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Notes on the points to be mentioned here and not to be omitted:166
1. War attains complete development before peace; how certain economic phenomena, such as wage-labor, machinery, etc., are developed at an earlier date through war and in armies than within bourgeois society. The connection between productive force and the means of communication is made especially plain in the case of the army.
2. The relation between the idealistic and realistic methods of writing history; namely, the so-called history of civilization which is all a history of religion and states.
In this connection something may be said of the different methods hitherto employed in writing history. The so-called objective [method]. The subjective. (The moral and others). The philosophic.
3. Secondary and tertiary. Conditions of production which have been taken over or transplanted; in general, those that are not original. Here [is to be treated] the effect of international relations.
4. Objections to the materialistic character of this view. Its relation to naturalistic materialism.
5. The dialectics of the conceptions productive force (means of production) and relation of production, dialectics whose limits are to be determined and which does not do away with the concrete difference.
6. The unequal relation between the development of material production and art, for instance. In general, the conception of progress is not to be taken in the sense of the usual abstraction. In the case of art, etc., it is not so important and difficult to understand this disproportion as in that of practical social relations, e. g. the relation between education in the United States and Europe. The really difficult point, however, that is to be discussed here is that of the unequal (?) development of relations of production as legal relations. As, e. g., the connection between Roman civil law (this is less true of criminal and public law) and modern production.
7. This conception of development appears to imply necessity. On the other hand, justification of accident. Varia. (Freedom and other points). (The effect of means of communication). World history does not always appear in history as the result of world history.
8. The starting point [is to be found] in certain facts of nature embodied subjectively and objectively in clans, races, etc.
4. Produktion, Produktionsmittel und Produktionsverhltnisse. Produktionsverhltnis und Verkehrsverhltnisse. Staats- und Eigenthumsformen im Verhltnis zu den Produktions- und Verkehrsverhltnissen. Rechtsverhltnisse. Familienverhltnisse.
Notabene in bezug auf Punkte, die hier zu erwhnen und nicht vergessen werden drfen:
1. Der Krieg ist frher ausgebildet, wie der Frieden: [Auszufhren wre] die Art, wie durch den Krieg und in den Armeen etc. gewisse konomische Verhltnisse wie Lohnarbeit, Maschinerie etc. frher entwickelt [werden] als im Inneren der brgerlichen Gesellschaft. Auch das Verhltnis von Produktivkraft und Verkehrsverhltnissen wird besonders anschaulich in der Armee.
2. Verhltnis der bisherigen idealen Geschichtsschreibung zur realen. Namentlich die sogenannte Kulturgeschichte, die alle Religions-und Staatengeschichte.
Bei der Gelegenheit kann auch etwas gesagt werden ber die verschiedenen Arten der bisherigen Geschichtsschreibung. Sogenannte objektive. Subjektive. (Moralische und andere.) Philosophische.
3. Sekundres und Tertires. Ueberhaupt abgeleitete, bertragene, nicht ursprngliche Produktionsverhltnisse. Hier [ist das] Einspielen der internationalen Verhltnisse [zu behandeln].
4. Vorwrfe ber Materialismus dieser Auffassung. Verhltnis zum naturalistischen Materialismus.
5. Dialektik der Begriffe Produktivkraft (Produktionsmittel)Pg 309 und Produktionsverhltnis, eine Dialektik, deren Grenzen zu bestimmen sind und den realen Unterschied nicht aufhebt.
6. Das unegale Verhltnis der Entwicklung der materiellen Produktion zum Beispiel zur knstlerischen. Ueberhaupt ist der Begriff des Fortschritts nicht in der gewhnlichen Abstraktion zu fassen. Bei der Kunst etc. ist diese Disproportion noch nicht so wichtig und schwierig zu fassen als innerhalb praktisch-sozialer Verhltnisse selbst, zum Beispiel das Bildungsverhltnis der Vereinigten Staaten zu Europa. Der eigentlich schwierige Punkt, der hier zu errtern, ist aber der, wie die Produktionsverhltnisse als Rechtsverhltnisse in ungleiche (?) Entwicklung treten. Also zum Beispiel das Verhltnis des rmischen Privatrechts (im Kriminalrecht und ffentlichen ist das wenige der Fall) zur modernen Produktion.
7. Diese Auffassung erscheint als nothwendige Entwicklung. Aber Berechtigung des Zufalls. Varia.167 (Die Freiheit und anderes noch.) (Einwirkung der Kommunikationsmittel.) Weltgeschichte eigentlich168 nicht immer in der Geschichte als weltgeschicht[liches] Resultat.
8. Der Ausgangspunkt [ist] natrlich von der Naturbestimmtheit [zu nehmen]; subjektiv und objektiv, Stmme, Rassen etc.
It is well known that certain periods of highest development of art stand in no direct connection with the general development of society, nor withPg 310 the material basis and the skeleton structure of its organization. Witness the example of the Greeks as compared with the modern nations or even Shakespeare. As regards certain forms of art, as e. g. the epos, it is admitted that they can never be produced in the world-epoch making form as soon as art as such comes into existence; in other words, that in the domain of art certain important forms of it are possible only at a low stage of its development. If that be true of the mutual relations of different forms of art within the domain of art itself, it is far less surprising that the same is true of the relation of art as a whole to the general development of society. The difficulty lies only in the general formulation of these contradictions. No sooner are they specified than they are explained. Let us take for instance the relation of Greek art and of that of Shakespeare's time to our own. It is a well known fact that Greek mythology was not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also the very ground from which it had sprung. Is the view of nature and of social relations which shaped Greek imagination and Greek [art] possible in the age of automatic machinery, and railways, and locomotives, and electric telegraphs? Where does Vulcan come in as against Roberts & Co.; Jupiter, as against the lightning rod; and Hermes, as against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology masters and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in and through the imagination; hence it disappears as soon as manPg 311 gains mastery over the forces of nature. What becomes of the Goddess Fame side by side with Printing House Square?169 Greek art presupposes the existence of Greek mythology, i. e. that nature and even the form of society are wrought up in popular fancy in an unconsciously artistic fashion. That is its material. Not, however, any mythology taken at random, nor any accidental unconsciously artistic elaboration of nature (including under the latter all objects, hence [also] society). Egyptian mythology could never be the soil or womb which would give birth to Greek art. But in any event [there had to be] a mythology. In no event [could Greek art originate] in a society which excludes any mythological explanation of nature, any mythological attitude towards it and which requires from the artist an imagination free from mythology.
