8i 



"the present is the son of the past but it is the 

 father of the future," and "nothing is, every- 

 thing is becoming." Already geology since 

 Lyell had made this demonstration, in sub- 

 stituting for the traditional conception of 

 cataclysms, the scientific conception of the 

 gradual and daily transformation of the earth. 



It is true that, in spite of his encylopaedic 

 knowledge, Herbert Spencer has not thoroughly 

 studied political economy, or that at least he 

 has not given his proofs as in the natural 

 sciences. That does not, however, hinder 

 socialism from being, in its fundamental con- 

 ception, only the logical application of the 

 scientific theory of natural evolution to 

 economic phenomena. 



It is Karl Marx who, in 1859, in his Criticism 

 on Political Economy, and previously, in 1847, 

 in the celebrated Manifesto written in col- 

 laboration with Engels, nearly ten years before 

 the First Principles of Spencer was pub- 

 lished, finally completed in Capital in the 

 social domain the scientific revolution com- 

 menced by Darwin and Spencer. 



Ancient metaphysics ' conceives morality 

 law, economics, as a collection of absolute 

 and eternal laws as Plato understood them. 

 It only takes into consideration the historic 

 world, and has as an instrument of research 

 only the logical imagination of the philo- 

 sopher. The generations which preceded us 

 have been imbued with this idea of absolute 

 natural laws struggling in the dualism of 

 matter andjnind. Positive science, on the 

 contrary, starts from the grand synthesis of 



