ABSTRACT
The divine hope for the unattainable is eternally renewed in the breast of each fresh generation, and the ideal, driven from one quarter, finds refuge in another. It is the function of philosophy to follow in the track of this inevitable process; to forestall disillusion and temper reaction. The typical representative of the phase of idealism is a man whose name is more familiar than his writings. Karl Marx is undoubtedly the Rousseau of economic idealism. The claims of the economic idealist were seen to find their only justification in an unconscious reference to the absolute value embodied in human labour. But it appears as if, the more nearly man’s work approached to the sphere of absolute value, the weaker was his claim upon society for an adequate recompense. The silent re-adjustment of values in the direction of our ideal is increasingly possible by wise collective action.
