into the motives which explain the repugnance felt by many intelligent and sincere people who are disturbed by the novelty of the Syndicalist point of view. All the members of the new school know that they had to make great efforts in order to overcome the prejudices of their upbringing, to set aside the associations of ideas which sprang up spontaneously in their mind, and to reason along lines which in no way corresponded to those which they had been taught.
During the nineteenth century there existed an incredible scientific ingenuousness which was the direct outcome of the illusions that had aroused so much excitement towards the end of the eighteenth century.[1] Because astronomers had managed to calculate the tables of the moon, it was believed that the aim of all science was to forecast the future with accuracy; because Le Verrier had been able to indicate the probable position of the planet Neptune—which had never been seen, and which accounted for the disturbances of observable planets—it was believed that science could remedy the defects of society, and indicate what measures should be taken to bring about the disappearance of the unpleasant things in the world. It may be said that this was the middle-class conception of science: it certainly corresponds very closely to the mental attitude of those capitalists, who, ignorant of the perfected appliances of their workshops, yet direct industry, and always find ingenious inventors to get them out of their difficulties. For the middle class science is a mill which produces solutions to all the problems we are faced with:[2] science is no longer con-
- ↑ The history of scientific superstitions is of the deepest interest to philosophers who wish to understand Socialism. These superstitions have remained dear to our democracy, as they had been dear to the beaux esprits of the Old Régime; I have touched on a few of the aspects of this history in Les Illusions du progrès. Engels was often under the influence of these errors, from which Marx himself was not always free.
- ↑ Marx quotes this curious phrase from Ure, written about 1830: "This invention supports the doctrine already developed by us: if
