Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
The following objection might be raised in the case of capitalist society: while religion continues to exist in that society-throughout Europe in the form of monotheism - the capitalist social order has different forms of bourgeois domination in politics (monarchy, republic)., and while production relations are based on domination and submission, they are not monarchic in character; the capitalist is a monarch in his own factory, but in society the class of capitalists usually does not operate through a single person. The Marxian theory affords, however, the only possible explanation of the religious forms of our day; the apparent contradiction above mentioned is easily disposed of.
In feudal society, the monarchs and princes and officials under them had control of the semi-natural economy (economy in kind) but under capitalism we have a powerful, new, impersonal regulator, of elemental nature: the market, with its incalculable caprices, exalting some and destroying the lives of others, playing with men as a blind, irrational inscrutable force. "What is our life? A trifle; let the luckless dog bemoan his lot," says the poet; divinity now distributes the lots. The Greeks and Romans already had their Parcae, their Moira, their Ananke ("necessity"), a compulsory force superior even to the gods; this conception was associated with the growth of exchange relations and the consequent commercial wars which endangered the very existence of Greece. The gods (the individual God also) have not always been disembodied spirits; they were fond of eating and drinking, they cohabited with women, assuming the form of a dove for the purpose, in the case of the "Holy Ghost". (In Greece, where homosexual practices were 'frequent, Zeus adopted the shape of an eagle in his intercourse with the boy Ganymede.) But the economic evolution which brought about an economy based on exchange and undermined the feudal political system, not only plucked from the god his eagle's and dove's feathers, but deprived him of his beard, his mustaches, and the other attributes of his previous incarnations. The pious bourgeois now believes in God as an unknown, unknowable, divine power on which all things depend, but with no external relation with man: the divinity is a spirit, not a crude aboriginal form. The condition may be stated as follows: economy is characterized, on the one hand by a relation of domination and submission, and on the other hand by unorganized exchanged relations; the preservation of religion at all is due to the former circumstance, while the latter explains the meagre and fleshless character of God today.
But we must not forget that we are here considering only the fun damental ideas of religion. The subsidiary notions must always be explained from the peculiar conditions of development.
In concluding our consideration of religion, we must not fail to point out that the proletariat - holding our view of religion - is faced with the necessity of actively combating it. Hermann Gorter, in his book Der historische Materialismus, not only departs from philosophical materialism, but takes a purely petty bourgeois and opportunistic view of the attitude which would regard religion as every man's private affair. His view of this attitude is that it is equivalent to our paying no attention to religion, which will disappear of itself. But nothing "disappears of itself" in society; as early as in the days of Marx, we find the latter, in a brilliant essay ( Critique of the Goths Program ), 19) poking fun at the Gorter view of "religion a private matter". Marx considers this slogan to mean merely that the workers must demand of the bourgeois state that it shall not poke its police nose into things that do not concern it; but it by no means signifies that the workers are to be "tolerant" of all the remnants of the wretched past, of all the powers of reaction. We may not regard Gorter's point of view on this subject as at all revolutionary or communist; it is a genuinely Social-Democratic point of view.
We now turn our attention to Philosophy, which is a meditation on the most abstract questions, a generalization of all knowledge, a science of sciences. When the sciences had not yet developed or been differentiated from each other, philosophy and religion (from which it had not yet parted company) also embraced purely scientific questions, including that fragmentary knowledge of nature and man that was available at the time. But even after the various sciences began to exist independently, philosophy still retained a field of its own, namely, the common element of all the sciences and particularly the subject of man's knowledge and of its relation to the world, etc. Philosophy must coordinate science in spite of the tatter's manifold subdivision; must furnish a common framework for all the things that are known, serving as a foundation to the total view of life ( Weltauffassung ). At the beginning of this book, we discussed the question of causality and teleology, which is not specifically a question of physics, or political economy, or philology, or statistics, but a universal concern of all the sciences: a philosophical question; similar is the question of the relation between "mind" and "matter", in other words, "thought" and "being". The individual sciences do not give special attention to this question, but it concerns them all, as do also tech questions as: do our senses correctly reflect the outer world? does this world exist as such? what is truth? are there limits, or not, to our knowledge? etc. As each science classifies and systematizes the ideas connected with its domain, so philosophy continues to assemble and systematize our total knowledge from a single point of view, thus creating an orderly structure of the whole. Philosophy might therefore be said to occupy the highest place in the human spirit and it is more difficult to trace its earthly and material origin than in the case of other subjects. Yet here again we may ascertain the same basic law of nature: the final dependence of philosophy on the technical evolution of society, the level attained by the productive forces. Inevitably, we here encounter a complicated form of such dependence, for philosophy does not issue forth directly from technology, being separated from the latter by a number of links. A few examples will make this clear. We have stated that philosophy systematizes knowledge, the general results of the individual sciences; it therefore is directly conditioned by the stage at which these sciences stand; if for any cause the social sciences develop, philosophy will shade off in that direction; but if, at the given time, the natural sciences engage the general attention, the fundamental note of philosophy will be quite different. These results are produced by the social psychology, the general mental attitude, prevailing in the given time and place, which is in turn an expression of the alignment of classes, the conditions of their existence; these "conditions of existence in general" are governed by the situation of the classes in the social economy, and the latter is the result of the given level of the productive forces. We thus find a number of links interposed between the productive forces (technology) and philosophy.
If a certain philosophic doctrine is gloomy in its nature (a pessimistic philosophy), or asserts the impossibility of all knowledge, or the vanity of all things, their frail and transitory nature, we must look for an explanation to the current psychology from which such a philosophy is born. Detailed investigation will show that such gloomy thoughts do not arise independently, but that they must express a defeat of some section or class of society, or of all classes of society; there seems to be no escape, the love of life has been lost; a gloomy philosophy is the product of this mood. Or, suppose a certain society is involved in a passionate struggle between the classes and their parties; this condition will be reflected in the philosophy of the period, for man does not lead a double life: it is the same man or the same class that is engaged in the political struggle and cogitating on the "final cause" of things. Such social struggles will place their stamp on the psychology and be reflected in the "sublimest" constructions. Or, if we assume a society whose tempo has become excessively slow: life creeping along monotonously day by day; today another yesterday, tomorrow another today, etc.; tradition, routine, time-honored precedent, control all things; no changes in technology, in social life, in science; men die, other men are born, with thoughts precisely like those of their predecessors, etc. Such a rigidity of a whole society will necessarily cause its philosophy to be based in general on the notion of immutability, of permanence. The causal chain may be traced back as follows: a philosophy of inertia; a science of inertia; a social psychology of inertia; a technology of inertia. Examples might be multiplied, but we consider that the ultimate dependence of philosophy on the social economy and technology has been proved.
The entire history of philosophic thought will support the above.
In ancient Greece, usually considered the classic home of philosophy, the earliest philosophical systems arose in the Ionic commercial cities. These cities lay on the great maritime routes between Asia Minor and Europe; the meshes of economic relations with Egypt also centered here. More than anywhere else in the world as then known (Sixth and Fifth Centuries, B.C.), trade, artisan work, and slave industry - particularly trade - were developed here. Together with economic intercourse with other countries, there was an exchange of ideas, influence of Babylon, Egypt; "cultural life" flourished. We have the beginnings o£ the natural sciences, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, medicine. On this basis, the first philosophical systems also grew up: so called natural philosophy, i.e., a philosophy connected with the natural sciences, its task being to find the natural basis of all being. The Ionic school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and their disciples) sought the unity of matter now in water, now in air, now in infinity, etc. In addition to their observations on the "essence of things", we find many scientific observations among these philosophers; Anaximander, for example, devised a geographical map that remained in use for some time. In the Ionic school, philosophical thought was not yet separated from scientific observations connected with practice. We then find a growth of wealth, its accumulation, an increase of slave labor, of parasitism in the higher classes of society; simultaneously, an increased contempt for labor, for the life of the worker, for production, for a direct engaging in trade (not through employees); all this retarded the development of scientific technical thought, transforming philosophy into a thoroughly unworldly "speculation". But it does not follow that philosophy therefore "developed out of itself"; it continued to be shaped and conditioned by the social life. For instance, let us consider the philosophy of one of the greatest Greek philosophers, Heraclitus of Ephesus; he was born in a rich commercial city which had passed through many tribulations (wars, civil wars, etc.). "In the Era of Tyrants, Ephesus was as much torn by internal dissension as any other Ionic city" (Edward Meyer, ibid., p.216). The commercial aristocracy had struck deep roots here and was politically dominant over the agrarian aristocracy. Heraclitus was of an old noble family, which had retained feudal-royal traditions, "and he was, if not a partisan of the aristocrats, yet a fanatical opponent of the democracy, of rule by the blind mob" (p.217). Being a counter-revolutionary, he shunned politics himself, and he even expounded his philosophy in a particularly obscure, semi-conspirative language. "One is worth tens of thousands for me, if he is the best one," he wrote. "What manner of sense and reason have they (the present rulers, N. B .)? They run after minstrels and permit the mob to teach them, since they know not that most men are evil and few good. Rather than all other things, the best choose a single thing, namely, eternal fame among mortals; but the mob feed themselves like cattle" (p.218). It is to this principle of the persecuted aristocracy of birth that we must trace the philosophy of Heraclitus, born among turbulent transformations and dissensions. Society, torn by many conflicts, nevertheless exists as a whole, with all its contrasts and confusions. Such is the universe also. The essence of each thing consists in the fact that it is a whole and not a whole, concordant and discordant, constructive and destructive, one consisting of all and all of one . . . . It is precisely in these contrasts that we have the unity, the "essence of things" (p.220). It is folly to speak of peace when there is no peace; one cannot have peace when the enemy prevails. Therefore: "War is Father and King (!) of all things, he has made some men gods, others men, some slaves, others free men." "Homer, who wished to see struggle ( eris ) eliminated from among gods and men, was not aware that he was thus renouncing all new birth" (p.220). It is absurd to speak of peace when all is in commotion and change. As a matter of fact, there is nothing rigid and immutable. "We cannot step into the same river, for ever different water flows along." We hear it said everywhere that. the present order is good, but truth is relative. "The ocean is the purest and the impurest water, potable and beneficent for fishes, non-potable and ruinous for men" (p.220). It matters not that merchants and democratic upstarts now rule the city; we must not regard only the surface of things, but must penetrate below the surface: "The sense is deceived; even the eye, a better witness than the ear" (p.219). Changes are constantly maturing in life; what exists must perish. "Fire lives through the death of Earth, Air through the death of Fire; Water lives through the death of Air, Earth through the death of Water." Not only are the classes constantly succeeding one another, but social things also are constantly changing place. "Everything is exchanged against fire, and fire against everything, as commodities against gold and gold against commodities " (p.221). The essence of society is this substance of gold, which can purchase everything; the omnipresent and impenetrable power of gold. Therefore, Fire, the incarnation of this force, is the essence of things, the life-giving force, from which all else emanates. "The life spirit also, the soul, is Fire and warmth." Market, competition, war, are elemental in nature; they are a compulsory and omnipotent fate. Therefore God also is not a human being with curly hair, but a fleshless, inevitable universal law; "the predestined compulsion of fate (eimarmeun auaukh), imposing its eternal regulations, its `measures' on all things, which they may not exceed without falling forfeit to the Erynnyes, the hand maidens of justice." But divinity, reason, Logos, fate, ruling the world, will ultimately reestablish justice, which has been crushed to earth; the day of judgment will come when "Fire will fall upon all things and seize and judge them." "Dike (Justice) will take hold of the architects and witnesses of falsehood" (p.222).
We can thus see the factors of the social life of his times peering through the philosophy of Heraclitus, woven in a peculiar pattern: the nature of the economy developing under the banner of gold, the class struggle, the aristocracy as an opposition party, the hope for a better future, words of encouragement, faith in victory, a support for this faith in the fact that all things are changing, the assumption of an impersonal destiny and a mysterious Reason ruling the world - these reflections of the laws of a commercial world, with competition and warfare, rejecting productive labor; the aristocrats by birth, hating the mob; the traditions of the nobility and the feudal warrior caste, etc., etc, These are the social roots of Heraclitus' philosophical constructions. Quite characteristically, while Heraclitus, a member of the opposition and representing the aristocracy, and therefore not interested in preserving the existing order of things, was defending the principle of change, of contradictions, of struggle, of dynamics, the philosophers of the other - the ruling-school - were with equal vigor defending the principle of immutability and permanence. The greatest of these philosophers was Parmenides. Anaxagoras, a close associate of the leader of the Athenian commercial democracy in the Fifth Century, Pericles, and the official state philosopher of Athens, so to speak, made a very ingenious attempt to shift the center of gravity of this passionate philosophical dispute. "The Hellenes," he taught, "have no right to speak of rising and passing away, for existing things clearly show that what is present now is produced by mixture and elimination" (Eduard Meyer, ibid ., p.235). In other words, Aiiaxagoras represents the point of view of gradual evolution; which is precisely what we should expect from the social position of his class. Anaxagoras, by the way, among his other ideas, also did much to advance the atomic theory.
We cannot dwell in detail here on Greek philosophy. It was manifestly incapable of finding a solution by making it up of whole cloth and elaborating intangible impressions of social life, which was meanwhile becoming more and more confused. The extremely complicated struggle and the very restless condition of the leading cities produced numerous currents, disputes, and criticisms; the social ties, standards, and traditional morals were falling into decay. Men "were becoming confused". Parallel with this tendency, the whole of philosophy accomplished a sudden shift in the direction of a so called practical philosophy, i.e., considerations concerning the nature of man, morality, etc. Instead of investigating the essence of the universe, attention began now to be given to the essence of man, of standards of conduct, of duty, of "good" and "evil"; on the one hand we have the sophists, subjecting everything to their criticism, on the other hand Socrates. We have already mentioned, at the beginning of this book, the greatest philosopher of slaveholding antiquity, a man of outspoken "Black Hundred" tendencies, Plato, with his perfected system of philosophical idealism, incorporating, at one and the same time, pure reason and the Good as well as the big stick for the slaves. We may take another example, from the period of the decay of the Roman Empire, simultaneously a period of decay of the entire ancient Mediterranean civilization. The cities grew with tremendous rapidity; commodities were accumulated by plundering colonies and exploiting slaves; the ruling class was absolutely parasitic, as were also the great numbers of free lumpenproletariat, corrupted by state alms; the slaves were oppressed as never before; such, in broad outline, is the internal situation. Seneca, a philosopher of the Stoic school, a rich man, imparts the philosophy of life to his friend Lucilius: "What is there that can tempt you away from death? You have tasted all the enjoyments that might make you hesitate; none of them are strange to you; you have had your fill of all. You know the taste of wine and of honey; is it not a matter of indifference to you whether one hundred or one thousand bottles of them pass down your throat? Also, you have tasted oysters and crabs. Thanks to your splendid living, nothing remains untasted for you in the years that are to come. And can you not separate yourself from these things? What is it you may still have to regret? Friends? Home? Do you really value them so highly that you would sacrifice yourself for them to the extent of postponing your supper-hour? Oh, had it been in your power, you would have extinguished the sun itself, for you have accomplished nothing worthy of the light. Confess it: you are hesitating to die, not because you will be sorry to leave the Curia, the Forum, or the beauties of nature. You are merely sorry to leave the flesh-market, and yet you have already tasted all its supplies." ( Seneca: Letter to Lucilius, here quoted from N. Vassilyev: The Question of the Decay of the Western Roman Empire, Transactions of the University of Kazan , vol. 31, in Russian). This is a philosophy of absolute individualism, of persons recognizing no social ties; a pessimism, an advocacy of death, a fruitless criticism of all social institutions, a worship of abstract reason which despises all things; such is the philosophy of the time. Is it not a faithful reflection of the psychology of an over-sated, decaying, parasitic class, which has lost all taste for life? This psychology is an outcome of the social-economic conditions prevailing at the time.
In the Middle Ages, the dominant system in Europe was that of feudalism, with a huge hierarchy of subjection; the Church also was constructed along these lines. Standards of law, manners, religion, all these forms of the superstructure were expressive of this system and served to consolidate it. It is obvious how significant a role must here be played by religion. For the foundation of religion is a relation of domination and subjection; consequently, particularly on the firm foundations of feudalism, a system of religious, spiritual serfdom necessarily and inevitably flourished. Therefore, philosophy also is distinctly religious in tone; it served as the maidservant of divinity ( ancilla theologiae ).
The typical orthodox philosopher of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274; his principal work is the Summa Theologiae, "Theological Encyclopedia") clearly reflects the feudal conditions in his philosophy. The world is divided into two portions: the everyday visible world and the "forms inhabiting it". The highest and "purest" form is God. In addition to God, there are certain particular, specific "forms" ( formae separatae ), arranged according to certain degrees of dignity or rank: angels, the souls of men, etc. This entire philosophical system is based on the idea of constancy, of tradition, of authority. "Step by step, as the bourgeoisie developed, there also developed an immense advance of science; astronomy, mechanics, physics, anatomy, physiology, again received attention. The bourgeoisie needed, in order to develop its industrial production, a science that would investigate the properties of natural bodies and the mode of operation of natural forces. Hitherto, however, science had been only the humble handmaiden of the church. . . Now science rebelled against the church; the bourgeoisie needed science and joined in the rebellion" (Friedrich Engels: Über historischen Materialismus, Die Neue Zeit , 1893, vol. ii, part i, p.42). These needs for further growth were even reflected in cases where an agrarian aristocracy was at the helm. Thus, in England, the first harbinger of the great upheaval in the entire conception of the universe, and consequently in philosophy also, was Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Bacon held that nature should be studied in order to be controlled. For this, we need above all "the. art of invention" ( ars inveniendi ); the old scholastic nonsense, and even Aristotle, must be thrown into the scrap-heap. Now, "the old is done for; reason is victorious" ( vetustas cessit, ratio vicit ). Marx considered Bacon as the founder of English materialism. "For him, natural science was true science and the physics of the senses was the most distinguished part of natural science . . . . In his teaching, the sciences cannot deceive us; they are the source of all knowledge. Science means experimental science; it consists of the application of a rational method to that which is perceived by the senses. Induction, analysis, comparison, observation, experiment, are the principal conditions for a rational method. Among the properties inherent in matter, motion is the first and foremost" But Marx also discovers many "theological inconsistencies" in Bacon. (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Die heilige Familie , 1845, pp.201 et seq., also quoted by Engels in Über historischen Materialismus, cited above.) In view of the period and the point of view of Bacon's class, we could not expect any other condition.
French materialism in the Eighteenth Century declared war most emphatically on the feudal conception of the universe, in the field of philosophy, just as the bourgeoisie was declaring war on feudal society in the field of politics and economy. This materialism supported and energetically expounded the doctrine of the English philosopher Locke, according to which man has no "innate ideas", all the psychical elements in man being merely a "modification" of feeling; this phase of the doctrine is termed sensualism. Feeling is declared a property of matter. Simultaneously, Locke believed in the omnipotence of human reason and of "rationalism", the whole being permeated with an individualism that is also found expressed in the field of "practical philosophy" (the "rights" of the individual, the "freedom" of the individual, etc.). This philosophy, extremely revolutionary in its time, is an outgrowth of the revolutionary position of the bourgeoisie of the period, which was destroying the feudal world, its traditions, its Church, its religion, and its theological and conservative philosophy. The revolutionary attitude of the bourgeoisie may easily be explained by the social economy of the Eighteenth Century and by the conditions of the productive forces, which had encountered, in the feudal system, a great obstacle in their development, and which, operating through the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, the artisans, and the semi-proletarians, were obliged to break down these barriers.
In order to make the dependence of philosophy on the course of social life even clearer, we shall consider as our final example the philosophy of the bourgeoisie in the period of its decay, after the imperialist world war of i9t4-1918. The great crisis of the war, the crisis in economy, the social crisis which is bringing about a collapse of capitalism before our eyes, shattering its entire cultural structure to its very foundations, is producing among the ruling classes a psychology of despair, of profound skepticism, of pessimism, a lack of confidence in one's own forces, in the power of the intellect in general; this results in a return to mysticism, a seeking for the mysterious, an inclination toward occult rites and ancient religions, by the side of a reawakening of the modern form of parlor magic, spiritualism. In many of its traits, this philosophy recalls that of the ruling classes in the declining period of the Roman Empire. We shall close with a few specimens of this philosophy, characteristic of the collapse of capitalism.
Paul Ernst ( Der Zusammenbruch des deutschen Idealismus, Leipzig, 1918) is our first example. Ernst offers a criticism of the capitalist organization which led to war; this blind organization oppressed the individuality of man. "Whence can a change come? There is but one way: humanity must bethink itself of itself; it must become aware of the fact that the most distinguished task imposed upon it by God (!) is that of setting goals for itself and its actions" (p.400). Ideal wisdom, says Ernst, is found in China! "We must attain clarity on the point that the foundations for the sufferings of men do not lie in institutions, but in the attitudes creating institutions " Why has capitalism never succeeded in gaining a foothold in China? For the simple reason that the Chinese loves and honors agricultural work, and always succeeds in obtaining the little parcel of land (!) that he needs, and can produce on it what is required for his simple tastes ". We want nor reforms or revolutions, but an introspective return to true morality" (pp.406, 407). The ultimate source of all the goals are men of a higher order. "The highest of our metaphysical thought we owe to men who lived naked in the for forests in India and nourished themselves on grains of rice, begged by their disciples" (p.418). Therefore, we are to infer, according to Ernst, that the highest forms and methods of knowledge are those devised by men who have sucked the divine wisdom from their own thumbs; the highest forms of life are those of the Chinese peasant and his virtuous spouse. The solution offered by present-day philosophical thinking is: a flight from civilization, which has run into a blind alley.
Hermann Keyserling says in his Reisetagebuch eines Philosophen: "All truth (is) in the last analysis symbolical; the sun more correctly expresses the character of the divine . . .than does the best formulation of a conception. Therefore, all the worshipers of God are right in the eyes of God" (the author is not joking; he is serious! N. B.). "The divine reveals itself to man everywhere in the frame of his intimate prejudices." According to Keyserling, the Hindu fakirs are the ideal in faith and knowledge; for there is no cruder superstition than the belief in the insurmountable character of natural determinism. . . Man is spirit in his profoundest essence, and the more he recognizes this, the more firmly he believes it, the more of his fetters will fall away from him. It is therefore possible that, as in the Hindu myth, perfect knowledge may even overcome death (pp.282, 283). "And he who is perfectly instructed, he who is of spiritual practices, utilizes faith according to his desire as an instrument. So far had gone the greatest among the Indians. . .They knew that all religious formations were of human origin. But they sacrificed now to this god, now to that, devout in their hearts, knowing well that this practice is useful to the soul" (p.284), etc., etc.
Oswald Spengler says in Der Untergang des Abendlandes (München, 1920): "Systematic philosophy is today infinitely remote from us; ethical philosophy has reached its termination. There is still a third possibility, corresponding to Hellenic skepticism, within the Western mentality" (p.63). This is a skeptical history of philosophy. Spengler considers the entire history of humanity and puts the idea of fate in the place of the idea of causality. It devolves upon each society, according to Spengler, to accomplish a cycle, running from youth to age and terminating in death; the European cultural cycle has exhausted its creative powers and is on the downward path. Our task is to predict this downward motion and adapt ourselves to the inevitable.
The bourgeois philosophers, like the over-satisfied Roman higher bureaucrats, and the effeminate noble "sages" make journeys to foreign countries, in quest of men going about naked, in order to learn the great secret. Spengler predicts the fate of the Roman Empire for Europe, but he is reckoning without his host; while his glances have been turned to India and China, he has been blind to the proletariat at home. While in "ancient times" the lower classes were only capably of bringing about the "philosophy" of Christianity, we now have Marxian communism which cannot but gain strength in the ruins of the "Abendland" (occident). This communism has its own philosophy, a philosophy of action and battle, of scientific knowledge and revolutionary practice.
We thus are again led to conclude that philosophy also is not a thing that is independent of social life, but that it is a quantity that changes in accordance with the changes in the various phases of society, i.e., in the last analysis, with the changes in economy and technology.
We shall now take up another order of social phenomena - art. Art is as much a product of the social life as is science or any other outgrowth of material production; the expression "objects of art" will make this apparent. But art is an outgrowth of the social life in the further sense that it is a form of mental activity. Like science, it can develop only at a certain level of productive labor, in default of which it will wither and perish. But the subject of art is sufficiently complicated to justify an investigation of the manner in which it is determined by the course of social life; the first question requiring an answer is: what is art; what is its fundamental social function?
Science classifies, arranges, clarifies, eliminates the contradictions in the thoughts of men; it constructs a complete raiment of scientific ideas and theories out of fragmentary knowledge. But social man not only thinks, he also feels; he suffers, enjoys, regrets, rejoices, . mourns, despairs, etc.; his thoughts may be of infinite complexity and delicacy; his psychic experiences may be tuned according to this note or that. Art systematizes these feelings and expresses them in artistic form, in words, or in tones, in gestures (for example, the dance), or by other means, which sometimes are quite material, as in architecture. We may formulate this condition in other words: we may say, for example, that art is a means of "socializing the feelings"; or, as Leo Tolstoi correctly says in his book, art is a means of emotionally "infecting" men. The hearers of a musical work expressive of a certain mood will be "infected", permeated, with this mood; the feeling of the individual composer becomes the feeling of many persons, has been transferred to them, has "influenced" them; a psychic state has here been "socialized". The same holds good in any other art; painting, architecture, poetry, sculpture, etc.
The nature of art is now clear: it is a systematization of feelings in forms; the direct function of art in socializing, transferring, disseminating these feelings, in society, is now also clear.
What conditions the development of art? What are the farms of its dependence on the course of social evolution? In order to answer these questions, we must analyze an art - we have selected Music for this purpose - into its component parts. Our investigation will show the following elements: 1. the element of objective material things , the musical technology: musical instruments and groups of musical instruments (orchestra, quartette, etc.; the combinations of instruments may be likened to combinations of machines and tools in factories); also, physical symbols and tokens: systems of notation, musical scores, etc .; 2. the human organization; these include many forms of human association in musical work (distribution of persons in the orchestra, the chorus, in the process of musical creation; also, musical clubs and societies of all kinds); 3. the formal elements of music, including rhythm, harmony (corresponding to symmetry in the graphic and plastic arts), etc.; 4. the methods of uniting the various forms, principles of construction, what corresponds to style in some arts; in a broader sense, the type of artistic form ; 5. the content of the art work, or, if we are dealing with an entire movement or tendency, the content of all the works; we are chiefly concerned here not with the method of performance, but with its substance, let us say with the choice of "subject" of presentation; 6. as a "superstructure of the superstructure", we may also include, in music, the theory of musical technique (theory of counterpoint, etc.).
Let us now consider the various causal relations between the evolution of music and social evolution in general, which is ultimately based on the economic and technical evolution of society.
First. We shall not again emphasize the fact that art may not flourish before a certain level has been attained in the productive forces of society.
Second. Only in a certain social "atmosphere" may art (and specifically, music) be singled out for development from among the innumerable forms of the superstructure. For example, in discussing the question of technology and art among the Greeks in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C., we found that there was no growth of technical or natural sciences at all, but that philosophical speculation was widespread. There is no doubt that the "superstructure" in general rises at a fast pace if social technology is moving at a fast pace; but there is also no doubt that the superstructure does not move forward (or backward) uniformly ; nor does material production advance uniformly; for instance, the manufacture of sausages may not keep abreast of the evolution of the productive forces to the same extent as the construction of locomotives or the production of castor oil. Certain forms of production usually develop much faster than others; in fact some such forms may be entirely absent, for certain reasons. The "superstructure" shows the same conditions: in Athens, in the Fifth Century B.C., technology fared badly, while speculative philosophy flourished. In America, in the Twentieth Century, technology is supreme and philosophy is neglected. Church hymns (a branch of the general field of music) were once universal, but it would be difficult to find many persons today - except a few :moldy old men and pious old women - who are fond of the conventional hymns. The mental "shoots" of society are the highest outgrowth of the superstructure, and we naturally expect that shoot to burgeon that happens to receive the most generous supply of sap. In ancient Athens it was an "ignoble" thing, worthy only of stupid artisans, to concern oneself with an investigation of nature by means of experiment; the disfavor in which the natural sciences were held is easy to understand; it was a result of the class alignment, of the social economy, which in its turn was conditioned by the social technology. Similarly, in the case of music, hymns might be quite important at an epoch when music still the "handmaiden" - as was also philosophy - of religion. But such hymns are as appropriate to a highly developed capitalist society as General Ludendorff's trousers to Father Sergius. The function of music in society is therefore dependent on the state of the latter, on society's mood, means, views, feelings, etc. The explanation of the latter is found in the class alignment and the class psychology, which are ultimately based on the social economy and the conditions of its growth.
Third. The "technique" of music depends in the first place on the technique of production. Savages cannot build pianos; this prevents them from playing the instrument or composing pieces for it. It is sufficient to compare the primitive musical instruments (aside from the natural instrument, the human voice), those developed from horn and pipe, from the needs o£ the chase, 20) with the complicated construction of the modern piano, to grasp fully the function of these instruments. "Music is not possible as an independent art until appropriate tools have taken shape and developed: the instruments and their development." 21) "Music can express the gamut of emotions only within the scale of the available instruments." 22) The production of such things as the telescope and the piano are a portion of the social material production; it is obvious that musical "technique" (now meaning the instruments) depends on the technique of this material production.
Fourth. The organization of persons is also directly connected with the bases of the social evolution. For instance, the distribution of the members of an orchestra is determined precisely as in the factory, by the instruments and groups of instruments; in, other words, the arrangement and organization of these members is here conditioned by musical technique (in our restricted sense of the word) and, through it, based on the stage in social evolution, on the technique of material production as such. Similarly, the organization of persons in another musical field, let us say, a musical society, is the result of a number of conditions of social life, principally, a love of music (resulting from the social psychology, as above discussed), the opportunities afforded the various classes to indulge this predilection (for instance, the amount of unoccupied time available to the various classes, i.e., the class alignment and the degree of productivity of social labor), which elements govern the number of members, the extent and nature of their activity, the character of the membership, etc. Or, in the case of the creative process, we also find a number of forms for the human relations involved, the oldest of which is the impersonal stage (individual names are not handed down), the so called "folk songs". Here the art work is produced in an elemental manner by thousands of nameless artists. Quite different is the case when the individual artist works "on order", by the command of a prince, king or wealthy man. The case is again different when the artist works as an artisan for an unknown market, on whose caprices he depends. An artistic production may also result when the latter assumes the form of a social service, etc. These forms of human relations are obviously based directly on the economic structure. In the slaveholding system, the musicians were slaves; not so long ago, we still had serf musicians in Russia, performing and composing not to satisfy a market requirement, but at the command of a feudal magnate. Of course, these elements are expressed in the art work.
Fifth. The formal elements (rhythm, harmony, etc.) are also connected with the social life. Many of these elements are already present in prehistoric times, even in the animal kingdom. Karl Bucher says 23) concerning rhythm among horses: "Rhythm springs from the organic nature of man. Every normal use of his animal body he seems to control, as a regulating element of economic utilization of energy. The trotting horse and the laden camel move as rhythmically as the rowing fisherman and the hammering blacksmith. Rhythm awakens a feeling of well-being; it therefore not only renders work easier, but is a source of esthetic pleasure and the element of art to which all persons respond, regardless of their mental nature." Quite true; but rhythm has also developed - as Bucher points out in his work - under the influence of social relations and particularly under the direct influence of material labor (the "workers' songs", like the Russian Dubinushka , arose on the same basis; rhythm here is an instrument of labor organization). In other words, while the formal (such as rhythm) may have arisen in prehistoric times, became man, they do not evolve from within them but under the influence of social evolution.
A further circumstance is worth mentioning. At a certain stage of development, only the simplest rhythms are available to man ("as monotonous as the singing of cannibals"); he has no ear for the complicated rhythm perceived by a man at a different stage of development. A. V. Lunacharsky, in one of his essays on art, says: "From all of the above ( i.e., the determining role of economy, N. B .) it by no means follows that . . . the forms of creative work may not have their own immanent psycho-physiological laws; they have such laws and are entirely conditioned by them (my italics, N. B .) in their specific form, while the content is given by the social environment." We learn later on what is meant by this: "The immanent psychological law of evolution in art is the law of complication. Impressions of similar energy and intricacy begin, after a number of repetitions, to exert less and less force on the mind, and to be capable of suggesting a lower intricacy. We experience a sense of monotony, of boredom (`it gets on my nerves'); it follows that every school of art will naturally seek to make more complicated and to enhance the effect of its works" (A. V. Lunacharsky: Further Remarks on the Theatre and Socialism , in the collection Verslziny , p.196 et seq., in Russian). We thus find the "psycho-physiology" contrasted with the "economy"; the "content" is left to economy, the "form" to psycho-physiology. This point of view seems to us to be at least insufficient, if not wrong. As a matter of fact, if we consider the evolution of those elements that we regard as formal, we shall find that this evolution has by no means proceeded at a uniform rate. The music of the savage, the number of harmonious tones produced by him, was very poor; yet, the social evolution itself was not characterized by great speed; manifestly the musical supply lasted for a long time, did not produce "boredom" for a long time. "Antiquity did not know our modern harmony and made use of unison arrangements; it took a long time for it to become accustomed to the octave. . . We have reason to believe that it is only recently that the fourth has been recognized as a harmonic interval" (L. Obolensky: The Scientific Bases of the Beautiful and of Art , p.97, in Russian). Therefore, the formal elements become more complicated as a consequence of the more complicated structure of life for an increasing intricacy of life alters the psycho-physiological "nature" of man. The "crude" hearing of the savage is as much a function of social evolution as is the "fine" hearing of the inhabitants of the great capitalist cities with their extremely delicate nervous organization. The "immanent laws" therefore, are merely another phase of the social evolution. And since the social evolution is conditioned by the evolution of the productive forces, they constitute "in the last analysis" a function of these productive forces. For, man alters his nature in accordance with his influence on the external universe .
Sixth. The type, the style , is also conditioned by the course of social life. It embodies the current psychology and ideology; it expresses those feelings and thoughts, those moods and beliefs, those impressions, those current forms of thought, that "are in the air". Style is not only external form, but also "embodied content with its corresponding objective symbols"; the history of the styles is an expression of the "history of the systems of life". 24) "The style of form is a reflex of the social vitality." 25) The religious music of the ancient Hindoo hymns (the Vedas ) have not the same "style" or construction as - let us say - a French music-hall song or the battle-song of the revolution, the Marseillaise. These productions are the outgrowth of different environments, different social soils, and their form is consequently different; the religious hymn, the battle-song, the vaudeville song, cannot be composed or constructed in the same way; even their form expresses different feelings, thoughts, and views. This difference is a result of the difference in the situation of the societies or classes involved, and this difference is conditioned by the economic development and consequently, by the state of the productive forces. Furthermore, the style depends also in high degree on the material conditions of the specific work of art (for instance, instrumental music is conditioned by the nature of the instrument) as well as by the method of artistic creation (we have already discussed the organization of persons in music), etc. All these phases likewise depend on the fundamental causal relation in social evolution.
Seventh. The content ("subject"), almost impossible to isolate from the form, is obviously determined by the social environment, as may be readily seen from the history of the arts. It is obvious that artistic form will be given to what is engaging the attention of men in one way or another at the given moment. The creative spirit is not stimulated by subjects that do not hold its attention, but those things that constitute the central interest of society or of its various classes are given treatment, thus reflecting this general interest in the form of "mental labor". "There is indeed a certain moral temperature governing the general condition of manners and minds ( des esprits )." 26) "The artistic family (Taine here means a specific `school' or tendency in art. N.B. ) is situated within a larger community; namely, the surrounding world, whose taste conforms with that of the school. For the state of morals and of mental life is the same for the public as for the artists; the latter are not isolated men." 27) These statements by Taine are entirely correct, but Taine seems incapable of thinking them out to their ultimate conclusions, which would lead him into the acceptance of impious materialistic inferences. We have again and again discussed, in another shape, this question of the "moral of the "milieu", of which Taine speaks; both "mental life" in general, feelings and moods, do not develop out of themselves; we know that this social consciousness is the social being, i.e., the conditions of existence of society and its various parts (classes, groups). These conditions also give birth to the various "tastes". As a result, the content of art is also determined, in the last analysis, by the fundamental natural law character of social evolution; its content is a function of the social economy, and therefore of the productive forces.
Eighth. Musical theory is obviously directly connected with all the foregoing, and therefore "subject" to the movement of the productive forces of society.
We have outlined the fundamental chains of causality that exist in music; they do not at all exhaust the subject; in the first place, probably not all of these relations have been enumerated above, and, in the second place, there is in addition a mutual interaction of all these elements, resulting in a much more complicated and confused pattern, the general outlines of which, however, follow the scheme above indicated. Nor does it follow that the other arts will show precisely the same pattern as we have traced in the case of music. Each art has certain special earmarks: for instance, the material objects involved in singing are reduced to a minimum (there are notes, but the "musical instrument" remains the human voice alone); in architecture the role of the material, the tools, the purpose of the buildings (temple, residence, palace, museum, etc.), is of immense importance; the student must not neglect such distinctions, but we shall always find that the following holds, good: directly or indirectly, art is ultimately determined in various' ways by the economic structure and the stage of the social technology.
At the early stages in its evolution, when human society had barely begun to turn out surplus products, art was in direct contact with; practical material life. The earliest forms of art are the dance and; music, and so much of poetry as was involved in the combination..; The original aim of these arts was to produce a mood of unity, as a preparation for a certain act (a sort of practice or repetition of the: act itself). Among certain "savage" tribes, the "council-dances", the "terrifying war-dances", etc., accompanied by the clapping of hands,` later also by primitive musical instruments, are examples of such dances. Rhythm developed together with work, as a principle of organization, as is excellently shown by Karl Bücher. The "challenging" dance of the New Zealanders may be taken as an example; it is accompanied by terrible grimaces and the utterance of threats (in order to frighten the opponent); also, the dances and songs representing the chase, fishing, etc. A particularly important part is played by the so called work-song, constructed on the rhythm of the work performed, the text being developed from the sound involuntarily ejaculated in the course of this work. The songs of the shepherds, or of the Bedouins as they direct the steps of the camels on their travels through the desert, etc. - these are directly connected with the daily labor of the environment. As society grows, and new ideologies arise, as "civilization", etc., increases, art of course absorbs all these elements and ceases to be directly connected with the material life of production. For instance, as religion develops, music, the dance, etc., become a part of the cult. In Egypt, the ruling classes made a sort of mystery of music; the priests were scholars and musicians; religious music concerned them chiefly; the enslaved masses had their own music "at home, in the fields" (Kothe, ibid ., p.11). We find the same condition among the East Indians, whose musicians formed a privileged caste (special families of musicians and singers): among the Assyro-Babylonians, whose conditions required them to wage war more frequently than other nations. Their music is principally military and military-religious in character (as suggested by, the instruments: cymbals, kettle-drums, etc.). The earliest musical works of the Greeks, of which we know, were the work-songs of shepherds, and war songs ("songs of victory"); only later, songs of social and family type (laments on the dead, wedding-songs, etc.): Among the Romans, there were chiefly shepherd and peasant songs (their instrument was the reed, fistula ) and war-songs (the loud brass instruments were first introduced by the Romans. the trumpet, tuba; curved horn, lituus; a sort of trombone, buccina, etc.). Similarly, the other forms of art also have their roots in practice. Primitive painting, ornament, has its origin in poetry; for example: the; ornaments in many cases still suggest the earlier combination of pot and woven basket. Furthermore, the beginnings of painting simultaneously serve as the beginnings of writing. The first step in the development of script were drawings set down to aid the memory. The Bushmen, as well as the East Indians, attempt to record certain visible objects on stone. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Egyptians, the Mexican symbols, are above all depictions of objects. Tattooing is closely connected with this practice. "The practice of tattooing of words and syllables developed from more primitive forms. The earliest stage was that of pictorial representations on the human body (tattooings), with the purpose not only of securing religious effects (warding off spirits, etc.), but also of making known the tribe, the rank, age, etc., of those marked in this manner" (R. Eisler: AIlgemeine Kulturgeschichte, 3d ed., Leipzig, 1905, p.42). Markings for the purpose of producing terror, and adornments, must also be considered here. Since such adornments had the purpose of causing admiration and producing an impression, they were used chiefly in warfare (cf. Lippert: Allgermeine Kulturgeschichte); they include, for instance, the "war-masks" of Germanic tribes, which were used in war, according to Tacitus (here is the germ of sculpture). Architecture is chiefly "technical" in character, as will be readily understood; originally it amounted merely to the construction of (materially) useful edifices. "The Greek temple and Gothic spire are both merely the permanent representations of useful wooden constructions" (John Ruskin: Lectures on Art, New York: Maynard, Merrill & Co., 1893, p.42). "The lovely forms of these were first developed in civil and domestic building, and only after their invention, employed ecclesiastically on the grandest scale" ( ibid ., p.141). Of course, the direct influence of production relations made itself particularly noticeable here; in Egypt, the firm construction of the houses with their receding walls, was due to the overflowing of the Nile, as such walls were capable of offering more resistance to the rush of waters. Columns were used as props before the arch and vault were known.
In order to show the dependence of form, and therefore of style, on the social environment, we shall offer a few examples in this field, taking our material chiefly from the interesting investigations of Wilhelm Hausenstein. In the primitive reproductive arts, we may discern two periods: a purely naturalistic period (representing things as they were) on the one hand, and a conventionalized ornamentation and symbolic drawings, with little resemblance to reality, on the other. In the former case, we have drawings of bisons, horses, mammoths, reindeer, scenes of the chase, etc., found on the walls of caves, or drawn on the bones of horses, the teeth of mammoths, or reindeer antlers, etc. In the second period, we have chiefly conventionalized idols and human and animal figures. Max Verworn explains this circumstance as follows: "The palaeolithic hunter of the earlier period did not yet possess, as far as we know, the notion of the soul. " He looked for nothing behind things ( i.e., was not yet an animist, N.B .). He had no metaphysics; he concerned himself only with what he perceived, fully resembling the Bushman in this respect." On the other hand, "all tribes among whom the conception of the soul and other religious conceptions have gained a control over life, as among negroes, American Indians, South Sea Islanders, we find extremely ideoplastic (" i.e., symbolic not `naturalistic', or in Verworn's words, `physioplastie', N. B. ) art." (Max Verworn: Zur Psychologie der primitiven Kunst, Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift, New Series, vol. vi, Jena, 1907; also quoted by Hausenstein, ibid ., p.38). Hausenstein observes that Verworn does not pursue the thought to its conclusion; Hausenstein finds the nucleus of the matter in the fact that the hunter is more an individualist, the peasant more of a collectivist. But the fact of the matter is that "ideoplastic art", like religion, grows with the growth of particular conditions of production, namely, the relation of domination and subjection In the feudal era, this relation attains huge dimensions in production and ; the gulf between the slave and the despot may indicate the extent of this relation. This condition determines the specific style of all feudal eras, has brilliantly analyzed by Hausenstein. The power and domination of the divine despots, of mighty feudal kings, of Pharaohs, their unattainable sublimity, valor, audacity, etc., as opposed to common mortals - this is the essential point expressed in the feudal styles of the Egyptians, Assyro-Babylonians, of the earliest Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Peruvians, East Indians, as well as in the Romanesque and early Gothic art of Western Europe (Hausenstein: Versuch einer Soziologie der bildenden Kunst, in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, May, 1913, pp.778, 779). Literary examples from the epochs mentioned will support this statement. From the legal code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, whom we have mentioned before, we take the words: "I am Hammurabi, the incomparable king. With the mighty weapon given me by Zamama and Innanna, with the wisdom given me by Ea, with the reason bestowed upon me by Marduk, I have destroyed the enemies to the North (above) and to the South (below), have terminated dissension, have bestowed prosperity upon the laid . . . .The great gods called me . . . . I am the beneficent shepherd . . . . I am Hammurabi, the King of Truth, upon whom Shamash bestowed the quality of justice. My words are good, my deeds incomparable, sublime. . .They are a pattern for the wise, to attain fame" (quoted from Turayev, ibid ., pp.114, 115). The following eulogy of a king is found on an Egyptian tomb: "Praise the king in your bodies, bear him in your hearts. He is the god of universal wisdom living in hearts . . . . He is the radiant sun illuminating both the earths more than the disk of the sun; he makes more things green than the great Nile; he fills both the earths with power, he is breath-giving life . . . .The king is sustenance. Multiplication is his lips, he is the begetter of what is, he is Hnum, original Father of man . . . .Battle for his name," etc. ( ibid ., p.325). Meanwhile, "in good society", the lower stations were despised. An Egyptian father, giving paternal advice to his son, wants the latter to become a court scribe, and speaks of the lower trades as follows: "I have never seen a smith serve as an envoy, or a jeweler as an ambassador; but I have seen a smith working at his forge; his fingers were like the hide of a crocodile; he spread an odor worse than rotten fish-roe. . . The peasant wears an eternal garment ( i.e., never changes it, N. B.). His health may be compared with that of a man lying under a lion . . . . The weaver in his workshop is weaker than woman; his feet lie against his stomach; he has nowhere to breathe. If he does not complete his daily task, he is beaten like lotus on a swamp," etc. ( ibid ., p.231). The Egyptian king Yakhmos says of himself: "The Asians approach full of fear and are judged by him; his sword enters into Nubia, the fear of him into the land Fenekha; the fear of his splendor is like that of the God Min," ( ibid ., p.272). Fritz. Burger thus characterizes the ancient Egyptian, i.e., feudal, art (Weltanschaasungsprobleme und Lebenssysteme iii der Kunst der Vergangenheit , pp.43, 44): "Egyptian art is an embodiment of the notion of immortality, not as mere symbol, however, but as a reality (the `eternal' pyramids, of unusual permanence, statues, etc., N. B .). . . A powerful suggestion of force emanates from them; they make us bend the knee; they have the awe-inspiring quality of a higher existence incorporated within them they bear witness to the disciplined strength of life in its dreadful tension, to a super-personal eternal power, whose pride keeps us at a distance, to the soulless severity of a being that is indifferent to all mere matters of detail; they reflect the brilliancy of their master's light, as remote as the stars." Therefore: "Every feudal civilisation carries on a worship of quantity" (Hausenstein: Die Kunst und die Gesellschaft, p.46). The huge pyramids, the gigantic monuments of the Pharaohs or the Assyrian-Babylonian kings, are a form of greatness and might; art is monumental and frontal; the "interior decoration" of the present-day bourgeoisie would not have sufficed for feudal conditions; the bearing of the figures of rulers is prescribed exactly: upright stature, not human, but half divine, as opposed to the slaves and ordinary mortals (the ancient Greeks designated the bearing of a slave, etc., by the word proskynesis, i.e., "dog-like creeping"). One of the best specialists on Egypt, Ehrmann, maintains that the human body is represented in a number of different forms in Egyptian painting, according to the social rank: it is natural for ordinary mortals, conventionalized for superiors; virile power is represented by a wide chest, not foreshortened as perspective would require; among the Egyptians, the chest is always given its full width, even if the figure stands in profile. The same spirit also prevailed in archaic, feudal, early Greek art (the heroic "energetic power of early Attic art", "the severe energy of the Dorians", the so called "Doric style"; ( cf . B. Haendcke: Entwicklungsgeschichte der Stilarten, Bielefeld-Leipzig, 1913, p.10). Approximately the same condition is found among the East Indians, Peruvians, Mexicans, Chinese and Japanese. "When the Mexican Aztec succumbed to the Conquistadors under Hernando Cortez, the style of this kingdom was almost identical both socially and aesthetically with the style of the feudal despotism," (Hausenstein, ibid ., p.77). In literature we find in addition to the eulogies of kings, in inscriptions and elsewhere, also heroic warlike epics, and the heroic-knightly drama; among the Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey; among the Japanese, the knightly drama, glorifying the fidelity of the Samurai, who were the feudal masters; among the Incas, likewise the heroic drama, etc. A divine sublimity, a crude strength, both inaccessible to ordinary mortals, are expressed also in medieval European art, particularly in the architecture of the cathedrals, built in the course of many years by great numbers of unknown persons; later, in the bourgeois epoch, these gloomy and solemn structures began to be designated as "citadels of the spirit".
The transition from the feudal style to the bourgeois styles begins everywhere with the growth of trade, of commercial capital, or trade. capitalist relations, in the Athens of the Fifth Century, in the Italian commercial city republics of the Renaissance, later in the commercial cities of all Europe. The process was finally completed with the definite collapse of feudalism, i.e., with the victory of the French revolution (1789-1793). In the place of the masses, held down by the feudal system, by the scale of hierarchic relations, we have the bour geois individual with his commercial calculations, his thoughts of profit, "a man and a citizen". In music the situation is as follows to the Sixteenth Century, the community principle prevailed (i.e., in the sense of feudal restrictions, serfdom, but after all a form of organization, N. B .); the individual was relegated entirely to the background. He was absorbed in the family, the community, the Church, the guild or brotherhood, the state. Accordingly, choral music was the prevalent form of the times. But now the individual also wished to make himself felt ( i.e., the energetic, vigorous bourgeois individual, then still "young" eager for knowledge, capable of practical calculations, N. B .),and therefore we find individual singing and . . . the musical drama growing up by the side of the chorus" (Kothe, ibid ., p.159 ). The new musical style ( stile rappresentativo, i.e., the style of theatrical performances, of opera, of drama), practically constituted a transition to recitative, i.e., half singing, half conversation; melody, rhythm, etc.; all were subordinated to a faithful representation of the words of the text. ("It is extremely interesting to note the concomitants of the circumstance that this new musical style arose simultaneously in three quarters," writes Kothe, ibid ., p.161, "so that it is difficult to determine the real `inventor'." The reader should recall, in this connection, Bordeaux' remark concerning the similar condition in science, already mentioned in our discussion of that "superstructure"). The trained merchant replaced the royal-feudal religious banner with a desire for the earthly, for the individual human. Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest artists of all times and peoples, and one of the most significant of all humans, magnificently expressed the new tendency of thought in many fields: as a philosopher, inventor, natural scientist, mathematician, an incomparable artist, and even as a poet. "Leonardo renounces all mysticism. He reduces the fact of human life to the law of circulation, well known and well drawn by him. With cold cynicism, he analyzes the structural laws of the world of human forms, and with an intellectual brutality that is above all sentimentality, he graphically depicts the sexual act. . . He approaches the problem of light by the path of knowledge; the influence of light and atmosphere on form becomes the problem of experimental optics. The rhythm of graphic composition is for him a geometrical secret; the wonderful panel with Saint Anna, the Madonna, the Jesus child, and the Lamb, is doubtless the outcome of very exhaustive mathematical combinations, of painful thought concerning the theory of curves" (Hausenstein, ibid ., pp.100-102). Realism, rationalism, individualism, these are the "-isms" of the Renaissance. In poetry, the path of transition from the Medieval-Gothic style to the new style is successively marked by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc. The "content" of this art is a criticism of feudal churchdom, a rejection of the feudal style in favor of an elegant style of the world; realistic, but also personal, individual. The connection with the social life is here clearly evident.
Unfortunately we cannot dwell on all the art forms, for instance, on the Baroque, on which, by the way, we have an excellent Marxian work by Hausenstein, Vom Geist des Barock (München, 1920). We shall proceed at once to the modern period. Just before the French Revolution, the so called Rococo style prevailed, the social basis of which was the rule of the feudal aristocracy and the financial oligarchy (haute finance), parvenus who bought ducal and princely titles and adopted aristocratic manners. Positions of tax-farmers were sold, manipulations and dubious financial operations were carried on on the Stock exchange; commercial and colonial policy, domination by the nobility, which needed money and sold its titles, rich burghers who bought these titles (also purchasing the young scions of the nobility '`as husbands for their daughters), etc., such was the environment "up above". This environment determined the manners peculiar to this gallant "period". Life was dominated by love, not as a powerful passion, but in the form of philandering, which had become the trade of elegant idlers. The ideal type was that of the specialists in deflowering virgins (the deverginateur ); the frivolous doctrine of the "proper moment" for this operation constituted practically the spiritual axis of the age. Rococo art, with its delicate and absolutely erotic curves, is a perfect reflection of these traits in the social psychology ( cf. Hausenstein: Rokoko; Französische und deutsche Illustratoren des XVIII Jahrhunderts, München, 1928). With the growth of the bourgeoisie, with their battle and victory, a new style was brought forth, the best representative of which is, in French painting, David. This style was the embodiment of the bourgeois virtues of the revolutionary bourgeoisie: the ancient "simplicity" of its forms expressed its "content", concerning which Diderot wrote that art must have the purpose of glorifying great and fine deeds, of honoring unhappy and defamed virtue, of branding flagrant vice and of inspiring tyrants with fear. Diderot also advised dramatists "to get close to real life"; he himself blazed the trail in literature for the so called "bourgeois drama" ( Cf. Fr. Muekle: Das Kulturproblem der französischen Revolution , vol. i, Jena, 1921, pp.177 et. seq .); which was called le genre honnête (Beaumarchais' Le Mariage de Figaro may be taken as a specimen). The social roots of this genre honnête are perfectly manifest. If, after having viewed a painting by Watteau, of the Rococo School, we return to our room and open J. J. Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloise, we shall find we have entered a different sphere (George Brandes: Main Currents of the Nineteenth Century Literature, New York, vol. i, p.17). This changed artistic sphere corresponds closely with the changed social sphere; the burgher has become the hero in the place of the enervated parlor butterflies of the aristocracy, and he begins to create his genre honnête.