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FEUERBACH

THE ROOTS OF THE SOCIALIST PHILOSOPHY

BYFREDERICK ENGELS

TRANSLATED WITH CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONBYAUSTIN LEWIS

CHICAGOCHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY

Copyright, 1903

By CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY

INTRODUCTION. 

This work takes us back nearly sixty years, to a time when what is now amovement of universal significance was in its infancy. Hegel and theRevolution of 1848; these are the points of departure. To the former, weowe the philosophic form of the socialist doctrine, to the latter, itspractical activity as a movement. 

In the midst of the turmoil and strife and apparent defeat of those daystwo men, Marx and Engels, exiled and without influence, betookthemselves to their books and began laboriously to fashion the form anddoctrine of the most powerful intellectual and political movement of alltime. To the task they brought genius, scholarship, and a capacity forhard work and patient research. In each of these qualities they weresupreme. Marx possessed a colossal mind; no thinker upon socialsubjects, not even Herbert Spencer, has been his superior, for thelonely socialist could claim a comprehensiveness, a grasp of relationsand a power of generalization, together with a boldness of conception, which place him in a class by himself. Engels was the able co-adjutorand co-worker with Marx. He was a deep and acute thinker, a most patientinvestigator, a careful writer. More practical than his friend, he wasbetter able to cope with material problems, and his advice and his pursewere always at the disposal of Marx. 

The latter could hardly have worked under more discouraging conditions. Poverty, inadequate opportunities, lack of stimulating companionship, and the complete absence of any kind of encouragement and such sympathyas a man of his affectionate temperament craved fell to his lot. Hismost learned works were written for groups of workingmen, his mostlaborious efforts were made without the slightest hope of recognitionfrom the learned and the powerful. 

All through these years Engels remained his faithful friend, and helpedhim over many hard places when family troubles and straitenedcircumstances pressed upon the old revolutionist. 

This work is Engels' testimony with regard to the method employed bythem in arriving at their philosophical conclusions. It is the statementof the philosophical foundations of modern socialism by one who helpedto lay them; it is an old man's account of the case upon the preparationof which he has spent his entire life, for, this work, short as it is, represents the results of forty years of toil and persevering effort. 

As the "Communist Manifesto" was a gage flung with all the impetuosityof youthful impatience into the face of constituted authority, so thisis the deliberate statement of the veteran, who has learned the game toowell to leave any openings, and proceeds to the demolition of petopinions in a quiet, deadly and deliberate fashion. 

Step by step, the argument is built up. The ghosts of old controversieslong since buried are raised, to show how the doctrine imperishablyassociated with the names of Marx and Engels came into existence; the"Young Hegelians, " the "Tuebingen School, " and finally Feuerbach himselfare summoned from the grave to which the Revolution of 1848 hadconsigned them. Still, ancient history as these controversies are fromthe German standpoint, such is the backwardness of philosophy amongEnglish-speaking peoples, that we find Engels exposing again and againfallacies which persist even in our time, and ridiculing sentimentswhich we receive with approbation in our political assemblies, and withmute approval in our churches and conventicles. 

The anti-religious note is noticeable throughout, in itself an echo ofcontroversies long past, when the arguments of the critics of the Biblewere creating now fury, now dismay, throughout Christendom, before theHigher Criticism had become respected, and before soi-disant scepticscould continue to go solemnly to church. 

Moreover, the work was written in German for German workmen for whomreligion has not the same significance as it apparently still continuesto possess for the English-speaking people, whose sensitiveness upon thesubject appears to have outlived their faith. However that may be, religious bodies possess a curious and perhaps satisfactory faculty ofabsorbing the truths of science, and still continuing to exist, and evento thrive, upon what the inexperienced might easily mistake for a deadlydiet. 

Under the circumstances there is no reason why Engels' remarks shouldaffect even the timorous, although it must be remembered that a veryable English socialist philosopher is reputed to have damaged hischances irretrievably by an ill-judged quotation from Mr. Swinburne. 

It must be confessed that the occasional bitterness in which Engelsindulges is to be deplored, in a work of so essentially intellectual acharacter, but it is little to be wondered at. His contempt foruniversity professors and the pretentious cultivated classes, who claimso much upon such slight grounds, is not strange, when we consider thehonest labors of himself and his colleagues and the superficialplace-hunting of the recognized savants. He loves learning for its ownsake, for the sake of truth and scientific accuracy, and he cannot feelanything but scorn for those who use it as a means to lull theconsciences of the rich, and to gain place and power for themselves. Thedegradation of German philosophy affects him with a real sorrow; thescholar is outraged at the mockery. "Sterility, " "eclecticism, " theseare the terms in which he sums up the teachings of the officialprofessors, and they are almost too gentle to be applied to thedispiriting and disheartening doctrines which are taught to theEnglish-speaking student of to-day under the name of economics orphilosophy. 

In the first part of his pamphlet, for it is little more in size, Engelsgives a short and concise account of the work of Hegel and the laterHegelian School. He shows how the philosophy of Hegel has both aconservative and a radical side and how conservatives and radicals alikemight, (as a matter of fact they did), each derive support from histeachings, according to the amount of stress laid respectively upon thegreat divisions of his work, the "System" and the "Dialectic. "

The Extreme Left developed through the application of the dialectic, and applied the philosophic doctrine thus derived to the criticism ofexisting political and religious institutions. This resulted in thegradual throwing away of the abstract part of the Hegelian philosophy, and in the study of facts and phenomena to an ever-increasing degree. 

Marx had, in his youth, allied himself with the "Young Hegelians, " asthis school was called, and this fact had no slight influence upon hissubsequent career. His critics lay the blame for much of the obscurityof language from which "Capital" in particular suffers, at the door ofthis training. His painful elaboration of thesis, antithesis, andsynthesis, his insistence upon the dialectic, and his continual use ofthe Hegelian philosophical expressions are due to his earliercontroversial experiences. Still, on the other hand, his patientinvestigation of actual facts, his insistence on the value of positiveknowledge as compared with abstract theory, and his diligent andpersistent use of blue-books and statistics, were in a great measureresults of the same training. 

Now and again, we find Engels in this work displaying remarkablecontroversial acumen, as in his discussion of the phrase, "All that isreal is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real" (Alles waswirklich ist, ist vernuenftig, und alles was vernuenftig ist, istwirklich). From this expression, by the development of the Hegelianargument, he arrives at the conclusion involved in the statement thatthe value of a social or political phenomenon is its transitoriness, thenecessity of its disappearance. Hence the abolition of dogmaticstatement and mere subjective reasoning in the realm of philosophy, thedestruction of the old school of which Kant was the chief exponent, andthe creation of a new school the most advanced teachers of which were, as they still are, the materialistic socialists, of whom Engels and Marxare the chief. 

The object of this historical sketch is to show the origin ofFeuerbach's philosophy as well as of that of Marx and Engels. As thefight between the Young Hegelians and the conservatives grew hotter, the radicals were driven back upon the English-French materialism of thepreceding century. This was embarrassing for followers of Hegel, who hadbeen taught to regard the material as the mere expression of the Idea. Feuerbach relieved them from the contradiction. He grasped the questionboldly and threw the Hegelian abstraction completely to one side. Hisbook, "Wesen des Christenthums, " in which his ideas were set forth, became immediately popular, and an English translation, which was widelyread, was made of it by George Eliot under the title of "Essence ofChristianity. "

Engels is by no means grudging of expressions of appreciation withregard to this work, and its effects both upon himself and the educatedworld in general. This "unendurable debt of honor" paid, however, heproceeds to attack the idealistic humanitarianism which Feuerbach hadmade the basis and sanction of his ethical theories. 

Although Feuerbach had arrived at the materialistic conclusion, heexpressed himself as unable to accept materialism as a doctrine. Hesays that as far as the past is concerned he is a materialist, but, forthe future, he is not so--"Backward I am in agreement with thematerialists, forward not"--a statement which impels Engels to examinethe materialism of the eighteenth century, which he finds purelymechanical, without any conception of the universe as a process, andtherefore utterly inadequate for the philosophic needs of the period atwhich Feuerbach wrote; for by that time the advance of science, and thegreater powers of generalization, arising from patient experimentation, and the development of the evolutionary theory, had rendered theeighteenth century views evidently absurd. 

The "vulgarising peddlers" (vulgarisirenden Hausirer) come in for agreat deal of contempt at the hands of Engels. These were the popularmaterialists--"the blatant atheists, " who, without scientific knowledgeand gifted with mere oratory or a popular style of writing, used everyadvance of science as a weapon of attack upon the Creator and popularreligion. Engels sneers at these as not being scientists at all, butmere tradesmen dealing in pseudo-scientific wares. He calls theiroccupation a trade, a business (Geschaeft). Of the same class was thathost of secularist lecturers who at one time thronged the lectureplatforms of the English-speaking countries and of whom Bradlaugh andIngersoll were in every way the best representatives. These secularistshave now ceased to exercise any influence, and the Freethoughtsocieties, at one time so numerous, have now practically disappeared. Inaccordance with the theories as set forth by Engels they were bound todisappear; their teachings had no real bearing upon social progress, they contributed nothing of any scientific value to modern thought, andas Engels carefully shows, the reading of history by these lecturers wasvitiated by a lack of scientific grasp, and inability to take a rationalview of the great principles of historical development. 

In the third part of this little book Engels deals with a veryinteresting question which still disturbs the minds of philosophers, andconcerning which much discussion goes on even among the materialists;that is the question as to the effect of religion upon social progress. Feuerbach had made the statement that periods of social progress aremarked by religious changes. He uses religion as a synonym for humanlove, forcing the meaning of the word religion from the Latin"religare, " "to tie, " in order to give it an etymological and derivativemeaning in support of his statement, a controversial trick for which heis rebuked by Engels. The declaration that great historical revolutionsare accompanied by religious changes is declared by Engels not to betrue, except in a limited degree as regards the three greatworld-religions--Christianity, Mahommedanism and Buddhism. 

Engels declared that the change in religion simultaneous with economicand political revolution stopped short with the bourgeois revolt whichwas made without any appeal to religion whatsoever. It is evident thatthis is not entirely true, for in the English-speaking countries, at allevents, not only the bourgeois but frequently also the proletarianmovements attempt to justify themselves from Scripture. The teachings ofthe Bible and the Sermon on the Mount are frequently called to the aidof the revolutionary party; Christian Socialists, in the English andAmerican, not the continental sense of the term, as such are admitted tothe International Congresses; and other evidences of the compatibilityof religion with the proletarian movement can be traced. 

But in the broader sense of his statement Engels is undoubtedly correct. The proletarian movement, unlike that of the bourgeois, has produced nodefinite religious school, it has not claimed any particular set ofreligious doctrines as its own. As a matter of fact, there appears to bean ever-widening chasm between the Church and the laborer, a conditionof affairs which is frequently deplored in religious papers. The famousPapal Encyclical on Labor was certainly intended to retain the masses inthe Church, and the formation of trades unions under the influence ofthe priests was a logical conclusion from the teachings of the PapalEncyclical. But such religious movements are in no sense representativeof the working-class movement; in fact they are resented and antagonizedby the regular proletarian movement which proceeds under the leadershipof the Socialists. 

Feuerbach's exaltation of humanitarianism, as a religion, is derided byEngels in a semi-jocular, semi-serious manner, for his statement thatFeuerbach's ideals can be completely realized on the Bourse, cannot betaken seriously. Engels' clear-sightedness with regard to theineffectiveness of a purely humanitarian religion is very remarkable, although the forty years' additional experience which he had overFeuerbach was a great advantage to him in estimating the actual value ofhumanitarian religion as an influence in human affairs. Since the timeof Feuerbach various experiments in the direction of a religion basedentirely on Love have been tried, and none of them has succeeded. Positivism or its religious side has been a failure. It has appealed toa small set of men, some of whom are possessed of great ability andhave accomplished much, but as a religion in any adequate sense of theword positivism will be admitted a failure by its most sincereadherents. Brotherhood Churches, the Church of Humanity, the People'sChurch, and other like organizations have been formed having the samehumanitarian basis, professing to cultivate a maximum of love with aminimum of faith, and have failed to impress ordinary men and women. Theosophy, a system of oriental mysticism based on an abstractconception of the brotherhood of man, has also put forth its claims tonotice, on the grounds of its broad humanitarianism. None of thesehumanitarian religions, however, appear to satisfy the needs of thetimes, which do not seem to demand any humanitarian teachings. The onlyreligions which evidently persist are the dogmatic, those appealingundisguisedly to faith, and even these do not maintain their proletarianfollowing. 

Engels' remarks appear to be more than justified by the facts of to-day, for so far from the proletarian forming a new religion representing hisneeds on the "ideological" field, he appears to be increasinglydesirous of releasing himself from the bands of any religion whatever, and substituting in place of it practical ethics and the teachings ofscience. Thus we are informed that five out of six of the workingclasses of Berlin, who attend any Sunday meetings whatever, are to befound in the halls of the Social Democratic Party, listening to thelectures provided by that organization. 

The revolutionary character of Feuerbach's philosophy is not maintainedin his ethic, which Engels declares with much truth to be no better thanthat of his predecessors, as the basis on which it stands is no moresubstantial. Feuerbach fails as a teacher of practical ethics; he issmothered in abstraction and cannot attain to any reality. 

With the last part of the work Engels abandons the task of criticisingFeuerbach, and proceeds to expound his own philosophy. 

With absolute candor and modesty he gives Marx credit for the theory ofthe materialistic conception of history, upon the enunciation and proofof which he had himself worked almost incessantly ever since the firstidea of the theory had occurred to them, forty years prior to the timewhen he wrote this work. The footnote to the first page of the fourthpart is the testimony of a collaborator to the genius of hisfellow-workman, an example of appreciation and modest self-effacementwhich it would not be easy to match, and to which literary men who worktogether are not over-prone. Nothing else could bear more eloquenttestimony to the loftiness of character and sincerity of purpose ofthese two exiles. 

The Marxian philosophy of history is clearly stated, and so fullyexplained by Engels that there is no need to go over the ground again, and there only remains to call attention to some of the moderndevelopments in the direction of rigidity of interpretation, and to theexaggeration of the broad theory of the predominance of the economicfactor into a hard and fast doctrine of economic determinism. 

When we examine the claims of Engels on behalf of the materialisticdoctrine it will be found that they are not by any means of such anature as to warrant the extreme conclusions of subsequent socialistpublicists and leaders. It must be remembered that the subject of theinfluence of economic conditions on religious and political phenomenahas been closely examined of late years and continual and accumulatingevidence has been forthcoming respecting the remarkable influence ofeconomic facts upon all other manifestations of social activity. It isvery probable that the successful investigations in this new field haveled, temporarily, to the formation of exaggerated ideas as to the actualvalue of the economic factor. 

Marx, in one of his short critical notes on Feuerbach, says: "Thematerialistic doctrine that men are products of conditions andeducation, different men therefore products of other conditions, and adifferent kind of education, forgets that circumstances may be alteredby man and that the educator has himself to be educated. " In otherwords, the problem, like all problems, possesses at least twoquantities; it is not a question solely of conditions, economic orotherwise; it is a question of man and conditions, for the man is neverdissolved in the conditions, but exists as a separate entity, and thesetwo elements, man and conditions, act and react the one upon the other. 

This is quite a different position from that taken by Lafargue in hisfight with Jaures. Lafargue there argued that economic development isthe sole determinant of progress, and pronounces in favor of economicdeterminism, thus reducing the whole of history and, consequently, thedominating human motives to but one elementary motive. Belfort Bax, thewell-known English socialist writer, makes a very clever argumentagainst the determinist position by comparing it with the attempts ofthe pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to reduce nature to one element. Hisremarks are so pertinent that a brief abstract of his argument is herequoted in his own language. He says in "Outlooks from a New Standpoint":

"The endeavor to reduce the whole of Human life to one element alone, toreconstruct all history on the basis of Economics, as already said, ignores the fact that every concrete reality must have a material and aformal side, --that is, it must have at least two ultimate elements--allreality as opposed to abstraction consisting in a synthesis. The attemptto evolve the many-sidedness of Human life out of one of its factors, nomatter how important that factor may be, reminds one of the attempts ofthe early pre-Socratic Greeks to reduce nature to one element, such aswater, air, fire, etc. "

And again:

"The precise form a movement takes, be it intellectual, ethical orartistic, I fully admit, is determined by the material circumstances ofthe society in which it acquires form and shape, but it is alsodetermined by those fundamental psychological tendencies which havegiven it birth. "

Enrico Ferri, the famous Italian member of the Chamber of Deputies andcriminologist, appears to be at one with Bax in this matter. He says, quoting from a recent translation of his "Socialism and Modern Science":"It is perfectly true that every phenomenon as well as everyinstitution--moral, juridicial or political--is simply the result ofthe economic phenomena and the conditions of the transitory, physicaland historical environments. But as a consequence of that law of naturalcausality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant ofnumerous concurrent causes, and not of one cause alone, and that everyeffect becomes in its turn a cause of other phenomena, it is necessaryto amend and complete the too rigid form that has been given to thistrue idea. 

"Just as all psychical manifestations of the individual are the resultof the organic conditions (temperament) and of the environment in whichhe lives, in the same way, all the social manifestations of a people arethe resultant of their organic conditions (race) and of the environment, as these are the determining causes of the given economic organizationwhich is the physical basis of life. "

These may be said to be fairly representative of the views of theopposition to the extreme of economic determinism. 

The whole controversy has spread over a tremendous amount of ground andinvolves much reading. Some of the chief results have lately beensummarized by Professor Seligman in his "Economic Interpretation ofHistory. " (Macmillan, 1902. ) His written views show a closerapproximation to and understanding of the teachings of the socialistphilosophy on this subject than we have been accustomed to receive atthe hands of official savants, so that it would seem as if the value ofMarx's work was at last beginning to be appreciated even in the foggystudies of the professors. Two extracts from the writings of Engels arequoted by Professor Seligman. These extracts apparently go to prove thatEngels by no means contemplated the extreme construction which has beenplaced upon the doctrine, and that he would find such a constructioninconsistent with his general views. 

These extracts are quoted here for the purpose of further elucidatingthe views of Engels and as further explanatory of the position assumedby him in the last part of the work under consideration. 

They form part of a series of articles written for the "SozialistischeAkademiker" in 1890, and are as follows:

"Marx and I are partly responsible for the fact that the younger menhave sometimes laid more stress on the economic side than it deserves. In meeting the attacks of our opponents it was necessary for us toemphasize the dominant principle denied by them, and we did not alwayshave the time, place, or opportunity to let the other factors which wereconcerned in the mutual action and reaction get their deserts. "

And in another letter to the same magazine he says: "According to thematerialistic view of history, the factor which is, in last instance, decisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when anyonedistorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole elementhe converts the statement into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic condition is the basis, but the various elements of thesuperstructure--the political forms of the class-contests, and theirresults, the constitutions--the legal forms and also all the reflexes ofthese actual contests in the brains of the participants, the political, legal, philosophical theories, the religions views--all these exert aninfluence on the development of the historical struggles, and in manyinstances determine their form. "

Here we may leave this much disputed matter for the present, as anyinvolved discussion of controversial questions would be out of placehere. The question in its ultimate form is merely scholastic, for noteven the most extreme determinist would hold that only the economicargument must be relied upon by the orators and the press of theproletarian movement. Any one, however, who wishes to pursue the subjectfarther can find abundant material in the already great and growingamount of literature in connection with it. 

There is no doubt that the ideas of Marx respecting the basis ofhistorical progress have already revolutionized the teaching of historyin the universities, although but few professors have been honest enoughto give him credit for it. The economic factor continually acquiresgreater importance in the eyes of the student of history, but thepractical discoverer of this factor is still slighted and the results ofhis labors are assimilated with a self-satisfied hypocrisy which is, unfortunately, characteristic of the colleges of the English-speakingcountries. 

The bourgeois writers upon socialism generally content themselves withthe bold statement that Marx employs the dialectic method ofinvestigation and statement. This is so much Greek to the ordinaryreader, and the subject of the dialectic as used by socialist writersrequires a few words of explanation. 

The first part of this work is very valuable, therefore, as showing whatMarx and Engels meant when they used the expression, and as declaringtheir estimation of that method compared with that in general use intheir day, and always, prior to their time, employed in philosophy, history and economics. 

A fuller and more detailed definition of the dialectic as applied byEngels is given by that philosopher in his famous reply to EugeneDuhring known as the "Umwaelzung der Wissenschaft. " In that work a morethorough and patient investigation is made into the sources ofmaterialistic philosophy of the socialist movement, for the reputationof his antagonist appears to have acted as a spur to Engels' facultieswhich certainly never showed to better advantage than in that work. Aportion of the argument, in fact an abstract of the general train ofreasoning, with the omission of the more obviously controversial parts, has been reprinted under the title of "Socialism from Utopia toScience. " The following quotation is taken from the translation preparedfor the "People" in 1892:

"We also find, upon a closer enquiry, that the two poles of anantithesis, such as positive and negative, are as inseparable from asthey are opposed to each other, and that, despite their antagonism, theymutually pervade each other; and in the same way we find cause andeffect to be conceptions whose force exists only when applied to asingle instance, but which, soon as we consider that instance in itsconnection with the cosmos, run into each other and dissolve in thecontemplation of that universal action and reaction where cause andeffect constantly change places--that which is effect, now and here, becoming, then and yonder, cause, and vice versa. 

"None of these processes and methods of reasoning fits in themetaphysical framework of thought. To dialectics, however, which takesin the objects and their conceivable images above all in theirconnections, their sequence, their motion, their rise and decline, processes like the above are so many attestations of its own method ofprocedure. Nature furnishes the test to dialectics, and this much wemust say for modern natural science, that it has contributed towardsthis test an extremely rich and daily increasing material, whereby ithas demonstrated that, in the last instance, nature proceeds upondialectical, not upon metaphysical methods, that it does not move uponthe eternal sameness of a perpetually recurring circle, but that it goesthrough an actual historic evolution. 

"This new German philosophy culminated in the system of Hegel. Therefor the first time--and herein consists its merit--the whole natural, historic, and intellectual world was presented as a process, i. E. , engaged in perpetual motion, change, transformation and development. Viewed from this standpoint, the history of mankind no longer appearedas a wild tangle of senseless deeds of violence, all equally to berejected by a ripened philosophic judgment, and which it were best toforget as soon as possible, but as the process of the development ofmankind itself--a development whose gradual march, through all its straypaths, and its eternal law, through all its seeming fortuitousness, itnow became the task of the intellect to trace and to discover. "

Kirkup, in his "History of Socialism, " has this to say upon thedialectic method of investigation as used by Marx: "In the system ofMarx, it means that the business of enquiry is to trace the connectionand concatenation in the links that make up the process of historicevolution, to investigate how one stage succeeds another in thedevelopment of society, the facts and forms of human life and historynot being stable and stereotyped things, but the ever-changingmanifestations of the fluent and unresting real, the course of which itis the duty of science to reveal. "

The translator has endeavored to render the meaning of the original inas simple an English form as possible, and to, generally speaking, avoidtechnical terms. 

AUSTIN LEWIS. 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

In the preface of the "Critique of Political Economy, " published atBerlin, in 1859, Marx explained how we two, in 1845, in Brussels, intended to work out together the antagonism of our views--that is, thematerialistic philosophy of history, as developed by Marx--to theideological German philosophy, and, in fact, to compare it with ourpresent philosophic knowledge. The design was carried out in the form ofa criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two big octavovolumes, had long been at its intended place of publication inWestphalia, when we received the news that altered circumstances did notpermit of its being printed. We postponed the publication of themanuscript indefinitely, all the more willingly, as we had attained ourmain object, an understanding of our own position. 

Since then more than forty years have elapsed, and Marx has diedwithout either of us having had an opportunity of coming back to theantithesis. As regards our position with reference to Hegel, we haveexplained that, as occasion has arisen, but, nowhere, as a whole. Wenever came back to Feuerbach, who occupies an intermediate positionbetween the philosophy of Hegel and our own. 

In the meantime the Marxian philosophy has found champions beyond theboundaries of Germany and of Europe, and in all the languages of thecivilized world. On the other hand, the classic German philosophy hashad a sort of new-birth abroad, particularly in England and Scandinavia, and even in Germany they appear to be substituting the thin soup ofeclecticism which seems to flow from the universities under the name ofphilosophy. 

Under these circumstances a short, compact explanation of our relationsto the Hegelian philosophy, of our going forth and departure from it, appears to me to be more and more required. And just in the same way afull recognition of the influence which Feuerbach, more than all theother post-Hegelian philosophers, had over us, during the period of ouryouthful enthusiasm, presents itself to me as an unendurable debt ofhonor. I also seize the opportunity the more readily since the editor ofthe "Neue Zeit" has asked me for a critical discussion of Starcke's bookon Feuerbach. My work was published in the fourth and fifth volumes of1886 of that publication and here appears in a revised special edition. 

Before sending this manuscript to press I once again hunted up andexamined the old manuscript of 1845-6. The part of it dealing withFeuerbach is not complete. The portion completed consists in anexposition of the materialistic view of history and only proves howincomplete at that time was our knowledge of economic history. Thecriticism of Feuerbach's doctrine is not given in it. It was thereforeunsuitable for our purpose. On the other hand, I have found in an oldvolume of Marx the eleven essays on Feuerbach printed here as anappendix. These are notes hurriedly scribbled in for later elaboration, not in the least degree prepared for the press, but invaluable, as thefirst written form, in which is planted the genial germ of the newphilosophy. 

FRIEDRICH ENGELS. 

London, 21 February, 1888. 

FEUERBACH

I. 

The volume before us brings us at once to a period which, in the matterof time, lies a full generation behind us, but which is as foreign tothe present generation in Germany as if it were quite a century old. And, still, it was the period of the preparation of Germany for therevolution of 1848, and all that has happened to us since is only acontinuation of 1848, only a carrying out of the last will and testamentof the revolution. 

Just as in France in the eighteenth, so in Germany in the nineteenthcentury, revolutionary philosophic conceptions introduced a breaking upof existing political conditions. But how different the two appear! TheFrench were engaged in open fight with all recognized science, with theChurch, frequently also with the State, their writings were publishedbeyond the frontiers in Holland or in England, and they themselves werefrequently imprisoned in the Bastile. The Germans, on the contrary, wereprofessors, appointed instructors of youth by the State, their writings, recognized text-books, and their definite system of universal progress, the Hegelian, raised, as it were, to the rank of a royal Prussianphilosophy of government. And behind these professors, behind theirpedantically obscure utterances, in their heavy wearisome periods, wasit possible that the revolution could conceal itself? Were not just thepeople who were looked upon at that time as the leaders of therevolution, the Liberals, the bitterest opponents of the brain-turningphilosophy? But what neither the Governmentalists nor the Liberals saw, that saw, at least one man, and that man was Heinrich Heine. 

Let us take an example. No philosophic statement has so invited thethanks of narrow-minded governments and the anger of the equally narrowLiberals as the famous statement of Hegel: "All that is real isreasonable, and all that is reasonable is real. " This was essentiallythe blessing of all that is, the philosophical benediction of despotism, police-government, star-chamber justice and the censorship. So FrederickWilliam III and his subjects understood it; but, according to Hegel, noteverything which exists is, without exception, real. The attribute ofreality belongs only to that which is at the same time necessary. Reality proves itself in the course of its development as necessity. Anygovernmental act--Hegel himself instances the example of a certain "taxlaw"--by no means strikes him as real in the absence of other qualities. But what is necessary proves itself in the last instance as reasonablealso, and applied to the Prussian government, the Hegel doctrine, therefore, only means, this state is reasonable, corresponding withreason, as long as it is necessary, and if it appear to us an evil, butin spite of the evil still continues to exist, the evil of thegovernment finds its justification and its explanation in thecorresponding evil of the subjects. The Prussians of that day had thegovernment which they deserved. 

But reality, according to Hegel, is by no means an attribute whichbelongs to a given social or political condition, under allcircumstances and at all times. Quite the contrary. The Roman Republicwas real, but the Roman Empire which replaced it was also real. TheFrench Monarchy had become unreal in 1789, that is, it had lost all thequality of necessity, and was so contrary to reason that it had to bedestroyed by the Great Revolution, of which Hegel always speaks with thegreatest enthusiasm. Here, therefore, the monarchy was the unreal, therevolution the real. So in the course of progress all earlier realitybecomes unreality, loses its necessity, its right of existence, itsrationality; in place of the dying reality comes a new vital reality, peaceable when the old is sufficiently sensible to go to its deathwithout a struggle, forcible when it strives against this necessity. Andso the Hegelian statement through the Hegelian dialectic turns to itsopposite--all that is real in the course of human history becomes in theprocess of time irrational and is, therefore, according to its destiny, irrational, and has from the beginning inherited want of rationality, and everything which is reasonable in the minds of men is destined tobecome real, however much it may contradict the apparent reality ofexisting conditions. The statement of the rationality of everything realdissolves itself, according to the Hegelian mode of thought, in theother, "All that stands has ultimately only so much worth that it mustfall. "

But just there lay the true significance and the revolutionary characterof the Hegelian philosophy (to which, as the conclusion of all progresssince Kant, we must here limit ourselves) in that it, once and for all, gave the coup de grace to finiteness of results of human thought andaction. Truth, which it is the province of philosophy to recognize, wasno longer, according to Hegel, a collection of ready-made dogmaticstatements, which once discovered must only be thoroughly learned; truthlay now in the process of knowledge itself, in the long historicaldevelopment of learning, which climbs from lower to ever higher heightsof knowledge, without ever reaching the point of so-called absolutetruth, where it can go no further, where it has nothing more to lookforward to, except to fold its hands in its lap and contemplate theabsolute truth already gained. And just as it is in the realm ofphilosophic knowledge, so is it with every other kind of knowledge, evenwith that of practical commerce. And just as little as knowledge canhistory find a conclusion, complete in one completed ideal condition ofhumanity, a completed society, a perfect state, are things which canonly exist as phantasies, on the contrary, all successive historicalconditions are only places of pilgrimage in the endless evolutionaryprogress of human society from the lower to the higher. Every step isnecessary and useful for the time and circumstances to which it owes itsorigin, but it becomes weak and without justification under the newerand higher conditions which develop little by little in its own womb, itmust give way to the higher form, which in turn comes to decay anddefeat. As the bourgeoisie through the greater industry, competition, and the world market destroyed the practical value of all stable andanciently honored institutions, so this dialectic philosophy destroyedall theories of absolute truth, and of an absolute state of humanitycorresponding with them. In face of it nothing final, absolute or sacredexists, it assigns mortality indiscriminately, and nothing can existbefore it save the unbroken process of coming into existence and passingaway, the endless passing from the lower to the higher, the merereflection of which in the brain of the thinker it is itself. It hasindeed also a conservative side, it recognizes the suitability of agiven condition of knowledge and society for its time and conditions, but only so far. This conservatism of this philosophical view isrelative, its revolutionary character is absolute, the only absolutewhich it allows to exist. 

We do not, at this point, need to go into the question whether thisphilosophy is consistent throughout with the present position of naturalscience which predicts for the earth a possible end and for itsinhabitability, a fairly certain one; which, therefore, also recognizesthat in human history there is not only an upshooting but also adown-growing branch. We find ourselves, at any rate, still aconsiderable distance from the turning point, where the history ofsociety begins to descend, and we cannot expect the Hegelian philosophyto meddle with a subject which at that time science had not yet placedupon the order of the day. 

What must, indeed, be said is this, that the Hegelian development doesnot, according to Hegel, show itself so clearly. It is a necessaryconsequence of his method which he himself has never drawn with thisexplicitness. And for this simple reason, because he was compelled tomake a system, and a system of philosophy must, in accordance with allits understood pretensions, close somewhere with a definition ofabsolute truth. So Hegel, therefore, in his logic, urged that thiseternal truth is nothing else but the logical, that is, the historicalprocess itself; yet in spite of this he finds himself compelled to placean end to this process, since he must come to an end with his systemsomewhere or other. He can make this end a beginning again in logic, since here the point of conclusion--the absolute idea, which is onlyabsolute in so far as he has nothing clear to say about it--divestsitself in nature, that is, becomes transformed, and later on, inspirit, that is, in thought and in history, comes to itself again. Butin the last philosophical analysis, a return to the beginning is onlypossible in one way, namely, if one place the end of history in thisfact, that mankind comes to a knowledge of the absolute idea, andexplain that this knowledge of the absolute idea is obtained in theHegelian philosophy. But in this way the whole dogmatic content of theHegelian philosophy in the matter of absolute truth is explained incontradiction to his dialectic, the cutting loose from all dogmaticmethods, and thereby the revolutionary side becomes smothered under thedominating conservative. And what can be said of philosophical knowledgecan also be said of historical practice. Mankind, that is, in the personof Hegel, has arrived at the point of working out the absolute idea, andmust also practically have arrived so far as to make the absolute idea areality. The practical political demands of the abstract idea upon hiscontemporaries cannot, therefore, be stretched too far. And so we findas the conclusion of the philosophy of Rights that the absolute ideashall realize itself in that limited monarchy which William III. Sopersistently, vainly promised to his subjects; therefore, in a limited, moderate, indirect control of the possessing classes, suitable to thedominating small bourgeois class in Germany whereby, in addition, thenecessity to us of the existence of the nobility is shown in aspeculative fashion. 

The essential usefulness of the system is sufficient to explain themanufacture of a very tame political conclusion by means of a thoroughlyrevolutionary method of reasoning. The special form of this conclusionsprings from this, as a matter of fact, that Hegel was a German, and, asin the case of his contemporary Goethe, he was somewhat of a philistine. Goethe and Hegel, each of them was an Olympian Zeus in his own sphere, but they were neither of them quite free from German philistinism. 

But all this does not hinder the Hegelian system from playing anincomparably greater role than any earlier system and by virtue of thisrole developing riches of thought which are astounding even to-day. Phenomenology of the mind (which one may parallel with embryology andpalaeontology of the mind), an evolution of the individualconsciousness, through its different steps, expressed as a briefreproduction of the steps through which the consciousness of man hashistorically passed, logic, natural philosophy, mental philosophy, andthe latter worked out separately in its detailed historicalsubdivisions, philosophy of history, of jurisprudence, of religion, history of philosophy, esthetics, etc. Hegel labored in all thesedifferent historical fields to discover and prove the thread ofevolution, and as he was not only a creative genius, but also a man ofencyclopedic learning, he was thus, from every point of view, the makerof an epoch. It is self-evident that by virtue of the necessities of the"System" he must very often take refuge in certain forced constructions, about which his pigmy opponents make such an ado even at the presenttime. But these constructions are only the frames and scaffoldings ofhis work; if one does not stop unnecessarily at these but presses onfurther into the building one will find uncounted treasures which holdtheir full value to-day. As regards all philosophers, their system isdoomed to perish and for this reason, because it emanates from animperishable desire of the human soul, the desire to abolish allcontradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposedof, we have arrived at the so-called absolute truth, history is at anend, and yet it will continue to go on, although there is nothingfurther left for it to do--thus a newer and more insolublecontradiction. So soon as we have once perceived--and to this perceptionno one has helped us more than Hegel himself--that the task thus imposedupon philosophy signifies nothing different than the task that a singlephilosopher shall accomplish what it is only possible for the entirehuman race to accomplish, in the course of its progressivedevelopment--as soon as we understand that, it is all over withphilosophy in the present sense of the word. In this way one discardsthe absolute truth, unattainable for the individual, and follows insteadthe relative truths attainable by way of the positive sciences, and thecollection of their results by means of the dialectic mode of thought. With Hegel universal philosophy comes to an end, on the one hand, because he comprehended in his system its entire development on thegreatest possible scale; on the other hand, because he showed us theway, even if he did not know it himself, out of this labyrinth ofsystems, to a real positive knowledge of the world. 

One may imagine what an immense effect the Hegelian philosophy producedin the philosophy-dyed atmosphere of Germany. The triumph lasted for tenyears and by no means subsided with the death of Hegel. On the contrary, from 1830 to 1840 Hegelianism was exclusively supreme and had fasteneditself upon its opponents to a greater or less degree. During thisperiod Hegel's views, consciously or unconsciously, penetrated thedifferent sciences, and saturated popular literature and the daily pressfrom which the ordinary so-called cultured classes derive their mentalpabulum. But this victory down the whole line was only preliminary to aconflict within its own ranks. 

The entire doctrine of Hegel left, as we have seen, plenty of room forthe bringing under it the most diverse practical opinions, and thepractical, in the then theoretic Germany, consisted in only twothings--religion and politics. He who laid the greatest stress upon theHegelian system, might be moderately conservative in both theserespects, while he who considered the dialectic method of the greatestimportance could belong to the extreme left in religious and politicalaffairs. Hegel himself, in spite of the frequent outbursts ofrevolutionary wrath in his books, was inclined, on the whole, to theconservative side. His system, rather than his method, had cost him thehard thinking. At the end of the thirties, the division in the schoolgrew greater and greater. The left wing, the so-called Young Hegelians, in their fight with the pious orthodox, abandoned little by little, thatmarked philosophical reserve regarding the burning questions of the day, which had up to that time secured for their teachings State tolerationand even protection, and as in 1840 orthodox pietism and absolutistfeudal reaction ascended the throne with Frederick William IV. , openpartisanship became unavoidable. The fight was still maintained withphilosophical weapons, but no longer along abstract philosophical lines;they went straight to deny the dominant religion and the existing state, and although in the "Deutschen Jahrbuechern" the practical aims werestill put forward clothed in philosophical phraseology, the youngerHegelian school threw off disguise in the "Rheinische Zeitung, " as theexponents of the philosophy of the struggling radicals, and used thecloak of philosophy only to deceive the censorship. 

But politics were at that time a very thorny field, and so the mainfight was directed against religion. But this was also, particularlysince 1840, indirectly a political fight. Strauss' "Leben Jesu, "published in 1835, had given the first cause of offense. The theorytherein developed regarding the origin of the gospel myths Bruno Bauerlater dealt with, adding the additional proof that a whole series ofevangelical stories had been invented by their authors. The fightbetween these two was carried on under a philosophical disguise, as abattle of mind with matter; the question whether the marvellous storiesof the gospel came into being through an unconscious myth-creation inthe womb of society, or whether they were individually invented by theevangelists broadened into the question whether in the history of therace, mind or matter carried the real weight, and lastly came Stirner, the prophet of modern anarchism--Bakunine has taken very much fromhim--and overtopped the sovereign power of consciousness with hissovereign power of the individual. 

We do not follow the decomposition of the Hegelian school on this sideany further. What is more important for us is this: The mass of the mostdecided young Hegelians were driven back upon English-French materialismthrough the necessities of their fight against positive religion. Herethey came into conflict with their school system. According tomaterialism, nature exists as the sole reality, it exists in theHegelian system only as the alienation of the absolute Idea, as it werea degradation of the Idea; under all circumstances, thought, and itsthought-product, the Idea, according to this view, appears as theoriginal, nature, which only exists through the condescension of theIdea as the derived, and in this contradiction they got along as well oras ill as they might. 

Then came Feuerbach's "Wesen des Christenthums. " With one blow it cutthe contradiction, in that it placed materialism on the throne againwithout any circumlocution. Nature exists independently of allphilosophies. It is the foundation upon which we, ourselves products ofnature, are built. Outside man and nature nothing exists, and the higherbeings which our religious phantasies have created are only thefantastic reflections of our individuality. The cord was broken, thesystem was scattered and destroyed, the contradiction, since it onlyexisted in the imagination, was solved. One must himself haveexperienced the delivering power of this book to get a clear idea of it. The enthusiasm was universal, we were all for the moment followers ofFeuerbach. How enthusiastically Marx greeted the new idea and how muchhe was influenced by it, in spite of all his critical reservations, onemay read in the "Holy Family. "

The very faults of the book contributed to its momentary effect. Theliterary, impressive, even bombastic style secured for it a very largepublic and was a constant relief after the long years of abstract andabstruse Hegelianism. The same result also proceeded from theextravagant glorification of love, which in comparison with theinsufferable sovereignty of pure reason, found an excuse, if not ajustification. What we must not forget is, that just on these twoweaknesses of Feuerbach "true Socialism" in educated Germany fasteneditself like a spreading plague since 1844, and set literary phrases inthe place of scientific knowledge, the freeing of mankind by means oflove in place of the emancipation of the proletariat, through theeconomic transformation of production, in short lost itself in nauseousfine writing and in sickly sentimentality, of the type of which class ofwriters was Herr Karl Gruen. 

We must furthermore not forget that though the Hegelian school wasdestroyed the Hegelian philosophy was not critically vanquished. Straussand Bauer took each a side and engaged in polemics. Feuerbach brokethrough the system and threw it as a whole aside. But one has notfinished with a philosophy by simply declaring it to be false, and soenormous a work as the Hegelian philosophy which has had so tremendousan influence upon the mental development of the nation did not allowitself to be put aside peremptorily. It had to be destroyed in its ownway, which means in the way that critically destroys its form but savesthe new acquisitions to knowledge won by it. How this was brought aboutwe shall see below. 

But for the moment, the Revolution of 1848 put aside all philosophicaldiscussion just as unceremoniously as Feuerbach laid aside Hegel. Andthen Feuerbach was himself crowded out. 

II. 

The great foundation question of all, especially new, philosophies isconnected with the relation between thinking and being. Since very earlytimes when men, being in complete ignorance respecting their own bodies, and stirred by apparitions, [1] arrived at the idea that thought andsensation were not acts of their own bodies, but of a special souldwelling in the body and deserting it at death, ever since then theyhave been obliged to give thought to the relations of this soul to theoutside world. If it betook itself from the body and lived on, there wasno reason to invent another death for it; thus arose the conception oftheir immortality, which, at that evolutionary stage, did not appear asa consolation, but as fate, against which a man cannot strive, and oftenenough, as among the Greeks, as a positive misfortune. Not religiousdesire for consolation but uncertainty arising from a similar universalignorance of what to associate with the soul when once it wasacknowledged, after the death of the body, led universally to thetedious idea of personal immortality. Just in a similar fashion thefirst gods arose, through the personification of the forces of nature, and these in the further development of the religions acquired greaterand greater supernatural force, until by a natural process ofabstraction, I might say of distillation, from the many more or lesslimited and mutually limiting gods, in the course of spiritualdevelopment, at last the idea of the one all embracing god of themonotheistic religions took its place in the minds of men. 

The question of the relation of thinking to being, of the relation ofthe spirit to nature, the highest question of universal philosophy, hastherefore, no less than all religion, its roots in the limited andignorant ideas of the condition of savagery. It could first beunderstood, and its full significance could first be grasped, whenmankind awoke from the long winter sleep of Christian Middle Ages. Thequestion of the relation of thought to existence, a question which hadalso played a great role in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, thequestion what is at the beginning spirit or nature, this question was inspite of the church now cut down to this: "Has God made the world or isthe world from eternity?"

As this question was answered this way or that the philosophers weredivided into two great camps. The one party which placed the origin ofthe spirit before that of nature, and therefore in the last instanceaccepted creation, in some form or other--and this creation, is oftenaccording to the philosophers, according to Hegel for example, stillmore odd and impossible than in Christianity--made the camp of idealism. The others, who recognized nature as the source, belong to the variousschools of materialism. 

The two expressions signify something different from this. Idealism andmaterialism, originally not used in any other sense, are not hereemployed in any other sense. We shall see what confusion arises when onetries to force another signification into them. 

The question of the relationship of thinking and being has anotherside; in what relation do our thoughts with regard to the worldsurrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thought in a positionto recognize the real world? Can we, in our ideas and notion of the realworld, produce a correct reflection of the reality? This question iscalled in philosophical language the question of the identity ofthinking and being, and is affirmed by the great majority ofphilosophers. According to Hegel, for example, its affirmation isself-evident, for that which we know in the actual world is its content, according to our thought, that which compels the world to a progressiverealization as it were of the absolute Idea, which absolute idea hasexisted somewhere, unattached from the world and before the world; andthat thought can recognize a content which is already a thought contentherein, from the beginning, appears self-evident. It is also evidentthat what is here to be proved is already hidden in the hypothesis. Butthat does not hinder Hegel, by any means, from drawing the furtherconclusion from his proof of the identity of thought and existence thathis philosophy, because correct for his thought, is, therefore, the onlycorrect one, and that the identity of thought and existence must showitself in this, that mankind should forthwith translate his philosophyfrom theory to practice and the whole world shift itself to a Hegelianbase. This is an illusion which he shares alike with all philosophers. 

In addition there is still another class of philosophers, those whodispute the possibility of a perception of the universe or at least ofan exhaustive perception. To them belong, among the moderns, Hume andKant, and they have played a very distinguished role in the evolution ofphilosophy. This point of view has been now refuted by Hegel, as far aspossible, from the idealistic standpoint. The materialistic additionsmade by Feuerbach are more ingenious than deep. The most destructiverefutation of this as of all other fixed philosophic ideas is actualresult, namely experiment and industry. If we can prove the correctnessof our idea of an actual occurrence by experiencing it ourselves andproducing it from its constituent elements, and using it for our ownpurposes into the bargain, the Kantian phrase "Ding an Sich" (thing initself) ceases to have any meaning. The chemical substances which go toform the bodies of plants and animals remained just such "Dinge an Sich"until organic chemistry undertook to show them one after the other, whereupon the thing in itself became a thing for us, as the coloringmatter in the roots of madder, alizarin, which we no longer allow togrow in the roots of the madder in the field, but make much more cheaplyand simply from coal tar. The Copernican system was for three hundredyears a hypothesis, with a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand chancesin its favor, but still a hypothesis. But when Leverrier by means of thedata of this system not only discovered the existence of a certainunknown planet, but even calculated the position in the heavens whichthis planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galles really found thisplanet, then the Copernican system was proved. If, nevertheless, theresurrection of the Kantian idea in Germany is being tried by theNeo-Kantians, and of that of Hume in England (where they never died), by the agnostics, that is, in the face of the long past theoretical andpractical refutation of these doctrines, scientifically, a stepbackwards, and practically, merely the acceptance of materialism in ashame-faced way, clandestinely, and the denial of it before the world. 

But the philosophers were during this long period from Descartes toHegel and from Hobbes to Feuerbach by no means, as they thought, impelled solely by the force of pure reason. On the contrary, whatreally impelled them was, in particular, the strong and ever quickerconquering step of natural science and industry. Among the materialiststhis very quickly showed itself on the surface, but the idealisticsystems filled themselves more and more with materialistic content andsought to reconcile the antagonism between spirit and matter by means ofpantheism, so that finally the Hegelian system represented merely amaterialism turned upside down, according to idealistic method andcontent. 

Of course Starcke in his "Characteristics of Feuerbach" enquired intothe fundamental question of the relations of thinking and being. Aftera short introduction in which the ideas of preceding philosophers, particularly since Kant, are portrayed in unnecessarily heavyphilosophical language and in which Hegel, owing to a too formalinsistence on certain parts of his work does not receive due credit, there follows a copious description of the development of themetaphysics of Feuerbach, as shown in the course of the recognizedwritings of this philosopher. This description is industriously andcarefully elaborated, and, like the whole book, is overballasted with, not always unavoidable, philosophical expressions, which is all the moreannoying in that the writer does not hold to the vocabulary of one andthe same school nor even of Feuerbach himself, but mixes up expressionsof very different schools, and especially of the present epidemic ofschools calling themselves philosophical. 

The evolution of Feuerbach is that of a Hegelian to materialism--not ofan orthodox Hegelian, indeed--an evolution which from a definite pointmakes a complete breach with the idealistic system of his predecessor. With irresistible force he brings himself to the view that the Hegelianidea of the existence of the absolute idea before the world, thepre-existence of the logical categories before the universe came intobeing, is nothing else than the fantastical survival of the belief inthe existence of an extra-mundane creator; that the material, sensible, actual world, to which we ourselves belong, is the only reality, andthat our consciousness and thought, however supernatural they may seem, are only evidences of a material bodily organ, the brain. Matter is nota product of mind, but mind itself is only the highest product ofmatter. This is, of course, pure materialism. When he reached this pointFeuerbach came to a standstill. He cannot overcome ordinaryphilosophical prejudice, prejudice not against the thing, but againstthe name materialism. He says "Materialism is for me the foundation ofthe building of the being and knowledge of man, but it is not for mewhat it is for the physiologists in the narrow sense, as Moleschott, forexample, since necessarily from their standpoint it is the buildingitself. Backwards, I am in accord with the materialists but notforwards. "

Feuerbach here confuses materialism, which is a philosophy of theuniverse dependent upon a certain comprehension of the relations betweenmatter and spirit, with the special forms in which this philosophyappeared at a certain historical stage--namely in the eighteenthcentury. More than that he confuses it with the shallow and vulgarizedform in which the materialism of the eighteenth century exists today, inthe minds of naturalists and physicians, and was popularized during aperiod of fifty years in the writings of Buechner, Vogt and Moleschott. But as idealism has passed through a series of evolutionarydevelopments, so also has materialism--with each epoch-making discoveryin the department of natural science it has been obliged to change itsform; since then, history also, being subjected to the materialisticmethod of treatment, shows itself as a new road of progress. 

The materialism of the preceding century was overwhelmingly mechanical, because at that time of all the natural sciences, mechanics, and indeed, only the mechanics of the celestial and terrestrial fixed bodies, themechanics of gravity, in short, had reached any definite conclusions. Chemistry existed at first only in a childish, phlogistic form. Biologystill lay in swaddling clothes; the organism of plants and animals wasexamined only in a very cursory manner, and was explained upon purelymechanical grounds; just as an animal was to Descartes nothing but amachine, so was man to the materialists of the eighteenth century. Theexclusive application of the measure of mechanics to processes which areof chemical and organic nature and by which, it is true, the laws ofmechanics are also manifested, but are pushed into the background byother higher laws, this application is the cause of the peculiar, but, considering the times, unavoidable, narrowmindedness of the Frenchmaterialism. 

The second special limitation of this materialism lies in its incapacityto represent the universe as a process, as one form of matter assumed inthe course of evolutionary development. This limitation correspondedwith the natural science of the time and the metaphysic coincidenttherewith, that is the anti-dialectic methods of the philosophers. Nature, as was known, was in constant motion, but this motion, accordingto the universally accepted ideas, turned eternally in a circle, andtherefore never moved from the spot, and produced the same results overand over again. This idea was at that time inevitable. The Kantiantheory of the origin of the solar system was at first exhibited andconsidered as a mere curiosity. The history of the development of theearth-geology was still unknown, and the idea that the living naturalobjects of to-day are the result of a long process of development fromthe simple to the complex could not be scientifically established atthat time. This anti-historical comprehension of nature was, therefore, inevitable. We cannot reproach the philosophers of the eighteenthcentury with this, as the same thing is also found in Hegel. Accordingto him, nature is the mere outward form of the Idea, capable of noprogress as regards time, but merely of an extension of its manifoldnessin space, so that it displays all the stages of development comprised init at one and the same time together, and is condemned to a repetitionof the same processes. And this absurdity of a progress in space butoutside of time--the fundamental condition of all progress--Hegel loadsupon nature, just at the very time when geology, embryology, thephysiology of plants and animals, and inorganic chemistry, were beingbuilt up, and when above all genial prophecies of the later evolutiontheory appeared at the very threshold of these new sciences (e. G. , Goethe and Lamark), but the system so required it, and the method, forlove of the system, had to prove untrue to itself. 

This unhistoric conception had its effects also in the domain ofhistory. Here the fight against the remnants of the Middle Ages kept theoutlook limited. The Middle Ages were reckoned as a mere interruption ofhistory by a thousand years of barbarism. The great advances of theMiddle Ages--the broadening of European learning, the bringing intoexistence of great nations, which arose, one after the other, andfinally the enormous technical advances of the fourteenth and fifteenthcenturies--all this no one saw. Consequently a rational view of thegreat historic development was rendered impossible, and history servedprincipally as a collection of examples and illustrations for the useof philosophers. 

The vulgarizing peddlers who during the fifties occupied themselves withmaterialism in Germany did not by any means escape the limitations oftheir doctrine. All the advances made in science served them only as newgrounds of proof against the existence of the Creator, and indeed it wasfar beyond their trade to develop the theory any further. Idealism wasat the end of its tether and was smitten with death by the Revolution of1848. Yet it had the satisfaction that materialism sank still lower. Feuerbach was decidedly right when he refused to take the responsibilityof this materialism, only he had no business to confound the teachingsof the itinerant spouters with materialism in general. 

However, we must here remark two different things. During the life ofFeuerbach science was still in that state of violent fermentation whichhas only comparatively cleared during the last fifteen years; newmaterial of knowledge was furnished in a hitherto unheard of measure butthe fixing of interrelations, and therewith of order, in the chaos ofoverwhelming discoveries was rendered possible quite lately for thefirst time. True, Feuerbach had lived to see the three distinctivediscoveries--that of the cell, the transformation of energy and theevolution theory acknowledged since the time of Darwin. But how couldthe solitary country-dwelling philosopher appreciate at their full valuediscoveries which naturalists themselves at that time in part contestedand partly did not understand how to avail themselves of sufficiently?The disgrace falls solely upon the miserable conditions in Germany owingto which the chairs of philosophy were filled by pettifogging eclecticpedants, while Feuerbach, who towered high above them all, had torusticate and grow sour in a little village. It is therefore no shame toFeuerbach that he never grasped the natural evolutionary philosophywhich became possible with the passing away of the partial views ofFrench materialism. 

In the second place, Feuerbach held quite correctly that scientificmaterialism is the foundation of the building of human knowledge but itis not the building itself. For we live not only in nature but in humansociety, and this has its theory of development and its science no lessthan nature. It was necessary, therefore, to bring the science ofsociety, that is the so-called historical and philosophical sciences, into harmony with the materialistic foundations and to rebuild uponthem. But this was not granted to Feuerbach. Here he stuck, in spite ofthe "foundations, " held in the confining bonds of idealism, and to thishe testified in the words "Backwards I am with the materialists, but notforwards. " But Feuerbach himself did not go forward in his views ofhuman society from his standpoint of 1840 and 1844, chiefly owing tothat loneliness which compelled him to think everything out by himself, instead of in friendly and hostile conflict with other men of hiscalibre, although of all philosophers he was the fondest of intercoursewith his fellows. We shall see later on how he thus remained anidealist. Here we can only call attention to the fact that Starckesought the idealism of Feuerbach in the wrong place. "Feuerbach is anidealist; he believes in the advance of mankind" (p. 19). "Thefoundations, the underpinning of the whole, is therefore nothing lessthan idealism. Realism is for us nothing more than a protection againsterror while we follow our own idealistic tendencies. Are not compassion, love and enthusiasm for truth and justice ideal forces?"

In the first place, idealism is here defined as nothing but thefollowing of ideal aims. But these have necessarily to do principallywith the idealism of Kant and his "Categorical Imperative. " But Kanthimself called his philosophy "transcendental idealism, " by no meansbecause he deals therein with moral ideals, but on quite other grounds, as Starcke will remember. 

The superstition that philosophical idealism pivots around a belief inmoral, that is in social ideals, arose with the German non-philosophicalPhilistine, who commits to memory the few philosophical morsels which hefinds in Schiller's poems. Nobody has criticised more severely thefeeble Categorical Imperative of Kant--feeble because it demands theimpossible and therefore never attains to any reality--nobody hasridiculed more cruelly the Philistine sentimentality imparted bySchiller, because of its unrealizable ideals, than just the idealist parexcellence, Hegel. (See e. G. Phenomenology. )

In the second place, it cannot be avoided that all human sensations passthrough the brain--even eating and drinking which are commencedconsequent upon hunger and thirst felt by the brain and ended inconsequence of sensations of satisfaction similarly experienced by thebrain. The realities of the outer world impress themselves upon thebrain of man, reflect themselves there, as feelings, thoughts, impulses, volitions, in short, as ideal tendencies, and in this form become idealforces. If the circumstance that this man follows ideal tendencies atall, and admits that ideal forces exercise an influence over him, ifthis makes an idealist of him, every normally developed man is in somesense a born idealist, and under such circumstances how can materialistsexist?

In the third place, the conviction that humanity, at least at present, as a whole, progresses, has absolutely nothing to do with the antagonismbetween materialism and idealism. The French materialists had thisconviction, to a fanatical degree, no less than the deists, Voltaire andRousseau, and made the greatest personal sacrifices for it. If anybodyever concentrated his whole life to the enthusiasm for truth andjustice, taking the words in a moral sense, it was Diderot, for example. Therefore, since Starcke has explained all this as idealism, it simplyproves that the word materialism has lost all significance for him, ashas also the antagonism between the aims of the two. 

The fact is that Starcke here makes an unpardonable concession to theprejudices of the Philistines caused by the long continued slanders ofthe clergy against the word materialism, even if without consciouslydoing so. The Philistine understands by the word materialism, gluttony, drunkenness, carnal lust, and fraudulent speculation, in short all theenormous vices to which he himself is secretly addicted, and by the wordidealism he understands the belief in virtue, universal humanitarianism, and a better world as a whole, of which he boasts before others, and inwhich he himself at the very most believes, only as long as he mustendure the blues which follow necessarily from his customary"materialistic" excesses, and so sings his favorite song--"What isman?--Half beast, half angel. "

As for the rest, Starcke takes great pains to defend Feuerbach againstthe attacks and doctrines of those collegians who plume themselves inGermany as philosophers now-a-days. It is true that this is a matter ofimportance to those people who take an interest in the afterbirth of theGerman classic philosophy, to Starcke himself this might appearnecessary. We spare the reader this, however. 

FOOTNOTE:

[1] To this very day the idea is prevalent among savages and barbariansthat the human forms appearing in our dreams are souls which temporarilyleave the body, and that, therefore, the real man becomes liable for thedeeds done to the dreamer by his dream appearance. So Imthurm, forexample, found it in 1884 among the Indians in Guiana. 

III. 

The distinct idealism of Feuerbach is evident directly we come to hisphilosophy of religion and ethics. He does not wish to abolish religionby any means; he wants to perfect it. Philosophy itself will be absorbedin religion. "The periods of human progress are only distinguishable byreligious changes. There is only a real historical progress where itenters the hearts of men. The heart is not a place for religion, so thatit should be in the heart, it is the very being of religion. " Religionis, according to Feuerbach, a matter of the feelings--the feelings oflove between man and man which up to now sought its realization in thefantastic reflected image of the reality--in the interposition throughone or more gods of the fantastic reflections of human qualities--butnow by means of love between "ego" and "tu" finds itself directly andwithout any intermediary. According to Feuerbach love between the sexesis, if not the highest form, at least one of the highest forms, of thepractice of his new religion. 

Now, feelings of affection between man and man, and particularlybetween members of the two sexes, have existed as long as mankind has. Love between the sexes has been cultivated especially during the lasteighteen hundred years and has won a place which has made it, in thisperiod, a compulsory motive for all poetry. The existing positivereligions have limited themselves in this matter to the bestowal ofcomplete consecration upon the State regulation of sexual love, andmight completely disappear tomorrow without the least difference takingplace in the matter of love and friendship. Thus the Christian religionin France was, as a matter of fact, so completely overthrown between theyears 1793 and 1798, that Napoleon himself could not re-introduce itwithout opposition and difficulty, without, in the interval, any desirefor a substitute, in Feuerbach's sense, making itself felt. 

Feuerbach's idealism consists in this, that he does not simply take forgranted the mutual and reciprocal feelings of men for one another suchas sexual love, friendship, compassion, self-sacrifice, etc. , butdeclares that they would come to their full realization for the firsttime as soon as they were consecrated under the name of religion. Themain fact for him is not that these purely human relations exist, butthat they will be conceived of as the new true religion. They will befully realized for the first time if they are stamped as religions. Religion is derived from "religare" and means originally "fastening. "Therefore, every bond between men is religion. Such etymologicalartifices are the last resort of the idealistic philosophy. Not what theword means according to the historical development of its truesignificance, but what it should mean according to its derivation iswhat counts, and so sex-love and the intercourse between the sexes isconsecrated as a "religion" only so that the word religion, which isdear to the mind of the idealist, shall not vanish from the language. The Parisian reformer of the stripe of Louis Blanc used to speak just inthe same way in the forties, for they could only conceive of a manwithout religion as a monster, and used to say to us "Atheism, then, isyour religion. "

If Feuerbach wants to place true religion upon the basis of realmaterialistic philosophy, that would be just the same as conceiving ofmodern chemistry as true alchemy. If religion can exist without its Godthen alchemy can exist without its philosopher's stone. There exists, bythe way, a very close connection between alchemy and religion. Thephilosopher's stone has many properties of the old gods, and theEgyptian-Greek alchemists of the first two centuries of our era have hadtheir hands in the development of Christian doctrines, as Kopp andBerthelot prove. 

Feuerbach's declaration that the periods of man's development are onlydifferentiated through changes in religion is false. Great historicalpoints of departure are coincident with religious changes only as far asthe three world-religions which exist up to the present areconcerned--Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The old tribal and nationalreligions originating in nature were not propagandist and lost all powerof resistance as soon as the independence of the tribe and people wasdestroyed. Among the Germans simple contact with the decaying RomanEmpire and the Christian world-religion springing from it and suitableto its economic, political and ideal circumstances, was sufficient. Inthe first place, as regards these more or less artificialworld-religions, particularly in the cases of Christianity andMohammedanism, we find that the more universal historical movements willtake on a religious stamp, and as far as concerns Christianity inparticular, the stamp of the religion affecting revolutionary movementsof universal significance stopped short at the commencement of the fightof the bourgeois for emancipation from the thirteenth to the seventeenthcentury, and showed itself not as Feuerbach declares in the hearts ofmen and the thirst for religion, but in the entire earlier history ofthe Middle Ages which knew no other form of idealism than religion andtheology. But as the bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century wassufficiently strong to have its own ideology suitable to its ownstandpoint, it forthwith made its great and final revolution, theFrench, by means of an appeal exclusively to juristic and politicalideals, and troubled itself with religion only so far as it stood in itsway. It never occurred to it to establish a new religion in place ofthe old one; everybody knows what a mess Robespierre made of theattempt. 

The possibility of a purely humane sentiment in intercourse with othermen is with us today exceedingly impeded through the society founded onclass antagonism and class supremacy in which we must move. We have noneed to trouble ourselves about sanctifying these sentiments by means ofa new religion. And just as the circumstances of the great historicalclass-fight have been obscured by the current historians, particularlyin Germany, so in the same way the understanding of the great historicalclass-conflicts is sufficiently obscured by the present-day manner ofwriting history, without our needing to change these conflicts into amere appendix of ecclesiastical history. Here it is evident how far wein our day are away from Feuerbach. His most beautiful passages inpraise of the new religion of love are today unreadable. 

The only religion which Feuerbach examined closely is Christianity, theuniversal religion of the western world which is founded uponmonotheism. He proves that the Christian God is only the fantasticreflection, the reflected image of man. But that God is himself theproduct of a lengthy process of abstraction, the concentratedquintessence of the earlier tribal and national gods. And man also whosereflection that God is, is not a real man, but is likewise thequintessence of many real men, the abstract human, and therefore himselfagain the creature of thought. The same Feuerbach who on each pagepreaches sensation, diving into the concrete, the real, becomesthoroughly abstract as soon as he begins to talk of more than meresensual intercourse between human beings. 

Of this relationship only one side appeals to him, the moral, andFeuerbach's astonishing lack of resources as compared with Hegel isstriking. The ethic or rather moral doctrine of the latter, is thePhilosophy of Right and embraces: 1, Abstract Right; 2, Morality; 3, Moral Conduct, under which are again comprised: the family, bourgeois, society, and the State. As the form is here idealistic, the content isrealistic. The entire scope of law, economy, politics, is therein, besides ethics. With Feuerbach, it is just the reverse. He is realisticin form; he begins with man, but the discussion has absolutely nothingto do with the world in which this man lives, and so, instead of theman, stands an abstract man, who preaches sermons concerning thephilosophy of religion. This man is not even the son of a mother; he hasdeveloped from the God of the monotheistic religions. He does not livein real historic conditions and the world of history. He comes intorelationship with other men, but each of the others is just as much anabstraction as he himself is. In the "philosophy of religion" we hadstill men and women, but in the "ethic" this final distinction vanishes. At long intervals Feuerbach makes such statements as: "A man thinksdifferently in a palace than in a hut. " "When you have nothing in yourbody to ward off hunger and misery, you have nothing in your head, mindand heart for morality. " "Politics must be our religion, " etc. ButFeuerbach was absolutely incapable of extracting any meaning from theseremarks; they remain purely literary expressions, and Starcke himself isobliged to admit that the science of politics was an insuperableobstacle to Feuerbach and the science of society, sociology, for him aterra incognita. 

He appears just as uninspired in comparison with Hegel in his treatmentof the antithesis of good and evil. "One thinks he is saying somethinggreat, " Hegel remarks "if one says that mankind is by nature good, butit is forgotten that one says something far greater in the words 'man isby nature evil. '" According to Hegel, evil is the form in which themechanical power of evolution shows itself, and indeed in this lies thedouble idea that each new step forward appears as an outrage against asacred thing, as rebellion against the old, dying, but through custom, sanctified, circumstances, and on the other hand that since the risingof class antagonism, the evil passions of men, greed and imperiousnessserve as the levers of historical progress, of which, for example, thehistory of feudalism and the bourgeoisie affords a conspicuous proof. But Feuerbach does not trouble himself to examine the role of moralevil. History is to him a particularly barren and unwonted field. Evenhis statement, "Man as he sprang from nature originally was only a merecreature, not a man. " "Man is a product of human society, of education, and of history. " Even this statement remains from his standpointabsolutely unproductive. 

What Feuerbach communicates to us respecting morals must therefore beexceedingly narrow. The desire for happiness is born within man and musthence be the foundation of all morality. But the desire for happiness islimited in two ways; first, through the natural results of our acts;after the dissipation comes the headache, as a result of habitualexcess, sickness; in the second place, through its results upon society, if we do not respect the similar desire for happiness on the part ofother people, they resist us and spoil our pursuit of happiness. Itfollows, therefore, that in order to enjoy our pursuit of happiness, theresult of our acts must be rightly appreciated, and, on the other hand, must allow of the carrying out of the same acts on the part of others. Practical self-control with regard to ourselves and love, always love, in our intercourse with others are therefore the foundation rules ofFeuerbach's morality, from which all others lead, and neither theenthusiastic periods of Feuerbach nor the loud praises of Starcke canset off the thinness and flatness of this pair of utterances. 

The desire for happiness contents itself only very exceptionally, and byno means to the profit of one's self or other people with self. But itrequires the outside world--means of satisfying itself--therefore meansof subsistence, an individual of the other sex, books, convention, argument, activity, these means and matters of satisfaction are mattersof utility and labor. Feuerbach's system of morality either predicatesthat these means and matters of satisfaction are given to every man _perse_, or, since it gives him only unpractical advice, is not worth a jotto the people who are without these means. And this Feuerbach himselfshows clearly in forcible words, "One thinks differently in a palacethan in a hut. " "Where owing to misery and hunger you have no materialin your body, you have also no material in your head, mind and heart formorals. "

Are matters any better with the equal right of another to the pursuit ofhappiness? Feuerbach set this statement out as absolute, as applicableto all times and circumstances. But since when has it been true? Wasthere in the olden time between slave and master or in the Middle Agesbetween serf and baron any talk about equal rights to the pursuit ofhappiness? Was not the right to the pursuit of happiness of the subjectclass sacrificed to the dominant class regardlessly and by means oflaw?--nay, that was immoral, but still equality of rights is recognizednow-a-days--recognized in words merely since the bourgeoisie in itsfight against feudalism and in the institution of capitalisticproduction, was compelled to abolish all existing exclusive, that is, personal, privileges, and for the first time to introduce the right ofthe private individual, then also gradually the right of the State, andequality before law. But the pursuit of happiness consists for the leastpart only in ideal rights, and lies, for the most part, in means ofmaterial satisfaction takes care that only enough for bare subsistencefalls to the great majority of those persons with equal rights, andtherefore regards the equality of right to the pursuit of happinesshardly better than slavery or serfdom did. And are we better off asregards mental means of happiness--means of education? Is not theschoolmaster of Sadowa a mythical person?

Further, according to the ethical theory of Feuerbach, the Bourse is thehighest temple of morality, only provided that one speculate rightly. Ifmy pursuit of happiness leads me to the Bourse, and I, in following mybusiness, manage so well that only what is agreeable and nothingdetrimental comes to me, that is that I win steadily, Feuerbach'sprecept is carried out. In this way I do not interfere with the similarpursuit of happiness of anyone else, since the other man goes on theBourse just as voluntarily as I do, and at the conclusion of his affairsa sentimental expression, for each finds in the other the satisfactionof his pursuit of happiness which it is just the business of love tobring about, and which it here practically accomplishes. And since Icarry on my operations with more exact prudence and therefore withgreater success I fulfill the strongest maxims of the Feuerbach moralphilosophy and become a rich man into the bargain. In other words, Feuerbach's morality is hewn out of the capitalistic system of today, little as he might wish or think it to be. 

But love, yes love, is particularly and eternally the magical god who, according to Feuerbach, surmounts all the difficulties of practical lifeand that in a society which is divided into classes with diametricallyopposing interests. The last remnant of its revolutionary character isthus taken from his philosophy, and there remains the old cant--"loveone another"--fall into each other's arms without regard to anyimpediment of sex or position--universal intoxication of reconciliation. 

In a word, the moral theories of Feuerbach turn out to be the same asthose of all of his predecessors. It is a hodge-podge of all times, allpeople, and all conditions, and for this occasion is applicable to notime and place, and as regards the actual world is as powerless asKant's "Categorical Imperative. " As a matter of fact, every class, aswell as every profession, has its own system of morals and breaks eventhis when it can do it without punishment, and love, which is to uniteall, appears today in wars, controversies, lawsuits, domestic broils andas far as possible mutual plunder. 

But how was it possible that the powerful impetus given by Feuerbachturned out so unprofitable to Feuerbach himself. Simply in this way, because Feuerbach could not find his way out of the abstraction, whichhe hated with a deadly hatred, to living reality. He clutches hard atNature and Humanity, but "Nature" and "Humanity" remain empty words withhim. He does not know how to tell us anything positive about real natureand real men. We can only reach living men from the abstract men ofFeuerbach if we regard them as active historical agents. Feuerbachstrove against that, hence the year 1848, which, he did not understand, signified for him merely the final break with the real world, retirementinto solitude. German conditions must for the most part bear the guiltof allowing him to starve miserably. 

But the step which Feuerbach did not make had not yet been made. Thecultus of man in the abstract which was the kernel of Feuerbach'sreligion must be replaced by the knowledge of real men and theirhistorical development. This advance of Feuerbach's view beyondFeuerbach himself was published in 1845 by Marx in the "Holy Family. "

IV. 

Strauss, Bauer, Stirner, Feuerbach, these were the minor representativesof the Hegelian philosophy, so far as they did not abandon the field ofphilosophy. Strauss has, in addition to the "Life of Jesus" and"Dogmatics, " only produced philosophical and ecclesiastical historicalwork of a literary character, after the fashion of Renan; Bauer hasmerely done something in the department of primitive Christianity, butthat significant; Stirner remained a "freak" even after Bakunine hadmixed him with Proudhon and designated his amalgamation "Anarchism. "Feuerbach alone possessed any significance as a philosopher; but notonly did philosophy remain for him the vaunted superior of all othersciences, the quintessence of all science, an impassable limitation, theuntouchable holy thing, he stood as a composite philosopher; the underhalf of him was materialist, the upper half idealist. He was not an aptcritic of Hegel but simply put him aside as of no account, while hehimself, in comparison with the encyclopedic wealth of the Hegeliansystem, contributed nothing of any positive value, except a bombasticreligion of love and a thin, impotent system of ethics. 

But from the breaking up of the Hegelian school there proceeded another, the only one which has borne real fruit, and this tendency is coupledwith the name of Marx. [2]

In this case the separation from the Hegelian philosophy occurred bymeans of a return to the materialistic standpoint, that is to say, adetermination to comprehend the actual world--nature and history--as itpresents itself to each one of us, without any preconceived idealisticbalderdash interfering; it was resolved to pitilessly sacrifice anyidealistic preconceived notion which could not be brought into harmonywith facts actually discovered in their mutual relations, and withoutany visionary notions. And materialism in general claims no more. Onlyhere, for the first time in the history of the materialistic philosophy, was an earnest endeavor made to carry its results to all questionsarising in the realm of knowledge, at least in its characteristicfeatures. 

Hegel was not merely put on one side, the school attached itself on thecontrary to his openly revolutionary side, the dialectic method. Butthis method was of no service in its Hegelian form. According to Hegelthe dialectic is the self-development of the Idea. The Absolute Ideadoes not only exist from eternity, but it is also the actual living soulof the whole existing world. It develops from itself to itself throughall the preliminary stages which are treated of at large in "Logic, " andwhich are all included in it. Then it steps outside of itself, changingwith nature itself, where it, without self-consciousness, is disguisedas a necessity of nature, goes through a new development, and, finally, in man himself, becomes self-consciousness. This self-consciousness nowworks itself out into the higher stages from the lower forms of matter, until finally the Absolute Idea is again realized in the Hegelianphilosophy. According to Hegel, the dialectic development apparent innature and history, that is a causative, connected progression from thelower to the higher, in spite of all zig-zag movements and momentarysetbacks, is only the stereotype of the self-progression of the Ideafrom eternity, whither one does not know, but independent at all eventsof the thought of any human brain. This topsy-turvy ideology had to beput aside. We conceived of ideas as materialistic, as pictures of realthings, instead of real things as pictures of this or that stage of theAbsolute Idea. Thereupon, the dialectic became reduced to knowledge ofthe universal laws of motion--as well of the outer world as of thethought of man--two sets of laws which are identical as far as matter isconcerned but which differ as regards expression, in so far as the mindof man can employ them consciously, while, in nature, and up to now, inhuman history, for the most part they accomplish themselves, unconsciously in the form of external necessity, through an endlesssuccession of apparent accidents. Hereupon the dialectic of the Ideabecame itself merely the conscious reflex of the dialectic evolution ofthe real world, and therefore, the dialectic of Hegel was turned upsidedown or rather it was placed upon its feet instead of on its head, whereit was standing before. And this materialistic dialectic which sincethat time has been our best tool and our sharpest weapon was discovered, not by us alone, but by a German workman, Joseph Dietzgen, in aremarkable manner and utterly independent of us. 

But just here the revolutionary side of Hegel's philosophy was againtaken up, and at the same time freed from the idealistic frippery whichhad in Hegel's hands interfered with its necessary conclusions. Thegreat fundamental thought, namely, that the world is not to beconsidered as a complexity of ready-made things, but as a complexitymade up of processes in which the apparently stable things, no less thanthe thought pictures in the brain--the idea, cause an unbroken chain ofcoming into being and passing away, in which, by means of all sorts ofseeming accidents, and in spite of all momentary setbacks, there iscarried out in the end a progressive development--this great foundationthought has, particularly since the time of Hegel, so dominated thethoughts of the mass of men that, generally speaking, it is now hardlydenied. But to acknowledge it in phrases, and to apply it in reality toeach particular set of conditions which come up for examination, are twodifferent matters. But if one proceeds steadily in his investigationsfrom this historic point, then a stop is put, once and for all, to thedemand for final solutions and for eternal truths; one is firmlyconscious of the necessary limitations of all acquired knowledge, of itshypothetical nature, owing to the circumstances under which it has beengained. One cannot be imposed upon any longer by the inflatedinsubstantial antitheses of the older metaphysics of true and false, good and evil, identical and differentiated, necessary and accidental;one knows that these antitheses have only a relative significance, thatthat which is recognized as true now, has its concealed andlater-developing false side, just as that which is recognized as false, its true side, by virtue of which it can later on prevail as the truth;that so-called necessity is made up of the merely accidental, and thatthe acknowledged accidental is the form behind which necessity concealsitself and so on. 

The old methods of enquiry and thought which Hegel terms metaphysics, which by preference busied themselves by enquiring into things as givenand established quantities, and the vestiges of which still buzz in theheads of people, had at that time great historical justification. Thingshad first to be examined, before it was possible to examine processes;man must first know what a thing was before he could examine thepreceding changes in it. And so it was with natural science. The oldmetaphysic which comprehended things as stable came from a philosophywhich enquired into dead and living things as things comprehended asstable. But when this enquiry had so far progressed that the decisivestep was possible, namely, the systematic examination of the precedingchanges in those things going on in nature itself, then occurred thedeath-blow of the old metaphysics in the realm of philosophy. And, infact, if science to the end of the last century was chiefly a collectingof knowledge, the science of actual things, so is science in our daypre-eminently an arranging of knowledge, the science of changes, of theorigin and progress of things, and the mutual connection which bindsthese changes in nature into one great whole. Physiology, which examinesthe earlier forms of plant and animal organisms; embryology, which dealswith the development of the elementary organism from germ to maturity;geology, which investigates the gradual formation of the earth's crust, are all the products of our century. 

But, first of all, there are three great discoveries which have causedour knowledge of the interdependence of the processes of nature toprogress by leaps and bounds. In the first place, the discovery of thecell, as the unit, from the multiplication and differentiation ofwhich, the whole of plant and animal substance develop so that not onlythe growth and development of all higher classes of all higher organismsis recognized as following a universal law, but the very path is shownin the capacity for differentiation in the cell, by which organisms areenabled to change their forms and make thereby a more individualdevelopment. Secondly, the metamorphosis of energy which has shown usthat all the so-called real forces in inorganic nature, the mechanicalforces and their complements, the so-called potential energies, heat, radiation (light, radiating heat), electricity, magnetism, chemicalenergy, are different forms of universal motion, which pass, undercertain conditions, the one into the other, so that in place of those ofthe one which disappear, a certain number of the other appear, so thatthe whole movement of nature is reduced to this perpetual process oftransformation from one into the other. Finally, the proof firstdeveloped logically by Darwin, that the organic products of nature aboutus, including man, are the result of a long process of evolution, froma few original single cells, and these again, by virtue of chemicalprocesses, have proceeded from protoplasm or white of egg. 

Thanks to these three great discoveries and the resultant powerfuladvance of science, we have now arrived at a point where we can show theconnection between changes in nature, not only in specific cases, butalso in the relation of the specific cases to the whole and so give abird's eye view of the interrelation of nature in an approximatelyscientific form by means of the facts shown by empirical science itself. To furnish this complete picture was formerly the task of the so-calledphilosophy of nature. It could then only do this by substituting idealand imaginary hypotheses for the unknown real interconnection, byfilling out the missing facts with mind-pictures and by bridging thechasms by empty imaginings. It had many happy thoughts in thesetransports (of imagination), it anticipated many later discoveries, butit also caused the survival of considerable nonsense up to the presenttime which could not otherwise have been possible. At present, when theresults of the investigation of nature need only be conceived ofdialectically, that is in the sense of their mutual interconnection, toarrive at a system of nature sufficient for our time, when thedialectical character of this interconnection forces itself into themetaphysically trained minds of experimental scientists, against theirwill, today a philosophy of nature is finally disposed of, every attemptat its resurrection would not only be superfluous, it would even be astep backwards. 

But what is true of nature, which is hereby recognized as an historicalprocess, is true also of the history of society in all its branches, andof the totality of all sciences which occupy themselves with thingshuman and divine. Here also the philosophy of jurisprudence, of history, of religion, etc. , consisted in this, that in place of the trueinterconnection of events, one originating in the mind of thephilosopher was substituted; that history, in its totality as in itsparts, was comprehended as the gradual realization of ideas, but, ofcourse, always of the pet idea of the philosopher himself. 

History worked up to now, unconsciously but necessarily, towards acertain predetermined, fixed, ideal goal, as for example in the case ofHegel, towards the realization of his Absolute Idea, and the unalterabletrend towards this Absolute Idea constituted the inward connection ofhistoric facts. In the place of the real, and up to this time unknown, interrelation, man set a new mysterious destiny, unconscious orgradually coming into consciousness. It was necessary in this case, therefore, just as in the realm of nature, to set aside these artificialinterrelations by the discovery of the real, a task which finallyculminated in the discovery of the universal laws of progress, whichestablished themselves as the dominating ones in the history of humansociety. 

The history of the growth of society appears, however, in one respectentirely different from that of nature. In nature are to be found as faras we leave the reaction of man upon nature out of sight--mereunconscious blind agents which act one upon another, and in theirinterplay the universal law realizes itself. From all that happens, whether from the innumerable apparent accidents which appear upon thesurface, or from the final results flowing from these accidentaloccurrences, nothing occurs as a desired conscious end. On the contrary, in the history of society the mere actors are all endowed withconsciousness; they are agents imbued with deliberation or passion, menworking towards an appointed end; nothing appears without an intentionalpurpose, without an end desired. But this distinction, important as itis for historical examination, particularly of single epochs and events, can make no difference to the fact that the course of history isgoverned by inner universal laws. Here also, in spite of the wished foraims of all the separate individuals, accident for the most part isapparent on the surface. That which is willed but rarely happens. In themajority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and interfere witheach other, and either these ends are utterly incapable of realization, or the means are ineffectual. So, the innumerable conflicts ofindividual wills and individual agents in the realm of history reach aconclusion which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm ofnature, which is without definite purpose. The ends of the actions areintended, but the results which follow from the actions are notintended, or in so far as they appear to correspond with the enddesired, in their final results are quite different from the conclusionwished. Historical events in their entirety therefore appear to belikewise controlled by chance. But even where according to superficialobservation, accident plays a part, it is, as a matter of fact, consistently governed by unseen, internal laws, and the only questionremaining, therefore, is to discover these laws. 

Men make their own history in that each follows his own desired endsindependent of results, and the results of these many wills acting indifferent directions and their manifold effects upon the worldconstitute history. It depends, therefore, upon what the great majorityof individuals intend. The will is determined by passion or reflection, but the levers which passion or reflection immediately apply are of verydifferent kinds. Sometimes it may be external circumstances, sometimesideal motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice, personal hate, or even purely individual peculiar ideas of all kinds. But on the one hand, we have seen in history that the results of manyindividual wills produce effects, for the most part quite other thanwhat is wished--often, in fact, the very opposite--their motives ofaction, likewise, are only of subordinate significance with regard tothe universal result. On the other hand, the question arises: Whatdriving forces stand in turn behind these motives of action; what arethe historical causes which transform themselves into motives of actionin the brains of the agents?

The old materialism never set this question before itself. Itsphilosophy of history, as far as it ever had one in particular, is henceessentially pragmatic; it judges everything from the standpoint of theimmediate motive; it divides historical agents into good and bad andfinds as a whole that the good are defrauded and the bad are victorious, whence it follows that, as far as the old materialism is concerned, there is nothing edifying that can be obtained from a study of history, and for us, that in the realm of history the old materialism is provedto be false, since it fixes active ideal impulses as final causesinstead of seeking that which lies behind them, that which is theimpulse of these impulses. The lack of logical conclusion does not liein the fact that ideal impulses are recognized, but in this, that thereis no further examination into the more remote causes of their activity. The philosophy of history, on the contrary, particularly as it wastreated by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and even the realmotives of the men who figure in history, are by no means the finalcauses of historical events, that behind these events stand other movingforces which must be discovered; but it seeks these forces not inhistory itself, it imports them mostly from the outside, fromphilosophical ideology, into history. Instead of explaining the historyof ancient Greece from its own inner connection, Hegel, for example, explains it solely as if it were nothing but the working out of abeautiful individuality, the realization of art, as such. He says muchabout the old Greeks that is fine and profound, but this does notprevent our dissatisfaction, now-a-days, with such an explanation, whichis mere phraseology. 

If, therefore, we set out to discover the impelling forces, which, acknowledged, or unacknowledged, and for the most part unacknowledged, stand behind historical figures, and constitute the true final impulsesof history, we cannot consider so much the motives of singleindividuals, however pre-eminent, as those which set in motion greatmasses, entire nations, and again, whole classes of people in eachnation, and this, too, not in a momentarily flaring and quickly dyingflame, but to enduring action culminating in a great historical change. To establish the great impelling forces which play upon the brains ofthe acting masses and their leaders, the so-called great men, asconscious motives, clear or unclear, directly or ideologically or evenin a supernatural form, that is the only method which can place us onthe track of the law controlling history as a whole, as well as atparticular periods and in individual lands. All that sets men in motionmust act upon their minds, but the force which acts upon the braindepends very largely upon circumstances. The workers have by no meansbecome reconciled to the machine power of the capitalists although theyno longer break the machines to pieces as they did on the Rhine in1848. 

But while the discovery of these impelling forces of history wasentirely impossible in all other periods, on account of the complicatedand hidden interrelations with their effects, our present period has sofar simplified these relations that the problem can be solved. Since theestablishment of the great industry, at least since the peace of Europein 1815, it has been no longer a secret to anyone in England that thewhole political fight has been for supremacy between two classes, thelanded aristocracy and the middle-class. In France, with the return ofthe Bourbons, the same fact was perceived; the writers of history, fromThierry to Guizot, Mignet, and Thiers in particular, pronounce it as akey to an understanding of French history, especially since the MiddleAges. And since 1830 the working class, the proletariat, has beenrecognized as the third competitor for mastery in both countries. Circumstances had become so simplified that one would have had to closehis eyes not to see in the fight of these three classes and in theconflict of their interests, the moving forces of modern history, atleast in the two most advanced countries. 

But how came these classes into existence? If the great feudal ancientproperty in land can have its origin ascribed to political causesthrough forcible seizure of territories, this could not be done asregards the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There are in this caseclearly exposed the origin and progress of two great economic classesfrom plain and evident economic causes. And it was just as clear that inthe fight between the landholding class and the bourgeoisie, no lessthan in that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, economicinterests were the most important, and that political force served onlyas a mere means of furthering these. 

The bourgeoisie and the proletariat both arose as results of a change ineconomic conditions, or, strictly speaking, in methods of production. The transition, first from hand labor, controlled by the gilds, tomanufacture and thence from manufacture to the greater industry, withsteam and machine force, has developed these two classes. At a certainstage new forces of production were set in motion by the bourgeoisie, following upon the division of labor and the union of many differentkinds of labor in one united manufacture, and the methods of exchangeand requirements of exchange developed by their means, were incompatiblewith the existing historical surviving methods of production consecratedby the law, that is to say the gilds and the innumerable personal andother privileges (which for the unprivileged were only so many fetters)of the feudal social organization. The forces of production brought intobeing by the bourgeoisie rebelled against the methods of productionoriginated by the gildmasters and the feudal landlords; the result isknown; the feudal fetters were struck off, in England gradually, inFrance at one blow; in Germany the process is not yet quite complete. Asmanufacture came into conflict at a certain stage of progress withfeudal methods of production, so has the greater industry now joinedbattle with the bourgeois organization of industry established in theirplace. Bound by this system, owing to the narrow limits of thecapitalistic methods of production, there occurs on the one hand anever increasing conversion of the mass of the people into proletarians, and on the other hand an ever increasing amount of products which cannotbe disposed of. Over-production, and suffering on the part of themasses, the one the cause of the other, that is the absurd contradictionin which it runs its course, and which of necessity requires a controlof the forces of production, through a change in the methods ofproduction. 

In modern history, at least, it is therefore proved that all politicalcontests are class contests and that all fights of classes foremancipation, in spite of their necessarily political form (for everyclass struggle is a political struggle), finally, are directed towardseconomic emancipation. Here, at least, therefore, the State, thepolitical arrangement is the subordinate, bourgeois society, the rule ofeconomic relations, the deciding element. The old fashioned philosophywhich even Hegel respected saw in the State the determining element andin bourgeois society the element determined by it. Appearancescorresponded with this idea. As all the impulses of each single agentpass through his individual brain and must transform themselves intomotives of his will in order to set him to work, so must also thedesires of bourgeois society, no matter which class happens to bedominant, penetrate the will of the state in order to secure universalvalidity in the form of laws. That is the formal side of the matterwhich is self evident, the question only is what content has this merelyformal will--of the individual as well as of the State--and whence comesthis content--why is just this desired and nothing else? And if weenquire into this we discover that in modern history the will of theState, as a whole, is declared through the changing needs of bourgeoissociety, through the domination of this or that class, in the lastinstance through the development of the forces of production and theconditions of exchange. 

But if in our modern times, with their gigantic methods of productionand commerce, the State is not an independent affair with an independentdevelopment, but its existence as well as its evolution is to beexplained in the last resort from the economic conditions of the lifeof society, so much the more must the same thing be true of all earliertimes when the production of the necessities of existence was notfurthered by these extensive aids, where, therefore, the necessities ofthis production must exercise a greater control over men. If the Stateis today, at the time of the great industries and steam railways, merely, as a whole, the summarized, reflected form of the economicdesires of the class which controls production, it must, therefore, havebeen still more so at a period when a generation of men must spend thegreater portion of their united life-time in the satisfaction of theirmaterial needs, and man was, therefore, much more dependent on them thanwe are today. The examination of the earlier epochs of history, as faras it is earnestly conducted in this direction, establishes thisabundantly, but manifestly this cannot here be taken in hand. 

If the State and public law are the creatures of economic conditions, so, obviously, is private law, which only sanctions relations betweenindividuals under given normal economic circumstances. The form inwhich this appears may, however, vary considerably. One can, as happenedin England in accordance with the whole national development, retain, for the most part, the forms of the old feudal law, and give them amiddle-class content, even read a middle-class meaning into the feudalnames, but one may also, as in the western part of the Europeancontinent, use as a foundation the first general law of a societyproducing commodities, the Roman, with its unsurpassably keenelaboration, of all the legal relations of possessions of commodities(sellers and buyers, creditors and debtors, contracts, obligations, etc. ), by which we can bring it down as common-law to the use andbenefit of a still small bourgeois and half feudal society; or, with thehelp of pseudo-enlightened and moralizing jurists, a code (which is badfrom a legal point of view) can be worked out suitable to the conditionsof the particular society (as the Prussian land law). And, still again, after a great bourgeois revolution, a classical code for bourgeoissociety, such as the French "Code Civil, " may be worked out. If, therefore, the bourgeois laws only declare the economic circumstancesof society, these may be good or bad according to conditions. 

In the State appears the first ideological force over men. Societyshapes for itself an organ for the protection of its general interestsagainst attack from the outside or inside. This organ is the force ofthe State. Hardly did it come into being before this organ dominatedsociety, and as a matter of fact, in proportion as it becomes the organof a particular class, it brings into existence the supremacy of thatclass. The fight of the subject against the dominant class becomes ofnecessity political, a fight in the next place against the politicalcontrol of this latter class. This consciousness of the connection ofthe political fight with its underlying economic causes becomes more andmore obscure and may be altogether lost. Where this is not altogetherthe case with the combatants it becomes nearly altogether so with thehistorians. Of the ancient sources of history with regard to the contestwithin the Roman Republic, Appian alone gives us plain and clearinformation respecting its final cause, which was property in land. Butthe State, once become an independent power over society, forthwithdisplayed a further ideology. Among the practical politicians and thetheorists in jurisprudence, and among the jurists in particular, thisfact is first completely lost sight of. Since in each single instancethe economic facts must take the form of juristic motives so as to besanctioned in the form of law, and since, therefore, a backward viewmust be taken over the whole existing system of law, it followstherefrom that the juristic form appears to be the whole and theeconomic content nothing at all. Public and private law are consideredas independent realms which have their own independent historicevolution, which are considered capable of a systematic representation, and stand in need of it through persistent elimination of all innercontradictions. 

Still higher ideological conceptions, i. E. , still further removed fromthe economic foundations, take the form of philosophy and religion. Here, the connection of the ideas with the material conditions ofexistence become more and more complicated and obscured by reason of theincreasing number of links between them, but it exists. As the wholeRennaissance from the middle of the fifteenth century was an actualproduct of the city, and therefore of the bourgeois domination, so wasalso the philosophy, since that time newly awakened. Its content wasactually only the philosophical expression of the thoughts correspondingwith the development of the small and middle bourgeois into the greatbourgeois. Among the English and French of the preceding century, whowere for the most part as good political economists as they werephilosophers, this is quite evident, and we have proofs on its veryface, as regards the Hegelian school. 

Let us now give a slight glance at religion since it appears to standfurthest away from and to be most foreign to material life. Religionarose at a very remote period of human development, in the savage state, from certain erroneous and barbaric conceptions of men with regard tothemselves and the outside world of nature around them. Everyideological notion develops, however, when once it has arisen; it growsby additions to the given idea, and develops it further, otherwisethere would be no ideology, that is, no occupation with thoughts as withindependent thought-existence, developing independently and subject onlyto its own laws. That the material conditions of life of the men withinwhose heads this thought force is at work finally determine the courseof this thought-process necessarily remains still unknown to these men, otherwise there would be an entire end of the ideology. These originalreligious notions, therefore, which are for the most part common to eachkindred group of peoples, develop after the separation of the group in aspecial manner peculiar to each tribe, according to its particularconditions of existence, and this process is for a class of groups ofpeople, and particularly for the Aryans (Indo-Europeans) shownindividually by comparative mythology. The gods developed by each tribewere national gods, whose power extended no further than to protect thenational territory; beyond the frontier other gods held undisputed sway. They could only be conceived of as existing as long as the nationexisted. They fell with its decline. This doctrine of the oldnationalities brought about the Roman Empire, whose economic conditionswe do not need to examine just now. The old national gods fell, as thoseof the Romans did also, which were only attached to the narrow limits ofthe city of Rome. The desire to make the empire a world-empire, by meansof a world-wide religion, is clearly shown in the attempts to providerecognition and altars in Rome for all the respectable foreign gods, next to the indigenous ones. But a new world-religion was not to be madein this fashion by imperial decrees. The new world-religion, Christianity, had already arisen in secret by a mixture of combinedoriental religions, Jewish theology and popularized Greek philosophy andparticularly Stoic philosophy. We must first be at the pains to discoverhow it originally made its appearance, since its official form as it hascome to us is merely that of a State religion, and this end was achievedthrough the Council of Nice. Enough, the fact that after two hundred andfifty years it was a state religion shows that it was a religionanswering to the circumstances of the times. In the Middle Ages itshowed itself clearly. In proportion as feudalism developed it grew intoa religion corresponding with it, with a hierarchy corresponding to thefeudal. And when the rule of the bourgeois came in, it developed intoProtestant heresy in antagonism to feudal Catholicism, at first in theSouth of France, among the Albigenses at the time of the highest growthof the free cities. The Middle Ages had annexed all the surviving formsof ideology, philosophy, politics and jurisprudence, to theology assubordinate parts of theology. It constrained, therefore, all social andpolitical movement to assume a theological form; finally, to the mindsof the masses stuffed with religion it was necessary to show theirinterests in religious guise, in order to raise a tremendous storm. Andas the rule of the bourgeois from the beginning brought into being anappendage of propertyless plebeians, with day laborers and servants ofall sorts, without any recognized position in their cities, theforerunners of the later proletarians, so the heresy was very earlysubdivided into a moderate one, on the part of the citizens, and aplebeian revolutionary one, which was an abomination to the bourgeoisheretics. 

The failure to exterminate the protestant heresy corresponded with theinvincibility of the rising power of the bourgeois of that time; as thispower grew, the fight with the feudal nobles, at first pre-eminentlylocal, began to assume national proportions. The first great conflictoccurred in Germany, the so-called Reformation. The power of thebourgeois was neither sufficiently strong nor sufficiently developed foran open rebellious stand, by uniting under the standard of revolt thecity plebeians, the smaller nobility, and the peasants of the countrydistricts. The nobility was struck first, the peasants took up aposition which was the high-water mark of the entire revolution, thecities left them in the lurch, and so the revolution was left to theleaders of the country gentry who gathered the whole victory tothemselves. Thenceforth for three hundred years Germany disappeared fromthe ranks of independent, energetic progressive countries. But after theGerman Luther, arose the French Calvin. With natural French acuteness heshowed the bourgeois character of the revolution in the Church, republicanised and democratised. While the Lutheran Reformation fell inGermany and Germany declined, the Calvinistic served as a standard tothe republicans in Geneva, in Holland, in Scotland, freed Holland fromGerman and Spanish domination, and gave an ideological dress to thesecond act of the bourgeois revolution which proceeded in England. HereCalvinism proved itself to be the natural religious garb of theinterests of the existing rule of the bourgeois and was not realised anyfurther than that the revolution of 1689 was completed by a compromisebetween a portion of the nobility and the middle-class. The EnglishEstablished Church was restored, but not in its earlier form with theking for Pope, but was strongly infused with Calvinism. Theold-established Church had kept up the merry Catholic Sunday and foughtagainst the tedious Calvinistic one, the new bourgeois Church introducedthe latter and added thereby to the charms of England. 

In France the Calvinistic minority was subdued in 1685, either madeCatholic or hunted out of the country. But what was the good? Directlyafter that the free thinker Pierre Bayle was at work, and in 1694Voltaire was born. The tyrannical rule of Louis XIV. Only made it easierfor the French bourgeoisie to be able to make its revolution in thepolitical form finally suitable to the progressive atheisticbourgeoisie. Instead of Protestants, free-thinkers took their seats inthe National Assembly. Thereby Christianity entered upon the last lap ofthe race. It had become incapable of serving a progressive class anyfurther as the ideological clothing of its efforts, it became more andmore the exclusive possession of the dominant classes, and these used itmerely as a simple means of government to keep the lower classes insubjection. So then each one of the different classes employed its ownsuitable religion, the landholding squires catholic jesuitism orprotestant orthodoxy, the liberal and radical bourgeois rationalism, andit makes no difference therefore whether people themselves believe intheir respective religions or not. 

Thus we see religion once arisen contains material of tradition, hencein all ideological matters religion is a great conservative force. Butthe changes which take place in this material spring fromclass-conditions, that is from the economic circumstances of the men whotake these changes in hand. And that is enough on this part of thesubject. 

It is only possible at this time to give a general sketch of the Marxianphilosophy of history, and particularly as regards illustrations of it. The proof is to be discovered in history itself, and in this regard Imay say plainly that it has been sufficiently furnished in otherwritings. This philosophy, however, makes an end of philosophy in therealm of history, just as the dialectic philosophy of nature rendersevery philosophy of nature useless or impossible. Practically there isno further need to devise interrelations but to discover them in factsrather. Instead of a philosophy forced from nature and history thereremains then only the realm of pure thought--as far as any is left--theteaching of the laws of the thinking process itself, logic and thedialectic. 

With the Revolution of 1848 "educated" Germany delivered the challengeto theory and proceeded to action. Hand-labor dependent upon smallproduction and manufacture was done away with by the greatindustry--Germany again appeared in the world-market. The newparticularistic Germany, at all events did away with the most cryinganomalies, which the rule of the petty states, the remnants of feudalismand the bureaucratic economy, had placed in the way of theirdevelopment, but just in proportion as speculation abandoned the studiesof philosophers to attain its temple in the Bourse, that great theoreticthought which had been the glory of Germany in the period of its deepestpolitical humiliation, the zeal for pure scientific progress, irrespective of practical, profitable results, and of the disapproval ofthe police, became lost in educated Germany. It is true that the Germanofficial natural science maintained its position, particularly in thefield of individual discovery, at the head of its time, but now theAmerican journal "Science" justly remarks that the decisive advances inthe matter of the broadest inclusive statement of the relations betweensingle facts, and the harmonising of them with law, are making thegreater headway in England, instead of, as earlier, in Germany. And withregard to the sciences of history, philosophy included, with theclassical philosophy, the old theoretical spirit, with its carelessnessof personal results, first completely disappeared. Thoughtlesseclecticism, eager backward glances at a career, and income down to themeanest sycophancy occupy their places. The official representatives ofthis sort of science have become the open ideologists of the bourgeoisieand the existing state, but at a time when they both stand in openantagonism to the working classes. 

Only among the working classes does the German devotion to abstractthought steadily continue to exist. Here it cannot be got rid of. Herewe find no backward glances at a career, at profit making, at kindlyprotection from the upper classes, but on the contrary the moreindependent and unrestricted the path of science, just so much the moredoes it find itself in accord with the interests and endeavors of theworking class. The new tendency, which in the history of the developmentof labor made known the key to the understanding of the universalhistory of society addressed itself in the first place to the workingclass and found in them the ready acceptance which it neither sought norexpected from official science. The German working-class movement is theheir of the German classical philosophy. 

FOOTNOTE:

[2] It is incumbent upon me to make a personal explanation at thisplace. People have lately referred to my share in this theory, and so Ican hardly refrain from saying a few words here in settlement of thatparticular matter. I cannot deny that I had before and during my fortyyears' collaboration with Marx a certain independent share not only inlaying out the foundations, but more particularly in working out thetheory. But the greatest part of the leading essential thinking, particularly in the realm of economics, and especially its final sharpstatement, belongs to Marx alone. What I contributed Marx could quitereadily have carried out without me with the exception of a pair ofspecial applications. What Marx supplied, I could not have readilybrought. Marx stood higher, saw further, took a wider, clearer, quickersurvey than all of us. Marx was a genius, we others, at the best, talented. Without him the theory would not be what it is today, by along way. It therefore rightly bears his name. 

APPENDIX. 

MARX ON FEUERBACH. 

(_Jotted down in Brussels in the spring of 1845. _)

I. 

The chief lack of all materialistic philosophy up to the present, including that of Feuerbach, is that the thing, the reality, sensationis only conceived of under the form of the object which is presented tothe eye, but not as human sense-activity, "praxis, " not subjectively. Ittherefore came about that the active side in opposition to materialismwas developed from idealism, but only abstractly; this was natural, since idealism does not recognize real tangible facts as such. Feuerbachis willing, it is true, to distinguish objects of sensation from objectsexisting in thought, but he conceives of human activity itself not asobjective activity. He, therefore, in the "Wesen des Christenthums, "regards only theoretical activity as generally human, while the "praxis"is conceived and fixed only in its disgusting form. 

II. 

The question if objective truth is possible to human thought is not atheoretical but a practical question. In practice man must prove thetruth, that is the reality and force in his actual thoughts. The disputeas to the reality or non-reality of thought which separates itself, "thepraxis, " is a purely scholastic question. 

III. 

The materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions andeducation, different men therefore the products of other conditions andchanged education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men andthat the educator has himself to be educated. It necessarily happenstherefore that society is divided into two parts, of which one iselevated above society (Robert Owen for example). 

The occurrence simultaneously of a change in conditions and humanactivity can only be comprehended and rationally understood as arevolutionary fact. 

IV. 

Feuerbach proceeds from a religious self-alienation, the duplication ofthe world into a religious, imaginary, and a real world. His workconsists in the discovery of the material foundations of the religiousworld. He overlooked the fact that after carrying this to completion theimportant matter still remains unaccomplished. The fact that thematerial foundation annuls itself and establishes for itself a realm inthe clouds can only be explained from the heterogeneity andself-contradiction of the material foundation. This itself must firstbecome understood in its contradictions and so become thoroughlyrevolutionized by the elimination of the contradiction. After theearthly family has been discovered as the secret of the Holy Family, onemust have theoretically criticised and theoretically revolutionised itbeforehand. 

V. 

Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thought, invokes impressionsproduced by the senses, but does not comprehend sensation as practicalsensory activities. 

VI. 

Feuerbach dissolves religion in humanity. But humanity is not anabstraction dwelling in each individual. In its reality it is theensemble of the conditions of society. 

Feuerbach, who does not enquire into this fact, is therefore compelled:

1. To abstract religious sentiment from the course of history, to placeit by itself, and to pre-suppose an abstract, isolated, humanindividual. 

2. Humanity is therefore only comprehended by him as a species, as ahidden sort of merely natural identity of qualities in which manyindividuals are embraced. 

VII. 

Therefore Feuerbach does not see that religious feeling is itself aproduct of society, and that the abstract individual which he analysesbelongs in reality to a certain form of society. 

VIII. 

The life of society is essentially practical. All the mysteries whichseduce speculative thought into mysticism find their solution in humanpractice and in concepts of this practice. 

IX. 

The highest point to which materialism attains, that is the materialismwhich comprehends sensation, not as a practical fact, is the point ofview of the single individual in bourgeois society. 

X. 

The standpoint of the old materialism is "bourgeois" society; thestandpoint of the new, human society, or associated humanity. 

XI. 

Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, but the pointis to change it.