of the heart, mind, science, and art. For we have no more to deal with the absolute antithesis between idealism and materialism, but with their higher synthesis which has been found in the knowledge that the ideal depends on the material, that divine justice and liberty depend on the production and distribution of earthly goods."[1]
Religions, schools of ethics, philosophy, metaphysics, art, political and juridical institutions are all to be explained in the last analysis by the economic and telluric environments, present and past. This ruthless materialism crushes belief in God, in the Soul, in immortality. It leaves no room for any shred of dualism in thought. It is true that the German Social Democracy included in the famous Erfurt Programme (adopted in 1891—the first clearly Marxian socialist platform ever promulgated) a demand for a "Declaration that religion is a private matter. Abolition of all expenditure from public funds upon ecclesiastical and religious objects. Ecclesiastical and religious bodies are to be regarded as private associations, which order their affairs independently." It will be seen that this is nothing more than a demand that the State withdraw its sanction of
- ↑ "Philosophical Essays." Dietzgen. Page 86.
