20

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  deduction, ­
  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  rigorously ­
  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