ript which
constitute the greatest and most important of, as regards its
permanent interest, part of the work. The places in which Marx gives
their appropriate place in the genesis of political economy to such
writers as Petty, North, Locke and Hume, I consider myself obliged to
give as literally and completely as possible, and still more so, his
explanation of the "economic tableaux" by Quesnay, the insoluble
riddle of the sphinx to all economists. I have omitted however that
part which dealt solely with the writings of Herr Duehring as far as
the connection permitted. For the rest, I am perfectly well satisfied
with the extent to which the views represented in this work, have made
their way into the minds of the working class and the scientists
throughout the world since the publication of the former edition.

F. ENGELS.

_London, 23d May, 1894._

CHAPTER III

INTRODUCTION

_I. In General._

Modern socialism is in its essence the product of the existence on the
one hand of the class antagonisms which are dominant in modern
society, between the property possessors and those who have no
property and between the wage workers and the bourgeois; and, on the
other, of the anarchy which is prevalent in modern production. In its
theoretical form however it appears as a development of the
fundamental ideas of the great French philosophers of the eighteenth
century. Like every new theory it was obliged to attach itself to the
existing philosophy however deeply its roots were embedded in the
economic fact.

The great men in France who cleared the minds of the people for the
coming revolution were themselves uncompromisingly revolutionary. They
did not recognise outside authority of any kind whatsoever. Religion,
natural science, society, the state, all were subjected to the most
unsparing criticism, and everything was compelled to justify its
existence before the judgment seat of reason or perish. Reason was
established as the one and universal measure. It was the time when, as
Hegel said, the world was turned upside down, first in the sense that
the human mind and the principles arrived at by process of thought
were claimed as the foundations of all human actions and social
relations, but later also, in the wider sense, that the reality which
contradicted these theories had indeed to be turned upside down. All
forms of society and the state existent here