FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>  
ers as well as among readers for one to misuse so grotesquely the name of Herbert Spencer, whose extreme individualism is known to all the world. But the personal opinion of Herbert Spencer is a quite different thing from the logical consequence of the scientific theories concerning universal evolution, which he has developed more fully and better than anyone else, but of which he has not the official monopoly and whose free expansion by the labor of other thinkers he can not inhibit. I myself, in the preface of my book, pointed out that Spencer and Darwin stopped half-way on the road to the logical consequences of their doctrines. But I also demonstrated that these very doctrines constituted the scientific foundation of the socialism of Marx, the only one who, by rising above the sentimental socialism of former days, has arranged in a systematic and orderly fashion the facts of the social economy, and by induction drawn from them political conclusions in support of the revolutionary method of tactics as a means of approach to a revolutionary goal. As regards Darwinism, being unable to repeat here the arguments which are already contained in my book and which will be more fully developed in the second edition, it suffices for me to remind you--since it has been thought fit to resort to arguments having so little weight as appeals to the authority of individuals--that, among many others, the celebrated Virchow foresaw, with great penetration, that Darwinism would lead directly to socialism, and let me remind you that the celebrated Wallace, Darwinian though he is, is a member of the English _League_ for the _Nationalization_ of the _Land_, which constitutes one of the fundamental conclusions of socialism.[88] And, from another point of view, what is the famous doctrine of "class-struggle" which Marx revealed as the positive key of human history, but the Darwinian law of the "struggle for life" transformed from a chaotic strife between individuals to a conflict between collectivities? Just the same as every individual, every class or social group struggles for its existence. And just as the bourgeoisie struggled against the clergy and the aristocracy, and triumphed in the French Revolution, in the same way to-day the international proletariat struggles, and not by the use of violence, as is constantly charged against us, but by propaganda and organization for its economic and moral existence at present so ill a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129  
130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>  



Top keywords:
socialism
 

Spencer

 

struggles

 
arguments
 
individuals
 
Darwinism
 

remind

 

celebrated

 

revolutionary

 

struggle


existence
 
social
 

conclusions

 

Darwinian

 

doctrines

 

scientific

 

logical

 

Herbert

 

developed

 

League


penetration
 

Nationalization

 

propaganda

 
directly
 

charged

 
foresaw
 
Wallace
 

English

 

member

 

resort


thought

 

present

 
weight
 
organization
 

economic

 
authority
 

appeals

 

Virchow

 

French

 

conflict


strife

 

chaotic

 
transformed
 

Revolution

 
triumphed
 
collectivities
 

struggled

 

bourgeoisie

 
individual
 

aristocracy