preconceived schematic explanation brought into the study of history from outside considerations. The economic factor is insisted on as the material factor because it is the only material factor that changes and develops, and consequently is the only one which can cause change and development in what Marx calls the "superstructure" of society. It goes, of course, without saying, that something that does not change can not produce any change. No mathematician has ever attempted to ascribe the change in the result of a mathematical operation to the factors that remain constant. It is the varying factors that produce changes in the result. But all the material factors that have been mentioned beside the economic factor remain constant, or nearly so. Such are race, geography, etc. To the extent, however, that these factors do change, and by their change affect the course of human history, full credit is given them. So in the study of primitive, undeveloped, society, where, owing to the crude character of his tools, man is dependent entirely upon nature and is directly affected by its least changes, or where, as in the case of great discoveries, certain geographical features hitherto of no importance become important, these factors are fully recognized and their influence carefully studied and determined.
In other words, fall the material factors, outside the economic, are "taken into account," except that upon careful account taken the influence of these factors appears to be very small and tributary to the main, the economic, factor; and, (and this is most important of all) this influence is constantly diminishing with the progress of mankind. They may, therefore, be left out of account when outlining the general scheme of the evolution of society.
The adherents of the Materialistic Conception of History therefore assert that production, and, next to production, distribution of the product, is the basis of every social order; that in every historic form of society the division of the product of human labor produced by it, and with it the social arrangement into classes or estates, depends on
