re than fill this volume, I must content myself with
telling them that a very helpful discussion of it may be found in
Huxley's Life of Hume, and a clear and succinct statement of the
conclusions of the modern school of psychology in Ferri's "The Positive
School of Criminology." Both of these are to be had in cheap form.

INSTEAD OF A FOOTNOTE[5]

A photograph of a Fifth Avenue mansion, taken from the partition wall in
the back-yard, might be a perfectly accurate picture and yet give a very
inadequate idea of the house as a whole. This article on "Marxism and
Ethics" is, in a sense, just such a picture. In writing it, space
limitations compelled me to confine myself wholly to impressing upon the
reader the relative and transitory character of moral codes. But in the
popular concept of morality there are elements that are relatively
permanent. Darwin in his "Descent of Man" showed that the gregarious and
social traits that make associated life possible antedate, not only the
division of society into classes, but even antedate humanity itself,
since they plainly appear in the so-called lower animals.

So that my contention that morality only came into being with the
division of society into classes and will pass away when class divisions
are abolished, becomes a question of definition. If we include in our
definition of morality the almost universal and relatively permanent
gregarious traits of men and beasts, then morality has existed longer
than humanity itself, and will continue to exist under Socialism. But it
cannot be denied that moral codes were not formulated until after
class-divisions had arisen. Every moral code of which we have any
knowledge has been moulded by the cultural discipline of a society based
on class-divisions. In every one of them there is implied the relation
of status, of a superior, natural or supernatural, with the right or
power to formulate "commandments," and of an inferior class whose lot it
is to obey. We find this implication of status in even the noblest
expressions of current ethical aspirations. Wordsworth's immortal Ode to
Duty begins, "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!"

Since then morality as a word through the force of immemorial habit
unavoidably suggests to the mind the relation of status, it appears to
me that its use to describe truly social conduct in a society of equals
can lead to nothing but confusion. What we really need is the right
word to apply to the high