because of him. But, little by little, his teaching seems to have
leavened the thought of the whole civilized world, so that to-day
thousands who barely know his name are deeply affected by his
ideas, and believe that the state should control and manage
everything for the good of all.

Marx seems to have inherited little from either of his parents.
His father, Heinrich Marx, was a provincial Jewish lawyer who had
adopted Christianity, probably because it was expedient, and
because it enabled him to hold local offices and gain some social
consequence. He had changed his name from Mordecai to Marx.

The elder Marx was very shrewd and tactful, and achieved a fair
position among the professional men and small officials in the
city of Treves. He had seen the horrors of the French Revolution,
and was philosopher enough to understand the meaning of that
mighty upheaval, and of the Napoleonic era which followed.

Napoleon, indeed, had done much to relieve his race from petty
oppression. France made the Jews in every respect the equals of
the Gentiles. One of its ablest marshals--Massena--was a Jew, and
therefore, when the imperial eagle was at the zenith of its
flight, the Jews in every city and town of Europe were
enthusiastic admirers of Napoleon, some even calling him the
Messiah.

Karl Marx's mother, it is certain, endowed him with none of his
gifts. She was a Netherlandish Jewess of the strictly domestic and
conservative type, fond of her children and her home, and
detesting any talk that looked to revolutionary ideas or to a