great merit in this field was the combination of the two, and the reduction of the combination to a clearly defined system.
This, however, was not all, and perhaps not even the most distinctive contribution of Marx to philosophy-science. The mere statement of the philosophic doctrine still left the course of human history unexplained, until Marx applied his genius and transformed history, a sealed book to his predecessors, into a science. A science which, if not as exact, is just as useful, as any one of the exact sciences. This he achieved by abandoning abstract speculation and treating history scientifically. That is to say, he examined history itself for the facts, in order to obtain from such examination the laws of their evolution and relation to each other. This was strictly in accordance with his materialistic "philosophy" which would not admit of any outside preconceived constructions, and insists that we get all our knowledge and ideas from the existing "matter" itself.
His "Materialistic" conception gained, the next thing for Marx to do was to determine what were the "material" factors of history. His investigations led him to the belief that the economic conditions were the prime movers of history. Accordingly, he found it necessary to substitute the term "economic" for the term "material." This completed Marx's conception of history and gave it that distinguishing characteristic which stamps it, and the whole of it, as truly Marxian, notwithstanding the many claims of priority; that characteristic which at once gives it its scientific value and makes it the butt of all pseudo-scientific criticism.
The great merit of this theory of history, is—that it really explains the course of history, something which could not be said of the previous attempts at explaining history, including those of "materialists" like Taine and Buckle.
Marx's insistence on the predominance of the economic factor is not the result of any arbitrary predilection or any
