THE METAPHYSICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 125
Each principle has had its century in which to manifest itself: The principle of authority, for in- stance, had the eleventh century, as the principle of in- dividualism had the eighteenth century. From, conse- quence to consequence it was the century which apper- tained to the principle and not the principle to the century. In other words, it was the principle which made history, it was not history which made the principle. When, further, in order to save the principles as well as history, we enquire why such a principle has been manifested in the eleventh or in the eighteenth century rather than in another, we are necessarily compelled to minutely examine into what were the men of the eleventh century, what were those of the eighteenth, what were their respective wants, their productive forces, their mode of production, the raw material of their production, in fine, what were the relations between man and man resulting from all these conditions of existence. To thoroughly examine all these questions, is it not to make real profane history of the men in each century, to represent these men at the same time as the authors and the actors of their own drama? But from the moment that you represent men as the actors and the authors of their own history you have, by a detour, arrived at the actual point of departure since you have abandoned the eternal principles from which yop at first set out.
M. Proudhon has not even advanced sufficiently on the cross-road which the ideologist takes in order to gain the highway of history.
Sixth Observation.
Let us take with M. Proudhon this cross-road. Let us grant that the economic relations, regarded as immutable laws, eternal principles, ideal categories, were
