of all the intellectual, cultural, and political changes of mankind from the side of the material economic conditions as causes.  As Engels expressed it, “The pervading thought ... that the economic production with the social organization of each historical epoch necessarily resulting therefrom forms the basis of the political and intellectual history of this epoch.”  This doctrine denies that, in an equally valid sense, biological changes in brain, and cultural changes in science, arts, and education, cause the mechanical inventions and improved processes and thus alter the form bf economic production.

Sec. 17. #Aspects of the materialistic philosophy of history#.  Marx’s general formula of economic materialism had three minor propositions or corollaries:  (a) The doctrine of the class conflict; all history is a record of the class struggle between those who have property, the ruling classes within the nations, and those who have not, the oppressed working class, (a conception of history blind to most of the great international conflicts).  The class conflict was declared to be more sharply marked and bitter than ever before; “the entire human society more and more divides itself into two great hostile camps, into two great conflicting classes, bourgeoisie and proletariate.” (b) The doctrine of increasing misery; the conditions before described must cause the steadily increasing degradation of the masses. (c) The catastrophic theory; the final and inevitable result of this movement must be a revolution, when the downtrodden workers will throw off their chains and expropriate the expropriators.  There is no doubt that Marx, when he first formulated this philosophy, believed that such a revolution, most violent in nature, would occur within a few years.

Sec. 18. #Utopian nature of “scientific” socialism#.  The term “scientific” set in contrast with “utopian” was meant to imply that the doctrine of Marx was not “utopian” (a word which had come to mean fanciful and impracticable).  Marx had a contempt for the romances of the ideal state and for what he deemed to be the unfounded speculations of earlier prophets of communism.  But utopian (from utopia, Greek for no place) means nonexistent, and Marxian socialism surely was that.  “Experimental” or “actually at work” would have been a more logical contrast with “utopian.”  Marx and his followers likewise had a contempt for the communistic experiments, or settlements and colonies, which by the scores had been started and had failed, bringing discredit upon all communistic proposals.  The beauty of “scientific” socialism was that it never could be tried on a small scale—­or tried at all until a whole nation adopted it.