As long as no one had shown on positive evidence the economic basis of the political, juridical and moral life, the aspirations of the great majority for the amelioration of social conditions aimed vaguely at the demand and the partial conquest of some _accessory_ instrumentality, such as freedom of worship, political suffrage, public education, etc. And certainly, I have no desire to deny the great utility of these conquests. But the _sancta sanctorum_ always remained impenetrable to the eyes of the masses, and as economic power continued to be the privilege of a few, all the conquests and all the concessions had no real basis, separated, as they were, from the solid and fecund foundation which alone can give life and abiding power. Now, that Socialism has shown--even before Marx, but never before with so much scientific precision--that individual ownership, private property in land and the means of production is the vital point of the question--the problem is formulated in exact terms in the consciousness of contemporaneous humanity. What method will it be necessary to employ in order to abolish this monopoly of economic power, and the mass of suffering and ills, of hate and injustice which flow from it? The method of the _Class Struggle_, based on the scientifically proven fact that every class tends to preserve and increase its acquired advantages and privileges, teaches the class deprived of economic power that in order to succeed in conquering it, the struggle (we will consider, further on, the forms of this struggle) must be a struggle of class against class, and not of individual against individual. Hatred toward such or such an individual--even if it result in his death--does not advance us a single step toward the solution of the problem; it rather retards its solution, because it provokes a reaction in the general feeling against personal violence and it violates the principle of _respect for the human person_ which socialism proclaims most emphatically for the benefit of all and against all opponents. The solution of the problem does not become easier because it is recognized that the present abnormal condition, which is becoming more and more acute--misery for the masses and pleasure for a few--is not the consequence of the bad intentions of such or such an individual. Viewed from this side also socialism is, in fact, in perfect harmony with modern science, which denies the free will of man and sees in human activity, individual and collective, a necessary effect whose determining causes are the conditions of race and environment, acting concurrently.[38] Crime, suicide, insanity, misery are not the fruits of free will, of individual faults, as metaphysical spiritualism believes, and neither is it an effect of free will, a fault of the individual capitalist if the workingman is badly paid, if he is without work, if he is poor and miserable.