INTEGRATIVE LEVELS 



mind a priori on this subject, and his flat refusal to question the dogma 

 of free competition betrays, indeed, no little unconscious prejudice. 

 The old man and the young woman agreed to go each on their way, 

 and fifty years later the publication of the Webbs' great book on the 

 Soviet Union^ showed where the search for health in industrial 

 relations had led. ^ 



That Spencer's sociology ended in a paradox has already been 

 shown. It can hardly be understood except in the light of the thought 

 of his contemporary, a man at least equally great, Karl Marx. Born 

 within two years of each other and both living in England, they had, 

 so far as we know, no contact of any kind.^ Yet it is only in the light 

 of the historical concepts of the great revolutionist in thought and 

 action (as the Master of Balliol calls him^) that the failure of the great 

 evolutionist to complete his edifice can be understood. Marx, with 

 his friend Engels, was the genius, it has been said,^ who continued 

 and completed the three chief intellectual currents of the early nine- 

 teenth century, classical German philosophy, classical English political 

 economy, and the French revolutionary doctrines which led to French 

 socialism. Here we can only mention his combination of materialism 

 with the dialectics of the Hegelian school, his economic formulations, 

 especially that of surplus value, and his account of the roles of social 

 classes in history. The former led to a philosophy, dialectical material- 

 ism, to which we have already had occasion to refer, which based 



^ Soviet Communism, by S. and B. Webb (London, 1935). 



^ In Spencer I find no reference to Marx; in the letters of Marx, however, there is 

 one reference to Spencer. Though a little cruel, it is too amusing to omit. Writing to 

 Engels on May 23, 1868, Marx says: 



"Du scheinst mir auf dem Holzweg zu sein, mit Deiner Scheu, so einfache 

 Figuren wie G-W-G etc. den englischen Revue-philister vorzufiihren. Umgekehrt. 

 Wenn du, wie ich, gezwungen gewesen warst, die okonomischen Artikel der 

 Herren Lalor, H. Spencer, Macleod, etc. im Westminster Review, etc. zu lesen, 

 so wiirdest Du sehn, dass alle die okonomischen Trivialitaten so zum Hals dick 

 haben — und auch wissen, dass ihre Leser sie dick haben — dass sie durch pseudo- 

 philosophical oder pseudoscientific slang die Schmiere zu wurzen suchen. Der 

 Pseudocharakter macht die Sache (die an sich = O) keineswegs leicht verstandlich. 

 Umgekehrt. Die Kunst besteht darin, den Leser so mystifizieren und ihm kopf- 

 brechen so verursachen, damit er schliesslich zu seiner Beruhigung entdeckt, dass 

 diese hard words nur Maskeraden von loci communes sind. Kommt hinzu, dass die 

 Leser der Fortnighdy wie der Westminster Review, sich smeicheln, die longest 

 heads of England (der ubrigen Welt, versteht sich von selbst) zu sein." Marx- 

 Engels Gesamtausgabe, ed. Riazanov, Abt. Ill, Bd. 4, p. 58. 



(G-W-G means Geld-Ware-Geld). 



^ In Karl Marx's Capital by A. D. Lindsay (Oxford 1935). 



* By V. I. Lenin in Marx, Engels and Marxism (London, 1934), pp- 7 ^^^ 5°* 



^55 



