of which is impossible without the other, shows that they must have
developed at the same time. How this development took place, we can
only conjecture. Undoubtedly it was a change in the circumstances of
life that changed men from our ape-like ancestors. Having migrated
from the woods, the original habitat of apes, to the plain, man had
to undergo an entire change of life. The difference between hands and
feet must have developed then. Sociability and the ape-like hand, well
adapted for grasping, had a due share in the new development. The first
rough objects, such as stones or sticks, came to hand unsought, and
were thrown away. This must have been repeated so often that it must
have left an impression on the minds of those primitive men.
To the animal, surrounding nature is a single unit, of the details
of which it is unconscious. It can not distinguish between various
objects. Our primitive man, at his lowest stage, must have been at the
same level of consciousness. From the great mass surrounding him, some
objects (tools) come into his hands which he used in procuring his
existence. These tools, being very important objects, soon were given
some designation, were designated by a sound which at the same time
named the particular activity. Owing to this sound, or designation,
the tool and the particular kind of activity stands out from the rest
of the surroundings. Man begins to analyze the world by concepts and
names, self-consciousness makes its appearance, artificial objects are
purposely sought and knowingly made use of while working.
This process――for it is a very slow process――marks the beginning of our
becoming men. As soon as men deliberately seek and apply certain tools,
we can say that these are being developed; from this stage to the
manufacturing of tools, there is only one step. The first crude tools
differ according to use; from the sharp stone we get the knife, the
bolt, the drill, and the spear; from the stick we get the hatchet. With
the further differentiation of tools, serving later for the division of
labor, language and thought develop into richer and newer forms, while
thought leads man to use the tools in a better way, to improve old and
invent new ones.
So we see that one thing brings on the other. The practice of
sociability and the application to labor are the springs in which
technique, thought, tools and science have their origin and continually
develop. By his labor, the primitive ape-like man has risen to real
manhood. The use of tools marks the great departure that is ever more
widening between men and animals.
IX. ANIMAL ORGANS AND HUMAN TOOLS.
In animal organs and human tools we have the main difference between
men and animals. The animal obtains its food and subdues its enemies
with its own bodily organs; man does the same thing with the aid of
tools. Organ (organon) is a Greek word which also means tools. Organs
are natural, adnated (grown-on) tools of the animal. Tools are the
artificial organs of men. Better still, what the organ is to the
animal, the hand and tool is to man. The hands and tools perform the
functions that the animal must perform with its own organs. Owing
to the construction of the hand to hold various tools, it becomes a
general organ adapted to all kinds of work; it becomes therefore an
organ that can perform a variety of functions.
With the division of these functions, a broad field of development
is opened for men which animals do not know. Because the human hand
can use various tools, it can combine the functions of all possible
organs possessed by animals. Every animal is built and adapted to a
certain definite surrounding. Man, with his tools, is adapted to all
circumstances and equipped for all surroundings. The horse is built for
the prairie, and the monkey is built for the forest. In the forest, the
horse would be just as helpless as the monkey would be if brought to
the prairie. Man, on the other hand, uses the axe in the forest, and
the spade on the prairie. With his tools, man can force his way in all
parts of the world and establish himself all over. While almost all
animals can live in particular regions, such as supply their wants, and
if taken to different regions cannot exist, man has conquered the whole
world. Every animal has, as a zoölogist expressed it once, its strength
by which means it maintains itself in the struggle for existence, and
its weakness, owing to which it falls a prey to others and cannot
multiply itself. In this sense, man has only strength and no weakness.
Owing to his having tools, man is the equal of all animals. As these
tools do not remain stationary, but continually improve, man grows
above every animal. His tools make him master of all creation, the king
of the earth.
In the animal world there is also a continuous development and
perfection of organs. This development, however, is connected with the
changes of the animal’s body, which makes the development of the organs
infinitely slow, as dictated by biological laws. In the development of
the organic world, thousands of years amount to nothing. Man, however,
by transferring his organic development upon external objects has been
able to free himself from the chain of biologic law. Tools can be
transformed quickly, and technique makes such rapid strides that, in
comparison with the development of animal organs, it must be called
marvelous. Owing to this new road, man has been able, within the short
period of a few thousand years, to rise above the highest animal. With
the invention of these implements, man got to be a divine power, and he
takes possession of the earth as his exclusive dominion. The peaceful
and hitherto unhindered development of the organic world ceases to
develop according to the Darwinian theory. It is man that acts as
breeder, tamer, cultivator; and it is man that does the weeding. It is
man that changes the entire environment, making the further forms of
plants and animals suit his aim and will.
With the origin of tools, further changes in the human body cease.
The human organs remain what they were, with the exception of the
brain. The human brain had to develop together with tools; and, in
fact, we see that the difference between the higher and lower races
of mankind consists mainly in the contents of their brains. But even
the development of this organ had to stop at a certain stage. Since
the beginning of civilization, the functions of the brain are ever
more taken away by some artificial means; science is treasured up in
books. Our reasoning faculty of today is not much better than the one
possessed by the Greeks, Romans or even the Teutons, but our knowledge
has grown immensely, and this is greatly due to the fact that the
mental organ was unburdened by its substitutes, the books.
Having learned the difference between men and animals, let us now
again consider how they are affected by the struggle for existence.
That this struggle is the cause of perfection and the weeding out of
the imperfect, can not be denied. In this struggle the animals become
ever more perfect. Here, however, it is necessary to be more precise
in expression and in observation of what perfection consists. In being
so, we can no longer say that animals as a whole struggle and become
perfected. Animals struggle and compete by means of their particular
organs. Lions do not carry on the struggle by means of their tails;
hares do not rely on their eyes; nor do the falcons succeed by means
of their beaks. Lions carry on the struggle by means of their saltatory
(leaping) muscles and their teeth; hares rely upon their paws and ears,
and falcons succeed on account of their eyes and wings. If now we ask
what is it that struggles and what competes? the answer is, the organs
struggle. The muscles and teeth of the lion, the paws and ears of the
hare, and the eyes and wings of the falcon carry on the struggle. It
is in this struggle that the organs become perfected. The animal as a
whole depends upon these organs and shares their fate.
Let us now ask the same question about the human world. Men do not
struggle by means of their natural organs, but by means of artificial
organs, by means of tools (and in weapons we must understand tools).
Here, too, the principle of perfection and the weeding out of the
imperfect, through struggle, holds true. The tools struggle, and this
leads to the ever greater perfection of tools. Those groups of tribes
that use better tools and weapons can best secure their maintenance,
and when it comes to a direct struggle with another race, the race that
is better equipped with artificial tools will win. Those races whose
technical aids are better developed, can drive out or subdue those
whose artificial aids are not developed. The European race dominates
because its external aids are better.
Here we see that the principle of the struggle for existence, formulated
by Darwin and emphasized by Spencer, has a different effect on men than
on animals. The principle that struggle leads to the perfection of the
weapons used in the strife, leads to different results between men and
animals. In the animal, it leads to a continuous development of natural
organs; that is the foundation of the theory of descent, the essence of
Darwinism. In men, it leads to a continuous development of tools, of the
means of production. This, however, is the foundation of Marxism.
Here we see that Marxism and Darwinism are not two independent theories,
each of which applies to its special domain, without having anything in
common with the other. In reality, the same principle underlies both
theories. They form one unit. The new course taken by men, the
substitution of tools for natural organs, causes this fundamental
principle to manifest itself differently in the two domains; that of the
animal world to develop according to Darwinian principle, while among
mankind the Marxian principle applies.
When men freed themselves from the animal world, the development of
tools and productive methods, the division of labor and knowledge
became the propelling force in social development. It is these that
brought about the various systems, such as primitive communism, the
peasant system, the beginnings of commodity production, feudalism, and
now modern capitalism, and which bring us ever nearer to Socialism.
X. CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM.
The particular form that the Darwinian struggle for existence assumes
in development is determined by men’s sociability and their use of
tools. The struggle for existence, while it is still carried on among
members of different groups, nevertheless ceases among members of the
same group, and its place is taken by mutual aid and social feeling.
In the struggle between groups, technical equipment decides who shall
be the victor; this results in the progress of technique. These two
circumstances lead to different effects under different systems. Let us
see in what manner they work out under capitalism.
When the bourgeoisie gained political power and made the capitalist
system the dominating one, it began by breaking the feudal bonds
and freeing the people from all feudal ties. It was essential
for capitalism that every one should be able to take part in the
competitive struggle; that no one’s movements be tied up or narrowed
by corporate duties or hampered by legal statutes, for only thus was
it possible for production to develop its full capacity. The workers
must have free command over themselves and not be tied up by feudal or
guild duties, for only as free workers can they sell their labor-power
to the capitalists as a whole commodity, and only as free laborers can
the capitalists use them. It is for this reason that the bourgeoisie
has done away with all old ties and duties. It made the people entirely
free, but at the same time left them entirely isolated and unprotected.
Formerly the people were not isolated; they belonged to some
corporation; they were under the protection of some lord or commune,
and in this they found strength. They were a part of a social group
to which they owed duties and from which they received protection.
These duties the bourgeoisie abolished; it destroyed the corporations
and abolished the feudal relations. The freeing of labor meant at the
same time that all refuge was taken away from him and that he could no
longer rely upon others. Every one had to rely upon himself. Alone,
free from all ties and protection, he must struggle against all.
It is for this reason that, under capitalism, the human world resembles
mostly the world of rapacious animals, and it is for this very reason
that the bourgeois Darwinists looked for men’s prototype among animals
living isolated. To this they were led by their own experience. Their
mistake, however, consisted in considering capitalist conditions as
everlasting. The relation existing between our capitalist competitive
system and animals living isolated, was thus expressed by Engels in his
book, “Anti-Dühring” (page 293). This may also be found on page 59 of
“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” as follows:
“Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world market made the
struggle universal and at the same time gave it unheard-of virulence.
Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide
the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists as well as of
whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast
aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence
transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The
conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term
of human development.”
What is that which carries on the struggle in this capitalist
competition, the perfectness of which decides the victory?
First come technical tools, machines. Here again applies the law
that struggle leads to perfection. The machine that is more improved
outstrips the less improved, the machines that cannot perform much,
and the simple tools are exterminated and machine technique develops
with gigantic strides to ever greater productivity. This is the real
application of Darwinism to human society. The particular thing about
it is that under capitalism there is private property, and behind every
machine there is a man. Behind the gigantic machine there is a big
capitalist and behind the small machine there is a small capitalist.
With the defeat of the small machine, the small capitalist, as
capitalist, perishes with all his hopes and happiness.
At the same time the struggle is a race of capital. Large capital
is better equipped; large capital is getting ever larger. This
concentration of capital undermines capital itself, for it diminishes
the bourgeoisie whose interest it is to maintain capitalism, and it
increases that mass which seeks to abolish it. In this development,
one of the characteristics of capitalism is gradually abolished. In
the world where each struggles against all and all against each, a new
association develops among the working class, the class organization.
The working class organizations start with ending the competition
existing between workers and combine their separate powers into one
great power in their struggle with the outside world. Everything that
applies to social groups also applies to this class organization,
brought about by natural conditions. In the ranks of this class
organization, social motives, moral feelings, self-sacrifice and
devotion for the entire body develop in a most splendid way. This solid
organization gives to the working class that great strength which it
needs in order to conquer the capitalist class. The class struggle
which is not a struggle with tools but for the possession of tools, a
struggle for the right to direct industry, will be determined by the
strength of the class organization.
Let us now look at the future system of production as carried on
under Socialism. The struggle leading to the perfection of the tools
does not cease. As before under capitalism, the inferior machine will
be outdistanced and brushed aside by the one that is superior. As
before, this process will lead to greater productivity of labor. But
private property having been abolished, there will no longer be a man
behind each machine calling it his own and sharing its fate. Machines
will be common property, and the displacement of the less developed
by the better developed machinery will be carried out upon careful
consideration.
With the abolition of classes the entire civilized world will become
one great productive community. Within this community mutual struggle
among members will cease and will be carried on with the outside world.
It will no longer be a struggle against our own kind, but a struggle
for subsistence, a struggle against nature. But owing to development of
technique and science, this can hardly be called a struggle. Nature is
subject to man and with very little exertion from his side she supplies
him with abundance. Here a new career opens for man: man’s rising from
the animal world and carrying on his struggle for existence by the use
of tools, ceases, and a new chapter of human history begins.
Library of Science for the Workers
To understand modern Socialism, you must understand Evolution.
Socialists predict the speedy end of the capitalist system as a result
of irresistible NATURAL LAWS, the workings of which have been studied
for two generations since their discovery. Most of the books in which
these laws are explained are too difficult to read and too expensive to
buy, except for the leisure class. The ten books here described will
give you a clear understanding of the great process in which Socialism
is the next step.
1. =The Evolution of Man.= By Wilhelm Boelsche. Contains absolute proof
of the truth of Darwin’s theory of the descent of man. Illustrated.
2. =The Triumph of Life.= By Wilhelm Boelsche. Describes the resistless
triumph of the Life Force over all obstacles. Illustrated.
3. =Life and Death.= By Dr. E. Teichmann. A study in biology, explaining
how and why life began and how the life of each individual ends.
4. =The End of the World.= By Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer. A study of
the natural forces that will some time destroy all life on earth.
Illustrated.
5. =The Amazons.= By Emanuel Kanter. An excellent analytical study
of the phenomenon of ancient fighting women, the Amazons, from the
standpoint of dialectical materialism.
6. =Germs of Mind in Plants.= By R. H. France. A remarkable work
proving that “mind” is not limited to man or even to animals, but is
found in plants also. Illustrated.
7. =The Struggle Between Science and Superstition.= By Arthur M. Lewis.
This book deals with what is on the whole the most interesting and
dramatic element in social development. Side by side with the struggle
between social classes, there is waged a bitter conflict between
ancient ignorance and new knowledge. The new knowledge is the natural
ally of the essential social class――the proletariat.
8. =Science and Revolution.= By Ernest Untermann. A history of the
growth of the Evolution theory, showing how at every step it was fought
by the ruling classes and welcomed by the workers.
9. =Social and Philosophical Studies.= By Paul Lafargue. The causes of
belief in God and the origin of abstract ideas explained in a brilliant
and convincing way.
10. =Evolution, Social and Organic.= By Arthur M. Lewis. A volume of
popular lectures in which the relation of the evolution theory to
Socialism is fully explained.
These ten volumes are handsomely bound in cloth, in volumes of uniform
size. Price, 60c each postpaid.
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
341–349 East Ohio Street, Chicago
The Origin of the Family
PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE
By Frederick Engels
The book on which are based all subsequent works on property and the
State written by Socialists and Communists. What is the State? How did
it arise? Does it represent all the people? Will it ever disappear? What
is its function? When did Private Property arise? And how? Has the
institution of the Family changed and evolved? Just now all over the
world socialists, anarchists, syndicalists and communists are divided
upon the subject of the State, its origin, its function and its future.
Which group are you in, and do you know why? This book explains these
vital questions for you. Cloth, 217 pages. 60 cents.
Socialism
UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC
By Frederick Engels
When may we expect a proletarian revolution? Can we plan to have it
at a certain time? Can we carry a revolution by propaganda? Does it
depend on what we desire? We all want tickets to the New Society of the
Workers. How can we know how near we are historically? Engels gives us
the signs in this book. They never fail. When we understand them we can
know how to use social and economic forces to carry us forward to the
New Day. Cloth. 60 cents; paper, 25 cents.
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
CO-OPERATIVE PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO
CAPITAL
A Critique of Political Economy
By Karl Marx
This work is beyond comparison the greatest of all Socialist books. It
is a scientific analysis of the society in which we live, showing the
precise method by which the capitalists grow rich at the expense of the
wage-workers.
VOLUME I, entitled “=The Process of Capitalist Production=,” is
practically complete in itself. It explains the thing which, up to the
time that Marx came on the scene, had confused all the economists,
namely, =Surplus Value=. It explains exactly how the capitalist
extracts his profits. This volume might be called the keystone of the
Socialist arch. 869 pages, =$2.50=.
VOLUME II, “=The Process of Circulation of Capital=,” explains the
part that the merchant and the banker play in the present system, and
the laws that govern social capital. Unravels knots in which previous
writers had become entangled. 618 pages, =$2.50=.
VOLUME III, in some respects the most interesting of all, treats of
“=The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole=.” Predicts the =Rise
of Trusts= and makes clear the =Cause of Panics and Industrial Crises=.
Shows how the small capitalist is swallowed. Explains for all time the
subjects of =Land, Rent and Farming=. 1,048 pages, =$2.50=.
The complete work sells for $7.50, and contains over 2,500 large
pages, in three handsome volumes, bound in cloth and stamped in gold.
Any capitalist publishing house would charge at least double our
price. Ours is a socialist co-operative house, owned by three thousand
comrades who expect no dividends but have subscribed for shares to make
possible the circulation of the best socialist literature at the lowest
possible prices. Ask for catalog.
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
341–349 East Ohio Street, Chicago
CENTENARY EDITION
The Positive Outcome of Philosophy
By Josef Dietzgen
One of the best books we have ever published is THE POSITIVE OUTCOME OF
PHILOSOPHY. We have sold many thousands of Josef Dietzgen’s books, and
readers everywhere have testified to their educational value and to the
enjoyment and enlightenment they obtained from the study of Dietzgen.
December 9th, 1928, was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Josef Dietzgen. To commemorate the event we published, with the kind
assistance of his son, Eugen Dietzgen, a new translation of THE
POSITIVE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY. This new translation from the original
German is by W. W. Craik, an Englishman, resident of Hamburg.
Good as our former edition was, we do not hesitate to assert that
this translation is immensely superior. It is in clear and expressive
English, which simplifies the study. Craik has certainly done his work
well.
To those who have formerly read the philosophy of Josef Dietzgen, it is
not necessary to comment upon its merits, but to those who have not yet
participated in this pleasure we wish to give here a brief outline of
its content.