prophecy which was most seized upon by the critics because, at any rate in the form in which Engels predicted it, it was not fulfilled. Of course, the fact that Engels made a mistake in the nearness or the exact form of the revolution does not in the least detract from the value of the book, and we may indeed rather wonder, as Engels himself did shortly before his death, not that some of the hopes and prophecies of his fiery youth had fallen wide of the mark, but that so many of them had, indeed, come to pass.
It may be noted that particularly in their early years both Marx and Engels were prone to overestimate at times the tempo of the revolutionary Labour movement. But we must remember it was the tempo not the course of the revolution that was sometimes overestimated.
Whilst things did not move as quickly as they sometimes thought they should do, their analysis of the past, present, and future course of development of society has proved remarkably apt and accurate.
But this was only because they saw the final course and aim so clearly themselves that the actual road to be traversed seemed to them shorter than it was. As Lange has said: "In general, what we foresee very clearly we are wont to imagine as being nearer than it really is." The only really valid criticism on the book is that passed by Engels himself in his Introduction to the 1892 edition:
"It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general theoretical standpoint of this book—philosophical, economical, political—does not exactly coincide with my standpoint to-day. Modern international Socialism, since fully-developed as a science chiefly and almost exclusively by the efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in 1844. My book represents one of the phases of its embryonic development, and as the human embryo in its early stages still reproduces the gill-arches of our fish ancestors, so this book exhibits everywhere the traces of the descent of modern Socialism from one of its ancestors—German philosophy. Thus great stress is laid on the dictum that Communism is not a mere party doctrine of the working class, but a theory, compassing the emancipation of society at large, including the capitalist class, from its present narrow condition. This is true enough in the abstract, but absolutely useless and sometimes worse in practice. So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working class, so long will the social revolution have to be prepared and fought out by the working class alone." And the experience of the last few years in Russia, in Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and, aye, here in England, too, have proved the last few lines to be truer than ever to-day. Unless, which is not altogether impossible, although improbable, England becomes the China of Europe and remains capitalist after all the other European countries have gone through the fire of revolution and established Communism, then, and then only, the English capitalist classes may be convinced of the folly of the present system, themselves
