GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

694 BTHXOS AND POLITICS: THK MODERNS
historical epoch' 1
. It seems only too probable that Lenin
was right
Are the Implications of Communist Theory Completely
Determinist? The question is sometimes raised whether
the Marxist theory of the breakdown of Capitalism
and its supersession by Gomttiunism is completely
detenmmst. Are these events bound to happen irres-
pective of human will, or can die human will cause
them to occur, or prevent their occurrence? Again,
if they are bound to occur sooner or later, can the
human will accelerate or retard their occurrence? The
answer to these questions is not as dear as could be wished.
Marx often writes as if the human mind and, therefore, the
human will, were completely moulded by the material
environment whose changes it reflects. But the mind and
the will are, he also held, not without their reverse effect
upon the environment which moulds them.
That the general tenor of men's beliefs about religion,
morals, law, justice and politics is coloured,
mined, by a particular phase of economic development,
is even deter*
and that to this extent mental occurrences are the products
of non-mental occurrences which condition them, is true.
This comparatively simple account, in terms of a straightforward
determinism, is, however, qualified in various
ways. In die first place, Marx held a theory of knowledge
which belongs to the type known as Pragmatic or Instrumental,
1 according to which the human mind never
merely knows anything, but always changes what it knows
in the process erf knowing it Ifit changes it successfully, that
is to say, in such a way as to further the purpose which
originally led die mind to concern itself with the object
known, the knowledge is said to be true. This theory
enables Marx to represent man's relation to events not
as that of a passive spectator, but as that of an active
moulder. "Man," says Marx, "is himself the agent of
*See my GmJt * Pftitmjfy, Chapter XVII, pp. 474-476, foe an
tut '