urther forward than at the beginning, but I have thereby solved
the problem over which ordinary geometry and algebra would probably
have gnashed their teeth in vain.

It is not otherwise in history. All civilised peoples began with
common property in land. Among all peoples which pass beyond a certain
primitive stage the common property in land becomes a fetter upon
production in the process of agricultural development. It is cast
aside, negated, and, after shorter or longer intervening periods, is
transformed into private property. But at a higher stage, through the
development still further of agriculture, private property becomes in
its turn a bar to production, as is to-day the case with both large
and small land proprietorship. The next step, to negate it in turn,
to transform it into social property, necessarily follows. This
advance however does not signify the restoration of the old primitive
common property, but the establishment of a far higher better
developed form of communal proprietorship, which, far from being an
impediment to production, rather, for the first time is bound to put
an end to its limitations and to give it the full benefit of modern
discoveries in chemistry and mechanical inventions.

But again; ancient philosophy was primitive naturalistic materialism.
In the state of thought at that period it was, as such, incapable of
clear conceptions of matter. But the necessity of clearness on this
point led to the doctrine of a soul which could leave the body, then
to the idea of the immortality of the soul, finally, to monotheism.
The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism. But in the
further development of philosophy idealism became untenable, and is
negated by modern materialism. This, the negation of negation, is not
the mere reestablishment of the old, but unites, with the surviving
foundations, the whole thought content of a two thousand years'
development of philosophy and science, as well as the history of these
two thousand years. It is in a special sense no philosophy but a
single concept of the universe which has to prove and realise itself
not in a science of sciences apart, but in actual science. Philosophy
is here also cast aside, that is "destroyed and preserved," destroyed
as to its form, preserved as to its real content. Where Herr Duehring
only sees word-jugglery a more real content is brought to light by the
newer point of view.

Finally, even the Rousseau doctrine of