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monism, that is to say, of the sole phenomenal 

 reality, matter and force being recognised as 

 inseparable and indestructible, developing 

 themselves in a continued movement, assum- 

 ing successively forms relative to time and 

 place. It has radically changed the trend of 

 modern thought and has directed it towards 

 universal evolution. 



Morality, law, politics are only super- 

 structures, effects of the economic structure, 

 they vary with it from one clime to another, 

 from one century to another century. 



This is the great discovery which Karl Marx 

 has set forth in his Criticism on Political 

 Economy. I will examine later what is 

 this sole source of economic conditions, but 

 now I am concerned with pointing out their 

 continued variability from the prehistoric 

 epoch to the historic epoch and in the 

 different periods of the latter. 



Rules of morals, religious beliefs, legal, 

 civil, and penal institutions, political or- 

 ganisation ; everything changes and every- 

 thing is relative to the historic and material 

 environment which one is considering. 



To kill one's parents is the greatest of 

 crimes in Europe and America ; it is, on the 

 contrary, a duty which religion sanctifies in 

 the island of Sumatra. Similarly, cannibalism 

 is still permitted in Central Africa, and it was 

 equally permitted in Europe and America in 

 prehistoric times. 



The family is at first (as with animals) only 

 a sexual communism ; polyandry and a 

 matriarchate established themselves where 



