secondary importance. And, secondly, the question still remains, what propelling forces are behind these motives, what historical causes are they that form themselves in the minds of the acting personages into these motives?
"This question the old materialism never put to itself. Its historical conception, so far as it had one at all, was therefore in its essence pragmatical, judging everything by the motives of the action; it divides the persons acting in the historical process into noble and ignoble ones and finds then that as a rule the noble ones are the conquered and the ignoble the conquerors. Whence it follows, for the old materialism:—that the study of history is not very edifying; and, for us, that on the historical field the old materialism is untrue to itself, because it takes the ideal motives which exert their influence there as the last causes, instead of examining what may be behind them, what are the motives of these motives. Not in that lies the inconsistency that ideal motives are acknowledged. But in that that they are accepted as final, and are not reduced to the causes that move them."
This is quite plain. No wonder LaMonte does not like Engels and appeals from him to Deville (to whom, by the way, he ascribes nice "distinctions," which do not rightfully belong to him.)
The question as to whether those who believe in the materialistic conception of history can be idealistic in practical life, have ideals the attainment of which they desire, and be actuated in their actions by ideals, has naturally been discussed more or less by the leaders of Socialist thought. As is also natural, such discussions were always provoked by some opponent of Socialism trying to make believe that the materialistic conception of history led its followers to adopt "materialistic" views of life and excludes all ideals. This the Socialist theorists were not slow to brand as malicious fabrications and imaginings born of ignorance.
Franz Mehring, one of the brightest minds of the party in Germany, and one of those who are accused of being too strict and "narrow-minded" materialists, has the following to say on the subject (Lessing-Legende):
"We shall first dispose of two current objections to historic materialism, which attach to the meaning of the word. Idealism and materialism are two answers, in opposition to each other, to the basis question of philosophy: the relation between the understanding and reality, or to put
