I.
IT is a recognized and accepted proposition amongst Socialists that Socialism derives its claim to a science from two branches of scientific investigation: The first, Marxian Economics, is a thorough dissection and profound critique of capitalist production; and the second, the Materialist Conception of History, provides the student with a theory for the understanding and appreciation of historical phenomena or social development.
Through the application of the Socialist method of historic investigation to social evolution, the various and ever changing stages in the complex development of mankind assume a more distinct form, and the driving forces and causes underlying this endless chain of struggles, transformations and revolutions are laid bare and exposed to the investigator. Through the proper utilization of the Materialist Conception of History in studying the past and present of human progress, history, with its many almost impenetrable mysteries and strange labyrinths, ceases to be a closed book to the student, and becomes a vital, interesting narrative, depicting the unceasing struggles of the classes through the ages: a struggle that finds its culmination in the furious class war raging between Capital and Labor to-day, and that will be definitely concluded with the abolition of class prerogatives in property and the establishment of the Industrial Republic. As stated before, to shed light on the multifarious phases of historical development, and to thus enable the investigator to intelligently appreciate and appraise existing conditions by a sound knowledge of the past, also to enable him to vision and penetrate into the future with the aid of scientific spectacles, that is the domain of Historical Materialism, the groundwork of the Socialist philosophy.
