This essay is a speculative attempt to explain how it is that the humanism of Marx nourishes, sustains, and offers hope. Since, ordinarily speak路 ing, these are the boons that the believer anticipates from his religion, it is clear that Marx路 ism operates on the same lfn路 thropological terrain as does "For all practical purposes, religious belief. And so, havMarxist humanism nourishes ing first presented some hisone-third of the world's torical considerations t h a t population toady. We cannot might afford us some insight condemn out of hand an into the nature of Marx's a the. ideology which sustains so ism, and then having briefly many men and so many reflected upon the meaning of nations and which constitutes ideology, I propose in the main the hope of so very many of part of this paper to examine the oppressed and exploited." the precise issue of humanism as throughly as a limited article permits. It is my con+ tention that the incredible sucTHOMAS N. MUNSON, S.J. cess of Marxist humanism stems from a brilliant, even if + only intuitive, move on Marx's part. He took the points of in路 sertion within man that religion claimed for its own and secularized them. We have become accustomed to the idea that an atheism is always a revolt against a particular form of theism. Even !1 bowing acquaintance with the history of catchwords like humanity, morality, and nature, reveals to us the justice of
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