One of the points on which the Marxian interpretation of history is being most persistently misrepresented, is the question of the influence of the individual on the course of history. It is one of the favorite occupations of the Marx-critics of a certain sort to enlarge upon the supposed fact that the Marxian historical theory preaches fatalism and leaves no room for the activity of the individual with a view to influencing the course of events. It is either expressly stated or tacitly assumed that Marx imagined or represented History to be a sort of automatic machine running along a predestined and preordained course, propelled by a lever called economic factor, without regard or reference to the will of the human beings whose intelligence it was affecting and whose institutions and destinies it was shaping. According to these gentlemen, Marx did not care a whit as to what the human beings whose doings fill up the pages of History thought or wanted with regard to the things that they were doing or were about to do. They assure us that according to Marx and his disciples the course of History is predetermined (although none of them ever suggested by whom),—and "economic determinism" is, therefore, their favorite appellation for the Materialistic Conception of History. The course of History being predetermined, and the "economic factor" being the motive-power which propels the car of History on this predetermined course, it follows of necessity that neither each individual member of society separately, nor all of its members collectively, can in any way, by anything he or they might do, affect or influence this fatal course of History. Man must cease all intelligent effort to alter, accelerate, or modify the course of History, and must patiently await the inevitable which Fate has decreed for him, and which will be brought about while he waits through the agency of the Economic Factor.n
