Preface of G. Sorel

Contemporaneous socialism presents a character of originality which has struck all the economists. It owes this character to the fact that it is inspired by the ideas enunciated by Karl Marx on Historical Materialism. Wherever these ideas have deeply penetrated into the consciousness of people, the Socialist Party is strong and alive otherwise it is weak and divided into sects.

The Marxian theses have generally not been well understood in France by the writers, who occupy themselves with social questions. Mr. Bourguin, professor at the university of Lille, wrote in 1892 : "The thinkers among our socialists do not accept the blighting doctrine of their master, from which the idea of Right and Justice is so rigorously banished, without reservation. It is a strange garment, which they wear with little ease and which they will no doubt touch up some day in order to fit it better to their own figure." The writer was referring to an essay published in 1887 by Mr. Rouanet, in the Revue Socialiste, under the title: Le mat�rialisme ?conomique de Marx et le socialisme fran?ais.

Nearly all those who speak of historical materialism know this doctrine solely through this essay of Mr. Rouanet. This writer has occupied for a long time an important place in the advanced parties of France. He informed his readers that he had made a profound study of Marx and that he had devoted himself to exhaustive researches, in order to understand Hegel. One would naturally think him to be well informed.

Before beginning the perusal of the exposition, which Mr. Labriola gives in excellent, but very concise, terms of historical materialism, the French reader should guard himself against widely disseminated prejudices. For this reason I think it necessary to show here, how false and futile the great objections against the Marxian doctrine are. We must, therefore, pause to consider the ideas enunciated by Mr. Rouanet in 1887.

The prejudices existing among us have to a large extent a sentimental origin. Mr. Rouanet has gone to a lot of trouble to show that the Marxian doctrines run counter to the French genius. We hear this reproach repeated every day. In what consists this antagonism?

The problem of modern development, considered from the materialist point of view, rests upon three questions: 1) Has the proletariat acquired a clear consciousness of its existence as an indivisible class? 2) Has it enough strength to begin the struggle against the other classes? 3) Is it in a position to overthrow, together with the capitalist organisation, the entire system of traditional ideologies? It is for sociology to reply.

If a man adopts the principles of Marx, he can say that there is no longer any social question. He can even say that socialism (in the ordinary and historical meaning of the term), is outgrown. In fact, research then applies no longer to what society should be, but to what the proletariat can accomplish in the present class struggle.

This manner of looking at things does not suit the French genius, at least not those who have the pretension to claim that they represent it. In our country, the progressive parties contain an appalling number of men of genius, whose talent present society is misunderstanding, who have in their hearts an infallible oracle of Justice, who have devoted their lives to the elaboration of marvelous plans for insuring the happiness of humanity. These gentlemen do not wish to step down from their fastidious tripods and mingle with the crowd. They are made to lead, not to become the co-operators in a proletarian task. They intend to defend the rights of intelligence against those audacious ones who lack respect for the liberal Olympus, and who do not take sufficient account of mentality.

Add to this that these rare spirits have a naive faith in French supremacy, in the leading role of France , that they have the superstition of revolutionary phraseology, and that they practice with devotion the cult of great men. They cannot forgive Marx, Engels, and especially Lafargue for lacking in respect for their own revered idols.

I do not belong to those who have a great admiration for French genius, so understood. Besides, I have reason to believe that this sort of French genius is not the kind possessed by those of my countrymen who devote themselves to scientific research and do not feel the need of posing as the spiritual leaders of the people.

The great reproach advanced against the doctrine of Marx from a scientific point of view is that of leading to fatalism. According to Rouanet, it is very close to Hegelian idealism, divested of its "nebulous transcendentalism." It has "the same fatal succession of events, which are necessary phases of a process not enlightened by human will, and even a cult of force, that sombre god of iron, who is the blind instrument of the laws of the great Fate destined to fulfillment in spite of everything." One might make many objections to the idea which this French author makes for himself of the philosophy of Hegel. But a superficial perusal of Capital suffices to show that Marx never thought of the evolutionary apocalypse so generously attributed to him.

Determinism assumes that changes are automatically connected with one another, that simultaneous phenomena form a compact mass having a determined structure, that there are iron laws insuring a necessary order between all things. Nothing of the kind is found in Marx's doctrine. Events are considered from an empirical point of view. It is their interconnection which results in the historical law that determines the temporary mode of their generation. The demand is no longer that we should recognize in the social world a system analogous to the astronomical. We are only asked to recognise that the intermingling of causes produces sufficiently regular and characteristic periods to permit of their becoming objects for an intelligent understanding of facts.

Marx gives a very good view of the multiplicity of causes which have produced modern capitalism. Nothing proves that these causes must appear together at a determined date. Their fortuitous co-existence engenders the transformation of industry and changes all social relations.

But some insist and say that, according to Marx, all political, moral, esthetic phenomena are determined (in the strict meaning of the word) by economic phenomena. What can such a formula signify? To say that one thing is determined by another without at the same time giving a precise description of the way in which they join is to utter one of those absurdities, which have made the vulgarisers of vulgar materialism so ridiculous.

Marx is not responsible for this caricature of his historical materialism. The fact that all sociological manifestations, in order to be made clear, must be placed upon their economic basis does not imply that an understanding of the basis obviates an understanding of the superstructure. The connections between the economic underpinning and the products resting upon it are very variable and cannot be translated into any general formula. This cannot be called determinism, since there is nothing to be determined.

Mr. Rouanet forms a very singular conception of the Marxian doctrine. He assumes that the means of production, the economic organisation, and the social relations, are beings, which succeed one another like palaeontological species by the mysterious road of evolution, and that the entire history of humanity is deduced from them by laws, which he does not know any more than I do, and which Marx has never divulged. Historical materialism would thus have an idealist basis, namely the fatal succession of the forms of production! That would certainly be a very singular conception.

A distinguished professor, Mr. Petrone , agrees with Mr. Rouanet in maintaining that historical materialism fails when applied to the Christian Revolution. I believe, on the contrary, that the theories of Marx throw a certain light upon this question, by showing the reasons which prevent the historian from fully understanding what took place. We cannot discuss the problem scientifically, because we lack the elements necessary for clearing it up. The Italian author places himself upon the Catholic standpoint. Mr. Rouanet invents a fantastic history. The scientists should keep still and wait until the monuments shall have revealed to us the economic conditions of the primitive church.

Mr. Bourguin wants to know whether we must not count among the active forces "the more or less developed consciousness among the laborers of being objects of alleged exploitation." But is not the development of class-consciousness the pivot of the social question, in the eyes of Marx? One needs but to have a mediocre knowledge of the works of the great socialist philosopher to know that.

Can Marx be accused of having given too little attention to human mentality, he, who has shown the importance of the least creations of inventive genius? Nowhere does intelligence appear in such strong relief as in technology, whose historical role is placed in the front rank in a striking manner, in Capital. I know very well that the representatives of French genius have but little esteem for machine builders, who are incapable of declaiming formidable cantatas on the Rights of Man from the speaker's platform. But simple mortals believe with Mr. Bourdeau that the steam engine "has exerted more influence on social organisation than all the systems of philosophy."

Does this mean that intellectual and moral products are without historical efficacy, as some pretend to be the result of historical materialism? Not at all. Such products possess the faculty of detaching themselves from their natural cradle and assuming a mystical form, "as though they were independent beings able to communicate with mankind and one another." After they have thus freed themselves, they are liable to enter into the most diverse imaginary combinations. No great revolution has ever taken place without producing many insistent illusions. It is again Marx who tells us so. But this statement goes against the grain of our men of progress. They don't like the idea of having ascribed to fantasy what they ascribe to reason. For to do so, means to lack respect for all the Titans of the present and past.

In his introduction to his translation of the selected works of Vico, Michelet wrote: "The word of the new science is that humanity is of its own making.... Social science dates from the day on which this great idea was expressed for the first time. Hitherto humanity thought that it owed its progress to the hazards of individual genius.... History was a sterile spectacle, at most a fantasmagoria."

How is history made? Engels tells us in the following passage: "The innumerable conflicts of individual wills and individual agents in the realm of history reach a conclusion which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm of nature, which is without definite purpose. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which follow from the actions are not intended, or in so far as they appear to correspond with the end desired, in their final results are quite different from the conclusion wished." This thesis is admitted by scientists without any difficulty. But it is full of despair for the great men whose genius is flowing over. Their plans cannot be realised as they have conceived them! And yet these plans are so well laid, that one cannot touch them without interfering with their efficacy and assailing Justice, whose authorised delegates these gentlemen are.

But let us leave aside all these vulgar objections and take up what constitutes in my eyes the vulnerable part of the doctrine, that part which the French critics have not yet examined.

Many scientists are disposed to admit the value of historical materialism as a training of the mind, and to recognise that the Marxian theses furnish useful hints for the historian of institutions. But it remains to find out what is the metaphysical basis of this theory. It serves no end to say that this search is superfluous, that we may follow the same method which was so successful in psychology after the discussion of the soul had been abandoned. But where is the metaphysician who remains entirely indifferent to the metaphysical problem ? Every one has his own hypothesis. And these hypotheses, often adroitly dissimulated, distinguish the various schools. Many mistakes have been made by a hasty application of historical materialism. Nearly all these mistakes may be traced to agnosticism, which the authors professed and which really concealed imperfectly elaborated working hypotheses.

On the other hand, if we examine the applications made by Marx, we find that he employed a great many psychological principles, which have not been generally enunciated in a scientific form. To the extent that we advance we will see the necessity of stepping forward from this provisional position and cutting solid timber for the support of historical relations.

Here, then, are two great blanks. The disciples of Marx should make efforts to complete the work of their master. This master seems to have feared nothing so much as the idea of leaving behind a system of too great rigidness and firmness. He understood that a theory is at the end of its career, when it is completed, and that the condition of all metaphysical science is to leave a wide door for further development. The prudence of Marx was extreme. He did not try to terminate a single theory. Recent discussions show that he had not said his last word on value and surplus-value. How blind are, therefore, the critics who accuse the disciples of Marx of wishing to lock up the human thought in a ring fence built by their master! In this work of perfection we must follow the example set by Marx and be prudent. The time has not come for the enunciation of the metaphysics and the definition of the psychology of historical materialism, so long as its basis has been studied only in a limited way.

Men of great hearts say that the spirit cannot rest content in this state of expectation, when it is a question of Morality and Right. Superficial critics are not slow in denouncing the absence of ideals, without asking themselves whether a reasonable theory of ethics can be independent of metaphysics, and whether the latter is worth anything without a scientific basis. One may admit the historical and social value of moral teaching without having the pretension of imposing upon it rules, laws, and postulates evolved out of the imagination. It seems rather that by giving to ethics a basis of metaphors, insufficient psychological theories, or declamations on Nature, the effect of this teaching is considerably curtailed. To bring morality down to earth, to divest it of all fantasy, does not mean to deny it. On the contrary it means to treat it with the respect due to the work of reason. Is it a denial of science to leave aside the speculations on the essence of things and to stick to realities?

Capital is full of appreciation for morality. It is, therefore, rather paradoxical to reproach Marx with having carefully avoided all consideration of Justice. Every one has his own interpretation for this word. Mr. Bourguin, in the above cited passage, stands on the ancient theory of a moral sense. But this theory is out of date. Mr. Rouanet speaks of "a natural justice, conforming to the law of social development, which is the free solidarity of the diverse parties constituting humanity as a whole and coming closer and closer together." This is evidently what Marx called "Humbug of juridical ideology dear to the French democrats and socialists. The fact that the two above-mentioned authors are in agreement in imputing a certain moral character to the doctrine of Marx proves only that they do not find in Capital an expression of their personal theories on morality, which, moreover, have no value.

It is in the name of the metaphysics of morals that Jaur�s took part in this debate and proposed to reconcile the materialist and idealist points of view. Nothing seemed easier to him. He affirms, first of all, that the disciples of Marx recognise the existence of a "direction in the economic and human movement." He asks that he be granted as an indisputable axiom that there is in history not only "a necessary evolution, but an appreciable direction and an ideal sense." To admit these premises would be to explain history by means of idealism, and only idealism. It would be a rejection of the doctrine of Marx. But if that is so, how can he reconcile them? Very simple. If we condemn all the ideas of Marx, we proclaim the author as a great man, as great a man as his disciples can desire.

If we admit everything the famous orator demands, we shall be convinced that the "word Justice has a meaning even in the materialist conception of history!" This conclusion is true, only it has a different meaning from that of Mr. Jaur�s. "Humanity seeks itself," he says, "and affirms itself, no matter how different may be its environment.... It is the same sigh of suffering and hope which comes from the mouth of the slave, the serf, and the proletarian. It is the immortal breath of humanity, which is the soul of the thing we call Right." Marx certainly never thought of that!

I have said enough to make it plain that historical materialism has been almost unknown in France. The book of Mr. Labriola brings the French readers in touch with new regions, through which the learned Italian professor conducts us with great ability.

The publication of this work marks a date in the history of Socialism. It is, indeed, the first time that an author of the Latin tongue studies in an original and profound manner one of the philosophical foundations on which contemporaneous socialism rests. The work of Mr. Labriola occupies a marked place in the libraries, by the side of the classic books of Marx and Engels. It constitutes a methodical elucidation and development of a theory, which the masters of new socialist thought have never treated in a didactic manner. His book is, therefore, indispensable for those who wish to understand proletarian ideas.

More than the works of Marx and Engels, the present work addresses itself to the foreign public with a taste for social problems. The historian will find in these pages substantial and precious hints for the study of the genesis and transformation of institutions.

G. SOREL. Paris, December 1896.