significance of this
particular change in opinions to be is set forth in the essay on "The
Biogenetic Law."

Some Socialists will deprecate what may seem to them the unwise
frankness of the paper on "The Nihilism of Socialism." To them I can
only say that to me Socialism has always been essentially a
revolutionary movement. Revolutionists, who attempt to maintain a
distinction between their exoteric and their esoteric teachings, only
succeed in making themselves ridiculous. But, even were the maintenance
of such a distinction practicable, it would, in my judgment, be highly
inexpedient. As a mere matter of policy, ever since I first entered the
Socialist Movement, I have been a firm believer in the tactics admirably
summed up in Danton's "_De l'audace! Puis de l'audace! Et toujours de
l'audace!_"

Should any reader find himself repelled by "The Nihilism of Socialism,"
let me beg that he will not put the book aside until he has read the
essay on "The Biogenetic Law."

I do not send forth this little book with any ambitious hope that it
will be widely read, or even that it will convert any one to Socialism.
My hope is far more modest. It is that this book may be of some real
service, as a labor-saving device, to the thinking men and women who
have felt the lure of Socialism, and are trying to discover just what is
meant by the oft-used words 'Marxian Socialism,' Should it prove of
material aid to even _one_ such man or woman, I would feel that I had
been repaid a hundred-fold for my labor in writing it.

ROBERT RIVES LA MONTE.
Feb. 7, 1907.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 15

I. THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY 25

II. THE LAW OF SURPLUS-VALUE 34

III. THE CLASS STRUGGLE 46

MARXISM AND ETHICS 57

INSTEAD OF A FOOTNOTE 75

THE NIHILISM OF SOCIALISM 81

THE BIOGENETIC LAW 131

KISMET 143

SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM[1]

(International Socialist Review, September, 1900.)

Until the middle of this (the nineteenth) century the favorite theory
with those who attempted to explain the phenomena of History was