Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/26

 divine original force from which even the human soul springs. But this original force, the original fire, is bodily, it exists within and not without nature, and the soul is not immortal, even if it survives the human body. Finally it will be consumed by the original fire.

Stoicism and Platonism finally became elements of Christianity, and overcame in this form the materialist Epicureanism. This latter materialism could only prove satisfactory to a social class which was satisfied with things as they were, which found in them its pleasure and happiness, and had no need for another state of affairs.

It was necessarily rejected by those classes to whom the world as it was seemed bad and full of pain; to the decaying class of old aristocracy as well as the exploited classes for whom present and future in this world could only be equally hopeless, when the material world, that is, the world of experience, was the only one, and no reliance was to be placed on an almighty spirit who had it in his power to bring this world to destruction. Finally, materialism was bound to be rejected by the whole society so soon as this had so far degenerated that even the ruling classes suffered under the state of affairs, when even these came to the opinion that no good could come out of the existing world, but only evil. To despise the world with the Stoics, or to look for a Redeemer from another world with the Christians, became the only alternative.

A new element was brought into Christianity with the invasions of the barbarians, in that the old and decrepit Roman society with its antiquated system of production and decadent views of life had now combined with a youthful German society, organised on the basis of the mark—a people of simple thought and content to enjoy life; these elements combined to produce a strange new formation.

The Christian Church became the law which held the new State together. Here, again, the theory is apparently confirmed that the spirit is stronger than matter, and the intelligence of the Christian priesthood showed itself strong enough to tame the brute