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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
CHAPTER IV. 
KARL MARX. 
ARL MARX is, beyond dispute, the most influential 
Socialist writer of Germany; and his principal work, Z><2i 
Kapital, is considered even by his opponents as an original and 
remarkable book. However, it is not to this work that Marx 
owes his influence, for it was not written to be read by the people. 
It is as abstract as a mathematical treatise and far more irksome 
to read. It is a regular puzzle, because the author uses terms 
in a peculiar sense, and builds up, by deduction after deduc 
tion, a complete system founded on definitions and hypotheses. 
It requires a constant tension of mind to follow his reasonings, 
in which certain words are always diverted from their usual 
significations. 
As Mr. Clifle Leslie has very truly remarked. Das Kapital 
is a striking example of the abuse of the deductive method, 
so often employed by many Economists. The author starts 
from certain axioms and formulas which he considers rigor 
ously true. From these he deduces the consequences which 
they seem to involve, and thus he arrives at conclusions which 
he presents as being as irrefutable as those of the exact sciences. 
Nothing is more deceptive than this method, and it has 
beguiled the best minds. In the moral and political sciences 
language never succeeds in rendering with precision the 
infinite variations of facts. Mathematical science alone can 
do this, because its speculations are confined to abstract and 
rigorously determined data. 
In Political Economy, as in morals and politics, definitions 
serve to give an idea of the subjects under discussion ; but 
they cannot describe those subjects with sufficient exactness