{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27814/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27814","id":"gutenberg_27814","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27814","summary":null,"tags":["Category: German Literature","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Dialectical materialism","Feuerbach, Ludwig, 1804-1872","Socialism"],"text":"Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Martin Pettit and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n+--------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's note:                               |\n|                                                  |\n|Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. |\n|                                                  |\n+--------------------------------------------------+\n\n\nFEUERBACH\n\nTHE ROOTS OF THE SOCIALIST PHILOSOPHY\n\nBY\nFREDERICK ENGELS\n\nTRANSLATED WITH CRITICAL INTRODUCTION\nBY\nAUSTIN LEWIS\n\nCHICAGO\nCHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY\n\n\nCopyright, 1903\n\nBy CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThis work takes us back nearly sixty years, to a time when what is now a\nmovement of universal significance was in its infancy. Hegel and the\nRevolution of 1848; these are the points of departure. To the former, we\nowe the philosophic form of the socialist doctrine, to the latter, its\npractical activity as a movement.\n\nIn the midst of the turmoil and strife and apparent defeat of those days\ntwo men, Marx and Engels, exiled and without influence, betook\nthemselves to their books and began laboriously to fashion the form and\ndoctrine of the most powerful intellectual and political movement of all\ntime. To the task they brought genius, scholarship, and a capacity for\nhard work and patient research. In each of these qualities they were\nsupreme. Marx possessed a colossal mind; no thinker upon social\nsubjects, not even Herbert Spencer, has been his superior, for the\nlonely socialist could claim a comprehensiveness, a grasp of relations\nand a power of generalization, together with a boldness of conception,\nwhich place him in a class by himself. Engels was the able co-adjutor\nand co-worker with Marx. He was a deep and acute thinker, a most patient\ninvestigator, a careful writer. More practical than his friend, he was\nbetter able to cope with material problems, and his advice and his purse\nwere always at the disposal of Marx.\n\nThe latter could hardly have worked under more discouraging conditions.\nPoverty, inadequate opportunities, lack of stimulating companionship,\nand the complete absence of any kind of encouragement and such sympathy\nas a man of his affectionate temperament craved fell to his lot. His\nmost learned works were written for groups of workingmen, his most\nlaborious efforts were made without the slightest hope of recognition\nfrom the learned and the powerful.\n\nAll through these years Engels remained his faithful friend, and helped\nhim over many hard places when family troubles and straitened\ncircumstances pressed upon the old revolutionist.\n\nThis work is Engels' testimony with regard to the method employed by\nthem in arriving at their philosophical conclusions. It is the statement\nof the philosophical foundations of modern socialism by one who helped\nto lay them; it is an old man's account of the case upon the preparation\nof which he has spent his entire life, for, this work, short as it is,\nrepresents the results of forty years of toil and persevering effort.\n\nAs the \"Communist Manifesto\" was a gage flung with all the impetuosity\nof youthful impatience into the face of constituted authority, so this\nis the deliberate statement of the veteran, who has learned the game too\nwell to leave any openings, and proceeds to the demolition of pet\nopinions in a quiet, deadly and deliberate fashion.\n\nStep by step, the argument is built up. The ghosts of old controversies\nlong since buried are raised, to show how the doctrine imperishably\nassociated with the names of Marx and Engels came into existence; the\n\"Young Hegelians,\" the \"Tuebingen School,\" and finally Feuerbach himself\nare summoned from the grave to which the Revolution of 1848 had\nconsigned them. Still, ancient history as these controversies are from\nthe German standpoint, such is the backwardness of philosophy among\nEnglish-speaking peoples, that we find Engels exposing again and again\nfallacies which persist even in our time, and ridiculing sentiments\nwhich we receive with approbation in our political assemblies, and with\nmute approval in our churches and conventicles.\n\nThe anti-religious note is noticeable throughout, in itself an echo of\ncontroversies long past, when the arguments of the critics of the Bible\nwere creating now fury, now dismay, throughout Christendom, before the\nHigher Criticism had become respected, and before soi-disant sceptics\ncould continue to go solemnly to church.\n\nMoreover, the work was written in German for German workmen for whom\nreligion has not the same significance as it apparently still continues\nto possess for the English-speaking people, whose sensitiveness upon the\nsubject appears to have outlived their faith. However that may be,\nreligious bodies possess a curious and perhaps satisfactory faculty of\nabsorbing the truths of science, and still continuing to exist, and even\nto thrive, upon what the inexperienced might easily mistake for a deadly\ndiet.\n\nUnder the circumstances there is no reason why Engels' remarks should\naffect even the timorous, although it must be remembered that a very\nable English socialist philosopher is reputed to have damaged his\nchances irretrievably by an ill-judged quotation from Mr. Swinburne.\n\nIt must be confessed that the occasional bitterness in which Engels\nindulges is to be deplored, in a work of so essentially intellectual a\ncharacter, but it is little to be wondered at. His contempt for\nuniversity professors and the pretentious cultivated classes, who claim\nso much upon such slight grounds, is not strange, when we consider the\nhonest labors of himself and his colleagues and the superficial\nplace-hunting of the recognized savants. He loves learning for its own\nsake, for the sake of truth and scientific accuracy, and he cannot feel\nanything but scorn for those who use it as a means to lull the\nconsciences of the rich, and to gain place and power for themselves. The\ndegradation of German philosophy affects him with a real sorrow; the\nscholar is outraged at the mockery. \"Sterility,\" \"eclecticism,\" these\nare the terms in which he sums up the teachings of the official\nprofessors, and they are almost too gentle to be applied to the\ndispiriting and disheartening doctrines which are taught to the\nEnglish-speaking student of to-day under the name of economics or\nphilosophy.\n\n\nIn the first part of his pamphlet, for it is little more in size, Engels\ngives a short and concise account of the work of Hegel and the later\nHegelian School. He shows how the philosophy of Hegel has both a\nconservative and a radical side and how conservatives and radicals alike\nmight, (as a matter of fact they did), each derive support from his\nteachings, according to the amount of stress laid respectively upon the\ngreat divisions of his work, the \"System\" and the \"Dialectic.\"\n\nThe Extreme Left developed through the application of the dialectic,\nand applied the philosophic doctrine thus derived to the criticism of\nexisting political and religious institutions. This resulted in the\ngradual throwing away of the abstract part of the Hegelian philosophy,\nand in the study of facts and phenomena to an ever-increasing degree.\n\nMarx had, in his youth, allied himself with the \"Young Hegelians,\" as\nthis school was called, and this fact had no slight influence upon his\nsubsequent career. His critics lay the blame for much of the obscurity\nof language from which \"Capital\" in particular suffers, at the door of\nthis training. His painful elaboration of thesis, antithesis, and\nsynthesis, his insistence upon the dialectic, and his continual use of\nthe Hegelian philosophical expressions are due to his earlier\ncontroversial experiences. Still, on the other hand, his patient\ninvestigation of actual facts, his insistence on the value of positive\nknowledge as compared with abstract theory, and his diligent and\npersistent use of blue-books and statistics, were in a great measure\nresults of the same training.\n\nNow and again, we find Engels in this work displaying remarkable\ncontroversial acumen, as in his discussion of the phrase, \"All that is\nreal is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real\" (Alles was\nwirklich ist, ist vernuenftig, und alles was vernuenftig ist, ist\nwirklich). From this expression, by the development of the Hegelian\nargument, he arrives at the conclusion involved in the statement that\nthe value of a social or political phenomenon is its transitoriness, the\nnecessity of its disappearance. Hence the abolition of dogmatic\nstatement and mere subjective reasoning in the realm of philosophy, the\ndestruction of the old school of which Kant was the chief exponent, and\nthe creation of a new school the most advanced teachers of which were,\nas they still are, the materialistic socialists, of whom Engels and Marx\nare the chief.\n\nThe object of this historical sketch is to show the origin of\nFeuerbach's philosophy as well as of that of Marx and Engels. As the\nfight between the Young Hegelians and the conservatives grew hotter,\nthe radicals were driven back upon the English-French materialism of the\npreceding century. This was embarrassing for followers of Hegel, who had\nbeen taught to regard the material as the mere expression of the Idea.\nFeuerbach relieved them from the contradiction. He grasped the question\nboldly and threw the Hegelian abstraction completely to one side. His\nbook, \"Wesen des Christenthums,\" in which his ideas were set forth,\nbecame immediately popular, and an English translation, which was widely\nread, was made of it by George Eliot under the title of \"Essence of\nChristianity.\"\n\nEngels is by no means grudging of expressions of appreciation with\nregard to this work, and its effects both upon himself and the educated\nworld in general. This \"unendurable debt of honor\" paid, however, he\nproceeds to attack the idealistic humanitarianism which Feuerbach had\nmade the basis and sanction of his ethical theories.\n\nAlthough Feuerbach had arrived at the materialistic conclusion, he\nexpressed himself as unable to accept materialism as a doctrine. He\nsays that as far as the past is concerned he is a materialist, but, for\nthe future, he is not so--\"Backward I am in agreement with the\nmaterialists, forward not\"--a statement which impels Engels to examine\nthe materialism of the eighteenth century, which he finds purely\nmechanical, without any conception of the universe as a process, and\ntherefore utterly inadequate for the philosophic needs of the period at\nwhich Feuerbach wrote; for by that time the advance of science, and the\ngreater powers of generalization, arising from patient experimentation,\nand the development of the evolutionary theory, had rendered the\neighteenth century views evidently absurd.\n\nThe \"vulgarising peddlers\" (vulgarisirenden Hausirer) come in for a\ngreat deal of contempt at the hands of Engels. These were the popular\nmaterialists--\"the blatant atheists,\" who, without scientific knowledge\nand gifted with mere oratory or a popular style of writing, used every\nadvance of science as a weapon of attack upon the Creator and popular\nreligion. Engels sneers at these as not being scientists at all, but\nmere tradesmen dealing in pseudo-scientific wares. He calls their\noccupation a trade, a business (Geschaeft). Of the same class was that\nhost of secularist lecturers who at one time thronged the lecture\nplatforms of the English-speaking countries and of whom Bradlaugh and\nIngersoll were in every way the best representatives. These secularists\nhave now ceased to exercise any influence, and the Freethought\nsocieties, at one time so numerous, have now practically disappeared. In\naccordance with the theories as set forth by Engels they were bound to\ndisappear; their teachings had no real bearing upon social progress,\nthey contributed nothing of any scientific value to modern thought, and\nas Engels carefully shows, the reading of history by these lecturers was\nvitiated by a lack of scientific grasp, and inability to take a rational\nview of the great principles of historical development.\n\nIn the third part of this little book Engels deals with a very\ninteresting question which still disturbs the minds of philosophers, and\nconcerning which much discussion goes on even among the materialists;\nthat is the question as to the effect of religion upon social progress.\nFeuerbach had made the statement that periods of social progress are\nmarked by religious changes. He uses religion as a synonym for human\nlove, forcing the meaning of the word religion from the Latin\n\"religare,\" \"to tie,\" in order to give it an etymological and derivative\nmeaning in support of his statement, a controversial trick for which he\nis rebuked by Engels. The declaration that great historical revolutions\nare accompanied by religious changes is declared by Engels not to be\ntrue, except in a limited degree as regards the three great\nworld-religions--Christianity, Mahommedanism and Buddhism.\n\nEngels declared that the change in religion simultaneous with economic\nand political revolution stopped short with the bourgeois revolt which\nwas made without any appeal to religion whatsoever. It is evident that\nthis is not entirely true, for in the English-speaking countries, at all\nevents, not only the bourgeois but frequently also the proletarian\nmovements attempt to justify themselves from Scripture. The teachings of\nthe Bible and the Sermon on the Mount are frequently called to the aid\nof the revolutionary party; Christian Socialists, in the English and\nAmerican, not the continental sense of the term, as such are admitted to\nthe International Congresses; and other evidences of the compatibility\nof religion with the proletarian movement can be traced.\n\nBut in the broader sense of his statement Engels is undoubtedly correct.\nThe proletarian movement, unlike that of the bourgeois, has produced no\ndefinite religious school, it has not claimed any particular set of\nreligious doctrines as its own. As a matter of fact, there appears to be\nan ever-widening chasm between the Church and the laborer, a condition\nof affairs which is frequently deplored in religious papers. The famous\nPapal Encyclical on Labor was certainly intended to retain the masses in\nthe Church, and the formation of trades unions under the influence of\nthe priests was a logical conclusion from the teachings of the Papal\nEncyclical. But such religious movements are in no sense representative\nof the working-class movement; in fact they are resented and antagonized\nby the regular proletarian movement which proceeds under the leadership\nof the Socialists.\n\nFeuerbach's exaltation of humanitarianism, as a religion, is derided by\nEngels in a semi-jocular, semi-serious manner, for his statement that\nFeuerbach's ideals can be completely realized on the Bourse, cannot be\ntaken seriously. Engels' clear-sightedness with regard to the\nineffectiveness of a purely humanitarian religion is very remarkable,\nalthough the forty years' additional experience which he had over\nFeuerbach was a great advantage to him in estimating the actual value of\nhumanitarian religion as an influence in human affairs. Since the time\nof Feuerbach various experiments in the direction of a religion based\nentirely on Love have been tried, and none of them has succeeded.\nPositivism or its religious side has been a failure. It has appealed to\na small set of men, some of whom are possessed of great ability and\nhave accomplished much, but as a religion in any adequate sense of the\nword positivism will be admitted a failure by its most sincere\nadherents. Brotherhood Churches, the Church of Humanity, the People's\nChurch, and other like organizations have been formed having the same\nhumanitarian basis, professing to cultivate a maximum of love with a\nminimum of faith, and have failed to impress ordinary men and women.\nTheosophy, a system of oriental mysticism based on an abstract\nconception of the brotherhood of man, has also put forth its claims to\nnotice, on the grounds of its broad humanitarianism. None of these\nhumanitarian religions, however, appear to satisfy the needs of the\ntimes, which do not seem to demand any humanitarian teachings. The only\nreligions which evidently persist are the dogmatic, those appealing\nundisguisedly to faith, and even these do not maintain their proletarian\nfollowing.\n\nEngels' remarks appear to be more than justified by the facts of to-day,\nfor so far from the proletarian forming a new religion representing his\nneeds on the \"ideological\" field, he appears to be increasingly\ndesirous of releasing himself from the bands of any religion whatever,\nand substituting in place of it practical ethics and the teachings of\nscience. Thus we are informed that five out of six of the working\nclasses of Berlin, who attend any Sunday meetings whatever, are to be\nfound in the halls of the Social Democratic Party, listening to the\nlectures provided by that organization.\n\nThe revolutionary character of Feuerbach's philosophy is not maintained\nin his ethic, which Engels declares with much truth to be no better than\nthat of his predecessors, as the basis on which it stands is no more\nsubstantial. Feuerbach fails as a teacher of practical ethics; he is\nsmothered in abstraction and cannot attain to any reality.\n\nWith the last part of the work Engels abandons the task of criticising\nFeuerbach, and proceeds to expound his own philosophy.\n\nWith absolute candor and modesty he gives Marx credit for the theory of\nthe materialistic conception of history, upon the enunciation and proof\nof which he had himself worked almost incessantly ever since the first\nidea of the theory had occurred to them, forty years prior to the time\nwhen he wrote this work. The footnote to the first page of the fourth\npart is the testimony of a collaborator to the genius of his\nfellow-workman, an example of appreciation and modest self-effacement\nwhich it would not be easy to match, and to which literary men who work\ntogether are not over-prone. Nothing else could bear more eloquent\ntestimony to the loftiness of character and sincerity of purpose of\nthese two exiles.\n\nThe Marxian philosophy of history is clearly stated, and so fully\nexplained by Engels that there is no need to go over the ground again,\nand there only remains to call attention to some of the modern\ndevelopments in the direction of rigidity of interpretation, and to the\nexaggeration of the broad theory of the predominance of the economic\nfactor into a hard and fast doctrine of economic determinism.\n\nWhen we examine the claims of Engels on behalf of the materialistic\ndoctrine it will be found that they are not by any means of such a\nnature as to warrant the extreme conclusions of subsequent socialist\npublicists and leaders. It must be remembered that the subject of the\ninfluence of economic conditions on religious and political phenomena\nhas been closely examined of late years and continual and accumulating\nevidence has been forthcoming respecting the remarkable influence of\neconomic facts upon all other manifestations of social activity. It is\nvery probable that the successful investigations in this new field have\nled, temporarily, to the formation of exaggerated ideas as to the actual\nvalue of the economic factor.\n\nMarx, in one of his short critical notes on Feuerbach, says: \"The\nmaterialistic doctrine that men are products of conditions and\neducation, different men therefore products of other conditions, and a\ndifferent kind of education, forgets that circumstances may be altered\nby man and that the educator has himself to be educated.\" In other\nwords, the problem, like all problems, possesses at least two\nquantities; it is not a question solely of conditions, economic or\notherwise; it is a question of man and conditions, for the man is never\ndissolved in the conditions, but exists as a separate entity, and these\ntwo elements, man and conditions, act and react the one upon the other.\n\nThis is quite a different position from that taken by Lafargue in his\nfight with Jaures. Lafargue there argued that economic development is\nthe sole determinant of progress, and pronounces in favor of economic\ndeterminism, thus reducing the whole of history and, consequently, the\ndominating human motives to but one elementary motive. Belfort Bax, the\nwell-known English socialist writer, makes a very clever argument\nagainst the determinist position by comparing it with the attempts of\nthe pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to reduce nature to one element. His\nremarks are so pertinent that a brief abstract of his argument is here\nquoted in his own language. He says in \"Outlooks from a New Standpoint\":\n\n\"The endeavor to reduce the whole of Human life to one element alone, to\nreconstruct all history on the basis of Economics, as already said,\nignores the fact that every concrete reality must have a material and a\nformal side,--that is, it must have at least two ultimate elements--all\nreality as opposed to abstraction consisting in a synthesis. The attempt\nto evolve the many-sidedness of Human life out of one of its factors, no\nmatter how important that factor may be, reminds one of the attempts of\nthe early pre-Socratic Greeks to reduce nature to one element, such as\nwater, air, fire, etc.\"\n\nAnd again:\n\n\"The precise form a movement takes, be it intellectual, ethical or\nartistic, I fully admit, is determined by the material circumstances of\nthe society in which it acquires form and shape, but it is also\ndetermined by those fundamental psychological tendencies which have\ngiven it birth.\"\n\nEnrico Ferri, the famous Italian member of the Chamber of Deputies and\ncriminologist, appears to be at one with Bax in this matter. He says,\nquoting from a recent translation of his \"Socialism and Modern Science\":\n\"It is perfectly true that every phenomenon as well as every\ninstitution--moral, juridicial or political--is simply the result of\nthe economic phenomena and the conditions of the transitory, physical\nand historical environments. But as a consequence of that law of natural\ncausality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant of\nnumerous concurrent causes, and not of one cause alone, and that every\neffect becomes in its turn a cause of other phenomena, it is necessary\nto amend and complete the too rigid form that has been given to this\ntrue idea.\n\n\"Just as all psychical manifestations of the individual are the result\nof the organic conditions (temperament) and of the environment in which\nhe lives, in the same way, all the social manifestations of a people are\nthe resultant of their organic conditions (race) and of the environment,\nas these are the determining causes of the given economic organization\nwhich is the physical basis of life.\"\n\nThese may be said to be fairly representative of the views of the\nopposition to the extreme of economic determinism.\n\nThe whole controversy has spread over a tremendous amount of ground and\ninvolves much reading. Some of the chief results have lately been\nsummarized by Professor Seligman in his \"Economic Interpretation of\nHistory.\" (Macmillan, 1902.) His written views show a closer\napproximation to and understanding of the teachings of the socialist\nphilosophy on this subject than we have been accustomed to receive at\nthe hands of official savants, so that it would seem as if the value of\nMarx's work was at last beginning to be appreciated even in the foggy\nstudies of the professors. Two extracts from the writings of Engels are\nquoted by Professor Seligman. These extracts apparently go to prove that\nEngels by no means contemplated the extreme construction which has been\nplaced upon the doctrine, and that he would find such a construction\ninconsistent with his general views.\n\nThese extracts are quoted here for the purpose of further elucidating\nthe views of Engels and as further explanatory of the position assumed\nby him in the last part of the work under consideration.\n\nThey form part of a series of articles written for the \"Sozialistische\nAkademiker\" in 1890, and are as follows:\n\n\"Marx and I are partly responsible for the fact that the younger men\nhave sometimes laid more stress on the economic side than it deserves.\nIn meeting the attacks of our opponents it was necessary for us to\nemphasize the dominant principle denied by them, and we did not always\nhave the time, place, or opportunity to let the other factors which were\nconcerned in the mutual action and reaction get their deserts.\"\n\nAnd in another letter to the same magazine he says: \"According to the\nmaterialistic view of history, the factor which is, in last instance,\ndecisive in history is the production and reproduction of actual life.\nMore than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. But when anyone\ndistorts this so as to read that the economic factor is the sole element\nhe converts the statement into a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase.\nThe economic condition is the basis, but the various elements of the\nsuperstructure--the political forms of the class-contests, and their\nresults, the constitutions--the legal forms and also all the reflexes of\nthese actual contests in the brains of the participants, the political,\nlegal, philosophical theories, the religions views--all these exert an\ninfluence on the development of the historical struggles, and in many\ninstances determine their form.\"\n\nHere we may leave this much disputed matter for the present, as any\ninvolved discussion of controversial questions would be out of place\nhere. The question in its ultimate form is merely scholastic, for not\neven the most extreme determinist would hold that only the economic\nargument must be relied upon by the orators and the press of the\nproletarian movement. Any one, however, who wishes to pursue the subject\nfarther can find abundant material in the already great and growing\namount of literature in connection with it.\n\nThere is no doubt that the ideas of Marx respecting the basis of\nhistorical progress have already revolutionized the teaching of history\nin the universities, although but few professors have been honest enough\nto give him credit for it. The economic factor continually acquires\ngreater importance in the eyes of the student of history, but the\npractical discoverer of this factor is still slighted and the results of\nhis labors are assimilated with a self-satisfied hypocrisy which is,\nunfortunately, characteristic of the colleges of the English-speaking\ncountries.\n\nThe bourgeois writers upon socialism generally content themselves with\nthe bold statement that Marx employs the dialectic method of\ninvestigation and statement. This is so much Greek to the ordinary\nreader, and the subject of the dialectic as used by socialist writers\nrequires a few words of explanation.\n\nThe first part of this work is very valuable, therefore, as showing what\nMarx and Engels meant when they used the expression, and as declaring\ntheir estimation of that method compared with that in general use in\ntheir day, and always, prior to their time, employed in philosophy,\nhistory and economics.\n\nA fuller and more detailed definition of the dialectic as applied by\nEngels is given by that philosopher in his famous reply to Eugene\nDuhring known as the \"Umwaelzung der Wissenschaft.\" In that work a more\nthorough and patient investigation is made into the sources of\nmaterialistic philosophy of the socialist movement, for the reputation\nof his antagonist appears to have acted as a spur to Engels' faculties\nwhich certainly never showed to better advantage than in that work. A\nportion of the argument, in fact an abstract of the general train of\nreasoning, with the omission of the more obviously controversial parts,\nhas been reprinted under the title of \"Socialism from Utopia to\nScience.\" The following quotation is taken from the translation prepared\nfor the \"People\" in 1892:\n\n\"We also find, upon a closer enquiry, that the two poles of an\nantithesis, such as positive and negative, are as inseparable from as\nthey are opposed to each other, and that, despite their antagonism, they\nmutually pervade each other; and in the same way we find cause and\neffect to be conceptions whose force exists only when applied to a\nsingle instance, but which, soon as we consider that instance in its\nconnection with the cosmos, run into each other and dissolve in the\ncontemplation of that universal action and reaction where cause and\neffect constantly change places--that which is effect, now and here,\nbecoming, then and yonder, cause, and vice versa.\n\n\"None of these processes and methods of reasoning fits in the\nmetaphysical framework of thought. To dialectics, however, which takes\nin the objects and their conceivable images above all in their\nconnections, their sequence, their motion, their rise and decline,\nprocesses like the above are so many attestations of its own method of\nprocedure. Nature furnishes the test to dialectics, and this much we\nmust say for modern natural science, that it has contributed towards\nthis test an extremely rich and daily increasing material, whereby it\nhas demonstrated that, in the last instance, nature proceeds upon\ndialectical, not upon metaphysical methods, that it does not move upon\nthe eternal sameness of a perpetually recurring circle, but that it goes\nthrough an actual historic evolution.\n\n\"This new German philosophy culminated in the system of Hegel. There\nfor the first time--and herein consists its merit--the whole natural,\nhistoric, and intellectual world was presented as a process, i. e.,\nengaged in perpetual motion, change, transformation and development.\nViewed from this standpoint, the history of mankind no longer appeared\nas a wild tangle of senseless deeds of violence, all equally to be\nrejected by a ripened philosophic judgment, and which it were best to\nforget as soon as possible, but as the process of the development of\nmankind itself--a development whose gradual march, through all its stray\npaths, and its eternal law, through all its seeming fortuitousness, it\nnow became the task of the intellect to trace and to discover.\"\n\nKirkup, in his \"History of Socialism,\" has this to say upon the\ndialectic method of investigation as used by Marx: \"In the system of\nMarx, it means that the business of enquiry is to trace the connection\nand concatenation in the links that make up the process of historic\nevolution, to investigate how one stage succeeds another in the\ndevelopment of society, the facts and forms of human life and history\nnot being stable and stereotyped things, but the ever-changing\nmanifestations of the fluent and unresting real, the course of which it\nis the duty of science to reveal.\"\n\nThe translator has endeavored to render the meaning of the original in\nas simple an English form as possible, and to, generally speaking, avoid\ntechnical terms.\n\nAUSTIN LEWIS.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE.\n\n\nIn the preface of the \"Critique of Political Economy,\" published at\nBerlin, in 1859, Marx explained how we two, in 1845, in Brussels,\nintended to work out together the antagonism of our views--that is, the\nmaterialistic philosophy of history, as developed by Marx--to the\nideological German philosophy, and, in fact, to compare it with our\npresent philosophic knowledge. The design was carried out in the form of\na criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two big octavo\nvolumes, had long been at its intended place of publication in\nWestphalia, when we received the news that altered circumstances did not\npermit of its being printed. We postponed the publication of the\nmanuscript indefinitely, all the more willingly, as we had attained our\nmain object, an understanding of our own position.\n\nSince then more than forty years have elapsed, and Marx has died\nwithout either of us having had an opportunity of coming back to the\nantithesis. As regards our position with reference to Hegel, we have\nexplained that, as occasion has arisen, but, nowhere, as a whole. We\nnever came back to Feuerbach, who occupies an intermediate position\nbetween the philosophy of Hegel and our own.\n\nIn the meantime the Marxian philosophy has found champions beyond the\nboundaries of Germany and of Europe, and in all the languages of the\ncivilized world. On the other hand, the classic German philosophy has\nhad a sort of new-birth abroad, particularly in England and Scandinavia,\nand even in Germany they appear to be substituting the thin soup of\neclecticism which seems to flow from the universities under the name of\nphilosophy.\n\nUnder these circumstances a short, compact explanation of our relations\nto the Hegelian philosophy, of our going forth and departure from it,\nappears to me to be more and more required. And just in the same way a\nfull recognition of the influence which Feuerbach, more than all the\nother post-Hegelian philosophers, had over us, during the period of our\nyouthful enthusiasm, presents itself to me as an unendurable debt of\nhonor. I also seize the opportunity the more readily since the editor of\nthe \"Neue Zeit\" has asked me for a critical discussion of Starcke's book\non Feuerbach. My work was published in the fourth and fifth volumes of\n1886 of that publication and here appears in a revised special edition.\n\nBefore sending this manuscript to press I once again hunted up and\nexamined the old manuscript of 1845-6. The part of it dealing with\nFeuerbach is not complete. The portion completed consists in an\nexposition of the materialistic view of history and only proves how\nincomplete at that time was our knowledge of economic history. The\ncriticism of Feuerbach's doctrine is not given in it. It was therefore\nunsuitable for our purpose. On the other hand, I have found in an old\nvolume of Marx the eleven essays on Feuerbach printed here as an\nappendix. These are notes hurriedly scribbled in for later elaboration,\nnot in the least degree prepared for the press, but invaluable, as the\nfirst written form, in which is planted the genial germ of the new\nphilosophy.\n\nFRIEDRICH ENGELS.\n\nLondon, 21 February, 1888.\n\n\n\n\nFEUERBACH\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nThe volume before us brings us at once to a period which, in the matter\nof time, lies a full generation behind us, but which is as foreign to\nthe present generation in Germany as if it were quite a century old.\nAnd, still, it was the period of the preparation of Germany for the\nrevolution of 1848, and all that has happened to us since is only a\ncontinuation of 1848, only a carrying out of the last will and testament\nof the revolution.\n\nJust as in France in the eighteenth, so in Germany in the nineteenth\ncentury, revolutionary philosophic conceptions introduced a breaking up\nof existing political conditions. But how different the two appear! The\nFrench were engaged in open fight with all recognized science, with the\nChurch, frequently also with the State, their writings were published\nbeyond the frontiers in Holland or in England, and they themselves were\nfrequently imprisoned in the Bastile. The Germans, on the contrary, were\nprofessors, appointed instructors of youth by the State, their writings,\nrecognized text-books, and their definite system of universal progress,\nthe Hegelian, raised, as it were, to the rank of a royal Prussian\nphilosophy of government. And behind these professors, behind their\npedantically obscure utterances, in their heavy wearisome periods, was\nit possible that the revolution could conceal itself? Were not just the\npeople who were looked upon at that time as the leaders of the\nrevolution, the Liberals, the bitterest opponents of the brain-turning\nphilosophy? But what neither the Governmentalists nor the Liberals saw,\nthat saw, at least one man, and that man was Heinrich Heine.\n\nLet us take an example. No philosophic statement has so invited the\nthanks of narrow-minded governments and the anger of the equally narrow\nLiberals as the famous statement of Hegel: \"All that is real is\nreasonable, and all that is reasonable is real.\" This was essentially\nthe blessing of all that is, the philosophical benediction of despotism,\npolice-government, star-chamber justice and the censorship. So Frederick\nWilliam III and his subjects understood it; but, according to Hegel, not\neverything which exists is, without exception, real. The attribute of\nreality belongs only to that which is at the same time necessary.\nReality proves itself in the course of its development as necessity. Any\ngovernmental act--Hegel himself instances the example of a certain \"tax\nlaw\"--by no means strikes him as real in the absence of other qualities.\nBut what is necessary proves itself in the last instance as reasonable\nalso, and applied to the Prussian government, the Hegel doctrine,\ntherefore, only means, this state is reasonable, corresponding with\nreason, as long as it is necessary, and if it appear to us an evil, but\nin spite of the evil still continues to exist, the evil of the\ngovernment finds its justification and its explanation in the\ncorresponding evil of the subjects. The Prussians of that day had the\ngovernment which they deserved.\n\nBut reality, according to Hegel, is by no means an attribute which\nbelongs to a given social or political condition, under all\ncircumstances and at all times. Quite the contrary. The Roman Republic\nwas real, but the Roman Empire which replaced it was also real. The\nFrench Monarchy had become unreal in 1789, that is, it had lost all the\nquality of necessity, and was so contrary to reason that it had to be\ndestroyed by the Great Revolution, of which Hegel always speaks with the\ngreatest enthusiasm. Here, therefore, the monarchy was the unreal, the\nrevolution the real. So in the course of progress all earlier reality\nbecomes unreality, loses its necessity, its right of existence, its\nrationality; in place of the dying reality comes a new vital reality,\npeaceable when the old is sufficiently sensible to go to its death\nwithout a struggle, forcible when it strives against this necessity. And\nso the Hegelian statement through the Hegelian dialectic turns to its\nopposite--all that is real in the course of human history becomes in the\nprocess of time irrational and is, therefore, according to its destiny,\nirrational, and has from the beginning inherited want of rationality,\nand everything which is reasonable in the minds of men is destined to\nbecome real, however much it may contradict the apparent reality of\nexisting conditions. The statement of the rationality of everything real\ndissolves itself, according to the Hegelian mode of thought, in the\nother, \"All that stands has ultimately only so much worth that it must\nfall.\"\n\nBut just there lay the true significance and the revolutionary character\nof the Hegelian philosophy (to which, as the conclusion of all progress\nsince Kant, we must here limit ourselves) in that it, once and for all,\ngave the coup de grace to finiteness of results of human thought and\naction. Truth, which it is the province of philosophy to recognize, was\nno longer, according to Hegel, a collection of ready-made dogmatic\nstatements, which once discovered must only be thoroughly learned; truth\nlay now in the process of knowledge itself, in the long historical\ndevelopment of learning, which climbs from lower to ever higher heights\nof knowledge, without ever reaching the point of so-called absolute\ntruth, where it can go no further, where it has nothing more to look\nforward to, except to fold its hands in its lap and contemplate the\nabsolute truth already gained. And just as it is in the realm of\nphilosophic knowledge, so is it with every other kind of knowledge, even\nwith that of practical commerce. And just as little as knowledge can\nhistory find a conclusion, complete in one completed ideal condition of\nhumanity, a completed society, a perfect state, are things which can\nonly exist as phantasies, on the contrary, all successive historical\nconditions are only places of pilgrimage in the endless evolutionary\nprogress of human society from the lower to the higher. Every step is\nnecessary and useful for the time and circumstances to which it owes its\norigin, but it becomes weak and without justification under the newer\nand higher conditions which develop little by little in its own womb, it\nmust give way to the higher form, which in turn comes to decay and\ndefeat. As the bourgeoisie through the greater industry, competition,\nand the world market destroyed the practical value of all stable and\nanciently honored institutions, so this dialectic philosophy destroyed\nall theories of absolute truth, and of an absolute state of humanity\ncorresponding with them. In face of it nothing final, absolute or sacred\nexists, it assigns mortality indiscriminately, and nothing can exist\nbefore it save the unbroken process of coming into existence and passing\naway, the endless passing from the lower to the higher, the mere\nreflection of which in the brain of the thinker it is itself. It has\nindeed also a conservative side, it recognizes the suitability of a\ngiven condition of knowledge and society for its time and conditions,\nbut only so far. This conservatism of this philosophical view is\nrelative, its revolutionary character is absolute, the only absolute\nwhich it allows to exist.\n\nWe do not, at this point, need to go into the question whether this\nphilosophy is consistent throughout with the present position of natural\nscience which predicts for the earth a possible end and for its\ninhabitability, a fairly certain one; which, therefore, also recognizes\nthat in human history there is not only an upshooting but also a\ndown-growing branch. We find ourselves, at any rate, still a\nconsiderable distance from the turning point, where the history of\nsociety begins to descend, and we cannot expect the Hegelian philosophy\nto meddle with a subject which at that time science had not yet placed\nupon the order of the day.\n\nWhat must, indeed, be said is this, that the Hegelian development does\nnot, according to Hegel, show itself so clearly. It is a necessary\nconsequence of his method which he himself has never drawn with this\nexplicitness. And for this simple reason, because he was compelled to\nmake a system, and a system of philosophy must, in accordance with all\nits understood pretensions, close somewhere with a definition of\nabsolute truth. So Hegel, therefore, in his logic, urged that this\neternal truth is nothing else but the logical, that is, the historical\nprocess itself; yet in spite of this he finds himself compelled to place\nan end to this process, since he must come to an end with his system\nsomewhere or other. He can make this end a beginning again in logic,\nsince here the point of conclusion--the absolute idea, which is only\nabsolute in so far as he has nothing clear to say about it--divests\nitself in nature, that is, becomes transformed, and later on, in\nspirit, that is, in thought and in history, comes to itself again. But\nin the last philosophical analysis, a return to the beginning is only\npossible in one way, namely, if one place the end of history in this\nfact, that mankind comes to a knowledge of the absolute idea, and\nexplain that this knowledge of the absolute idea is obtained in the\nHegelian philosophy. But in this way the whole dogmatic content of the\nHegelian philosophy in the matter of absolute truth is explained in\ncontradiction to his dialectic, the cutting loose from all dogmatic\nmethods, and thereby the revolutionary side becomes smothered under the\ndominating conservative. And what can be said of philosophical knowledge\ncan also be said of historical practice. Mankind, that is, in the person\nof Hegel, has arrived at the point of working out the absolute idea, and\nmust also practically have arrived so far as to make the absolute idea a\nreality. The practical political demands of the abstract idea upon his\ncontemporaries cannot, therefore, be stretched too far. And so we find\nas the conclusion of the philosophy of Rights that the absolute idea\nshall realize itself in that limited monarchy which William III. so\npersistently, vainly promised to his subjects; therefore, in a limited,\nmoderate, indirect control of the possessing classes, suitable to the\ndominating small bourgeois class in Germany whereby, in addition, the\nnecessity to us of the existence of the nobility is shown in a\nspeculative fashion.\n\nThe essential usefulness of the system is sufficient to explain the\nmanufacture of a very tame political conclusion by means of a thoroughly\nrevolutionary method of reasoning. The special form of this conclusion\nsprings from this, as a matter of fact, that Hegel was a German, and, as\nin the case of his contemporary Goethe, he was somewhat of a philistine.\nGoethe and Hegel, each of them was an Olympian Zeus in his own sphere,\nbut they were neither of them quite free from German philistinism.\n\nBut all this does not hinder the Hegelian system from playing an\nincomparably greater role than any earlier system and by virtue of this\nrole developing riches of thought which are astounding even to-day.\nPhenomenology of the mind (which one may parallel with embryology and\npalaeontology of the mind), an evolution of the individual\nconsciousness, through its different steps, expressed as a brief\nreproduction of the steps through which the consciousness of man has\nhistorically passed, logic, natural philosophy, mental philosophy, and\nthe latter worked out separately in its detailed historical\nsubdivisions, philosophy of history, of jurisprudence, of religion,\nhistory of philosophy, esthetics, etc. Hegel labored in all these\ndifferent historical fields to discover and prove the thread of\nevolution, and as he was not only a creative genius, but also a man of\nencyclopedic learning, he was thus, from every point of view, the maker\nof an epoch. It is self-evident that by virtue of the necessities of the\n\"System\" he must very often take refuge in certain forced constructions,\nabout which his pigmy opponents make such an ado even at the present\ntime. But these constructions are only the frames and scaffoldings of\nhis work; if one does not stop unnecessarily at these but presses on\nfurther into the building one will find uncounted treasures which hold\ntheir full value to-day. As regards all philosophers, their system is\ndoomed to perish and for this reason, because it emanates from an\nimperishable desire of the human soul, the desire to abolish all\ncontradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed\nof, we have arrived at the so-called absolute truth, history is at an\nend, and yet it will continue to go on, although there is nothing\nfurther left for it to do--thus a newer and more insoluble\ncontradiction. So soon as we have once perceived--and to this perception\nno one has helped us more than Hegel himself--that the task thus imposed\nupon philosophy signifies nothing different than the task that a single\nphilosopher shall accomplish what it is only possible for the entire\nhuman race to accomplish, in the course of its progressive\ndevelopment--as soon as we understand that, it is all over with\nphilosophy in the present sense of the word. In this way one discards\nthe absolute truth, unattainable for the individual, and follows instead\nthe relative truths attainable by way of the positive sciences, and the\ncollection of their results by means of the dialectic mode of thought.\nWith Hegel universal philosophy comes to an end, on the one hand,\nbecause he comprehended in his system its entire development on the\ngreatest possible scale; on the other hand, because he showed us the\nway, even if he did not know it himself, out of this labyrinth of\nsystems, to a real positive knowledge of the world.\n\nOne may imagine what an immense effect the Hegelian philosophy produced\nin the philosophy-dyed atmosphere of Germany. The triumph lasted for ten\nyears and by no means subsided with the death of Hegel. On the contrary,\nfrom 1830 to 1840 Hegelianism was exclusively supreme and had fastened\nitself upon its opponents to a greater or less degree. During this\nperiod Hegel's views, consciously or unconsciously, penetrated the\ndifferent sciences, and saturated popular literature and the daily press\nfrom which the ordinary so-called cultured classes derive their mental\npabulum. But this victory down the whole line was only preliminary to a\nconflict within its own ranks.\n\nThe entire doctrine of Hegel left, as we have seen, plenty of room for\nthe bringing under it the most diverse practical opinions, and the\npractical, in the then theoretic Germany, consisted in only two\nthings--religion and politics. He who laid the greatest stress upon the\nHegelian system, might be moderately conservative in both these\nrespects, while he who considered the dialectic method of the greatest\nimportance could belong to the extreme left in religious and political\naffairs. Hegel himself, in spite of the frequent outbursts of\nrevolutionary wrath in his books, was inclined, on the whole, to the\nconservative side. His system, rather than his method, had cost him the\nhard thinking. At the end of the thirties, the division in the school\ngrew greater and greater. The left wing, the so-called Young Hegelians,\nin their fight with the pious orthodox, abandoned little by little, that\nmarked philosophical reserve regarding the burning questions of the day,\nwhich had up to that time secured for their teachings State toleration\nand even protection, and as in 1840 orthodox pietism and absolutist\nfeudal reaction ascended the throne with Frederick William IV., open\npartisanship became unavoidable. The fight was still maintained with\nphilosophical weapons, but no longer along abstract philosophical lines;\nthey went straight to deny the dominant religion and the existing state,\nand although in the \"Deutschen Jahrbuechern\" the practical aims were\nstill put forward clothed in philosophical phraseology, the younger\nHegelian school threw off disguise in the \"Rheinische Zeitung,\" as the\nexponents of the philosophy of the struggling radicals, and used the\ncloak of philosophy only to deceive the censorship.\n\nBut politics were at that time a very thorny field, and so the main\nfight was directed against religion. But this was also, particularly\nsince 1840, indirectly a political fight. Strauss' \"Leben Jesu,\"\npublished in 1835, had given the first cause of offense. The theory\ntherein developed regarding the origin of the gospel myths Bruno Bauer\nlater dealt with, adding the additional proof that a whole series of\nevangelical stories had been invented by their authors. The fight\nbetween these two was carried on under a philosophical disguise, as a\nbattle of mind with matter; the question whether the marvellous stories\nof the gospel came into being through an unconscious myth-creation in\nthe womb of society, or whether they were individually invented by the\nevangelists broadened into the question whether in the history of the\nrace, mind or matter carried the real weight, and lastly came Stirner,\nthe prophet of modern anarchism--Bakunine has taken very much from\nhim--and overtopped the sovereign power of consciousness with his\nsovereign power of the individual.\n\nWe do not follow the decomposition of the Hegelian school on this side\nany further. What is more important for us is this: The mass of the most\ndecided young Hegelians were driven back upon English-French materialism\nthrough the necessities of their fight against positive religion. Here\nthey came into conflict with their school system. According to\nmaterialism, nature exists as the sole reality, it exists in the\nHegelian system only as the alienation of the absolute Idea, as it were\na degradation of the Idea; under all circumstances, thought, and its\nthought-product, the Idea, according to this view, appears as the\noriginal, nature, which only exists through the condescension of the\nIdea as the derived, and in this contradiction they got along as well or\nas ill as they might.\n\nThen came Feuerbach's \"Wesen des Christenthums.\" With one blow it cut\nthe contradiction, in that it placed materialism on the throne again\nwithout any circumlocution. Nature exists independently of all\nphilosophies. It is the foundation upon which we, ourselves products of\nnature, are built. Outside man and nature nothing exists, and the higher\nbeings which our religious phantasies have created are only the\nfantastic reflections of our individuality. The cord was broken, the\nsystem was scattered and destroyed, the contradiction, since it only\nexisted in the imagination, was solved. One must himself have\nexperienced the delivering power of this book to get a clear idea of it.\nThe enthusiasm was universal, we were all for the moment followers of\nFeuerbach. How enthusiastically Marx greeted the new idea and how much\nhe was influenced by it, in spite of all his critical reservations, one\nmay read in the \"Holy Family.\"\n\nThe very faults of the book contributed to its momentary effect. The\nliterary, impressive, even bombastic style secured for it a very large\npublic and was a constant relief after the long years of abstract and\nabstruse Hegelianism. The same result also proceeded from the\nextravagant glorification of love, which in comparison with the\ninsufferable sovereignty of pure reason, found an excuse, if not a\njustification. What we must not forget is, that just on these two\nweaknesses of Feuerbach \"true Socialism\" in educated Germany fastened\nitself like a spreading plague since 1844, and set literary phrases in\nthe place of scientific knowledge, the freeing of mankind by means of\nlove in place of the emancipation of the proletariat, through the\neconomic transformation of production, in short lost itself in nauseous\nfine writing and in sickly sentimentality, of the type of which class of\nwriters was Herr Karl Gruen.\n\nWe must furthermore not forget that though the Hegelian school was\ndestroyed the Hegelian philosophy was not critically vanquished. Strauss\nand Bauer took each a side and engaged in polemics. Feuerbach broke\nthrough the system and threw it as a whole aside. But one has not\nfinished with a philosophy by simply declaring it to be false, and so\nenormous a work as the Hegelian philosophy which has had so tremendous\nan influence upon the mental development of the nation did not allow\nitself to be put aside peremptorily. It had to be destroyed in its own\nway, which means in the way that critically destroys its form but saves\nthe new acquisitions to knowledge won by it. How this was brought about\nwe shall see below.\n\nBut for the moment, the Revolution of 1848 put aside all philosophical\ndiscussion just as unceremoniously as Feuerbach laid aside Hegel. And\nthen Feuerbach was himself crowded out.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe great foundation question of all, especially new, philosophies is\nconnected with the relation between thinking and being. Since very early\ntimes when men, being in complete ignorance respecting their own bodies,\nand stirred by apparitions,[1] arrived at the idea that thought and\nsensation were not acts of their own bodies, but of a special soul\ndwelling in the body and deserting it at death, ever since then they\nhave been obliged to give thought to the relations of this soul to the\noutside world. If it betook itself from the body and lived on, there was\nno reason to invent another death for it; thus arose the conception of\ntheir immortality, which, at that evolutionary stage, did not appear as\na consolation, but as fate, against which a man cannot strive, and often\nenough, as among the Greeks, as a positive misfortune. Not religious\ndesire for consolation but uncertainty arising from a similar universal\nignorance of what to associate with the soul when once it was\nacknowledged, after the death of the body, led universally to the\ntedious idea of personal immortality. Just in a similar fashion the\nfirst gods arose, through the personification of the forces of nature,\nand these in the further development of the religions acquired greater\nand greater supernatural force, until by a natural process of\nabstraction, I might say of distillation, from the many more or less\nlimited and mutually limiting gods, in the course of spiritual\ndevelopment, at last the idea of the one all embracing god of the\nmonotheistic religions took its place in the minds of men.\n\nThe question of the relation of thinking to being, of the relation of\nthe spirit to nature, the highest question of universal philosophy, has\ntherefore, no less than all religion, its roots in the limited and\nignorant ideas of the condition of savagery. It could first be\nunderstood, and its full significance could first be grasped, when\nmankind awoke from the long winter sleep of Christian Middle Ages. The\nquestion of the relation of thought to existence, a question which had\nalso played a great role in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the\nquestion what is at the beginning spirit or nature, this question was in\nspite of the church now cut down to this: \"Has God made the world or is\nthe world from eternity?\"\n\nAs this question was answered this way or that the philosophers were\ndivided into two great camps. The one party which placed the origin of\nthe spirit before that of nature, and therefore in the last instance\naccepted creation, in some form or other--and this creation, is often\naccording to the philosophers, according to Hegel for example, still\nmore odd and impossible than in Christianity--made the camp of idealism.\nThe others, who recognized nature as the source, belong to the various\nschools of materialism.\n\nThe two expressions signify something different from this. Idealism and\nmaterialism, originally not used in any other sense, are not here\nemployed in any other sense. We shall see what confusion arises when one\ntries to force another signification into them.\n\nThe question of the relationship of thinking and being has another\nside; in what relation do our thoughts with regard to the world\nsurrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thought in a position\nto recognize the real world? Can we, in our ideas and notion of the real\nworld, produce a correct reflection of the reality? This question is\ncalled in philosophical language the question of the identity of\nthinking and being, and is affirmed by the great majority of\nphilosophers. According to Hegel, for example, its affirmation is\nself-evident, for that which we know in the actual world is its content,\naccording to our thought, that which compels the world to a progressive\nrealization as it were of the absolute Idea, which absolute idea has\nexisted somewhere, unattached from the world and before the world; and\nthat thought can recognize a content which is already a thought content\nherein, from the beginning, appears self-evident. It is also evident\nthat what is here to be proved is already hidden in the hypothesis. But\nthat does not hinder Hegel, by any means, from drawing the further\nconclusion from his proof of the identity of thought and existence that\nhis philosophy, because correct for his thought, is, therefore, the only\ncorrect one, and that the identity of thought and existence must show\nitself in this, that mankind should forthwith translate his philosophy\nfrom theory to practice and the whole world shift itself to a Hegelian\nbase. This is an illusion which he shares alike with all philosophers.\n\nIn addition there is still another class of philosophers, those who\ndispute the possibility of a perception of the universe or at least of\nan exhaustive perception. To them belong, among the moderns, Hume and\nKant, and they have played a very distinguished role in the evolution of\nphilosophy. This point of view has been now refuted by Hegel, as far as\npossible, from the idealistic standpoint. The materialistic additions\nmade by Feuerbach are more ingenious than deep. The most destructive\nrefutation of this as of all other fixed philosophic ideas is actual\nresult, namely experiment and industry. If we can prove the correctness\nof our idea of an actual occurrence by experiencing it ourselves and\nproducing it from its constituent elements, and using it for our own\npurposes into the bargain, the Kantian phrase \"Ding an Sich\" (thing in\nitself) ceases to have any meaning. The chemical substances which go to\nform the bodies of plants and animals remained just such \"Dinge an Sich\"\nuntil organic chemistry undertook to show them one after the other,\nwhereupon the thing in itself became a thing for us, as the coloring\nmatter in the roots of madder, alizarin, which we no longer allow to\ngrow in the roots of the madder in the field, but make much more cheaply\nand simply from coal tar. The Copernican system was for three hundred\nyears a hypothesis, with a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand chances\nin its favor, but still a hypothesis. But when Leverrier by means of the\ndata of this system not only discovered the existence of a certain\nunknown planet, but even calculated the position in the heavens which\nthis planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galles really found this\nplanet, then the Copernican system was proved. If, nevertheless, the\nresurrection of the Kantian idea in Germany is being tried by the\nNeo-Kantians, and of that of Hume in England (where they never died),\nby the agnostics, that is, in the face of the long past theoretical and\npractical refutation of these doctrines, scientifically, a step\nbackwards, and practically, merely the acceptance of materialism in a\nshame-faced way, clandestinely, and the denial of it before the world.\n\nBut the philosophers were during this long period from Descartes to\nHegel and from Hobbes to Feuerbach by no means, as they thought,\nimpelled solely by the force of pure reason. On the contrary, what\nreally impelled them was, in particular, the strong and ever quicker\nconquering step of natural science and industry. Among the materialists\nthis very quickly showed itself on the surface, but the idealistic\nsystems filled themselves more and more with materialistic content and\nsought to reconcile the antagonism between spirit and matter by means of\npantheism, so that finally the Hegelian system represented merely a\nmaterialism turned upside down, according to idealistic method and\ncontent.\n\nOf course Starcke in his \"Characteristics of Feuerbach\" enquired into\nthe fundamental question of the relations of thinking and being. After\na short introduction in which the ideas of preceding philosophers,\nparticularly since Kant, are portrayed in unnecessarily heavy\nphilosophical language and in which Hegel, owing to a too formal\ninsistence on certain parts of his work does not receive due credit,\nthere follows a copious description of the development of the\nmetaphysics of Feuerbach, as shown in the course of the recognized\nwritings of this philosopher. This description is industriously and\ncarefully elaborated, and, like the whole book, is overballasted with,\nnot always unavoidable, philosophical expressions, which is all the more\nannoying in that the writer does not hold to the vocabulary of one and\nthe same school nor even of Feuerbach himself, but mixes up expressions\nof very different schools, and especially of the present epidemic of\nschools calling themselves philosophical.\n\nThe evolution of Feuerbach is that of a Hegelian to materialism--not of\nan orthodox Hegelian, indeed--an evolution which from a definite point\nmakes a complete breach with the idealistic system of his predecessor.\nWith irresistible force he brings himself to the view that the Hegelian\nidea of the existence of the absolute idea before the world, the\npre-existence of the logical categories before the universe came into\nbeing, is nothing else than the fantastical survival of the belief in\nthe existence of an extra-mundane creator; that the material, sensible,\nactual world, to which we ourselves belong, is the only reality, and\nthat our consciousness and thought, however supernatural they may seem,\nare only evidences of a material bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not\na product of mind, but mind itself is only the highest product of\nmatter. This is, of course, pure materialism. When he reached this point\nFeuerbach came to a standstill. He cannot overcome ordinary\nphilosophical prejudice, prejudice not against the thing, but against\nthe name materialism. He says \"Materialism is for me the foundation of\nthe building of the being and knowledge of man, but it is not for me\nwhat it is for the physiologists in the narrow sense, as Moleschott, for\nexample, since necessarily from their standpoint it is the building\nitself. Backwards, I am in accord with the materialists but not\nforwards.\"\n\nFeuerbach here confuses materialism, which is a philosophy of the\nuniverse dependent upon a certain comprehension of the relations between\nmatter and spirit, with the special forms in which this philosophy\nappeared at a certain historical stage--namely in the eighteenth\ncentury. More than that he confuses it with the shallow and vulgarized\nform in which the materialism of the eighteenth century exists today, in\nthe minds of naturalists and physicians, and was popularized during a\nperiod of fifty years in the writings of Buechner, Vogt and Moleschott.\nBut as idealism has passed through a series of evolutionary\ndevelopments, so also has materialism--with each epoch-making discovery\nin the department of natural science it has been obliged to change its\nform; since then, history also, being subjected to the materialistic\nmethod of treatment, shows itself as a new road of progress.\n\nThe materialism of the preceding century was overwhelmingly mechanical,\nbecause at that time of all the natural sciences, mechanics, and indeed,\nonly the mechanics of the celestial and terrestrial fixed bodies, the\nmechanics of gravity, in short, had reached any definite conclusions.\nChemistry existed at first only in a childish, phlogistic form. Biology\nstill lay in swaddling clothes; the organism of plants and animals was\nexamined only in a very cursory manner, and was explained upon purely\nmechanical grounds; just as an animal was to Descartes nothing but a\nmachine, so was man to the materialists of the eighteenth century. The\nexclusive application of the measure of mechanics to processes which are\nof chemical and organic nature and by which, it is true, the laws of\nmechanics are also manifested, but are pushed into the background by\nother higher laws, this application is the cause of the peculiar, but,\nconsidering the times, unavoidable, narrowmindedness of the French\nmaterialism.\n\nThe second special limitation of this materialism lies in its incapacity\nto represent the universe as a process, as one form of matter assumed in\nthe course of evolutionary development. This limitation corresponded\nwith the natural science of the time and the metaphysic coincident\ntherewith, that is the anti-dialectic methods of the philosophers.\nNature, as was known, was in constant motion, but this motion, according\nto the universally accepted ideas, turned eternally in a circle, and\ntherefore never moved from the spot, and produced the same results over\nand over again. This idea was at that time inevitable. The Kantian\ntheory of the origin of the solar system was at first exhibited and\nconsidered as a mere curiosity. The history of the development of the\nearth-geology was still unknown, and the idea that the living natural\nobjects of to-day are the result of a long process of development from\nthe simple to the complex could not be scientifically established at\nthat time. This anti-historical comprehension of nature was, therefore,\ninevitable. We cannot reproach the philosophers of the eighteenth\ncentury with this, as the same thing is also found in Hegel. According\nto him, nature is the mere outward form of the Idea, capable of no\nprogress as regards time, but merely of an extension of its manifoldness\nin space, so that it displays all the stages of development comprised in\nit at one and the same time together, and is condemned to a repetition\nof the same processes. And this absurdity of a progress in space but\noutside of time--the fundamental condition of all progress--Hegel loads\nupon nature, just at the very time when geology, embryology, the\nphysiology of plants and animals, and inorganic chemistry, were being\nbuilt up, and when above all genial prophecies of the later evolution\ntheory appeared at the very threshold of these new sciences (e. g.,\nGoethe and Lamark), but the system so required it, and the method, for\nlove of the system, had to prove untrue to itself.\n\nThis unhistoric conception had its effects also in the domain of\nhistory. Here the fight against the remnants of the Middle Ages kept the\noutlook limited. The Middle Ages were reckoned as a mere interruption of\nhistory by a thousand years of barbarism. The great advances of the\nMiddle Ages--the broadening of European learning, the bringing into\nexistence of great nations, which arose, one after the other, and\nfinally the enormous technical advances of the fourteenth and fifteenth\ncenturies--all this no one saw. Consequently a rational view of the\ngreat historic development was rendered impossible, and history served\nprincipally as a collection of examples and illustrations for the use\nof philosophers.\n\nThe vulgarizing peddlers who during the fifties occupied themselves with\nmaterialism in Germany did not by any means escape the limitations of\ntheir doctrine. All the advances made in science served them only as new\ngrounds of proof against the existence of the Creator, and indeed it was\nfar beyond their trade to develop the theory any further. Idealism was\nat the end of its tether and was smitten with death by the Revolution of\n1848. Yet it had the satisfaction that materialism sank still lower.\nFeuerbach was decidedly right when he refused to take the responsibility\nof this materialism, only he had no business to confound the teachings\nof the itinerant spouters with materialism in general.\n\nHowever, we must here remark two different things. During the life of\nFeuerbach science was still in that state of violent fermentation which\nhas only comparatively cleared during the last fifteen years; new\nmaterial of knowledge was furnished in a hitherto unheard of measure but\nthe fixing of interrelations, and therewith of order, in the chaos of\noverwhelming discoveries was rendered possible quite lately for the\nfirst time. True, Feuerbach had lived to see the three distinctive\ndiscoveries--that of the cell, the transformation of energy and the\nevolution theory acknowledged since the time of Darwin. But how could\nthe solitary country-dwelling philosopher appreciate at their full value\ndiscoveries which naturalists themselves at that time in part contested\nand partly did not understand how to avail themselves of sufficiently?\nThe disgrace falls solely upon the miserable conditions in Germany owing\nto which the chairs of philosophy were filled by pettifogging eclectic\npedants, while Feuerbach, who towered high above them all, had to\nrusticate and grow sour in a little village. It is therefore no shame to\nFeuerbach that he never grasped the natural evolutionary philosophy\nwhich became possible with the passing away of the partial views of\nFrench materialism.\n\nIn the second place, Feuerbach held quite correctly that scientific\nmaterialism is the foundation of the building of human knowledge but it\nis not the building itself. For we live not only in nature but in human\nsociety, and this has its theory of development and its science no less\nthan nature. It was necessary, therefore, to bring the science of\nsociety, that is the so-called historical and philosophical sciences,\ninto harmony with the materialistic foundations and to rebuild upon\nthem. But this was not granted to Feuerbach. Here he stuck, in spite of\nthe \"foundations,\" held in the confining bonds of idealism, and to this\nhe testified in the words \"Backwards I am with the materialists, but not\nforwards.\" But Feuerbach himself did not go forward in his views of\nhuman society from his standpoint of 1840 and 1844, chiefly owing to\nthat loneliness which compelled him to think everything out by himself,\ninstead of in friendly and hostile conflict with other men of his\ncalibre, although of all philosophers he was the fondest of intercourse\nwith his fellows. We shall see later on how he thus remained an\nidealist. Here we can only call attention to the fact that Starcke\nsought the idealism of Feuerbach in the wrong place. \"Feuerbach is an\nidealist; he believes in the advance of mankind\" (p. 19). \"The\nfoundations, the underpinning of the whole, is therefore nothing less\nthan idealism. Realism is for us nothing more than a protection against\nerror while we follow our own idealistic tendencies. Are not compassion,\nlove and enthusiasm for truth and justice ideal forces?\"\n\nIn the first place, idealism is here defined as nothing but the\nfollowing of ideal aims. But these have necessarily to do principally\nwith the idealism of Kant and his \"Categorical Imperative.\" But Kant\nhimself called his philosophy \"transcendental idealism,\" by no means\nbecause he deals therein with moral ideals, but on quite other grounds,\nas Starcke will remember.\n\nThe superstition that philosophical idealism pivots around a belief in\nmoral, that is in social ideals, arose with the German non-philosophical\nPhilistine, who commits to memory the few philosophical morsels which he\nfinds in Schiller's poems. Nobody has criticised more severely the\nfeeble Categorical Imperative of Kant--feeble because it demands the\nimpossible and therefore never attains to any reality--nobody has\nridiculed more cruelly the Philistine sentimentality imparted by\nSchiller, because of its unrealizable ideals, than just the idealist par\nexcellence, Hegel. (See e. g. Phenomenology.)\n\nIn the second place, it cannot be avoided that all human sensations pass\nthrough the brain--even eating and drinking which are commenced\nconsequent upon hunger and thirst felt by the brain and ended in\nconsequence of sensations of satisfaction similarly experienced by the\nbrain. The realities of the outer world impress themselves upon the\nbrain of man, reflect themselves there, as feelings, thoughts, impulses,\nvolitions, in short, as ideal tendencies, and in this form become ideal\nforces. If the circumstance that this man follows ideal tendencies at\nall, and admits that ideal forces exercise an influence over him, if\nthis makes an idealist of him, every normally developed man is in some\nsense a born idealist, and under such circumstances how can materialists\nexist?\n\nIn the third place, the conviction that humanity, at least at present,\nas a whole, progresses, has absolutely nothing to do with the antagonism\nbetween materialism and idealism. The French materialists had this\nconviction, to a fanatical degree, no less than the deists, Voltaire and\nRousseau, and made the greatest personal sacrifices for it. If anybody\never concentrated his whole life to the enthusiasm for truth and\njustice, taking the words in a moral sense, it was Diderot, for example.\nTherefore, since Starcke has explained all this as idealism, it simply\nproves that the word materialism has lost all significance for him, as\nhas also the antagonism between the aims of the two.\n\nThe fact is that Starcke here makes an unpardonable concession to the\nprejudices of the Philistines caused by the long continued slanders of\nthe clergy against the word materialism, even if without consciously\ndoing so. The Philistine understands by the word materialism, gluttony,\ndrunkenness, carnal lust, and fraudulent speculation, in short all the\nenormous vices to which he himself is secretly addicted, and by the word\nidealism he understands the belief in virtue, universal humanitarianism,\nand a better world as a whole, of which he boasts before others, and in\nwhich he himself at the very most believes, only as long as he must\nendure the blues which follow necessarily from his customary\n\"materialistic\" excesses, and so sings his favorite song--\"What is\nman?--Half beast, half angel.\"\n\nAs for the rest, Starcke takes great pains to defend Feuerbach against\nthe attacks and doctrines of those collegians who plume themselves in\nGermany as philosophers now-a-days. It is true that this is a matter of\nimportance to those people who take an interest in the afterbirth of the\nGerman classic philosophy, to Starcke himself this might appear\nnecessary. We spare the reader this, however.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] To this very day the idea is prevalent among savages and barbarians\nthat the human forms appearing in our dreams are souls which temporarily\nleave the body, and that, therefore, the real man becomes liable for the\ndeeds done to the dreamer by his dream appearance. So Imthurm, for\nexample, found it in 1884 among the Indians in Guiana.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe distinct idealism of Feuerbach is evident directly we come to his\nphilosophy of religion and ethics. He does not wish to abolish religion\nby any means; he wants to perfect it. Philosophy itself will be absorbed\nin religion. \"The periods of human progress are only distinguishable by\nreligious changes. There is only a real historical progress where it\nenters the hearts of men. The heart is not a place for religion, so that\nit should be in the heart, it is the very being of religion.\" Religion\nis, according to Feuerbach, a matter of the feelings--the feelings of\nlove between man and man which up to now sought its realization in the\nfantastic reflected image of the reality--in the interposition through\none or more gods of the fantastic reflections of human qualities--but\nnow by means of love between \"ego\" and \"tu\" finds itself directly and\nwithout any intermediary. According to Feuerbach love between the sexes\nis, if not the highest form, at least one of the highest forms, of the\npractice of his new religion.\n\nNow, feelings of affection between man and man, and particularly\nbetween members of the two sexes, have existed as long as mankind has.\nLove between the sexes has been cultivated especially during the last\neighteen hundred years and has won a place which has made it, in this\nperiod, a compulsory motive for all poetry. The existing positive\nreligions have limited themselves in this matter to the bestowal of\ncomplete consecration upon the State regulation of sexual love, and\nmight completely disappear tomorrow without the least difference taking\nplace in the matter of love and friendship. Thus the Christian religion\nin France was, as a matter of fact, so completely overthrown between the\nyears 1793 and 1798, that Napoleon himself could not re-introduce it\nwithout opposition and difficulty, without, in the interval, any desire\nfor a substitute, in Feuerbach's sense, making itself felt.\n\nFeuerbach's idealism consists in this, that he does not simply take for\ngranted the mutual and reciprocal feelings of men for one another such\nas sexual love, friendship, compassion, self-sacrifice, etc., but\ndeclares that they would come to their full realization for the first\ntime as soon as they were consecrated under the name of religion. The\nmain fact for him is not that these purely human relations exist, but\nthat they will be conceived of as the new true religion. They will be\nfully realized for the first time if they are stamped as religions.\nReligion is derived from \"religare\" and means originally \"fastening.\"\nTherefore, every bond between men is religion. Such etymological\nartifices are the last resort of the idealistic philosophy. Not what the\nword means according to the historical development of its true\nsignificance, but what it should mean according to its derivation is\nwhat counts, and so sex-love and the intercourse between the sexes is\nconsecrated as a \"religion\" only so that the word religion, which is\ndear to the mind of the idealist, shall not vanish from the language.\nThe Parisian reformer of the stripe of Louis Blanc used to speak just in\nthe same way in the forties, for they could only conceive of a man\nwithout religion as a monster, and used to say to us \"Atheism, then, is\nyour religion.\"\n\nIf Feuerbach wants to place true religion upon the basis of real\nmaterialistic philosophy, that would be just the same as conceiving of\nmodern chemistry as true alchemy. If religion can exist without its God\nthen alchemy can exist without its philosopher's stone. There exists, by\nthe way, a very close connection between alchemy and religion. The\nphilosopher's stone has many properties of the old gods, and the\nEgyptian-Greek alchemists of the first two centuries of our era have had\ntheir hands in the development of Christian doctrines, as Kopp and\nBerthelot prove.\n\nFeuerbach's declaration that the periods of man's development are only\ndifferentiated through changes in religion is false. Great historical\npoints of departure are coincident with religious changes only as far as\nthe three world-religions which exist up to the present are\nconcerned--Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The old tribal and national\nreligions originating in nature were not propagandist and lost all power\nof resistance as soon as the independence of the tribe and people was\ndestroyed. Among the Germans simple contact with the decaying Roman\nEmpire and the Christian world-religion springing from it and suitable\nto its economic, political and ideal circumstances, was sufficient. In\nthe first place, as regards these more or less artificial\nworld-religions, particularly in the cases of Christianity and\nMohammedanism, we find that the more universal historical movements will\ntake on a religious stamp, and as far as concerns Christianity in\nparticular, the stamp of the religion affecting revolutionary movements\nof universal significance stopped short at the commencement of the fight\nof the bourgeois for emancipation from the thirteenth to the seventeenth\ncentury, and showed itself not as Feuerbach declares in the hearts of\nmen and the thirst for religion, but in the entire earlier history of\nthe Middle Ages which knew no other form of idealism than religion and\ntheology. But as the bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century was\nsufficiently strong to have its own ideology suitable to its own\nstandpoint, it forthwith made its great and final revolution, the\nFrench, by means of an appeal exclusively to juristic and political\nideals, and troubled itself with religion only so far as it stood in its\nway. It never occurred to it to establish a new religion in place of\nthe old one; everybody knows what a mess Robespierre made of the\nattempt.\n\nThe possibility of a purely humane sentiment in intercourse with other\nmen is with us today exceedingly impeded through the society founded on\nclass antagonism and class supremacy in which we must move. We have no\nneed to trouble ourselves about sanctifying these sentiments by means of\na new religion. And just as the circumstances of the great historical\nclass-fight have been obscured by the current historians, particularly\nin Germany, so in the same way the understanding of the great historical\nclass-conflicts is sufficiently obscured by the present-day manner of\nwriting history, without our needing to change these conflicts into a\nmere appendix of ecclesiastical history. Here it is evident how far we\nin our day are away from Feuerbach. His most beautiful passages in\npraise of the new religion of love are today unreadable.\n\nThe only religion which Feuerbach examined closely is Christianity, the\nuniversal religion of the western world which is founded upon\nmonotheism. He proves that the Christian God is only the fantastic\nreflection, the reflected image of man. But that God is himself the\nproduct of a lengthy process of abstraction, the concentrated\nquintessence of the earlier tribal and national gods. And man also whose\nreflection that God is, is not a real man, but is likewise the\nquintessence of many real men, the abstract human, and therefore himself\nagain the creature of thought. The same Feuerbach who on each page\npreaches sensation, diving into the concrete, the real, becomes\nthoroughly abstract as soon as he begins to talk of more than mere\nsensual intercourse between human beings.\n\nOf this relationship only one side appeals to him, the moral, and\nFeuerbach's astonishing lack of resources as compared with Hegel is\nstriking. The ethic or rather moral doctrine of the latter, is the\nPhilosophy of Right and embraces: 1, Abstract Right; 2, Morality; 3,\nMoral Conduct, under which are again comprised: the family, bourgeois,\nsociety, and the State. As the form is here idealistic, the content is\nrealistic. The entire scope of law, economy, politics, is therein,\nbesides ethics. With Feuerbach, it is just the reverse. He is realistic\nin form; he begins with man, but the discussion has absolutely nothing\nto do with the world in which this man lives, and so, instead of the\nman, stands an abstract man, who preaches sermons concerning the\nphilosophy of religion. This man is not even the son of a mother; he has\ndeveloped from the God of the monotheistic religions. He does not live\nin real historic conditions and the world of history. He comes into\nrelationship with other men, but each of the others is just as much an\nabstraction as he himself is. In the \"philosophy of religion\" we had\nstill men and women, but in the \"ethic\" this final distinction vanishes.\nAt long intervals Feuerbach makes such statements as: \"A man thinks\ndifferently in a palace than in a hut.\" \"When you have nothing in your\nbody to ward off hunger and misery, you have nothing in your head, mind\nand heart for morality.\" \"Politics must be our religion,\" etc. But\nFeuerbach was absolutely incapable of extracting any meaning from these\nremarks; they remain purely literary expressions, and Starcke himself is\nobliged to admit that the science of politics was an insuperable\nobstacle to Feuerbach and the science of society, sociology, for him a\nterra incognita.\n\nHe appears just as uninspired in comparison with Hegel in his treatment\nof the antithesis of good and evil. \"One thinks he is saying something\ngreat,\" Hegel remarks \"if one says that mankind is by nature good, but\nit is forgotten that one says something far greater in the words 'man is\nby nature evil.'\" According to Hegel, evil is the form in which the\nmechanical power of evolution shows itself, and indeed in this lies the\ndouble idea that each new step forward appears as an outrage against a\nsacred thing, as rebellion against the old, dying, but through custom,\nsanctified, circumstances, and on the other hand that since the rising\nof class antagonism, the evil passions of men, greed and imperiousness\nserve as the levers of historical progress, of which, for example, the\nhistory of feudalism and the bourgeoisie affords a conspicuous proof.\nBut Feuerbach does not trouble himself to examine the role of moral\nevil. History is to him a particularly barren and unwonted field. Even\nhis statement, \"Man as he sprang from nature originally was only a mere\ncreature, not a man.\" \"Man is a product of human society, of education,\nand of history.\" Even this statement remains from his standpoint\nabsolutely unproductive.\n\nWhat Feuerbach communicates to us respecting morals must therefore be\nexceedingly narrow. The desire for happiness is born within man and must\nhence be the foundation of all morality. But the desire for happiness is\nlimited in two ways; first, through the natural results of our acts;\nafter the dissipation comes the headache, as a result of habitual\nexcess, sickness; in the second place, through its results upon society,\nif we do not respect the similar desire for happiness on the part of\nother people, they resist us and spoil our pursuit of happiness. It\nfollows, therefore, that in order to enjoy our pursuit of happiness, the\nresult of our acts must be rightly appreciated, and, on the other hand,\nmust allow of the carrying out of the same acts on the part of others.\nPractical self-control with regard to ourselves and love, always love,\nin our intercourse with others are therefore the foundation rules of\nFeuerbach's morality, from which all others lead, and neither the\nenthusiastic periods of Feuerbach nor the loud praises of Starcke can\nset off the thinness and flatness of this pair of utterances.\n\nThe desire for happiness contents itself only very exceptionally, and by\nno means to the profit of one's self or other people with self. But it\nrequires the outside world--means of satisfying itself--therefore means\nof subsistence, an individual of the other sex, books, convention,\nargument, activity, these means and matters of satisfaction are matters\nof utility and labor. Feuerbach's system of morality either predicates\nthat these means and matters of satisfaction are given to every man _per\nse_, or, since it gives him only unpractical advice, is not worth a jot\nto the people who are without these means. And this Feuerbach himself\nshows clearly in forcible words, \"One thinks differently in a palace\nthan in a hut.\" \"Where owing to misery and hunger you have no material\nin your body, you have also no material in your head, mind and heart for\nmorals.\"\n\nAre matters any better with the equal right of another to the pursuit of\nhappiness? Feuerbach set this statement out as absolute, as applicable\nto all times and circumstances. But since when has it been true? Was\nthere in the olden time between slave and master or in the Middle Ages\nbetween serf and baron any talk about equal rights to the pursuit of\nhappiness? Was not the right to the pursuit of happiness of the subject\nclass sacrificed to the dominant class regardlessly and by means of\nlaw?--nay, that was immoral, but still equality of rights is recognized\nnow-a-days--recognized in words merely since the bourgeoisie in its\nfight against feudalism and in the institution of capitalistic\nproduction, was compelled to abolish all existing exclusive, that is,\npersonal, privileges, and for the first time to introduce the right of\nthe private individual, then also gradually the right of the State, and\nequality before law. But the pursuit of happiness consists for the least\npart only in ideal rights, and lies, for the most part, in means of\nmaterial satisfaction takes care that only enough for bare subsistence\nfalls to the great majority of those persons with equal rights, and\ntherefore regards the equality of right to the pursuit of happiness\nhardly better than slavery or serfdom did. And are we better off as\nregards mental means of happiness--means of education? Is not the\nschoolmaster of Sadowa a mythical person?\n\nFurther, according to the ethical theory of Feuerbach, the Bourse is the\nhighest temple of morality, only provided that one speculate rightly. If\nmy pursuit of happiness leads me to the Bourse, and I, in following my\nbusiness, manage so well that only what is agreeable and nothing\ndetrimental comes to me, that is that I win steadily, Feuerbach's\nprecept is carried out. In this way I do not interfere with the similar\npursuit of happiness of anyone else, since the other man goes on the\nBourse just as voluntarily as I do, and at the conclusion of his affairs\na sentimental expression, for each finds in the other the satisfaction\nof his pursuit of happiness which it is just the business of love to\nbring about, and which it here practically accomplishes. And since I\ncarry on my operations with more exact prudence and therefore with\ngreater success I fulfill the strongest maxims of the Feuerbach moral\nphilosophy and become a rich man into the bargain. In other words,\nFeuerbach's morality is hewn out of the capitalistic system of today,\nlittle as he might wish or think it to be.\n\nBut love, yes love, is particularly and eternally the magical god who,\naccording to Feuerbach, surmounts all the difficulties of practical life\nand that in a society which is divided into classes with diametrically\nopposing interests. The last remnant of its revolutionary character is\nthus taken from his philosophy, and there remains the old cant--\"love\none another\"--fall into each other's arms without regard to any\nimpediment of sex or position--universal intoxication of reconciliation.\n\nIn a word, the moral theories of Feuerbach turn out to be the same as\nthose of all of his predecessors. It is a hodge-podge of all times, all\npeople, and all conditions, and for this occasion is applicable to no\ntime and place, and as regards the actual world is as powerless as\nKant's \"Categorical Imperative.\" As a matter of fact, every class, as\nwell as every profession, has its own system of morals and breaks even\nthis when it can do it without punishment, and love, which is to unite\nall, appears today in wars, controversies, lawsuits, domestic broils and\nas far as possible mutual plunder.\n\nBut how was it possible that the powerful impetus given by Feuerbach\nturned out so unprofitable to Feuerbach himself. Simply in this way,\nbecause Feuerbach could not find his way out of the abstraction, which\nhe hated with a deadly hatred, to living reality. He clutches hard at\nNature and Humanity, but \"Nature\" and \"Humanity\" remain empty words with\nhim. He does not know how to tell us anything positive about real nature\nand real men. We can only reach living men from the abstract men of\nFeuerbach if we regard them as active historical agents. Feuerbach\nstrove against that, hence the year 1848, which, he did not understand,\nsignified for him merely the final break with the real world, retirement\ninto solitude. German conditions must for the most part bear the guilt\nof allowing him to starve miserably.\n\nBut the step which Feuerbach did not make had not yet been made. The\ncultus of man in the abstract which was the kernel of Feuerbach's\nreligion must be replaced by the knowledge of real men and their\nhistorical development. This advance of Feuerbach's view beyond\nFeuerbach himself was published in 1845 by Marx in the \"Holy Family.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nStrauss, Bauer, Stirner, Feuerbach, these were the minor representatives\nof the Hegelian philosophy, so far as they did not abandon the field of\nphilosophy. Strauss has, in addition to the \"Life of Jesus\" and\n\"Dogmatics,\" only produced philosophical and ecclesiastical historical\nwork of a literary character, after the fashion of Renan; Bauer has\nmerely done something in the department of primitive Christianity, but\nthat significant; Stirner remained a \"freak\" even after Bakunine had\nmixed him with Proudhon and designated his amalgamation \"Anarchism.\"\nFeuerbach alone possessed any significance as a philosopher; but not\nonly did philosophy remain for him the vaunted superior of all other\nsciences, the quintessence of all science, an impassable limitation, the\nuntouchable holy thing, he stood as a composite philosopher; the under\nhalf of him was materialist, the upper half idealist. He was not an apt\ncritic of Hegel but simply put him aside as of no account, while he\nhimself, in comparison with the encyclopedic wealth of the Hegelian\nsystem, contributed nothing of any positive value, except a bombastic\nreligion of love and a thin, impotent system of ethics.\n\nBut from the breaking up of the Hegelian school there proceeded another,\nthe only one which has borne real fruit, and this tendency is coupled\nwith the name of Marx.[2]\n\nIn this case the separation from the Hegelian philosophy occurred by\nmeans of a return to the materialistic standpoint, that is to say, a\ndetermination to comprehend the actual world--nature and history--as it\npresents itself to each one of us, without any preconceived idealistic\nbalderdash interfering; it was resolved to pitilessly sacrifice any\nidealistic preconceived notion which could not be brought into harmony\nwith facts actually discovered in their mutual relations, and without\nany visionary notions. And materialism in general claims no more. Only\nhere, for the first time in the history of the materialistic philosophy,\nwas an earnest endeavor made to carry its results to all questions\narising in the realm of knowledge, at least in its characteristic\nfeatures.\n\nHegel was not merely put on one side, the school attached itself on the\ncontrary to his openly revolutionary side, the dialectic method. But\nthis method was of no service in its Hegelian form. According to Hegel\nthe dialectic is the self-development of the Idea. The Absolute Idea\ndoes not only exist from eternity, but it is also the actual living soul\nof the whole existing world. It develops from itself to itself through\nall the preliminary stages which are treated of at large in \"Logic,\" and\nwhich are all included in it. Then it steps outside of itself, changing\nwith nature itself, where it, without self-consciousness, is disguised\nas a necessity of nature, goes through a new development, and, finally,\nin man himself, becomes self-consciousness. This self-consciousness now\nworks itself out into the higher stages from the lower forms of matter,\nuntil finally the Absolute Idea is again realized in the Hegelian\nphilosophy. According to Hegel, the dialectic development apparent in\nnature and history, that is a causative, connected progression from the\nlower to the higher, in spite of all zig-zag movements and momentary\nsetbacks, is only the stereotype of the self-progression of the Idea\nfrom eternity, whither one does not know, but independent at all events\nof the thought of any human brain. This topsy-turvy ideology had to be\nput aside. We conceived of ideas as materialistic, as pictures of real\nthings, instead of real things as pictures of this or that stage of the\nAbsolute Idea. Thereupon, the dialectic became reduced to knowledge of\nthe universal laws of motion--as well of the outer world as of the\nthought of man--two sets of laws which are identical as far as matter is\nconcerned but which differ as regards expression, in so far as the mind\nof man can employ them consciously, while, in nature, and up to now, in\nhuman history, for the most part they accomplish themselves,\nunconsciously in the form of external necessity, through an endless\nsuccession of apparent accidents. Hereupon the dialectic of the Idea\nbecame itself merely the conscious reflex of the dialectic evolution of\nthe real world, and therefore, the dialectic of Hegel was turned upside\ndown or rather it was placed upon its feet instead of on its head, where\nit was standing before. And this materialistic dialectic which since\nthat time has been our best tool and our sharpest weapon was discovered,\nnot by us alone, but by a German workman, Joseph Dietzgen, in a\nremarkable manner and utterly independent of us.\n\nBut just here the revolutionary side of Hegel's philosophy was again\ntaken up, and at the same time freed from the idealistic frippery which\nhad in Hegel's hands interfered with its necessary conclusions. The\ngreat fundamental thought, namely, that the world is not to be\nconsidered as a complexity of ready-made things, but as a complexity\nmade up of processes in which the apparently stable things, no less than\nthe thought pictures in the brain--the idea, cause an unbroken chain of\ncoming into being and passing away, in which, by means of all sorts of\nseeming accidents, and in spite of all momentary setbacks, there is\ncarried out in the end a progressive development--this great foundation\nthought has, particularly since the time of Hegel, so dominated the\nthoughts of the mass of men that, generally speaking, it is now hardly\ndenied. But to acknowledge it in phrases, and to apply it in reality to\neach particular set of conditions which come up for examination, are two\ndifferent matters. But if one proceeds steadily in his investigations\nfrom this historic point, then a stop is put, once and for all, to the\ndemand for final solutions and for eternal truths; one is firmly\nconscious of the necessary limitations of all acquired knowledge, of its\nhypothetical nature, owing to the circumstances under which it has been\ngained. One cannot be imposed upon any longer by the inflated\ninsubstantial antitheses of the older metaphysics of true and false,\ngood and evil, identical and differentiated, necessary and accidental;\none knows that these antitheses have only a relative significance, that\nthat which is recognized as true now, has its concealed and\nlater-developing false side, just as that which is recognized as false,\nits true side, by virtue of which it can later on prevail as the truth;\nthat so-called necessity is made up of the merely accidental, and that\nthe acknowledged accidental is the form behind which necessity conceals\nitself and so on.\n\nThe old methods of enquiry and thought which Hegel terms metaphysics,\nwhich by preference busied themselves by enquiring into things as given\nand established quantities, and the vestiges of which still buzz in the\nheads of people, had at that time great historical justification. Things\nhad first to be examined, before it was possible to examine processes;\nman must first know what a thing was before he could examine the\npreceding changes in it. And so it was with natural science. The old\nmetaphysic which comprehended things as stable came from a philosophy\nwhich enquired into dead and living things as things comprehended as\nstable. But when this enquiry had so far progressed that the decisive\nstep was possible, namely, the systematic examination of the preceding\nchanges in those things going on in nature itself, then occurred the\ndeath-blow of the old metaphysics in the realm of philosophy. And, in\nfact, if science to the end of the last century was chiefly a collecting\nof knowledge, the science of actual things, so is science in our day\npre-eminently an arranging of knowledge, the science of changes, of the\norigin and progress of things, and the mutual connection which binds\nthese changes in nature into one great whole. Physiology, which examines\nthe earlier forms of plant and animal organisms; embryology, which deals\nwith the development of the elementary organism from germ to maturity;\ngeology, which investigates the gradual formation of the earth's crust,\nare all the products of our century.\n\nBut, first of all, there are three great discoveries which have caused\nour knowledge of the interdependence of the processes of nature to\nprogress by leaps and bounds. In the first place, the discovery of the\ncell, as the unit, from the multiplication and differentiation of\nwhich, the whole of plant and animal substance develop so that not only\nthe growth and development of all higher classes of all higher organisms\nis recognized as following a universal law, but the very path is shown\nin the capacity for differentiation in the cell, by which organisms are\nenabled to change their forms and make thereby a more individual\ndevelopment. Secondly, the metamorphosis of energy which has shown us\nthat all the so-called real forces in inorganic nature, the mechanical\nforces and their complements, the so-called potential energies, heat,\nradiation (light, radiating heat), electricity, magnetism, chemical\nenergy, are different forms of universal motion, which pass, under\ncertain conditions, the one into the other, so that in place of those of\nthe one which disappear, a certain number of the other appear, so that\nthe whole movement of nature is reduced to this perpetual process of\ntransformation from one into the other. Finally, the proof first\ndeveloped logically by Darwin, that the organic products of nature about\nus, including man, are the result of a long process of evolution, from\na few original single cells, and these again, by virtue of chemical\nprocesses, have proceeded from protoplasm or white of egg.\n\nThanks to these three great discoveries and the resultant powerful\nadvance of science, we have now arrived at a point where we can show the\nconnection between changes in nature, not only in specific cases, but\nalso in the relation of the specific cases to the whole and so give a\nbird's eye view of the interrelation of nature in an approximately\nscientific form by means of the facts shown by empirical science itself.\nTo furnish this complete picture was formerly the task of the so-called\nphilosophy of nature. It could then only do this by substituting ideal\nand imaginary hypotheses for the unknown real interconnection, by\nfilling out the missing facts with mind-pictures and by bridging the\nchasms by empty imaginings. It had many happy thoughts in these\ntransports (of imagination), it anticipated many later discoveries, but\nit also caused the survival of considerable nonsense up to the present\ntime which could not otherwise have been possible. At present, when the\nresults of the investigation of nature need only be conceived of\ndialectically, that is in the sense of their mutual interconnection, to\narrive at a system of nature sufficient for our time, when the\ndialectical character of this interconnection forces itself into the\nmetaphysically trained minds of experimental scientists, against their\nwill, today a philosophy of nature is finally disposed of, every attempt\nat its resurrection would not only be superfluous, it would even be a\nstep backwards.\n\nBut what is true of nature, which is hereby recognized as an historical\nprocess, is true also of the history of society in all its branches, and\nof the totality of all sciences which occupy themselves with things\nhuman and divine. Here also the philosophy of jurisprudence, of history,\nof religion, etc., consisted in this, that in place of the true\ninterconnection of events, one originating in the mind of the\nphilosopher was substituted; that history, in its totality as in its\nparts, was comprehended as the gradual realization of ideas, but, of\ncourse, always of the pet idea of the philosopher himself.\n\nHistory worked up to now, unconsciously but necessarily, towards a\ncertain predetermined, fixed, ideal goal, as for example in the case of\nHegel, towards the realization of his Absolute Idea, and the unalterable\ntrend towards this Absolute Idea constituted the inward connection of\nhistoric facts. In the place of the real, and up to this time unknown,\ninterrelation, man set a new mysterious destiny, unconscious or\ngradually coming into consciousness. It was necessary in this case,\ntherefore, just as in the realm of nature, to set aside these artificial\ninterrelations by the discovery of the real, a task which finally\nculminated in the discovery of the universal laws of progress, which\nestablished themselves as the dominating ones in the history of human\nsociety.\n\nThe history of the growth of society appears, however, in one respect\nentirely different from that of nature. In nature are to be found as far\nas we leave the reaction of man upon nature out of sight--mere\nunconscious blind agents which act one upon another, and in their\ninterplay the universal law realizes itself. From all that happens,\nwhether from the innumerable apparent accidents which appear upon the\nsurface, or from the final results flowing from these accidental\noccurrences, nothing occurs as a desired conscious end. On the contrary,\nin the history of society the mere actors are all endowed with\nconsciousness; they are agents imbued with deliberation or passion, men\nworking towards an appointed end; nothing appears without an intentional\npurpose, without an end desired. But this distinction, important as it\nis for historical examination, particularly of single epochs and events,\ncan make no difference to the fact that the course of history is\ngoverned by inner universal laws. Here also, in spite of the wished for\naims of all the separate individuals, accident for the most part is\napparent on the surface. That which is willed but rarely happens. In the\nmajority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and interfere with\neach other, and either these ends are utterly incapable of realization,\nor the means are ineffectual. So, the innumerable conflicts of\nindividual wills and individual agents in the realm of history reach a\nconclusion which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm of\nnature, which is without definite purpose. The ends of the actions are\nintended, but the results which follow from the actions are not\nintended, or in so far as they appear to correspond with the end\ndesired, in their final results are quite different from the conclusion\nwished. Historical events in their entirety therefore appear to be\nlikewise controlled by chance. But even where according to superficial\nobservation, accident plays a part, it is, as a matter of fact,\nconsistently governed by unseen, internal laws, and the only question\nremaining, therefore, is to discover these laws.\n\nMen make their own history in that each follows his own desired ends\nindependent of results, and the results of these many wills acting in\ndifferent directions and their manifold effects upon the world\nconstitute history. It depends, therefore, upon what the great majority\nof individuals intend. The will is determined by passion or reflection,\nbut the levers which passion or reflection immediately apply are of very\ndifferent kinds. Sometimes it may be external circumstances, sometimes\nideal motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice,\npersonal hate, or even purely individual peculiar ideas of all kinds.\nBut on the one hand, we have seen in history that the results of many\nindividual wills produce effects, for the most part quite other than\nwhat is wished--often, in fact, the very opposite--their motives of\naction, likewise, are only of subordinate significance with regard to\nthe universal result. On the other hand, the question arises: What\ndriving forces stand in turn behind these motives of action; what are\nthe historical causes which transform themselves into motives of action\nin the brains of the agents?\n\nThe old materialism never set this question before itself. Its\nphilosophy of history, as far as it ever had one in particular, is hence\nessentially pragmatic; it judges everything from the standpoint of the\nimmediate motive; it divides historical agents into good and bad and\nfinds as a whole that the good are defrauded and the bad are victorious,\nwhence it follows that, as far as the old materialism is concerned,\nthere is nothing edifying that can be obtained from a study of history,\nand for us, that in the realm of history the old materialism is proved\nto be false, since it fixes active ideal impulses as final causes\ninstead of seeking that which lies behind them, that which is the\nimpulse of these impulses. The lack of logical conclusion does not lie\nin the fact that ideal impulses are recognized, but in this, that there\nis no further examination into the more remote causes of their activity.\nThe philosophy of history, on the contrary, particularly as it was\ntreated by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and even the real\nmotives of the men who figure in history, are by no means the final\ncauses of historical events, that behind these events stand other moving\nforces which must be discovered; but it seeks these forces not in\nhistory itself, it imports them mostly from the outside, from\nphilosophical ideology, into history. Instead of explaining the history\nof ancient Greece from its own inner connection, Hegel, for example,\nexplains it solely as if it were nothing but the working out of a\nbeautiful individuality, the realization of art, as such. He says much\nabout the old Greeks that is fine and profound, but this does not\nprevent our dissatisfaction, now-a-days, with such an explanation, which\nis mere phraseology.\n\nIf, therefore, we set out to discover the impelling forces, which,\nacknowledged, or unacknowledged, and for the most part unacknowledged,\nstand behind historical figures, and constitute the true final impulses\nof history, we cannot consider so much the motives of single\nindividuals, however pre-eminent, as those which set in motion great\nmasses, entire nations, and again, whole classes of people in each\nnation, and this, too, not in a momentarily flaring and quickly dying\nflame, but to enduring action culminating in a great historical change.\nTo establish the great impelling forces which play upon the brains of\nthe acting masses and their leaders, the so-called great men, as\nconscious motives, clear or unclear, directly or ideologically or even\nin a supernatural form, that is the only method which can place us on\nthe track of the law controlling history as a whole, as well as at\nparticular periods and in individual lands. All that sets men in motion\nmust act upon their minds, but the force which acts upon the brain\ndepends very largely upon circumstances. The workers have by no means\nbecome reconciled to the machine power of the capitalists although they\nno longer break the machines to pieces as they did on the Rhine in\n1848.\n\nBut while the discovery of these impelling forces of history was\nentirely impossible in all other periods, on account of the complicated\nand hidden interrelations with their effects, our present period has so\nfar simplified these relations that the problem can be solved. Since the\nestablishment of the great industry, at least since the peace of Europe\nin 1815, it has been no longer a secret to anyone in England that the\nwhole political fight has been for supremacy between two classes, the\nlanded aristocracy and the middle-class. In France, with the return of\nthe Bourbons, the same fact was perceived; the writers of history, from\nThierry to Guizot, Mignet, and Thiers in particular, pronounce it as a\nkey to an understanding of French history, especially since the Middle\nAges. And since 1830 the working class, the proletariat, has been\nrecognized as the third competitor for mastery in both countries.\nCircumstances had become so simplified that one would have had to close\nhis eyes not to see in the fight of these three classes and in the\nconflict of their interests, the moving forces of modern history, at\nleast in the two most advanced countries.\n\nBut how came these classes into existence? If the great feudal ancient\nproperty in land can have its origin ascribed to political causes\nthrough forcible seizure of territories, this could not be done as\nregards the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There are in this case\nclearly exposed the origin and progress of two great economic classes\nfrom plain and evident economic causes. And it was just as clear that in\nthe fight between the landholding class and the bourgeoisie, no less\nthan in that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, economic\ninterests were the most important, and that political force served only\nas a mere means of furthering these.\n\nThe bourgeoisie and the proletariat both arose as results of a change in\neconomic conditions, or, strictly speaking, in methods of production.\nThe transition, first from hand labor, controlled by the gilds, to\nmanufacture and thence from manufacture to the greater industry, with\nsteam and machine force, has developed these two classes. At a certain\nstage new forces of production were set in motion by the bourgeoisie,\nfollowing upon the division of labor and the union of many different\nkinds of labor in one united manufacture, and the methods of exchange\nand requirements of exchange developed by their means, were incompatible\nwith the existing historical surviving methods of production consecrated\nby the law, that is to say the gilds and the innumerable personal and\nother privileges (which for the unprivileged were only so many fetters)\nof the feudal social organization. The forces of production brought into\nbeing by the bourgeoisie rebelled against the methods of production\noriginated by the gildmasters and the feudal landlords; the result is\nknown; the feudal fetters were struck off, in England gradually, in\nFrance at one blow; in Germany the process is not yet quite complete. As\nmanufacture came into conflict at a certain stage of progress with\nfeudal methods of production, so has the greater industry now joined\nbattle with the bourgeois organization of industry established in their\nplace. Bound by this system, owing to the narrow limits of the\ncapitalistic methods of production, there occurs on the one hand an\never increasing conversion of the mass of the people into proletarians,\nand on the other hand an ever increasing amount of products which cannot\nbe disposed of. Over-production, and suffering on the part of the\nmasses, the one the cause of the other, that is the absurd contradiction\nin which it runs its course, and which of necessity requires a control\nof the forces of production, through a change in the methods of\nproduction.\n\nIn modern history, at least, it is therefore proved that all political\ncontests are class contests and that all fights of classes for\nemancipation, in spite of their necessarily political form (for every\nclass struggle is a political struggle), finally, are directed towards\neconomic emancipation. Here, at least, therefore, the State, the\npolitical arrangement is the subordinate, bourgeois society, the rule of\neconomic relations, the deciding element. The old fashioned philosophy\nwhich even Hegel respected saw in the State the determining element and\nin bourgeois society the element determined by it. Appearances\ncorresponded with this idea. As all the impulses of each single agent\npass through his individual brain and must transform themselves into\nmotives of his will in order to set him to work, so must also the\ndesires of bourgeois society, no matter which class happens to be\ndominant, penetrate the will of the state in order to secure universal\nvalidity in the form of laws. That is the formal side of the matter\nwhich is self evident, the question only is what content has this merely\nformal will--of the individual as well as of the State--and whence comes\nthis content--why is just this desired and nothing else? And if we\nenquire into this we discover that in modern history the will of the\nState, as a whole, is declared through the changing needs of bourgeois\nsociety, through the domination of this or that class, in the last\ninstance through the development of the forces of production and the\nconditions of exchange.\n\nBut if in our modern times, with their gigantic methods of production\nand commerce, the State is not an independent affair with an independent\ndevelopment, but its existence as well as its evolution is to be\nexplained in the last resort from the economic conditions of the life\nof society, so much the more must the same thing be true of all earlier\ntimes when the production of the necessities of existence was not\nfurthered by these extensive aids, where, therefore, the necessities of\nthis production must exercise a greater control over men. If the State\nis today, at the time of the great industries and steam railways,\nmerely, as a whole, the summarized, reflected form of the economic\ndesires of the class which controls production, it must, therefore, have\nbeen still more so at a period when a generation of men must spend the\ngreater portion of their united life-time in the satisfaction of their\nmaterial needs, and man was, therefore, much more dependent on them than\nwe are today. The examination of the earlier epochs of history, as far\nas it is earnestly conducted in this direction, establishes this\nabundantly, but manifestly this cannot here be taken in hand.\n\nIf the State and public law are the creatures of economic conditions,\nso, obviously, is private law, which only sanctions relations between\nindividuals under given normal economic circumstances. The form in\nwhich this appears may, however, vary considerably. One can, as happened\nin England in accordance with the whole national development, retain,\nfor the most part, the forms of the old feudal law, and give them a\nmiddle-class content, even read a middle-class meaning into the feudal\nnames, but one may also, as in the western part of the European\ncontinent, use as a foundation the first general law of a society\nproducing commodities, the Roman, with its unsurpassably keen\nelaboration, of all the legal relations of possessions of commodities\n(sellers and buyers, creditors and debtors, contracts, obligations,\netc.), by which we can bring it down as common-law to the use and\nbenefit of a still small bourgeois and half feudal society; or, with the\nhelp of pseudo-enlightened and moralizing jurists, a code (which is bad\nfrom a legal point of view) can be worked out suitable to the conditions\nof the particular society (as the Prussian land law). And, still again,\nafter a great bourgeois revolution, a classical code for bourgeois\nsociety, such as the French \"Code Civil,\" may be worked out. If,\ntherefore, the bourgeois laws only declare the economic circumstances\nof society, these may be good or bad according to conditions.\n\nIn the State appears the first ideological force over men. Society\nshapes for itself an organ for the protection of its general interests\nagainst attack from the outside or inside. This organ is the force of\nthe State. Hardly did it come into being before this organ dominated\nsociety, and as a matter of fact, in proportion as it becomes the organ\nof a particular class, it brings into existence the supremacy of that\nclass. The fight of the subject against the dominant class becomes of\nnecessity political, a fight in the next place against the political\ncontrol of this latter class. This consciousness of the connection of\nthe political fight with its underlying economic causes becomes more and\nmore obscure and may be altogether lost. Where this is not altogether\nthe case with the combatants it becomes nearly altogether so with the\nhistorians. Of the ancient sources of history with regard to the contest\nwithin the Roman Republic, Appian alone gives us plain and clear\ninformation respecting its final cause, which was property in land. But\nthe State, once become an independent power over society, forthwith\ndisplayed a further ideology. Among the practical politicians and the\ntheorists in jurisprudence, and among the jurists in particular, this\nfact is first completely lost sight of. Since in each single instance\nthe economic facts must take the form of juristic motives so as to be\nsanctioned in the form of law, and since, therefore, a backward view\nmust be taken over the whole existing system of law, it follows\ntherefrom that the juristic form appears to be the whole and the\neconomic content nothing at all. Public and private law are considered\nas independent realms which have their own independent historic\nevolution, which are considered capable of a systematic representation,\nand stand in need of it through persistent elimination of all inner\ncontradictions.\n\nStill higher ideological conceptions, i. e., still further removed from\nthe economic foundations, take the form of philosophy and religion.\nHere, the connection of the ideas with the material conditions of\nexistence become more and more complicated and obscured by reason of the\nincreasing number of links between them, but it exists. As the whole\nRennaissance from the middle of the fifteenth century was an actual\nproduct of the city, and therefore of the bourgeois domination, so was\nalso the philosophy, since that time newly awakened. Its content was\nactually only the philosophical expression of the thoughts corresponding\nwith the development of the small and middle bourgeois into the great\nbourgeois. Among the English and French of the preceding century, who\nwere for the most part as good political economists as they were\nphilosophers, this is quite evident, and we have proofs on its very\nface, as regards the Hegelian school.\n\nLet us now give a slight glance at religion since it appears to stand\nfurthest away from and to be most foreign to material life. Religion\narose at a very remote period of human development, in the savage state,\nfrom certain erroneous and barbaric conceptions of men with regard to\nthemselves and the outside world of nature around them. Every\nideological notion develops, however, when once it has arisen; it grows\nby additions to the given idea, and develops it further, otherwise\nthere would be no ideology, that is, no occupation with thoughts as with\nindependent thought-existence, developing independently and subject only\nto its own laws. That the material conditions of life of the men within\nwhose heads this thought force is at work finally determine the course\nof this thought-process necessarily remains still unknown to these men,\notherwise there would be an entire end of the ideology. These original\nreligious notions, therefore, which are for the most part common to each\nkindred group of peoples, develop after the separation of the group in a\nspecial manner peculiar to each tribe, according to its particular\nconditions of existence, and this process is for a class of groups of\npeople, and particularly for the Aryans (Indo-Europeans) shown\nindividually by comparative mythology. The gods developed by each tribe\nwere national gods, whose power extended no further than to protect the\nnational territory; beyond the frontier other gods held undisputed sway.\nThey could only be conceived of as existing as long as the nation\nexisted. They fell with its decline. This doctrine of the old\nnationalities brought about the Roman Empire, whose economic conditions\nwe do not need to examine just now. The old national gods fell, as those\nof the Romans did also, which were only attached to the narrow limits of\nthe city of Rome. The desire to make the empire a world-empire, by means\nof a world-wide religion, is clearly shown in the attempts to provide\nrecognition and altars in Rome for all the respectable foreign gods,\nnext to the indigenous ones. But a new world-religion was not to be made\nin this fashion by imperial decrees. The new world-religion,\nChristianity, had already arisen in secret by a mixture of combined\noriental religions, Jewish theology and popularized Greek philosophy and\nparticularly Stoic philosophy. We must first be at the pains to discover\nhow it originally made its appearance, since its official form as it has\ncome to us is merely that of a State religion, and this end was achieved\nthrough the Council of Nice. Enough, the fact that after two hundred and\nfifty years it was a state religion shows that it was a religion\nanswering to the circumstances of the times. In the Middle Ages it\nshowed itself clearly. In proportion as feudalism developed it grew into\na religion corresponding with it, with a hierarchy corresponding to the\nfeudal. And when the rule of the bourgeois came in, it developed into\nProtestant heresy in antagonism to feudal Catholicism, at first in the\nSouth of France, among the Albigenses at the time of the highest growth\nof the free cities. The Middle Ages had annexed all the surviving forms\nof ideology, philosophy, politics and jurisprudence, to theology as\nsubordinate parts of theology. It constrained, therefore, all social and\npolitical movement to assume a theological form; finally, to the minds\nof the masses stuffed with religion it was necessary to show their\ninterests in religious guise, in order to raise a tremendous storm. And\nas the rule of the bourgeois from the beginning brought into being an\nappendage of propertyless plebeians, with day laborers and servants of\nall sorts, without any recognized position in their cities, the\nforerunners of the later proletarians, so the heresy was very early\nsubdivided into a moderate one, on the part of the citizens, and a\nplebeian revolutionary one, which was an abomination to the bourgeois\nheretics.\n\nThe failure to exterminate the protestant heresy corresponded with the\ninvincibility of the rising power of the bourgeois of that time; as this\npower grew, the fight with the feudal nobles, at first pre-eminently\nlocal, began to assume national proportions. The first great conflict\noccurred in Germany, the so-called Reformation. The power of the\nbourgeois was neither sufficiently strong nor sufficiently developed for\nan open rebellious stand, by uniting under the standard of revolt the\ncity plebeians, the smaller nobility, and the peasants of the country\ndistricts. The nobility was struck first, the peasants took up a\nposition which was the high-water mark of the entire revolution, the\ncities left them in the lurch, and so the revolution was left to the\nleaders of the country gentry who gathered the whole victory to\nthemselves. Thenceforth for three hundred years Germany disappeared from\nthe ranks of independent, energetic progressive countries. But after the\nGerman Luther, arose the French Calvin. With natural French acuteness he\nshowed the bourgeois character of the revolution in the Church,\nrepublicanised and democratised. While the Lutheran Reformation fell in\nGermany and Germany declined, the Calvinistic served as a standard to\nthe republicans in Geneva, in Holland, in Scotland, freed Holland from\nGerman and Spanish domination, and gave an ideological dress to the\nsecond act of the bourgeois revolution which proceeded in England. Here\nCalvinism proved itself to be the natural religious garb of the\ninterests of the existing rule of the bourgeois and was not realised any\nfurther than that the revolution of 1689 was completed by a compromise\nbetween a portion of the nobility and the middle-class. The English\nEstablished Church was restored, but not in its earlier form with the\nking for Pope, but was strongly infused with Calvinism. The\nold-established Church had kept up the merry Catholic Sunday and fought\nagainst the tedious Calvinistic one, the new bourgeois Church introduced\nthe latter and added thereby to the charms of England.\n\nIn France the Calvinistic minority was subdued in 1685, either made\nCatholic or hunted out of the country. But what was the good? Directly\nafter that the free thinker Pierre Bayle was at work, and in 1694\nVoltaire was born. The tyrannical rule of Louis XIV. only made it easier\nfor the French bourgeoisie to be able to make its revolution in the\npolitical form finally suitable to the progressive atheistic\nbourgeoisie. Instead of Protestants, free-thinkers took their seats in\nthe National Assembly. Thereby Christianity entered upon the last lap of\nthe race. It had become incapable of serving a progressive class any\nfurther as the ideological clothing of its efforts, it became more and\nmore the exclusive possession of the dominant classes, and these used it\nmerely as a simple means of government to keep the lower classes in\nsubjection. So then each one of the different classes employed its own\nsuitable religion, the landholding squires catholic jesuitism or\nprotestant orthodoxy, the liberal and radical bourgeois rationalism, and\nit makes no difference therefore whether people themselves believe in\ntheir respective religions or not.\n\nThus we see religion once arisen contains material of tradition, hence\nin all ideological matters religion is a great conservative force. But\nthe changes which take place in this material spring from\nclass-conditions, that is from the economic circumstances of the men who\ntake these changes in hand. And that is enough on this part of the\nsubject.\n\nIt is only possible at this time to give a general sketch of the Marxian\nphilosophy of history, and particularly as regards illustrations of it.\nThe proof is to be discovered in history itself, and in this regard I\nmay say plainly that it has been sufficiently furnished in other\nwritings. This philosophy, however, makes an end of philosophy in the\nrealm of history, just as the dialectic philosophy of nature renders\nevery philosophy of nature useless or impossible. Practically there is\nno further need to devise interrelations but to discover them in facts\nrather. Instead of a philosophy forced from nature and history there\nremains then only the realm of pure thought--as far as any is left--the\nteaching of the laws of the thinking process itself, logic and the\ndialectic.\n\nWith the Revolution of 1848 \"educated\" Germany delivered the challenge\nto theory and proceeded to action. Hand-labor dependent upon small\nproduction and manufacture was done away with by the great\nindustry--Germany again appeared in the world-market. The new\nparticularistic Germany, at all events did away with the most crying\nanomalies, which the rule of the petty states, the remnants of feudalism\nand the bureaucratic economy, had placed in the way of their\ndevelopment, but just in proportion as speculation abandoned the studies\nof philosophers to attain its temple in the Bourse, that great theoretic\nthought which had been the glory of Germany in the period of its deepest\npolitical humiliation, the zeal for pure scientific progress,\nirrespective of practical, profitable results, and of the disapproval of\nthe police, became lost in educated Germany. It is true that the German\nofficial natural science maintained its position, particularly in the\nfield of individual discovery, at the head of its time, but now the\nAmerican journal \"Science\" justly remarks that the decisive advances in\nthe matter of the broadest inclusive statement of the relations between\nsingle facts, and the harmonising of them with law, are making the\ngreater headway in England, instead of, as earlier, in Germany. And with\nregard to the sciences of history, philosophy included, with the\nclassical philosophy, the old theoretical spirit, with its carelessness\nof personal results, first completely disappeared. Thoughtless\neclecticism, eager backward glances at a career, and income down to the\nmeanest sycophancy occupy their places. The official representatives of\nthis sort of science have become the open ideologists of the bourgeoisie\nand the existing state, but at a time when they both stand in open\nantagonism to the working classes.\n\nOnly among the working classes does the German devotion to abstract\nthought steadily continue to exist. Here it cannot be got rid of. Here\nwe find no backward glances at a career, at profit making, at kindly\nprotection from the upper classes, but on the contrary the more\nindependent and unrestricted the path of science, just so much the more\ndoes it find itself in accord with the interests and endeavors of the\nworking class. The new tendency, which in the history of the development\nof labor made known the key to the understanding of the universal\nhistory of society addressed itself in the first place to the working\nclass and found in them the ready acceptance which it neither sought nor\nexpected from official science. The German working-class movement is the\nheir of the German classical philosophy.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] It is incumbent upon me to make a personal explanation at this\nplace. People have lately referred to my share in this theory, and so I\ncan hardly refrain from saying a few words here in settlement of that\nparticular matter. I cannot deny that I had before and during my forty\nyears' collaboration with Marx a certain independent share not only in\nlaying out the foundations, but more particularly in working out the\ntheory. But the greatest part of the leading essential thinking,\nparticularly in the realm of economics, and especially its final sharp\nstatement, belongs to Marx alone. What I contributed Marx could quite\nreadily have carried out without me with the exception of a pair of\nspecial applications. What Marx supplied, I could not have readily\nbrought. Marx stood higher, saw further, took a wider, clearer, quicker\nsurvey than all of us. Marx was a genius, we others, at the best,\ntalented. Without him the theory would not be what it is today, by a\nlong way. It therefore rightly bears his name.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nMARX ON FEUERBACH.\n\n(_Jotted down in Brussels in the spring of 1845._)\n\n\nI.\n\nThe chief lack of all materialistic philosophy up to the present,\nincluding that of Feuerbach, is that the thing, the reality, sensation\nis only conceived of under the form of the object which is presented to\nthe eye, but not as human sense-activity, \"praxis,\" not subjectively. It\ntherefore came about that the active side in opposition to materialism\nwas developed from idealism, but only abstractly; this was natural,\nsince idealism does not recognize real tangible facts as such. Feuerbach\nis willing, it is true, to distinguish objects of sensation from objects\nexisting in thought, but he conceives of human activity itself not as\nobjective activity. He, therefore, in the \"Wesen des Christenthums,\"\nregards only theoretical activity as generally human, while the \"praxis\"\nis conceived and fixed only in its disgusting form.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe question if objective truth is possible to human thought is not a\ntheoretical but a practical question. In practice man must prove the\ntruth, that is the reality and force in his actual thoughts. The dispute\nas to the reality or non-reality of thought which separates itself, \"the\npraxis,\" is a purely scholastic question.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions and\neducation, different men therefore the products of other conditions and\nchanged education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men and\nthat the educator has himself to be educated. It necessarily happens\ntherefore that society is divided into two parts, of which one is\nelevated above society (Robert Owen for example).\n\nThe occurrence simultaneously of a change in conditions and human\nactivity can only be comprehended and rationally understood as a\nrevolutionary fact.\n\n\nIV.\n\nFeuerbach proceeds from a religious self-alienation, the duplication of\nthe world into a religious, imaginary, and a real world. His work\nconsists in the discovery of the material foundations of the religious\nworld. He overlooked the fact that after carrying this to completion the\nimportant matter still remains unaccomplished. The fact that the\nmaterial foundation annuls itself and establishes for itself a realm in\nthe clouds can only be explained from the heterogeneity and\nself-contradiction of the material foundation. This itself must first\nbecome understood in its contradictions and so become thoroughly\nrevolutionized by the elimination of the contradiction. After the\nearthly family has been discovered as the secret of the Holy Family, one\nmust have theoretically criticised and theoretically revolutionised it\nbeforehand.\n\n\nV.\n\nFeuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thought, invokes impressions\nproduced by the senses, but does not comprehend sensation as practical\nsensory activities.\n\n\nVI.\n\nFeuerbach dissolves religion in humanity. But humanity is not an\nabstraction dwelling in each individual. In its reality it is the\nensemble of the conditions of society.\n\nFeuerbach, who does not enquire into this fact, is therefore compelled:\n\n1. To abstract religious sentiment from the course of history, to place\nit by itself, and to pre-suppose an abstract, isolated, human\nindividual.\n\n2. Humanity is therefore only comprehended by him as a species, as a\nhidden sort of merely natural identity of qualities in which many\nindividuals are embraced.\n\n\nVII.\n\nTherefore Feuerbach does not see that religious feeling is itself a\nproduct of society, and that the abstract individual which he analyses\nbelongs in reality to a certain form of society.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThe life of society is essentially practical. All the mysteries which\nseduce speculative thought into mysticism find their solution in human\npractice and in concepts of this practice.\n\n\nIX.\n\nThe highest point to which materialism attains, that is the materialism\nwhich comprehends sensation, not as a practical fact, is the point of\nview of the single individual in bourgeois society.\n\n\nX.\n\nThe standpoint of the old materialism is \"bourgeois\" society; the\nstandpoint of the new, human society, or associated humanity.\n\n\nXI.\n\nPhilosophers have only interpreted the world differently, but the point\nis to change it.","title":"Feuerbach : $b The roots of the socialist philosophy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":22773}