PROCESSES OF HISTORY
his imperfect appreciation of the complexities of the problem, have stood in the way of a permanent success. It should, however, be remembered that Marx did not set himself to work out a scientific problem, but to carry forward a social propaganda; he was not attempting to analyze the elements of history; his interest was excited by the special problem of labor under modern conditions, and his dominating aim was to account for this particular phenomenon in its present aspect. Hence he neither considered the entire field of economic activity in modern life, nor the conditions of labor in any other than the capitalistic form of society.
Tt must not be supposed, however, that Marx and Engels, while maintaining that.the great moving power in all historical events was the economic development of society, failed to recognize that they had investigated only that form of economic organization under which they themselves were actually living. "We ought," Engels remarked, "to study, at least in their essential features and taken as terms of comparison, the other forms which have preceded it in time, or exist alongside of it in less developed countries." And he stated frankly: "Marx and I are partly
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