Not, let it be understood, that Socialism has become a mere mechanical
theory of economic fatalism. The historical development, the social
evolution, upon the laws of which the theories of Socialism are based,
is a human process, involving all the complex feelings, emotions,
aspirations, hopes, and fears common to man. To ignore this fundamental
fact, as they must who interpret the Marx-Engels theory of history as a
doctrine of economic fatalism, is to miss the profoundest significance
of the theory. While it is true that the scientific spirit destroys the
idea of romantic, magic transformations of the social system and the
belief that the world may be re-created at will, rebuilt upon the plans
of some Utopian architect, it still, as we shall see, leaves room for
the human factor. Otherwise, indeed, it would only be a new kind of
Utopianism. They who accept the theory that the production of the
material necessities of life is the main impelling force, the _geist_,
of human evolution, may rightly protest against social injustice and
wrong just as vehemently as any of the ideologists, and aspire just as
fervently toward a nobler and better state. The Materialistic Conception
of History does not involve the fatalist resignation summed up in the
phrase, "Whatever is, is natural, and, therefore, right." It does not
involve belief in man's helplessness to change conditions.

II

The idea of social evolution is admirably expressed in the fine phrase
of Leibnitz, "The present is the child of the past, but it is the parent
of the future."[60] The great seventeenth-century philosopher was not
the first to postulate and apply to society that doctrine of flux, of
continuity and unity, which we call evolution. In all ages of which
record has been preserved to us, it has been sporadically, and more or
less vaguely, expressed. Even savages seem to have dimly perceived it.
The saying of the Bechuana chief, recorded by the missionary, Casalis,
was probably, judging by its epigrammatic character, a proverb of his
people. "One event is always the son of another," he said--a saying
strikingly like that of Leibnitz.

Since the work of Lyell, Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, Huxley, Youmans, and
their numerous followers--a brilliant school embracing the foremost
historians and sociologists of Europe and America--the idea of evolution
as a universal law has made rapid and certain progress. Everything
changes; nothing is immutable or eternal. Wha