Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/20

 a world by successive acts. On the other side—and this pleased most highly the bourgeoisie—they declared all revolutions and catastrophies to be something abnormal, contrary to the laws of nature, and wholly absurd. Whoever seeks to-day to scientifically attack revolution does it in the name of the theory of evolution, demonstrating that nature makes no leaps, that consequently any sudden change of social relations is impossible; that advance is only possible through the accumulation of little changes and slight improvements, called social reforms. Considered from this point of view revolution is an unscientific conception about which scientifically cultured people only shrug their shoulders.

It might be replied that the analogy between natural and social laws is by no means perfect. To be sure, our conception of the one will unconsciously influence our conception of the other sphere as we have already seen. This is however, no advantage and it is better to restrain rather than favor this transference of laws from one sphere to another. To be sure, all progress in methods of observation and comprehension of any one sphere can and will improve our methods and comprehension in others, but it is equally true that within each one of these spheres there are peculiar laws not applying to the others.

First of all must be noted the fundamental distinction between animate and inanimate