Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/108

 their leisure time. The emancipation of their class appears to them as a foolish dream. Consequently, it is foot-ball, boxing, horse racing and opportunities for gambling which move them the deepest and to which their entire leisure time, their individual powers, and their material means are devoted.

One seeks hopelessly to rouse by political preaching the English laborers to a higher way of life, to a mind capable of nobler considerations. The ethic of the proletariat flows from its revolutionary efforts and it is these which have strengthened and ennobled it. It is the idea of the revolution which has brought about that wonderful elevation of the proletariat from its deepest degradation, which elevation stands as the greatest result of the second half of the nineteenth century.

To this revolutionary idealism we must above all cling fast, then come what will, we can bear the heaviest, attain the highest, and remain worthy of the great historical purpose that awaits us.