human
slavery and ring in the new era with its heaven of machine slavery.

One point must be grasped and held by all who would understand the
changes which take place within the social realm and it is this: they
are due to the differences in the instrumentalities or machines by which
the necessities of life are produced.

Man has risen above the lower animals which have common ancestors with
his own, because of the superiority of the hand by which he does things
to the hands by which they do things. If a man's body in general and
hand in particular were not a great improvement over the bodies and
hands of the apes, his mind and morality would differ but little from
theirs.

The superiority of the civilization of this age over its predecessors is
a question of instrumentalities by which the efficiency of the hand is
increased.

If all the modern machinery were taken from this generation and replaced
by the implements of the stone age the civilization of the next
generation would begin to sink, and within a century it would reach the
ancient level.

Strong expression is also given to the great truth upon which we are
here dwelling by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in its noteworthy
Manifesto:

Obviously, in order that there may be ideas and human history, two
material things must first be present: human beings, and food and
shelter for them. And the fundamental fact that is so seldom
realized is, that where, by what means, and how much, food and
shelter can be obtained, determines if, where, and how, man shall
live, and the forms his social institutions and ideas shall take.

It is, indeed, the very basis of Socialist philosophy that, in the
words of Frederick Engels:

"In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic
production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily
following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from
which, alone can be explained, the political and intellectual
history of that epoch."

This materialist concept is the Socialist key to history. It is the
first principle of a science of society, and, being directly
antagonistic to all religious philosophy, it is destined to drive
this "philosophy" and all its superstitions from their last ditch.

Civilization will not die with the death of the capitalist system of
production any more than it did with the feudal syste