CHAPTER IX 



THE CONFLICT OF CLASSES AND CONCEPTIONS 

 OF EQUALITY 



CHARLES DARWIN'S Origin of Species and Charles 

 Marx's Criticism of Political Economy appeared 

 almost at the same moment. 



The former helped to interpret evolution, with its 

 law of the struggle for life ; the latter gave the 

 economic interpretation of history, with its law of 

 the conflict of classes. One cannot but wonder 

 that both coincide in the term struggle, impressed 

 upon their respective laws ; but knowing that the 

 perusal of Malthus's book gave Darwin his ideal, 

 the thought strikes one that Marx may have 

 yielded to the same suggestion. Presumably, too, 

 the faithful interpretation given by Marx of 

 economic evolution through the conflict of classes 

 has influenced in its turn his claim to extend the 

 law of the struggle for life to sociology, when one 

 considers that, if Marx's law is accurate in economic 

 interpretation, Darwin's is not in extending it to 



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