5 8 2 THE P OP ULAR S CIENCE MONTHL Y. 



Thus the philosophy of Social Democracy resembles that of Plato, 

 in teaching that the idea hovers over the bodily form. It is the idea 

 that dominates everywhere, determining the forms of all things. Hence, 

 down to the advent of man there was in nature a steady, thorough, un- 

 conscious striving. 



And here comes in another great revolution, the third — viz., the 

 universal apparition of the consciousness of the human race, the philo- 

 sophical establishment of which is the task which Marx has set him- 

 self. Thus, then, as we read in the " Volksstaat" {uhi suprci)^ "Dar- 

 win and Marx have, by their profound and ingenious researches, carried 

 on in totally different scientific fields, attained results of the utmost 

 importance to mankind, and which, being intimately correlated, mutually 

 support and complement one another." 



As Social Democracy holds the accomplishment of its ends to be 

 inevitable and necessary, so, as we have seen, it is one of its cardinal 

 principles that all the phenomena which take place in matter, and all 

 developments of matter, are prefigured and predetermined in the idea. 

 The honest workingman thus learns that a statue is less successful, the 

 less conscious the sculptor was of the idea of the work of beauty in- 

 herent in the marble block, and the more he suffered himself during his 

 labor to be influenced by considerations of profit and the like. " In 

 this example of the sculptor and his work, we have," says Jacoby, " a 

 direct proof (direct proof !) of the truth of the proposition that ideas 

 are contained in unconscious nature." 



I shall be asked whether the utterances just recounted represent the 

 sympathy between Socialist Democracy and Darwinism — whether these 

 abstract and rather curious and confused theses and propositions repre- 

 sent the dangerous elements, that is, the politically dangerous elements 

 imported into Socialist Democracy from the development theory. 



With a few additions, which we will make further on, they do ! 



How, then, does Darwinism stand with respect to these cardinal ideas 

 of the socialistic develo^^ment doctrine, as laid down by a philosopher 

 of that school ? 



"We find here two ideas wherein Socialist Democracy purports to be 

 at one with the scientific doctrine of Evolution, viz.. Development or 

 Revolution is re-formation — i. e., correction of perverted conditions ; 

 and All development has for its basis an idea which designates the future 

 goal, and which governs the movement toward the same. In themselves 

 these propositions are plainly innocent enovigh, and if they were a re- 

 sult of Darwinian research, they need not be disowned. But Darwinism 

 disclaims the honor of having established any such principles. 



What we call origin^ or development of species^ is in the first place 

 not a reversal of perverted conditions. In such play upon words we 

 have never indulged. The Darwinian principle of development is Nat- 

 ural Selection, and people are not wont to select from perverted tj^pes. 

 It is true that the struggle amid which selection goes on includes also 



