ble. Slow though its progress be at first, it gains in velocity and momentum as it proceeds onward, like the falling stone, until its slow progress is converted into a rushing torrent sweeping along in its course all obstacles.
When a new tool makes its appearance, a new political force is born into society. This force grows with the growth of the importance of the new tool in the economy of society, and, in its turn, helps the new tool to unfold itself properly, if it is hampered by artificial barriers from asserting itself. This new political force, the class which owns and controls the new tool, and consequently the product which is produced by means thereof, enters into a struggle with the then governing class, that is with the class which owns and controls the old means of production, and this struggle for the control of the organization of society grows from day to day with the growth of the use of the new tool. Each recruit to the new field of economic activity becomes a soldier in the army of the class controlling that field.
This struggle continues until the inevitable result is reached: Economically, the new improved means of obtaining society's goods becomes pre-eminent; politically, the class which operates and controls those improved means of production becomes predominant. Then a new order of things is created; if the new method of production is sufficiently different a new society is born; new political institutions, new religious beliefs, new moral notions, new æsthetic tastes, new philosophic systems. So does History run her course. The new of yesterday is the old of to-day, and the new of to-day is the old of to-morrow. Each order of things is in turn young and old; struggling for existence and recognition first and then struggling for existence and the maintenance of its authoritative position against the recognition of new elements which threaten to undermine its existence. The progressive of to-day is the reactionary of to-morrow.
In this struggle for existence between two economic
