Preface to the French Edition

1872

PREFACE TO THE

FRENCH EDITION

To the citizen Maurice Lachâtre

Dear Citizen,

I applaud your idea of publishing the translation of “Das Kapital”
as a serial. In this form the book will be more accessible to the working
class, a consideration which to me outweighs everything else.

That is the good side of your suggestion, but here is the reverse
of the medal: the method of analysis which I have employed, and which had
not previously been applied to economic subjects, makes the reading of
the first chapters rather arduous, and it is to be feared that the French
public, always impatient to come to a conclusion, eager to know the connexion
between general principles and the immediate questions that have aroused
their passions, may be disheartened because they will be unable to move
on at once.

That is a disadvantage I am powerless to overcome, unless it be
by forewarning and forearming those readers who zealously seek the truth.
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the
fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous
summits.

Believe me,

dear citizen,

Your devoted,

Karl Marx

London

March 18, 1872

Afterword to the French Edition

1875

AFTERWARD TO THE

FRENCH EDITION

Mr. J. Roy set himself the task of producing a version
that would be as exact and even literal as possible, and has scrupulously
fulfilled it. But his very scrupulosity has compelled me to modify his
text, with a view to rendering it more intelligible to the reader. These
alterations, introduced from day to day, as the book was published in parts,
were not made with equal care and were bound to result in a lack of harmony
in style.

Having once undertaken this work of revision, I was led to apply
it also to the basic original text (the second German edition), to simplify
some arguments, to complete others, to give additional historical or statistical
material, to add critical suggestions, etc. Hence, whatever the literary
defects of this French edition may be, it possesses a scientific value
independent of the original and should be consulted even by readers familiar
with German.

Below I give the passages in the Afterword to the second German
edition which treat of the development of Political Economy in Germany
and the method employed in the present work.

Karl Marx

London

April 28, 1875