THE NATURE AND SCOPE
3. From a wholly different point of view there has been presented a theory to account for the inequalities among men which has been accorded—an acceptance as wide as the theory of race, but by a very different constituency, for while the former may be said to appeal more directly to militarists and certain groups attracted by modern biological ideas, the economic theory of Marx and Engels has found the great body of its adherents among the workers immediately involved in the "class struggle."
Fundamentally, the point of departure of Marx is the idea that the economic factor dominates all the other factors of human existence, and his insistence on this view, notwithstanding the exaggeration it involves, has had the beneficial effect of directing the attention of students to the importance of a series of facts which, previously, had been very generally ignored. In a measure, Marx also may be said to have employed the method of science, for what he attempted to do was to isolate and describe a particular factor or process manifested in human affairs. But in this undertaking, notwithstanding the profound influence which his writings have had upon modern thought, the limitations of his outlook, and
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