which of late has so often been translated into Darwinian phraseology. Certainly it would not be worth while to create a new movement in historical studies in order to attain such a result.

III

Two things seem to me to deserve some further explanation. What is the relation between historical materialism and socialism? Labriola, if I am not mistaken, is inclined to connect closely and almost to identify the two things. The whole of socialism lies in the materialistic interpretation of history, which is the truth itself of socialism; to accept one and reject the other is to understand neither. I consider this statement to be somewhat exaggerated, or, at least, to need explanation. If historical materialism is stripped of every survival of finality and of the benignities of providence, it can afford no apology for either socialism or any other practical guidance for life. On the other hand, in its special historical application, in the assertion which can be made by its means, its real and close connection with socialism is to be found. This assertion is as follows:—Society is now so constituted that socialism is the only possible solution which it contains within itself. An assertion and forecast of this kind moreover will need to be filled out before it can be a basis for practical action. It must be completed by motives of interest, or by ethical and sentimental motives, moral judgments and the enthusiasms of faith. The assertion in itself is cold and powerless. It will be insufficient to move the cynic, the sceptic, the pessimist. But it will suffice to put on their guard all those classes of society who see their ruin in the sequence of history and to pledge them to a long struggle, although the final outcome may be useless. Amongst these classes is the proletariat, which indeed aims at the extinction of its class. Moral conviction and the force of sentiment must be added to give positive guidance and to supply an imperative ideal for those who neither feel the blind impulse of class interest, nor allow themselves to be swept along by the whirling current of the times.

The final point which I think demands explanation, although in this case also the difference between myself and Labriola does not appear to be serious, is this: to what conclusions does historical materialism lead in regard to the ideal values of man, in regard that is to intellectual truth and to what is called moral truth?

The history of the origin of intellectual truth is undoubtedly made clearer by historical materialism, which aims at showing the influence of actual material conditions upon the opening out, and the very development of the human intellect. Thus the history of opinions, like that of science, needs to be for the most part re-written from this point of view. But those who, on account of such considerations concerning historical origins, return in triumph to the old relativity and scepticism, are confusing two quite distinct classes of problem. Geometry owes its origin no doubt to given conditions which are worth determining; but it does not follow that geometrical truth is something merely historical and relative. The warning seems superfluous, but even here misunderstandings are frequent and remarkable. Have I not read in some socialist author that Marx's discoveries themselves are of merely historical importance and must necessarily be disowned. I do not know what meaning this can have unless it has the very trivial one of a recognition of the limitation of all human work, or unless it resolves itself into the no less idle remark that Marx's thought is the offspring of his age. This onesided history is still more dangerous in reference to moral truth. The science of morality is evidently now in a transformation stage. The ethical imperative, whose classics are Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, and Herbart's Allgemeine praktische Philosophie, appears no longer adequate. In addition to it an historical and a formal science of morality are making their appearance, which regard morality as a fact, and study its universal nature apart from all preoccupations as to creeds and rules. This tendency shows itself not only in socialistic circles, but also elsewhere, and it will be sufficient for me to refer to Simmel's clever writings. Labriola is thus justified in his defence of new methods of regarding morality. 'Ethics,—he says,—for us resolves itself into an historical study of the subjective and objective conditions according to which morality develops or finds hindrances to its development.' But he adds cautiously, 'in this way alone, i.e., within these limits, is there value in the statement that morality corresponds to the social situation, i.e., in the final analysis to the economic conditions,' The question of the intrinsic and absolute worth of the moral ideal, of its reducibility or irreducibility to intellectual truth, remains untouched.

It would perhaps have been well if Labriola had dwelt a little more on this point. A strong tendency is found in socialistic literature towards a moral relativity, not indeed historical, but substantial, which regards morality as a vain imagination. This tendency is chiefly due to the necessity in which Marx and Engels found themselves, in face of the various types of Utopians, of asserting that the so-called social question is not a moral question,—i.e. as this must be interpreted, it cannot be solved by sermons and so-called moral methods—and to their bitter criticism of class ideals and hypocrisies.[11] This result was helped on, as it seems to me, by the Hegelian source of the views of Marx and Engels; it being obvious that in the Hegelian philosophy ethics loses the rigidity given to it by Kant and preserved by Herbart. And lastly the name materialism is perhaps not without influence here, since it brings to mind at once well-understood interests and the calculating comparison of pleasures. It is, however, evident that idealism or absolute morality is a necessary postulate of socialism. Is not the interest which prompts the formation of a concept of surplus-value a moral interest, or social if it is preferred? Can surplus value be spoken of in pure economics? Does not the labourer sell his labour-power for exactly what it is worth, given his position in existing society? And, without the moral postulate, how could we ever explain Marx's political activity, and that note of violent indignation and bitter satire which is felt in every page of Das Kapital? But enough of this, for I find myself making quite elementary statements such as can only be overlooked owing to ambiguous or exaggerated phraseology.

And in conclusion, I repeat my regret, already expressed, concerning this name materialism, which is not justified in this case, gives rise to numerous misunderstandings, and is a cause of derision to opponents. So far as history is concerned, I would gladly keep to the name realistic view of history, which denotes the opposition to all teleology and metaphysics within the sphere of history, and combines both the contribution made by socialism to historical knowledge and those contributions which may subsequently be brought from elsewhere. Hence my friend Labriola ought not to attach too much importance, in his serious thoughts, to the adjectives final and definite, which have slipped from his pen. Did he not once tell me himself that Engels still hoped for other discoveries which might help us to understand that mystery, made by ourselves, and which is History?

May, 1896.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II. CONCERNING HISTORICAL MATERIALISM VIEWED AS A SCIENCE OF SOCIAL ECONOMICSToC

The attentive reader of Professor Stammler's book,[12] realises at the outset that it treats of the materialistic theory of history not as a fruitful guide to the interpretation of historical fact, but as a science or philosophy of society.

A number of attempts have been made, based in the first instance on Marx's statements, to build up on these statements a general theory of history or of society. It is on these attempts then, and not on the least bold amongst them, that Stammler bases his work, making them the starting point of his criticism and reconstruction. It may be precisely on this account that he chooses to discuss historical materialism in the form given to it by Engels,—which he calls the most complete, the authentic(!) statement of the principles of social materialism. He prefers this form to that of Marx, which he thinks too disconnected; and which is, indeed, less easily reduced to abstract generalities; whereas Engels was one of the first to give to historical materialism a meaning more important than its original one. To Engels, also, as is well known, is due the very name materialism as applied to this view of history.

We cannot, indeed, deny that the materialistic view of history has in fact developed in two directions, distinct in kind if not in practice, viz.: (1) a movement relating to the writing of history, and (2) a science and philosophy of society. Hence there is no ground for objecting to Stammler's procedure, when he confines himself to this second problem, and takes it up at the point to which he thinks that the followers of historical materialism have brought it. But it should be clearly pointed out that he does not concern himself at all with the problems of historical method. He leaves out of account that is, what, for some people—and for me amongst them—is the side of this movement of thought which is of living and scientific interest.

Professor Stammler remarks how in the propositions employed by the believers in historical materialism: 'the economic factor dominates the other factors of social life,' 'the economic factor is fundamental and the others are dependent,' and the like, the concept economic has never been defined. He is justified in making this remark, and in attaching the greatest importance to it, if he regards and interprets those propositions as assertions of laws, as strict propositions of social science. To use as essential in statements of this kind, a concept which could neither be defined nor explained, and which therefore remained a mere word, would indeed be somewhat odd. But his remark is entirely irrelevant when these propositions are understood as: 'summaries of empirical observations, by the help of which concrete social facts may be explained.' I do not think that any sensible person has ever expected to find in those expressions an accurate and philosophical definition of concepts; yet all sensible people readily understand to what class of facts they refer. The word economic here, as in ordinary language, corresponds, not to a concept, but to a group of rather diverse representations, some of which are not even qualitative in content, but quantitative. When it is asserted, that in interpreting history we must look chiefly at the economic factors, we think at once of technical conditions, of the distribution of wealth, of classes and sub-classes bound together by definite common interests, and so on. It is true these different representations cannot be reduced to a single concept, but no matter, there is no question of that: here we are in an entirely different sphere from that in which abstract questions are discussed.

This point is not without interest and may be explained more in detail. If economic be understood in its strict sense, for example, in the sense in which it is employed in pure economics, i.e., if by it be meant the axiom according to which all men seek the greatest satisfaction with the least possible effort, it is plain that to say that this factor plays a part (essential, dominant, or equal to that of the others) in social life, would tell us nothing concrete. The economic axiom is a very general and purely a formal principle of conduct. It is inconceivable that anyone should act without applying, well or ill, the very principle of every action, i.e., the economic principle. Worse still it economic be taken in the sense which, as we shall see, Professor Stammler gives to it. He understands by this word: 'all concrete social facts'; in which sense it would at once become absurd to assert that the economic factor, i.e., all social facts in the concrete dominated, a part of these facts! Thus in order to give a meaning to the word economic in this proposition, it is necessary to leave the abstract and formal; to assign definite ends to human action; to have in mind an 'historical man,' or rather the average man of history, or of a longer or shorter period of history; to think, for example, of the need for bread, for clothes, for sexual relations, for the so-called moral satisfactions, esteem, vanity, power and so on. The phrase economic factor now refers to groups of concrete facts, which are built up in common speech, and which have been better defined from the actual application made of the above-mentioned propositions in historical narrative and in the practical programmes of Marx and his followers.

In the main, this is recognised by Professor Stammler himself when he gives an admirable explanation of the current meaning of the expressions: economic facts and political facts, revolutions more political than economic and vice versa. Such distinctions, he says, can only be understood in the concrete, in reference to the aims pursued by the different sections of society, and to the special problems of social life. According to him, however, Marx's work does not deal with such trifling matters: as, for instance, that so-called economic life influences ideas, science, art and so on: old lumber of little consequence. Just as philosophical materialism does not consist in the assertion that bodily facts have an influence over spiritual, but rather in the making of these latter a mere appearance, without reality, of the former: so historical materialism must consist in asserting that economics is the true reality and that law is a fallacious appearance.

But, with all deference to Professor Stammler, we believe that these trifling matters, to which he contemptuously refers, are precisely what are dealt with in Marx's propositions; and, moreover, we think them neither so trifling nor of such little consequence. Hence Professor Stammler's book does not appear to us a criticism of the most vital part of historical materialism, viz., of a movement or school of historians. The criticism of history is made by history; and historical materialism is history made or in the making.

Nor does it provide the starting point for a criticism of socialism, as the programme of a definite social movement. Stammler deceives himself when he thinks that socialism is based on the materialistic philosophy of history as he expounds it: on which philosophy are based, on the contrary, the illusions and caprices of some or of many socialists. Socialism cannot depend on an abstract sociological theory, since the basis would be inadequate precisely because it was abstract; nor can it depend on a philosophy of history as rhythmical or of little stability, because the basis would be transitory. On the contrary, it is a complex fact and results from different elements; and, so far as concerns history, socialism does not presuppose a philosophy of history, but an historical conception determined by the existing conditions of society and the manner in which this has come about. If we put on one side the doctrines superimposed subsequently, and read again Marx's pages without prejudice, we shall then see that he had, at bottom, no other meaning when he referred to history as one of the factors justifying socialism.

'The necessity for the socialisation of the means of production is not proved scientifically.' Stammler means that the concept of necessity as employed by many Marxians, is erroneous; that the denial of teleology is absurd, and that hence the assertion of the socialisation of the means of production as the social programme is not logically accounted for. This does not hinder this assertion from being possibly quite true. Either because, in addition to logical demonstrations there are fortunate intuitions, or because a conclusion can be true although derived from a false premiss: it suffices, obviously, that there should be two errors which cancel one another. And this would be so in our case. The denial of teleology; the tacit acceptance of this same teleology: here is a method scientifically incorrect with a conclusion that may be valid. It remains to examine the whole tissue of experiences, deductions, aspirations and forecasts in which socialism really consists; and over which Stammler passes indifferently, content to have brought to light an error in the philosophical statement of a remote postulate, an error which some, or it may be many, of the supporters and politicians of socialism commit.

All these reservations are needed in order to fix the scope of Stammler's investigation; but it would be a mistake to infer from them that we reject the starting point of the inquiry itself. Historical materialism—says Professor Stammler—has proved unable to give us a valid science of society: we, however, believe that this was not its main or original object. The two statements come practically to the same thing: the science of society is not contained in the literature of the materialistic theory. Professor Stammler adds that although historical materialism does not offer an acceptable social theory, it nevertheless gives a stimulus of the utmost intensity towards the formation of such a theory. This seems to us a matter of merely individual psychology: suggestions and stimuli, as everyone knows, differ according to the mind that receives them. The literature of historical materialism has always aroused in us a desire to study history in the concrete, i.e., to reconstruct the actual historical process. In Professor Stammler, on the contrary, it arouses a desire to throw aside this meagre empirical history, and to work with abstractions in order to establish concepts and general points of view. The problems which he sets before himself, might be arrived at psychologically by many other paths.

There is a tendency, at present, to enlarge unduly the boundaries of social studies. But Stammler rightly claims a definite and special subject for what ought to be called social science; that is definite social data. Social science must include nothing which has not sociability as its determining cause. How can ethics ever be social science, since it is based on cases of conscience which evade all social rules? Custom is the social fact, not morality. How can pure economics or technology ever be social science, since those concepts are equally applicable to the isolated individual and to societies? Thus in studying social data we shall see that, considered in general, they give rise to two distinct theories. The first theory regards the concept society from the causal standpoint; the second regards it from the teleological standpoint. Causality and teleology cannot be substituted the one for the other; but one forms the complement of the other.

If, then, we pass from the general and abstract to the concrete, we have society as existing in history. The study of the facts which develop in concrete society Stammler consigns to a science which he calls social (or political, or national) economics. From such facts may still be abstracted the mere form, i.e., the collection of rules supplied by history by which they are governed; and this may be studied independently of the matter. Thus we get jurisprudence, or the technical science of law; which is always bound up inseparably with a given actual historical material, which it works up by scientific method, endeavouring to give it unity and coherence. Finally, amongst social studies are also included those investigations which aim at judging and determining whether a given social order is as it ought to be; and whether attempts to preserve or change it are objectively justified. This section may be called that of practical social problems. By such definitions and divisions Professor Stammler exhausts every possible form of social study. Thus we should have the following scheme:

We believe that this table correctly represents his views, although given in our own way, and in words somewhat different from those used by him. A new treatment of the social sciences, the work of serious and keen ability, such as Stammler seems to possess, cannot fail to receive the earnest attention of all students of a subject which is still so vague and controversial. Let us examine it then section by section.

The first investigation relating to society, that concerned with causality, would be directed to solving the problem of the nature of society. Many definitions have been given of this up to the present: and none of them can be said to be generally accepted, or even to claim wide support. Stammler indeed, rejects, after criticism, the definitions of Spencer or Rümelin, which appear to him to be the most important and to be representative of all the others. Society is not an organism (Spencer), nor is it merely something opposed to legalised society (Rümelin): Society, says Stammler, is 'life lived by men in common, subject to rules which are externally binding.' These rules must be understood in a very wide sense, as all those which bind men living together to something which is satisfied by outward performance. They are divided, however, into two large classes: rules properly speaking legal, and rules of convention. The second class includes the precepts of propriety and of custom, the code of knightly honour, and so on. The distinctive test lies in the fact that the latter class are merely hypothetical, while the former are imposed without being desired by those subjected to them. The whole assemblage of rules, legal and conventional, Stammler calls social form. Under these rules, obeying them, limiting them and even breaking them men act in order to satisfy their desires; in this, and in this alone, human life consists. The assemblage of concrete facts which men produce when working together in society, i.e., under the assumption of social rules, Stammler calls social matter, or social economics. Rules, and actions under rules; these are the two elements of which every social datum consists. If the rules were lacking, we should be outside society; we should be animals or gods, as says the old proverb: if the actions were lacking there would remain only an empty form, built up hypothetically by thought, and no portion of which was actually real. Thus social life appears as a single fact: to separate its two constituent factors means either to destroy it, or to reduce it to empty form. The law governing changes within society cannot be found in something which is extra social; not in technique and discovery, nor in the workings of supposed natural laws, nor in the influence of great men, of mysterious racial and national spirit; but it must be sought in the very centre of the social fact itself. Hence it is wrong to speak of a causal bond between law and economics or vice versa: the relation between law and economics is that between the rule and the things ruled, not one of cause and effect. The determining cause of social movements and changes is then ultimately to be found in the actual working out of social rules, which precede such changes. This concrete working out, these actions accomplished under rules, may produce (1) social mutations which are entirely quantitative (in the number of social facts of one or another kind); (2) mutations which are also qualitative consisting that is in changes in the rules themselves. Hence the circle of social life: rules, social facts arising under them; ideas, opinions, desires, efforts resulting from the facts; changes in the rules. When and how this circle originated, that is to say when and how social life arose on the earth, is a question for history, which does not concern the theorist. Between social life and non-social life there are no gradations, theoretically there is a gulf. But as long as social life exists, there is no escape from the circle described above.

The form and matter of social life thus come into conflict, and from this conflict arises change. By what test can the issue of the conflict be decided? To appeal to facts, to invent a causal necessity which may agree with some ideal necessity is absurd. In addition to the law of social causality, which has been expounded, there must be a law of ends and ideals, i.e., a social teleology. According to Stammler, historical materialism identifies, nor would it be the only theory to attempt such an identification, causality and teleology; but it, too, cannot escape from the logical contradictions which such assertions contain. Much praise has been given to that section of Professor Stammler's book in which he shows how teleological assumptions are constantly implied by historical materialism in all its assertions of a practical nature. But we confess that the discovery seems to us exceedingly easy, not to be compared to that of Columbus about the egg. Here again we must point out that the pivot of the Marxian doctrine lies in the practical problem and not in the abstract theory. The denial of finality is, at bottom, the denial of a merely subjective and peculiar finality. And here, too, although the criticism as applied to historical materialism seems to us hardly accurate, we agree with Stammler's conclusion, i.e., that it is necessary to construct, or better to reconstruct, with fresh material, a theory of social teleology.

Let us omit, for the present, an examination of Stammler's construction of teleology, which includes some very fine passages (e.g. the criticism of the anarchist doctrine) and ask instead: What is this social science of Stammler, of which we have stated the striking and characteristic features? The reader will have little difficulty in discovering that the second investigation, that concerning social teleology, is nothing but a modernised philosophy of law. And the first? Is it that long desired and hitherto vainly sought general sociology? Does it give us a new and acceptable concept of society? To us it appears evident that the first investigation is nothing but a formal science of law. In it Professor Stammler studies law as a fact, and hence he cannot find it except in society subjected to rules imposed from without. In the second, he studies law as an ideal and constructs the philosophy (imperative) of law. We are not here questioning the value of the investigation, but its nature. The present writer is convinced that social data leave no place for an abstract independent science. Society is a living together; the kind of phenomena which appear in this life together is the concern of descriptive history. But it is perfectly possible to study this life together from a given point of view, e.g., from the legal point of view, or, in general, from that of the legal and non-legal rules to which it can be subjected; and this Stammler has done. And, in so doing, he has examined the nature of law, separating the concrete individual laws and the ideal type of law; which he has then studied apart. This is the reason why Stammler's investigation seems to us a truly scientific investigation and very well carried out, but not an abstract and general science of society. Such a science is for us inconceivable, just as a formal science of law is, on the contrary, perfectly conceivable.

As to the second investigation, that concerning teleology, there would be some difficulty in including it in the number of sciences if it be admitted that ideals are not subjects for science. But here Professor Stammler himself comes to our assistance by assigning the foundation of social teleology to philosophy, which he defines as the science of the True and of the Good, the science of the Absolute, and understands in a non-formal sense.

Professor Stammler speaks readily of a monism of the social life, and accepts as suitable and accurate the name materialism as applied to Marx's conception of history, and connects this materialism with metaphysical materialism, applying to it also Lange's statement, viz., that 'materialism may be the first and lowest step of philosophy, but it is also the most substantial and solid.' For him historical materialism offers truth, but not the whole truth, since it regards as real the matter only and not the form of social life; hence the necessity of completing it by restoring the form to its place, and fixing the relation between form and matter, combining the two in the unity of social life. We doubt whether Engels and his followers ever understood the phrase social materialism in the sense which Stammler assigns to it. The parallel drawn between it and metaphysical materialism seems to us somewhat arbitrary.

We come to the group of concrete sciences, i.e., those which have for their subject society as given in history. No one who has had occasion to consider the problem of the classification of the sciences, will be inclined to give the character of independent and autonomous sciences to studies of the practical problems of this or that society, and to jurisprudence, and the technical study of law. This latter is only an interpretation or explanation of a given existing legal system, made either for practical reasons, or as simple historical knowledge. But what we think merits attention more than these questions of terminology and classification, is the conception of social economics, advanced by Stammler; of the second, that is, of the concrete social sciences, enumerated above. The difficulties arising out of this conception are more serious, and centre on the following points; whether it is a new and valid conception, or whether it should be reduced to something already known; or finally whether it is not actually erroneous.

Stammler holds forth at length against economics regarded as a science in itself, which has its own laws and which has its source in an original and irreducible economic principle. It is a mistake, he says, to put forward an abstract economic science and subdivide it into economic science relating to the individual and social economic science. There is no ground of union between these two sciences, because the economics of the isolated individual offers us only concepts which are dealt with by the natural sciences and by technology, and is nothing but an assemblage of simple natural observations, explained by means of physiology and individual psychology. Social economics, on the other hand, offers the peculiar and characteristic conditions of the externally binding rules, under which activities develop. And what can an economic principle be if not a hypothetical maxim: the man who wishes to secure this or that object of subjective satisfaction must employ these or those means, 'a maxim which is more or less generally obeyed, and sometimes violated'? The dilemma lies then between the natural and technological consideration and the social one: there is no third thing. 'Ein Drittes ist nicht da!' This Stammler frequently reiterates, and always in the same words. But the dilemma (whose unfortunate inspiration he owes to Kant) does not hold, it is a case of a trilemma. Besides the concrete social facts, and besides the technological and natural knowledge, there is a third thing, viz., the economic principle, or hedonistic postulate, as it is preferred to call it. Stammler asserts that this third thing is not equal in value to the two first ones, that it comes as a secondary consideration, and we confess that we do not clearly understand what this means. What he ought to prove is that this principle can be reduced to the two former ones, viz., to the technical or to the social conditions. This he has not done, and indeed we do not know how it could be done. That economics, thus understood, is not social science, we are so much the more inclined to agree since he himself says as much in calling it pure economics, i.e., something built up by abstraction from particular facts and hence also from the social fact. But this does not mean that it is not applicable to society, and cannot give rise to inferences in social economics. The social factor is then assumed as a medium through which the economic principle displays its influence and produces definite results. Granted the economic principle, and granted, for example, the legal regulation of private property in land, and the existence of land differing in quality, and granted other conditions, then the fact of rent of land arises of necessity. In this and other like examples, which could easily be brought forward, we have laws of social and political economics, i.e., deductions from the economic principle acting under given legal conditions. It is true that, under other legal conditions, the effects would be different; but none of the effects would occur were it not for the economic nature of man, which is a necessary postulate, and not to be identified with the postulate of technical knowledge, or with any other of the social rules. To know is not to will; and to will in accordance with objective rules is not to will in accordance with ideals which are merely subjective and individual (economic).

Stammler might say that if the science of economics thus interpreted is not properly a social science, he leaves it on one side, because his object is to construct a science which may be fully entitled to the name of social economics. But—let us, too, construct a dilemma!—this social economics, to which he aspires, will either be just economic science applied to definite social conditions, in the sense now indicated, or it will be a form of historical knowledge. No third thing exists. Ein Drittes ist nicht da!

And indeed, for Stammler an economic phenomenon is not any single social fact whatever, but a group of homogeneous facts, which offer the marks of necessity. The number of economic facts required to form the group and give rise to an economic phenomenon cannot be determined in general; but can be seen in each case. By the formation of these groups, he says, social economics does not degenerate into a register of data concerning fact, nor does it become purely mechanical statistics of material already given which it has merely to enumerate. Social economics should not merely examine into the change in the actual working out of one and the same social order, but remains, now as formerly, the seat of all knowledge of actual social life. It must start from the knowledge of a given social existence, both in regard to its form and in regard to its content; and enlarge and deepen it up to the most minute peculiarity of its actual working out, with the accuracy of a technical science, the conditions and concrete objects of which are clearly indicated; and thus free the reality of social life from every obscurity. Hence it must make for itself a series of concepts, which will serve the purpose of such an explanation.

Now this account of the concept of social economics is capable of two interpretations. The first is that it is intended to describe a science, which has indeed for its object (as is proper for sciences) necessary connections, in the strict sense of the word. But how establish this necessity? How make the concepts suitable to social economics? Evidently by allowing ourselves to be guided by a principle, by abstracting a single side from concrete reality; and if it is to be for economics this principle can be none other than the economic principle, and social economics will consider only the economic side of a given social life. Profits, rent, interest, labour value, usury, wages, crises, will then appear as economic phenomena necessary under given conditions of the social order, through which the economic principle exerts its influence.

The other interpretation is that Stammler's social economics does not indeed accomplish the dissolving work of analysis but considers this or that social life in the concrete. In this case it could do nothing but describe a given society. To describe does not mean to describe in externals and superficially; but, more accurately, to free that group of facts from every obscurity, showing what it actually is, and describing it, as far as possible in its naked reality. But this is, in fact, historical knowledge, which may assume varied forms, or rather may define in various ways its own subject. It may study a society—in all its aspects during a given period of time, or at a given moment of its existence, or it may even take up one or more aspects of social life and study them as they present themselves in different societies and at different times, and so on. It is history always, even when it avails itself of comparison as an instrument of research. And such a study will not have to make concepts, but will take them as it needs them from those sciences, which do, in fact, elaborate concepts.

Thus it would have been to great interest to see the working out of this new social economics of Stammler a little more clearly, so that we might determine exactly in which of the aforesaid two classes it ought to be placed. Whether it is merely political economy in the ordinary sense, or whether it is the concrete study of single societies and of groups of them. In the latter case Stammler has added another name or rather two names; science of the matter of social life and social economics, to the many phrases by which of late the old History has been disguised (social history, history of civilisation, concrete sociology, comparative sociology, psychology of the populace and of the classes, etc.). And the gain, if we may be allowed to say so, will not be great.

September 1898.