Liberty Equality and Fraternity

THERE is a theory, known as Historical Materialism (or the Economic Interpretation of History) according to which ideas an ideals are only the shadows of the real moving forces of history. Our English poet has said, "We live by admiration, hope, and love;" and an older teacher has warned us that man liveth not by bread alone, —but this is poetry not science. Man is held fast in the grip of economic forces, and the mode of production in a given community determines the political moral, religious super-structure. Ideas are not forces, but products. To think otherwise is to confuse the active with the passive, substance with shadow. So runs the theory.