And this thirst for knowledge is entirely disinterested. Knowledge cannot help the worker at a machine to increase his income. He seeks truth for its own sake, not for material profit. Accordingly, he does not limit himself to any one domain of knowledge; he tries to embrace the whole; he seeks to understand the whole of society, the whole world. The most difficult problems attract him most; it is often hard to bring him down from the clouds to solid earth.
It is not the possesison of knowledge but the effort to acquire it that makes the philosopher. It is among the despised and ignorant proletariat that the philosophical spirit of the brilliant members of the Athenian aristocracy is revived. But the free development of this spirit is not possible in modern society. The proletariat is without means to instruct itself; it is deprived of opportunities for systematic study, it is exposed to all the dangers and inconveniences of planless self-instruction; above all, it lacks sufficient leisure. Science and art remain to the proletariat a promised land which it looks at from a distance, which it struggles to possess, but which it cannot enter.
Only the triumph of Socialism can render accessible to the proletariat all the sources of culture. Only the triumph of socialism can make possible the reduction of the hours of work to such a point that the working-man can enjoy leisure enough to acquire adequate knowledge. The capitalist system of production wakens the proletarian's desire for knowledge; the socialist system alone can satisfy it.
