the proof of the dialectic. … "A correct notion of the universe, of the human race, as well as of the reflection of this progress in the human mind, can only be obtained by the dialectic method together with a steady observation of the change and interchange which goes on in the universe, the coming into existence and passing away, progressive and retrogressive modification." The dialectic is, as a matter of fact, nothing but "the science of the universal law of motion and evolution in nature, human society, and thought." He castigates with all the scorn of which he is such a master those pseudo-Socialists (and we have them in our midst still) who would have us believe in and act according to "eternal laws of morality, truth, and justice." "We here call attention to the attempt to force a sort of moral dogmatism upon us as eternal, final, immutable, moral law, upon the pretext that the moral law is possessed of fixed principles which transcend history and the variations of individual peoples. We affirm, on the contrary, that, so far, all ethical theory is, in the last instance, a testimony to the existence of certain economic conditions prevailing in any community at any particular time. And in proportion as society developed class-antagonisms, morality became a class morality and either justified the interests and domination of the ruling class, or as soon as a subject class became strong enough, justified revolt against the domination of the ruling class"; or, again, "If we have no better security for the revolution in the present methods of distribution of the products of labour with all their crying antagonisms of misery and luxury, of poverty and ostentation, than the consciousness that this method of distribution is unjust and that Justice must finally prevail, we should be in evil plight and would have to stay there a long time. … In other words, it has come about that the productive forces of the modern capitalist mode of production, as well as the system of distribution based upon it, are in glaring contradiction to the mode of production itself, and to such a degree that a revolution in the modes of production and distribution must take place which will abolish all class differences, or the whole of modern society will fall. It is in these actual material facts, which are necessarily becoming more and more evident to the exploited proletariat, that the confidence in the victory of modern Socialism finds its foundation, and not in this or that bookworm's notions of justice and injustice."
Refuting Dühring's arguments that the course of class subjection is to be sought in political conditions, and that political force is the primary and economic conditions merely the secondary cause of class distinctions, Engels shows how private property arose amongst primitive peoples, not by forcible robberies as a rule, but because of a limitation of certain things in the early tribal communes—hence arises the necessity for exchange and the production of wares for exchange instead of for use.
The modes of distribution are also altered thereby, and there arise
