Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) Part 1

Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx).

by Enrico Ferri.

Preface.

This volume--which it has been desired to make known to the great public in the French language--in entering upon a question so complex and so vast as socialism, has but a single and definite aim.

My intention has been to point out, and in nearly all cases by rapid and concise observations, the general relations existing between contemporary socialism and the whole trend of modern scientific thought.

The opponents of contemporary socialism see in it, or wish to see in it, merely a reproduction of the sentimental socialism of the first half of the Nineteenth Century. They contend that socialism is in conflict with the fundamental facts and inductions of the physical, biological and social sciences, whose marvelous development and fruitful applications are the glory of our dying century.

To oppose socialism, recourse has been had to the individual interpretations and exaggerations of such or such a partisan of Darwinism, or to the opinions of such or such a sociologist--opinions and interpretations in obvious conflict with the premises of their theories on universal and inevitable evolution.

It has also been said--under the pressure of acute or chronic hunger--that "if science was against socialism, so much the worse for science." And those who thus spoke were right if they meant by "science"--even with a capital S--the whole ma.s.s of observations and conclusions _ad usum delphini_ that orthodox science, academic and official--often in good faith, but sometimes also through interested motives--has always placed at the disposal of the ruling minorities.

I have believed it possible to show that modern experiential science is in complete harmony with contemporary socialism, which, since the work of Marx and Engels and their successors, differs essentially from sentimental socialism, both in its scientific system and in its political tactics, though it continues to put forth generous efforts for the attainment of the same goal: social justice for all men.

I have loyally and candidly maintained my thesis on scientific grounds; I have always recognized the partial truths of the theories of our opponents, and I have not ignored the glorious achievements of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois science since the outbreak of the French Revolution. The disappearance of the bourgeois cla.s.s and science, which, at their advent marked the disappearance of the hieratic and aristocratic cla.s.ses and science, will result in the triumph of social justice for all mankind, without distinction of cla.s.ses, and in the triumph of truth carried to its ultimate consequences.

The appendix contains my replies to a letter of Herbert Spencer and to an anti-socialist book of M. Garofalo. It shows the present state of social science, and of the struggle between ultra-conservative orthodoxy, which is blinded to the sad truths of contemporary life by its traditional syllogisms and innovating heterodoxy which is ever becoming more marked among the learned, as well as strengthening its hold upon the collective intelligence.

ENRICO FERRI.

Brussels, Nov., 1895.

Introduction.

Convinced Darwinian and Spencerian, as I am, it is my intention to demonstrate that Marxian Socialism--the only socialism which has a truly scientific method and value, and therefore the only socialism which from this time forth has power to inspire and unite the Social Democrats throughout the civilized world--is only the practical and fruitful fulfilment, in the social life, of that modern scientific revolution which--inaugurated some centuries since by the rebirth of the experimental method in all branches of human knowledge--has triumphed in our times, thanks to the works of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.

It is true that Darwin and especially Spencer halted when they had travelled only half way toward the conclusions of a religious, political or social order, which necessarily flow from their indisputable premises. But that is, as it were, only an individual episode, and has no power to stop the destined march of science and of its practical consequences, which are in wonderful accord with the necessities--necessities enforced upon our attention by want and misery--of contemporary life. This is simply one more reason why it is inc.u.mbent upon us to render justice to the scientific and political work of Karl Marx which completes the renovation of modern scientific thought.

Feeling and thought are the two inseparable impelling forces of the individual life and of the collective life.

Socialism, which was still, but a few years since, at the mercy of the strong and constantly recurring but undisciplined fluctuations of humanitarian sentimentalism, has found, in the work of that great man, Karl Marx, and of those who have developed and completed his thought, its scientific and political guide.[1] This is the explanation of every one of its conquests.

Civilization is the most fruitful and most beautiful development of human energies, but it contains also an infectious _virus_ of tremendous power. Beside the splendor of its artistic, scientific and industrial achievements, it acc.u.mulates gangrenous products, idleness, poverty, misery, insanity, crime and physical suicide and moral suicide, _i. e._ servility.

Pessimism--that sad symptom of a life without ideals and, in part, the effect of the exhaustion or even of the degeneration of the nervous system--glorifies the final annihilation of all life and sensation as the only mode of escaping from or triumphing over pain and suffering.

We have faith, on the contrary, in the eternal _virtus medicatrix naturae_ (healing power of Nature), and socialism is precisely that breath of a new and better life which will free humanity--after some access of fever perhaps--from the noxious products of the present phase of civilization, and which, in a more advanced phase, will give a new power and opportunity of expansion to all the healthy and fruitful energies of all human beings.

ENRICO FERRI.

Rome, June, 1894.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The word in the original means a mariner's compa.s.s.--_Tr._

SOCIALISM AND MODERN SCIENCE.

PART FIRST.

I.

VIRCHOW AND HAECKEL AT THE CONGRESS OF MUNICH.

On the 18th of September, 1877, Ernest Haeckel, the celebrated embryologist of Jena, delivered at the Congress of Naturalists, which was held at Munich, an eloquent address defending and propagating Darwinism, which was at that time the object of the most bitter polemical attacks.

A few days afterward, Virchow, the great pathologist,--an active member of the "progressive" parliamentary party, hating new theories in politics just as much as in science--violently a.s.sailed the Darwinian theory of organic evolution, and, moved by a very just presentiment, hurled against it this cry of alarm, this political anathema: "Darwinism leads directly to socialism."

The German Darwinians, and at their head Messrs. Oscar Schmidt and Haeckel, immediately protested; and, in order to avert the addition of strong political opposition to the religious, philosophical, and biological opposition already made to Darwinism, they maintained, on the contrary, that the Darwinian theory is in direct, open and absolute opposition to socialism.

"If the Socialists were prudent," wrote Oscar Schmidt in the "Ausland"

of November 27, 1877, "they would do their utmost to kill, by silent neglect, the theory of descent, for that theory most emphatically proclaims that the socialist ideas are impracticable."

"As a matter of fact," said Haeckel,[2] "there is no scientific doctrine which proclaims more openly than the theory of descent that the equality of individuals, toward which socialism tends, is an impossibility; that this chimerical equality is in absolute contradiction with the necessary and, in fact, universal inequality of individuals.

"Socialism demands for all citizens equal rights, equal duties, equal possessions and equal enjoyments; the theory of descent establishes, on the contrary, that the realization of these hopes is purely and simply impossible; that, in human societies, as in animal societies, neither the rights, nor the duties, nor the possessions, nor the enjoyments of all the members of a society are or ever can be equal.

"The great law of variation teaches--both in the general theory of evolution and in the smaller field of biology where it becomes the theory of descent--that the variety of phenomena flows from an original unity, the diversity of functions from a primitive ident.i.ty, and the complexity of organization from a primordial simplicity. The conditions of existence for all individuals are, from their very birth, unequal.

There must also be taken into consideration the inherited qualities and the innate tendencies which also vary more or less widely. In view of all this, how can the work and the reward be equal for all?

"The more highly the social life is developed, the more important becomes the great principle of the division of labor, the more requisite it becomes for the stable existence of the State as a whole that its members should distribute among themselves the multifarious tasks of life, each performing a single function; and as the labor which must be performed by the individuals, as well as the expenditure of strength, talent, money, etc., which it necessitates, differs more and more, it is natural that the remuneration of this labor should also vary widely.

These are facts so simple and so obvious that it seems to me every intelligent and enlightened statesman ought to be an advocate of the theory of descent and the general doctrine of evolution, as the best antidote for the absurd equalitarian, utopian notions of the socialists.

"And it was Darwinism, the theory of selection, that Virchow, in his denunciation, had in mind, rather than mere metamorphic development, the theory of descent, with which it is always confused! Darwinism is anything rather than socialistic.

"If one wishes to attribute a political tendency to this English theory,--which is quite permissible,--this tendency can be nothing but aristocratic; by no means can it be democratic, still less socialistic.

"The theory of selection teaches that in the life of mankind, as in that of plants and animals, it is always and everywhere a small privileged minority alone which succeeds in living and developing itself; the immense majority, on the contrary, suffer and succ.u.mb more or less prematurely. Countless are the seeds and eggs of every species of plants and animals, and the young individuals who issue from them. But the number of those who have the good fortune to reach fully developed maturity and to attain the goal of their existence is relatively insignificant.

"The cruel and pitiless 'struggle for existence' which rages everywhere throughout animated nature, and which in the nature of things must rage, this eternal and inexorable compet.i.tion between all living beings, is an undeniable fact. Only a small picked number of the strongest or fittest is able to come forth victoriously from this battle of compet.i.tion. The great majority of their unfortunate compet.i.tors are inevitably destined to perish. It is well enough to deplore this tragic fatality, but one cannot deny it or change it. 'Many are called, but few are chosen!'

"The selection, the 'election' of these 'elect' is by absolute necessity bound up with the rejection or destruction of the vast mult.i.tude of beings whom they have survived. And so another learned Englishman has called the fundamental principle of Darwinism 'the survival of the fittest, the victory of the best.'

"At all events, the principle of selection is not in the slightest degree democratic; it is, on the contrary, thoroughly aristocratic. If, then, Darwinism, carried out to its ultimate logical consequences, has, according to Virchow, for the statesman 'an extraordinarily dangerous side,' the danger is doubtless that it favors aristocratic aspirations."