differences in hours of work. While the main abstract contention remains the same, most of those who argue that in a system of unfettered economic competition most men get what they deserve, rather readily ignore the existence of monopoly, and assume that this argument justifies the existing distribution of wealth. The chief purpose of Marx's argument is to emphasise the difference between such an economic system and a capitalist society. He is here, as so often, turning the logic of the classical economists against themselves, and arguing that the conditions under which a purely economic distribution of wealth could take place, could only exist in a community where monopoly had been completely abolished and all capital collectivised.

Croce maintains that Marx's theory of value is economic and not moral. Yet it is hard to read Marx and certainly Marxians without finding in them the implication that the values produced in such an economic society would be just. If that implication be examined, we come on an important difficulty still remaining in this theory. The contention that in a system of unfettered economic competition, men get the reward they deserve, assumes that it is just that if one man has a greater power of serving society than another he should be more highly rewarded for his work. This the individualist argument with which we compared Marx's assumes without question. But the Marxian theory of value is frequently interpreted to imply that amount of work is the only claim to reward. For differences in value it is held are created by differences in the amount of labour. But the word amount may here be used in two senses. When men say that the amount of work a man does should determine a man's reward; they commonly mean that if one man works two hours and another one, the first ought to get twice the reward of the second. 'Amount' here means the actual time spent in labour. But in Marx's theory of value amount means something quite different, for an hour of one man's work may, he admits, be equal to two of another man's. He means by amount a sum of abstract labour time units. Marx's scientific theory of value is quite consistent with different abilities getting different rewards, the moral contention that men should get more reward if they work more and for no other reason is not. The equation of work done by men of different abilities by expressing them in abstract labour time units is essential to Marx's theory but fatal to the moral claim sometimes founded upon it.

Further the great difficulty in allowing that it is just that men of different abilities should have different rewards, comes from the fact that differences of ability are of the nature of monopolies. In a pure economic society high rewards would be given to rare ability and although it is possible to equate work of rare ability with work of ordinary ability by expressing both as amounts of abstract labour time units, it surely remains true that the value is determined not by the amount of abstract labour time congealed in it but by the law of supply and demand. Where there are differences of ability there is some kind of monopoly, and where there is monopoly, you cannot eliminate the influence of the relation of supply and demand in the determination of value. What you imagine you have eliminated by the elimination of capital, which you can collectivise, remains obstinately in individual differences of ability which cannot be collectivised.

But here I have entered beyond the limits of Croce's argument. His critical appraisement of Marx's work must be left to others to judge who have more knowledge of Marx and of economics than I can lay claim to. I am confident only that all students of Marx whether they be disciples or critics, will find in these essays illumination in a field where much bitter controversy has resulted in little but confusion and obscurity.

A.D. Lindsay.

CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE SCIENTIFIC FORM OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISMToC

Historical materialism is what is called a fashionable subject. The theory came into being fifty years ago, and for a time remained obscure and limited; but during the last six or seven years it has rapidly attained great fame and an extensive literature, which is daily increasing, has grown up around it. It is not my intention to write once again the account, already given many times, of the origin of this doctrine; nor to restate and criticise the now well-known passages in which Marx and Engels asserted the theory, nor the different views of its opponents, its supporters, its exponents, and its correctors and corruptors. My object is merely to submit to my colleagues some few remarks concerning the doctrine, taking it in the form in which it appears in a recent book by Professor Antonio Labriola, of the University of Rome[1].

For many reasons, it does not come within my province to praise Labriola's book. But I cannot help saying as a needful explanation, that it appears to me to be the fullest and most adequate treatment of the question. The book is free from pedantry and learned tattle, whilst it shows in every line signs of the author's complete knowledge of all that has been written on the subject: a book, in short, which saves the annoyance of controversy with erroneous and exaggerated opinions, which in it appear as superseded. It has a grand opportunity in Italy, where the materialistic theory of history is known almost solely in the spurious form bestowed on it by an ingenious professor of economics, who even pretends to be its inventor[2].

I

Any reader of Labriola's book who tries to obtain from it a precise concept of the new theory of history, will reach in the first instance a conclusion which must appear to him evident and incontestable, and which I sum up in the following statement: 'historical materialism, so-called, is not a philosophy of history.' Labriola does not state this denial explicitly; it may even be granted that, in words, he sometimes says exactly the opposite.[3] But, if I am not mistaken, the denial is contained implicitly in the restrictions which he places on the meaning of the theory.

The philosophical reaction of realism overthrew the systems built up by teleology and metaphysical dogmatism, which had limited the field of the historian. The old philosophy of history was destroyed. And, as