SO WE COME to the Soviet concept of the ethic, that
strange cement that becomes an indispensable tool of the
writer today. In their Handbook of Philosophy, M. Rosenthal
and P. Yudin, two Russian philosophers, give a succinct defi-
nition of the ethic. It is particularly important that this
definition be read with the whole question of standards in
mind.

"Marxism," they state, "believes that ethics is a human
creation, a reflection in consciousness of the needs and desires,
hopes and aspirations of actual men. It views this reflection
as arising always out of the concrete material conditions of
life, the actual processes and relations whereby men produce
the necessities for their life. It holds that men's moral concep-
tions change as the material conditions of life, the forces of
production and the production relations change, and that they
are limited at any given time by the economic structure of
society.

"Marxism believes that such concepts as good, right,
justice, and the like derive their meaning from the actual
conditions of men in society and must refer to these conditions
or propose changes in them in accordance with the needs and
interests of the various strata of society.

"It follows that for dialectical materialism, as opposed
to other philosophies, ethical considerations cannot be used
to explain historical evolution but rather are the products of

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