4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST has been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations of the state to the property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the right of its owners. The interests of society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passed away since civilization began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's existence; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become tixe termination of a career of which property is the end and aim; because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction. Democracy in governments, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges and universal eduction foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of tire liberty, equality and fraternity of tire ancient gentes."2 We have added emphasis to two points above, because these are in need of some discussion. First, what is meant by "a revival, in a higher from, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes"? We see in this how, without any knowledge of the writings of Marx and Engles—and even apparently without being influenced by Hegel—Morgan, by the sheer pressure of his own objective researches, was led brilliantly to anticipate the dialectics of social development, the most general law of which is "the negation of the negation": the primitive pro-class society (evidenced for Morgan by the ancient "gentes" or clans) was negated by class society characterised by the outgrowth of private property, while the class society in its turn is going to be negated again by the classless society of the future, ensuring for mankind the revival of the ancient equality and liberty, though at an incomparably higher level. But more of this later. Vision of the Future: Marx and Engels For the present, let us concentrate on his other point emphasised above. What was he driving at when he spoke of "the next higher plane of society to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending"? Evidently enough, Morgan had in mind the law of social development. As characteristic of this law, he was in his own way even pointing to the inner contradiction of class society propelling it to the classless society. Thus he spoke of the outgrowth of property becoming "for the people an unmanageable power" and