third volume speaks only too plainly against the first." And he adds:
"These expressions (of the third volume) show the general change in Marx's views. We have seen how Marx modified in the third volume his older definition of historic materialism—the whole third volume makes also by its tone a different impression than the first. The first volume is not so ripe.... Bernstein attempts another explanation of the contradiction between the older and the newer doctrines, which contradiction, as we have seen, he unqualifiedly admits."
Yes, "we have seen." We have seen how absurd it is to speak of a modification of the older unripe doctrine by the newer and riper doctrine, when the supposed older doctrine was formulated after the supposedly new one.... And this, as Masaryk himself says, applies to all of Marx's views, whether historico-philosophic or economic. Yet, its evident absurdity will not deter Marx-critics, particularly of the milder and revisionist sort, from continually repeating this statement.
This, however, by the way. What does interest us just now is the relation of the third to the first volume, incident to Marx's solution of the "Great Contradiction." Singularly enough, most of the Marx-critics are content with merely stating ex cathedra their conclusions or assertions that Marx has, in the third volume, "modified" or "abandoned" the theory stated by him in the first volume, that he contradicts it, that he has adopted a new theory, without giving themselves any particular pains to show the reader just how they arrived at these conclusions, or what is the basis of their assertions, except in the most general way. Always excepting the methodical Böhm-Bawerk, who, besides his general remarks, has also particular objections, separately stated and numbered. We shall pay our respects to them in due time, if there is anything left of them after our general discussion.
Before entering, however, upon the discussion of the
