Hence if we try to apply the conclusions of historical...

Hence if we try to apply the conclusions of historical materialism for analys­ing certain historical events such as the wars of Persia and Greece, or the Crusades, or the Islamic conquests, or the Renaissance in the West, or the constitutional movement in Iran, it would be a mistake to study and evaluate them from the viewpoint of superficial forms of these events, which are occasionally political, religious, or cultural.

It would not be right to accept even the views of the revolutionaries, who might have regarded those movements as religious, cultural, or political as a ­criterion. We should concentrate our attention on the real substance of those movements, which is economic and material in essence, in order to arrive at correct conclusions.

Nowadays we see that the contemporary Marxists, while trying to explain any historical movement, snatch some rudimentary facts from here and there, and without having any authentic and conclusive infor­mation about it discuss the economic conditions of the past events and movements. The law governing history is deterministic, inviolable, and external to human will. In previous chapters, I have already discussed whether a series of binding causal laws rules history.

I have also explained that some people in the name of accidents, and others on account of the freedom of human will, have rejected the law of causation and consequently nega­ted the existence of certain necessary permanent laws for society and history. But I have proved that such a theory is baseless. The law of causation, and consequently the necessary relation between cause and effect, governs history in the same manner as it governs other natural phenomena.

In addition to it I have also proved that society and history have an organic unity and objective existence, and, therefore, possess a specific nature, whose laws are necessary and universal. Hence accord­ing to the previous statement, a series of general and necessary laws govern history and society. We shall term this type of necessity as `philosophical necessity.' This necessity is responsible for directing the course of history according to a series of definite and necessary laws.

But the Marxist notion of historical determinism means economic determinism. It is a. unique interpretation of philosophical necessity. This theory synthesizes two different theories. The first one is the conception of philosophical necessity, which holds that no accident can occur without a cause.