f the bourgeoisie on the other. The teachings of the bourgeois
economists with respect to the identity of the interests of capital
and labor and with respect to the universal peace and well being which
would follow as a matter of course from the adoption of free trade
were more and more contradicted by facts. All these things could be as
little ignored as the French and English socialism which was their
theoretical though very insufficient expression. But the old
idealistic philosophy of history which was as yet by no means laid
aside knew nothing of class wars dependent upon material interests,
and nothing of material interests, specially. Production, like all
economic phenomena only occupied a subordinate position as a secondary
element of the "history of civilisation." The new facts, moreover
rendered necessary a new investigation of all preceding history and
then it became evident that all history up to then had been a history
of class struggles and that these mutually conflicting classes are the
results of a given method of production and distribution at a given
period, in a word, of the economic conditions of that epoch. Hence,
that the economic structure of society at a given time furnishes the
real foundations upon which the entire superstructure of political and
juristic institutions as well as the religious, philosophical and
other abstract notions of a given period are to be explained in the
last instance. Idealism was thereupon driven from its last refuge, the
philosophy of history; a materialistic philosophy of history was set
up, and the path was discovered by which the consciousness of man
could be shown as springing from his existence rather than his
existence from his consciousness.

But the socialism which had existed so far was just as incompatible
with the materialistic conception of history as was the naturalistic
French materialism with the dialectic and the modern discoveries in
natural science. The then existing socialism criticised the prevailing
capitalistic methods of production and their results but it could not
explain them and thus could not match itself against them, it could
only brush them on one side as being bad. But it was necessary to
show, on the one hand, the capitalistic methods of production in their
historical connection, and their necessity at a given historical epoch
and therefore the necessity of their ultimate disappearance. On the
other hand their inner character had to be