to a proper understanding of this masterpiece. For this purpose, the following brochures are recommended as collateral reading: "Vulgar Economy," by Daniel De Leon; "Marx on Mallock, or Facts versus Fiction," by the same author; "Was Marx Wrong?", by I.M. Rubinow; and "Karl Marx and Boehm-Bawerk, Vulgar Economy Illustrated," by W.H. Emmett.
The study of "Capital" can now be taken up, and in this connection the following suggestions should be observed. The social and historical significance of this work has been, I believe, sufficiently emphasized and dealt with in the lectures proper and, therefore, requires no further elucidation. What is now of prime importance to the prospective reader or student of "Capital" is a plan or course of procedure netting the best possible results with the smallest expenditure of energies. It can not be denied, all popular assertions notwithstanding, that "Capital" is to the average workingman, unaccustomed to scientific works, quite a tedious and ponderous volume; furthermore, that an indiscriminate and unsystematic reading of this book is not very conducive to either the spirit and future efforts of the reader, or to an intelligent appreciation of the work itself. As underscored in this article before, in the humble opinion of the writer, an EXHAUSTIVE course of preliminary reading and study is absolutely essential, yes, a prerequisite, for a proper understanding of "Capital." Hence if classes or individuals, not equipped with the aforementioned knowledge so necessary for a proper perception or understanding, i.e., unprepared and untrained to assimilate or digest the intellectual food offered in this monumental work, give up their studies in despair, then the reason should not be ascribed to the "ponderous form of presentation in 'Capital'," but to the insufficient preparation and inability of these students to understand the nature and mode of Marx's investigations and deductions. However, those who have diligently followed the lecturer through his discourses and studied the books recommended in this Outline need have no fears on this
