Max Beer

“ That stage we may call the Periclean age, or we may know it as the Renascence, or as the age of Meji - in essence it is the deliverance of man from medieval conceptions and the opening up of a period of scientific research and progressive development. It marks a change of front of humanity from the past towards the present and future. Only in that sense we may say the East stands for faith, the West for science. ”

“ Historic materialism claims to be a sociological theory, and, by implication, a method of research, dealing with the dynamics, with the motor forces and causes of change, of human society. Its purpose is to do for history what Galileo, Bacon, and Darwin have done for natural science. It starts from the proposition that the mind is neither the centre of innate, supersensuous, and eternal ideas, nor a mirror that passively reflects the external world, but an active physiological organ capable of producing thought out of the materials received, through the senses, from the external world. ”

“ Even the spiritual rebellion of an Oriental does not go beyond sombre questioning, while with the Occidental questioning is the beginning, then follow research, methodical arrangement of materials, and the building up of a system. The Oriental, in stopping short at questioning, never arrives at the necessity of research and method. The boldest Hebrew, Job, exhausts himself in woebegone questionings and succumbs abruptly to a vision, while the Greek rebel, Prometheus, wrests the light from Heaven and teaches man to reason and to act. ”

“ The bases of history are geographic and economic conditions - the land on which man dwells and the modes of production by which he lives. In the more primitive stages of social evolution, geographic conditions control his settlement, his food, his raw materials, his technology, his communications with the outer world, and his defence. ”

“ Through the enlightenment of the mind, acting through great men. The enlightenment may be effected through inspiration or through ratiocination. With inspiration we can have nothing to do; the theological stage is a thing of the past. There remains only ratiocination, which means that the mind by its capacity of analysing, combining, and syllogising can discover the unsoundness of established conceptions and build up new ones that are more satisfactory to human reason. ”

“ The editors of the Old Testament had, unfortunately, neither the historical sense nor the critical faculty, neither method nor system. Orientals, as a rule, do not possess them. The long ages of stagnant social organisation, the slow, uniform rhythm of their economic life, the essential sameness of their experience, resulted in a veneration of the past that stifled research and impeded renovation. ”

“ On what ground are we justified in ascribing to the mind two contradictory qualities, viz., of being only the interpreter of nature, but the sovereign master of history? Looking closely at the reply we are dealing with, it amounts to a deification of the human mind as manifested in the religious founder, lawgiver, empire-builder, and financier. ”

“ Their effect on the dynamics of society is, however, not so far-reaching and direct; they have more to do with the statics of social organisation and with the fixing of racial types, geographic conditions being more stable and more liable to control by man, especially in his scientific stage. For the comprehension of the dynamics of society the economic conditions are of greater importance. The lines of economic development and technique are more complicated, their movements more rapid, their changes more striking, and therefore their effect on man more direct and embracing. ”

“ Now, the Higher Critics have rarely cared much for sociology. Their aids have been chiefly Semitic philology and analogies between ancient Hebrew and Arabic life, but they either neglected or under-estimated economic and geographical factors and social struggles: the methods of historic materialism, as used by Marxists, are still unknown to them. ”

“ A geo-economic system in its formation and growth produces in the minds of the members of the community conceptions of religion, morality, laws, and politics which correspond to the needs and aspirations of that community. A system of thought has been formed that appears to be true and right and beautiful. ”

“ There is, indeed, an interaction between matter and mind. In this interaction the geo-economic conditions are the legislative, the mind is the executive; the material factors precede, the mind follows, interprets, transforms external facts into logical truths and ethical maxims, and the into motives of the actions of man. ”

“ As, soon, however, as the geo-economic system has undergone a considerable number of imperceptible changes - viz., by accumulation of the means of life, by inventions and discoveries, by communication with other communities, by wars of expansion, by a consequent shifting of social relations, the necessity for a reorganisation of society and the need for a new system of thought begin to make themselves felt, generally in the form of social and class struggles. ”

“ Then new leaders, new philosophers, new prophets arise and work up the new sensations into new conceptions and ideals and formulate a new order of things. Society enters on a period of revolution. It is evident from our reply that the mind reacts on the material bases of society. ”

“ The ideals to be striven for, the models to be acted upon, were supposed to have been realised at the beginning of things; the primeval age was perfection and the farther we were removed from it the more hopeless was our deterioration. ”

“ Still, both sets of conditions are so closely interlaced with each other that we may call them geo-economic conditions, always, however, bearing in mind that the economic elements are the more active and fluid. The phases of geo-economic evolution furnish the mind with new sensations and stimuli. ”

“ The Greeks reached that stage after the Persian wars, Western Europe during the age of discoveries, Japan during the Western industrial expansion of the second half of the nineteenth century, and the great bulk of Asiatic humanity is now being cast adrift from its medieval moorings by the surging waves of Western imperialism. ”

“ In the following articles, which are based partly on independent research, partly on the work of others, especially on Marx and modern geographers and historians, an attempt is made to illustrate Historic Materialism by the working out of certain historical and political problems. ”

“ The difference is neither racial nor geographic, but economic, political, and mental. Instead of East and West we may put Medievalism and Modernism, and as long as the difference lasts the respective mental attitudes vary greatly. ”