spiracy, all thoroughly familiar with the plot, which Marx was so
sure he had uncovered. In the last act was to occur that catastrophic
revolution, with the final transformation scene of the Socialist
millennium. Presented in "scientific" phraseology, with all the authority
of economic terms, "Capital" appeared at the psychological moment.
The heaven of the traditional theology had been shattered by Darwinian
science, and here, dressed up in all the authority of the new science,
appeared a new theology, the promise of a new heaven, an earthly
paradise, with an impressive scale of rewards for the faithful and
ignominious punishments for the capitalists.

Critics have often been puzzled by the tremendous vitality of this work.
Its predictions have never, despite the claims of the faithful, been
fulfilled. Instead of diminishing, the spirit of nationalism has
been intensified tenfold. In nearly every respect Marx's predictions
concerning the evolution of historical and economic forces have been
contradicted by events, culminating in the great war. Most of his
followers, the "revolutionary" Socialists, were swept into the whirlpool
of nationalistic militarism. Nevertheless, this "Bible of the working
classes" still enjoys a tremendous authority as a scientific work. By
some it is regarded as an economic treatise; by others as a philosophy
of history; by others as a collection of sociological laws; and finally
by others as a moral and political book of reference. Criticized,
refuted, repudiated and demolished by specialists, it nevertheless
exerts its influences and retains its mysterious vitality.

We must seek the explanation of this secret elsewhere. Modern psychology
has taught us that human nature has a tendency to place the cause of its
own deficiencies and weaknesses outside of itself, to attribute to some
external agency, to some enemy or group of enemies, the blame for
its own misery. In his great work Marx unconsciously strengthens
and encourages this tendency. The immediate effect of his teaching,
vulgarized and popularized in a hundred different forms, is to relieve
the proletariat of all responsibility for the effects of its reckless
breeding, and even to encourage it in the perpetuation of misery.

The inherent truth in the Marxian teachings was, moreover, immediately
subordinated to their emotional and religious appeal. A book that could
so influence European thought could not be without merit. But in the
pr