The central theme of the _Working Men’s Programme_ is the _vocation of the working class_ as the makers and representatives of a new era in the history of the world. We have seen that Lassalle’s _System of Acquired Rights_ was an application of the historical method to legal ideas and institutions. In his social-economic writings we find the application of the same method to economic facts and institutions. The _Working Men’s Programme_ is a brilliant example of the historical method, and indeed is a lucid review of the economic development of Europe, culminating in the working men’s State, the full-grown democracy. In the mediæval world the owners of land controlled politics, the army, law, and taxation in their own interest, while labour was oppressed and despised. The present _régime_ of the capitalist classes is due to a gradual process of development continued for centuries, and is the product of many forces which have acted and reacted on each other: the invention of the mariner’s compass and of gunpowder; abroad the discovery of America and of the sea-route to India; at home the overthrow of the feudal houses by a central government, which established a regular justice, security of property, and better means of communication. This was to be followed in time by the development of machinery, like the cotton-spinning machine of Arkwright, itself the living embodiment of the industrial and economic revolution, which was destined to produce a corresponding political change. The new machinery, the large industry, the division of labour, cheap goods, and the world-market—these were all parts of an organic whole. Production in mass made cheap goods possible; the cheapening of commodities called forth a wider market, and the wider market led to a still larger production. The rulers of the industrial world, the capitalists, became the rulers also of the political; the French Revolution was merely a proclamation of a mighty fact which had already established itself in the most advanced portions of Europe. But the marvellous enthusiasm of the Revolution was kindled by the fact that its champions at the time represented the cause of humanity. Before long, however, it became manifest that the new rulers fought for the interests of a class, the _bourgeoisie_; and another class, that of the proletariat, or unpropertied workers, began to define itself in opposition to them. Like their predecessors, the _bourgeoisie_ wielded the legal and political power for their own selfish ends. They made wealth the test and basis of political and social right; they established a restricted franchise; shackled the free expression of opinion by cautions and taxes on newspapers, and threw the burden of taxation on the working classes.