ople. Had it no other
bearing, the Marx-Engels theory, considered solely as a contribution to
the science of history, would have been one of the greatest intellectual
achievements of the nineteenth century. By emphasizing the importance of
the economic factors in social evolution, it has done much for economics
and more for history.[63]

III

While the Materialistic Conception of History bears the names of Marx
and Engels, as the theory of organic evolution bears the names of Darwin
and Wallace, it is not claimed that the idea had never before been
expressed. Just as thousands of years before Darwin and Wallace the
theory which bears their names had been dimly perceived, so the idea
that economic conditions dominate historical developments had its
foreshadowings. The famous dictum of Aristotle, that only by the
introduction of machines would the abolition of slavery ever be made
possible, is a conspicuous example of many anticipations of the theory.
It is true that "In dealing with speculations so remote, we have to
guard against reading modern meanings into writings produced in ages
whose limitations of knowledge were serious, whose temper and standpoint
are wholly alien to our own,"[64] but the Aristotelian saying admits of
no other interpretation. It is clearly a recognition of the fact that
the supreme politico-social institution of the time depended upon hand
labor.

In later times, the idea of a direct connection between economic
conditions and legal and political institutions reappears in the works
of various writers. Professor Seligman[65] quotes from Harrington's
"Oceana" the argument that the prevailing form of government depends
upon the conditions of land tenure, and the extent of its
monopolization. Saint-Simon, too, as already stated, taught that
political institutions depend upon economic conditions. But it is to
Marx and Engels that we owe the first formulation into a definite theory
of what had hitherto been but a suggestion, and the beginnings of a
literature, now of considerable proportions, dealing with history from
its standpoint. No more need be said concerning the "originality" of the
theory.

A word as to the designation of the theory. Its authors gave it the name
"historical materialism," and it has been urged that the name is, for
many reasons, unfortunately chosen. Two of the leading exponents of the
theory, Professor Seligman and Mr. Ghent, the former an opponent, the
latter an advoca