30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Weber has discussed six religions and written three books to make his point. But he could not win his case. We too agree with Weber that countless little incidents have helped the origin and growth of the Reformation. But it appears that one need not get lost in those little incidents. Even according to Weber himself, the fate of a sociologist depends on whether he is ready to choose one prominent factor and see its influence on the course of history.27 This is again the methodology he chose for himself. He has refused himself to be lost in the details. He was continuing with his discussion on the origins of modern capitalism in 1918. Now we take it for granted that Weber would have admitted the influence of "innumerable little incidents" in the case of capitalism too. But he singles out the religious factor. For "...the germ of modern capitalism must be sought in a region where efficaciously a theory was dominant which was distinct from that of the East and of classical antiquity...."28 By extending Weber's own logic to our case we conclude that if there was one factor which was more important than others in bringing about the Reformation, it was the economic factor. The economic factor was working at both the ends. On the one side it created an opposition to the Catholic church through papal taxes and on the other end it encouraged resistance by bringing up a new economic force: the mercantile capitalism and the upcoming bourgeoisie. 1 Especially relevant are the three books of Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The Religion of India and The Religion of China. The first book, in which he shows that Calvinism supplied the psychological prerequisites for modern capitalism, is the most famous and the most controversial. The second book asserts that India could not produce capitalism because Hinduism was otherworldly. The third book says that Confusian ethics was teaching an accommodation with the world and hence it did not provide a positive inspiration for rational economic enterprise as did Calvinism. 2 "Even historically theoretical emancipation has special significance for Germany. For Germany^s revolutionary past is theoretical; it is the Reformation . . . the revo< lution then started in the brain of a monk . . . But if Protestantism was not the true solution of the problem, it was at least the true setting for it", Marx and Engels, On Religion, Moscow, 1954, p 50. 3 To explain this statement fully one has to make a perusal of the Marxist theory of religion. The scope of this paper, however, does not allow such a venture. Hence we take it here for granted that there is no absolutely independent existence nor influence for religion and ideology. Nor is religion (nor the superstructure in general) a passive element. Religion exists partly to console the individual at such miserable moment as death, sickness and so on, and partly to defend, justify and to reinforce the infrastructure and its relations of production. As far as Calvinism and capitalism were concerned, Marx did not analyse their relation as elaborately as Weber did. Yet the casual remarks of Marx make it clear that Calvinism was bound up with the new mode of production. One such casual