HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

found in the psychological realm in the antithesis between Intellec-
tualism and Voluntarism. On this account the attempt which has
been made during the last decade to introduce the so-called scien
tific * method into history, is not in accord with the development of
1 [Naturwissenschaftliche. In English the term "science" is so commonly
used as the equivalent of "natural science" that the confusion objected to in
45.] Nature and History : Carlyle, Marx. 655
psychology during our century. It is indeed not the great histo
rians who have fallen victims to this mistake, but here and there
some who have either been too weak to stand against the watch
words of the day, or have made use of them for popular effect. In
this so-called scientific * treatment of historical structures or pro
cesses the misuse of comparisons and analogies is especially unde
sirable as if it were a genuine insight to call society an organism ; 2
or as if the effect of one people upon another could be designated as
endosmose and exosmose !
The introduction of natural-science modes of thought into history
has not been limited to this postulate of method which seeks to as
certain the laws of the historical process ; it has also had an influ
ence upon the contents. At the time when Feuerbach s Materialism,
which was a degenerate product of the Hegelian dialectic (of. above,
44, 6), was yet in its vigour, Marx and Engels created socialism s
materialistic philosophy of history, in which motives from Hegel and
from Comte cross in peculiar manner. The meaning of history they
too find in the " processes of social life." This collective life, how
ever, is essentially of an economic nature. The determining forces
in all social conditions are the economic relations ; they form the
ultimate motives for all activities. Their change and their develop
ment are the only conditioning forces for public life and politics, and
likewise for science and religion. All the different activities of
civilisation are thus only offshoots of the economic life, and all
history should be economic history.
6. If history has had to defend its autonomy against the destruction
of the boundary lines which delimit it from the sciences, the natural
science of the nineteenth century has conversely contained an emi
nently historical factor which has attained a commanding influence, viz.
the evolutionary motive. In fact we find the natural science of to-day
in its general theories, as well as in its particular investigations, de
termined by two great principles which apparently stand in opposition