INTRODUCTION.

This work takes us back nearly sixtyyears

,to a time when what is now a move

ment of universal significance was in itsinfancy. Hegel and the Revolution of 1848 ;these are the points of departure . To theformer

,we owe the philos0phic form of the

socialist doctrine, to the latter, its practicalactivity as a movement .In the midst of the turmoil and strife and

apparent defeat of those days two men ,Marx and Engel s , exiled and without influence

,betook themselves to their books and

began laboriously to fashion the form and

doctrine of the most powerful intellectualand political movement of all time. To thetask they brought genius

,scholarship

,and

a ca pacity for hard work and patient re

search . In each of these qualities they weresupreme . Marx possessed a colossal mind ;no thinker upon social subjects

,not even

Herbert Spencer, has been his superior, forthe lonely social ist could claim a comprehensiveness

,a grasp of relations and a

4 INTRODUOTION

power of generalization,together with a

boldness of conception,which place him in

a class by himself. Engels was the able coadjutor and co- worker with Marx . He wasa deep and acute thinker

,a most patient in

vestigator, a careful writer. More practicalthan his friend

,he was better able to com

with material problems,and his advice and

his purse were always at the disposal ofMarx .

The latter could hardly hav e worked un~

der more discouraging conditions . Poverty,inadequate opportunities

,lack of stimulate

ing companionship,and the complete ah

sence of any kind of encouragement andsuch sympathy as aman of his aff ectionatetemperament craved fell to his lot Hismost learned works were written for groupsof workingmen

,his most laborious efiorts

were made without the slightest hope of recognition from the learned and the powerful .All through these years Engels remained

his faithful friend,and helped him over

many hard places when family troubles andstraitened circumstances pressed upon theold revolutionist .

INTRODUCTION 5

This work is Engels ’ testimony with re

gard to the method employed by them inarriving at their philosophical conclusions .It is the statement of the philosophical foundations of modern socialismby one whohelped to lay them; it is an oldman ’s aocount of the case upon the preparation ofwhich he has spent his entire life, for, thiswork

, short as it is , represents the results offorty years of toil and persevering effort.As the “ Communist Manifesto” was a

gage flung with all the impetuosity ofyouthful impatience into the face of constituted authority

,so this is the deliberate

statement of the veteran,who has learned

the game too well to leave any openings ,and proceeds to the demolition of pet Opinions in a quiet, deadly and deliberate fashion.

Step by step,the argument is built up.

The ghosts of old controversies long sinceburied are raised

,to show how the doctrine

imperishably associated with the names ofMarx and Engels came into existence ; the“'oung Hegelians ,

” the “Tuebingen

School,

”and finally Feuerbach himself are

6 INTRODUCTION

summoned from the grave to which the Rev.olution of 1848 had consigned them. Sti ll,ancient history as these controversies arefrom the German standpoint

,such is the

backwardness of philosophy among Eng~

fish - speaking peoples,that we find Engels

exposing again and again fallacies whichpersist even in our time

,and ridiculing sen

timents which we receive with approbationin our political assemblies

,and with mute

approval in our churches and conventicles .The an ti - religious note is noticeable

throughout,in itself an echo of controver

sies long past, when the arguments of thecritics of the Bible were creating now fu-ry,now dismay, throughout Christendom,

be

fore the Higher Criticism had become respected , and before soi - disanft sceptics couldcontinue to go solemnly to church .

Moreover,the work was written in Ger

man for German workmen for whom re«

ligion has not the same significan ce as it

apparently still continues to possess for theEnglish - speaking people

,whose sensitive

ness upon the subj ect appears to have outlived their faith . However that may be ,

INTRODUCTION 7

religious bodies possess a. curious and perhaps satisfactory faculty of absorbing thetruths of science

,an d still continuing to ex

ist,and even to thrive , upon what the inex

perienced might easily mistake for a deadlydi et.Under the circumstan ces there is no reason why Engels remarks should affect eventhe timorous

,although it must be remem

bered that a very able English socialist philos0pher is reputed to have damaged hischances irretrievably by an ill - judged quotation from Mr. Swinburne.It must he confessed that the occasional

bitterness in which Engels indulges is tobe deplored

,in a work of so essentially in

tellectual a character, but it. is little to bewondered at. His contempt for university professors and the pretentious cultivated classes, who claim so much upon suchslight grounds, is not strange, when we consider the honest labors of himself and hiscolleagues and the superficial place hunting of the recognized savants . He loveslearning for its own sake

,for the sake of

truth and scientific accuracy, and he cannot

8 INTRODUCTION

feel anything but scorn for those who useit as a means to lull the consciences of therich

,and to gain place and power for them

selves. The degradation of German phi losophy affects him with a real sorrow ; thescholar is outraged at the mockery.

“ Sterility,

” “ eclecticism,

” these are the termsin which he sums up the teachings of theofficial professors

, and they are almost toogentle to be applied to the dispiriting and

disheartening doctrines which are taughtto the English - speaking student of to- dayunder the name of economics or philosophy

In the first part of his pamphlet, for it islittle more in size

,Engels gives a short and

concise account of the work of Hegel andthe later Hegelian School. He shows howthe philosophy of Hegel has both a con

servative and a radical side and how con

servatives and radicals alike might, (as a

matter of fact they did ) , each derive support from his teachings

,according to the

amount of stress laid respectively upon thegreat divisions of his work, the

“ System”and the Dialectic.

INTRODUCTION 9

The Extreme Left developed through theapplication of the dialectic, and applied thephilosophic doctrine thus derived to thecriticism of existing politi cal and religiousinstitutions . This resulted in the gradualthrowing away of the abstract part of theHegelian philosophy, and in the study offacts and phenomena to an ever- increasingdegree.Marx had, in his youth allied himself

with the “'oung Hegelian s,

as this schoolwas called, and this fact had no slight influence upon his subsequent career. Hiscritics lay the blame for much of the ohscurity of language from which

“ Capital ”

in particular suffers,at the door of this

training. His painful elaboration of thesis,

antithesis,and synthesis

,his insistence

upon the dialectic, and his continual use of

the Hegelian philosophical expressions aredue to his earlier controversial experiences .Still

,on the other hand

,

‘his patient investigation of actual facts

,his insistence on

the value of positive knowledge as compared with abstract theory, and his diligentand persistent use of blue - books and statis

10 INTRODUCTION

tics,were in a great measure results of the

same training.

Now and again,we find Engels in this

work displaying remarkable controversialacumen

,as in his discussion of the phrase ,

“All that is real is reasonable,and all that

is reasonable is real” (Alles was wirklichist

,ist vernuenftig, und alles was vernuenf

tig ist,ist wirklich ) . From this expression,

by the development of the Hegelian argument

,he arrives at the conclusion involved

in the statement that the value of a socialor political phenomenon is its transitoriness

,the necessity of its disappearance.

Hence the abolition of dogmatic statementand mere subjective reasoning in the realmof philosophy

,the destruction of the old

school‘

of which Kant was the chief exponent, and the creation of a new school themost advanced teachers of which were

,as

they still are,the materialistic socialists, of

whom Engels and Marx are the chief.The object of this historical sketch is toshow the origin of Feuerbach ’s phi losophyas well as of that of Marx and Engels . Asthe fight between the 'oung Hegelians and

INTRODUCTION 11

the conservatives grew hotter, the radical swere driven back upon the English - French

materialism of the preceding century. Thiswas embarrassing for followers of Hegel,who had been taught to regard the materialas the mere expression of the Idea. Feuerbach relieved them from the contradi ction .

He grasped the question boldly and threwthe Hegelian abstraction completely to oneside . His book

,

“Wesen des Christenthums

,

” in which his ideas were set forth ,

became immediately popular,and an Eng

lish translation,which was widely read

,

was made of it by George Eliot under thetitle of “Essence of Christianity.

”

Engels is by no means grudging of expressions of appreciation with regard tothis work

,and its efiects both upon himself

and the educated world in general . This“unendurable debt of honor ” paid

,how

ever, he proceeds to attack the idealistic human itarianismwhich Feuerbach had mad ethe basis and sanction of his ethical theori es .Although Feuerbach had arrived at thematerialistic conclusion , he expressed him

12 INTRODUCTION

self as unable to accept. materialism as a

doctrine. He says that as far as the pastis concerned he is a materialist

,but

,for the

future,he is not so— “Backward I amin

agreement with the materialists,forward

not”—a statement which impels Engels toexamine the materialism of the eighteenthcentury

,which he finds purely mechanical ,

without any conception of the universe as a

process , and therefore utterly inadequatefor the philosophic needs of the period at

whi ch Feuerbach wrote ; for by that timethe advance of science, and the greater powers of generalization

,arising from patient

experimentation , and the development ofthe evolutionary theory, had rendered theeighteenth century views evidently absurd .

The “vulgarising peddlers (vulgarisirenden Hausirer) come in for a great deal ofcontempt at the hands of Engels . Thesewere the popular materialists ‘the blatan tatheists

,who

,wi thout scientific knowledge

and gifted with mere oratory or a popularstyle of writing, used every advance ofscience as a weapon of attack upon the Creator and popular religion . Engels sneers

INTRODUCTION 13

at these as not being scientists at all, butmere tradesmen dealing in pseudo - scientific

wares . He calls their occupation a trade, a

business (Geschaeft) . Of the same class wasthat host of secularist lecturers who at onetime thronged the lecture platforms of theEnglish - speaking countries and of whomBradlaugh and Ingersoll were in every waythe best representatives . These secularistshave now ceased to exercise any influence,and the Freethought societies, at one timeso numerous, have now practically disappeared . In accordance with the theories asset forth by Engels they were bound to disappear ; their teachings had no real bearing upon social progress, they contributednothing of any scientific value to modernthought

,and as Engels carefully shows

,the

reading of history by these lecturers wasvitiated by a lack of scientific grasp , andinability to take a rational view of the greatprinciples of historical development.In the third part of this little book Engelsdeals with a very interesting question whichstill disturbs the minds of philosophers ,and concerning whichmuch discussion goes

14 INTRODUCTION

on even among the material ists ; that is thequestion as to the effect of religion uponsocial progress . Feuerbach had made thestatement that periods of social progressare marked by religious changes . He usesreligion as a synonym for human love

,fcrc

ing the meaning of the word religion fromthe Latin “ religare,

” “ to tie,

” in order to

give it an etymological and derivativemeaning in support of his statement

,a contro

versial trick for which he is rebuked byEngels . The declaration that great historical revolutions are accompanied by reli

gious changes is declared by Engels not tobe true, except in a limi ted degree a s re

gards the three great world - religionsChristianity, Mahommedanismand Buddhism.

Engels declared that the change ln religion simultaneous with economic and polit~

1cal revolution stopped short with the hour

geois revolt which wasmade without anyappeal to religion whatsoever. It is evidentthat this is not entirely true

,for in the

English - speaking coun tries, at all events ,not only the bourgeois but frequently also

INTRODUCTION 15

the proletarian movements attempt to justify themselves from Scripture . The teachings of the Bible and the Sermon on theMount are frequently called to the aid of therevolutionary party ; Christian Socialists ,in the English and American, not the contineutal sense of the term , as such are ad

mitted to the International Congresses ; andother evidences of the compatibility of religion with the proletarian movement can betraced .

But in the broader sense of his statementEngels is undoubtedly correct. The proletarian movement, unlike that of the hourgeois, has produced no definite religiousschool

,it has not claimed any particular set

of religious doctrines as its own . As amatter of fact, there appears to be an ever- widening chasm between the Church and the laborer, a condition of affairs which is fre

qently deplored in religious papers . The

famous Papal Encyclical on Labor was cer

tainly intended to retain the masses in theChurch

,and the formation of trades unions

under the influence of the priests was a logical conclusion from the teachings of the

16 INTRODUCTION

Papal Encyclical . But such religious movements are in no sense representative of theworking - class movement ; in fact they are

resented and antagonized by the regularproletarian movement which proceeds under the leadership of the Socialists .Feuerbach ’s exaltation of humanitarianism

,as a religion, is derided by Engels in

a semi - jocular, semi - serious manner, for hisstatement that Feuerbach ’s ideals can be

completely realized on the Bourse,cannot

be taken seriously. Engels ’ clear- sightedness with regard to the ineff ectiveness of apurely humanitarian religion is very re

markable, although the forty years ’ additional experience which he had over Feuerbach was a great advantage to him in estimating the actual value of humanitarian religion as an influence in human affairs .Since the time of Feuerbach various experiments in the direction of a religion basedentirely on Love have been tried

,and none

of them has succeeded . Positivism or its

religious side has been a failure. It hasappeal ed to a small set of men

,some of

whom are possessed of great ability and

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18 INTRODUCTION

field,he appears to be increasingly desir

ous of releasing himself fromthe bands ofany religion whatever, and substituting 11]

place of it practical ethics and the teachingsof science. Thus we are informed that fiveout of six of the working classes of Berlin,who attend any Sunday meetings whatever,are to be found in the halls of the SocialDemocratic Party, li stening to the lecturesprovided by that organization.

The revolutionary character of Feuerbach ’s philosophy is not maintained in hisethic

, which Engels declares with muchtruth to be no better than that of his predecessors, as the basis on which it stands isno more substantial . Feuerbach fails as a

teacher of practical ethics ; he is smotheredin abstraction and cannot attain to any

reality.

With the last part of the work Engelsabandons the task of criticising Feuerbach

,

and“

proceeds to expound hi s own philosophy.

With absolute candor and modesty hegives Marx credit for the theory of thematerialistic conception of history

,upon the

INTRODUCTION 19

enunciation and proof of which he had himself worked almost incessantly ever sincethe first idea of the theory had occurred tothem

,forty years prior to the time when he

wrote this work . The footnote to the firstpage of the fourth part is the testimony ofa collaborator to the genius of his fellowworkman

,an example of appreciation and

modest self- effacement which it would not

be easy to match, and to whi ch literary menwho work together are not over- prone.Nothing else could bear more eloquent testimony to the loftiness of character and sin

cerity of purpose of these two exiles .The Marxian philosophy of history isclearly stated

,and so fully explained by

Engels that there is no need to go over theground again

, and there only remains tocall attention to some of the modern developments in the direction of rigidity of interpretation ,

and to the exaggeration of thebroad theory of the predominance of theeconomic factor into a hard and fast doctrine of economic determinism.

When we examine the claims of Engelson behalf of the materialistic doctrine it

20 INTRODUCTION

will be found that they are not by any

means of such a nature as to warrant theextreme conclusions of subsequent socialistpublicists and leaders . It must be remembered that the subject of the influence ofeconomic conditions on religious and political phenomena has been closely examinedof late years and continual and accumulating evidence has been forthcoming respecting the remarkable influence of economicfacts upon all othermani festations of socialactivity. It is very probable that the successful investigations in this new field haveled

,temporarily

,to the formation of exag

gerated ideas as to the actual value of ’ theeconomic factor.Marx, in one of his short critical notes onFeuerbach

,says “ The materialistic doc

trine that men are products of conditionsand education

, difierent men thereforeproducts of other conditions

,and a different

kind of education,forgets that circum

stancesmay be altered byman and that theeducator has himself to be educated .

” In

other words, the problem,like all problems

,

possesses at least two quantities ; it is not a

question solely of condi tions, economic or

INTRODUCTION 21

ditions, for theman is never dissolved inthe conditions

,but exists as a separate en

tity,and these two elements

,man and con

ditions, act and react the one upon theother.

This is quite a different position fromthat taken by Lafargue in his fight withJaures . Lafargue there argued that economic development is the sole determinantof progress

,and pronounces in favor of eco

nomic determinism,thus reducing the whole

of history and,consequently

,the dominat

ing human motives to but one elementarymotive. Belfort Bax

,the well - known Eng

lish socialist writer,makes a very clever

argument against the determinist positionby comparing it with the attempts of thepre - Socratic Greek philosophers to reducenature to one element. His remarks are so

pertinent that a brief abstract of his argument is here quoted in his own language .He says in “Outlooks from a N ew Standpoint”“ The endeavor to reduce the whole ofHuman life to one element alone

,to recon

struct all hi story on the basis of Economics,

2 INTRODUCTION

as already said,ignores the fac t that every

concrete real ity must have a material anda formal side,—that is, it must have at leasttwo ultimate elements— all reality as op

posed to abstraction consisting in a synthesis . The attempt to evolve the manysidedness of Human life out of one of itsfactors

,no matter how importan t that factor

may he, reminds one of the attempts of theearly pre—Socratic Greeks to reduce natureto one element

,such as water, air, fire

,etc.

And again :“The precise formamovement takes , be

it intellectual, ethi cal or arti stic, I fully admit, is determined by thematerial circumstances of the society in which it acquiresform and shape, but it is also determinedby those fundamental psychological tendencies which have given it birth .

Enrico Ferri,the famous Italian mem

ber of the Chamber of Deputies and criminologist, appears to be at one with Baxin this matter. He says, quoting from a

recent translation of hi s “Socialism and

Modern Science” It is perfectly true

that every phenomenon as well as every in

INTRODUCTION 23

stitution—moral, juridi cial or political—issimply the result of the economic phenomena and the conditions of the transitory,physical and hi storical environments . Butas a consequence of that law of natural causality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant of numerous concurrentcauses

,and not of one cause alone

,and that

every efiect becomes in its turn a cause ofother phenomena

,it is necessary to amend

and complete the too rigid form that hasbeen given to this true idea.

“ Just as all psychical manifestations ofthe individual are the result of the organ icconditions ( temperament ) and of the environment in which he lives

,in the same way,

all the social manifestations of a people arethe resultant of their organic conditions

(race ) and of the environment, as these arethe determining causes of the given economic organization which is the physicalbasis of life. ”

Thesemay be said to be fairly represen

tative of the views of the opposition to theextreme of economic determinism .

The whole controversy has spread over a

24 INTRODUCTION

tremendous amount of ground and involvesmuch reading. Some of the chief resultshave lately been summarized by ProfessorSeligman in his “ Economi c Interpretationof Hi story.

”(Macmillan

,His writ

ten views show a closer approximati on toand understanding of the teach ings of thesocialist philosophy on this subject thanwe have been accustomed to receive at

the hands of official savants,so that it would

seem as if the value of Marx ’s work was at

last beginning to be appreciated even in thefoggy studies of the professors . Two extracts from the writings of Engels are

quoted by Professor Seligman . These c xtracts apparently go to prove that Engelsby no means contemplated the extreme construction whi ch has been placed upon thedoctrine

,and that he would find such a con~

struction inconsistent with his generalviews .These extracts are quoted here for thepurpose of further elucidating the views ofEngels and as further explanatory of theposition assumed by him in the last part ofthe work under consideration .

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26 INTRODUCTION

contests, and their results, the constitutions— the legal forms and also all the reflexesof these actual contests in the brains of theparticipants

,the political

,legal

,philosoph

ical theories,the religious views— all these

exert an influence on the development of thehistorical struggles, and in many instancesdetermine their form .

”

Here wemay leave this much disputedmatter for the present, as any involved discussion of controversial questions would beout of place here . The question in its ultimate form is merely scholastic, for not eventhe most extreme determinist would holdthat only the economic argument must berelied upon

‘

by the. orators and the press ofthe proletarian movement. Any one, however

,who wishes to pursue the subject

farther can find abundant material in thealready great and growing amount of literature in connection with it.There is no doubt that the ideas of Marx

respecting the basis of historical progresshave already revolutionized the teaching ofhi story in the universities

,although but few

professors have been ~honest enough to give

INTRODUCTION 27

him credit for it. The economic factor continually acquires greater importance. in theeyes of the student of history

,but the prac

tical discoverer of this factor is still slightedand the results of his labors are assimilatedwith a self- satisfied hypocrisy which is, unfortunately

,characteristic of the colleges of

the English - speaking countries .The bourgeois writers upon socialism

generally content themselves with the boldstatement that Marx employs the dialecticmethod of investigation and statement. Thisis so much Greek to the ordinary reader,and the subject of the dialectic as used bysocialist writers requires a few words ofexplanation .

The first part of this work is very val

uahle,therefore

,as showing what Marx and

Engels meant when they used the expression

,and as declaring their estimation of

that method compared with that in generaluse in their day, and always

,prior to their

time,employed in philosophy

,history and

economics .A fuller and more detailed definition ofthe dialectic as applied by Engels is given

28 INTRODUCTION

by that philosopher in his famous reply toEugene Duhring known as the “Umwaelzung der Wissenschaf t. ” In that work a

more thorough and patient investigation ismade into the sources of materialistic philosophy of the socialist movement, for the reputation of his antagonist appears to have acted as a spur to Engels ’ faculties which certainly never showed to better advantagethan in that work. A portion of the argument

,in fact an abstract of the general train

“

of reasoning, with the omission of the moreobviously controversial parts , has been reprinted under the title of “ Socialism fromUtopia to Science . ” The following quotation is taken from the translation preparedfor the “People” in 1892“We also find

,upon a closer enquiry

,that

the two poles of an antithesis, such as positive and negative, are as inseparable fromas they are opposed to each other, and that,despite their antagonism

,they mutually

pervade each other ; and in the same waywe find cause and effect to be conceptionswhose force exists only when applied to asingle instance

,but which

,soon as .we con

INTRODUCTION 29

sider that instance in its connection with

the cosmos,run into each other and dissolve

in the contemplation of that universal aotion and reaction where cause and effectconstantly change places—that which is effeet

,now and here

,becoming, then and

yonder,cause, and vice versa.

“None of these processes and method s ofreasoning fits in the metaphysical framework of thought. To dialecti cs, however ,which takes in the objects and their conceivable images above all in their connections

,their sequence

,their motion

,their rise

and decline, processes like the above are somany attestations of its own method of procedure. Nature furnishes the test to dialectics

,and this much we must say for modern

natural science,that it has contributed to

wards thi s test an extremely rich and dailyincreasing material

,whereby it has demon

strated that,in the las t instance

,nature pro

ceeds upon dialectical,not uponmetaphy

sical methods,that it does not move upon

the eternal sameness of a perpetually re

curring circle,but that it goes through an

actual historic evolution.

30 INTRODUCTION

This new Gerrinan philosophy culminated in the system of Hegel . There forthe first time—and herein consists its merit—the whole natural, historic, and intellectual world was presented as a process

,i . e.,

engaged in perpetual motion, change, transformation and development. Viewed fromthis standpoint

,the history of mankind no

longer appeared as a wild tangle of senseless deed s of violence, all equally to be re

jected by a ripened philos0phic judgment ,and whi ch it were best to forget as soon as

possible,but as the process of the develop

ment of mankind itself—a developmentwhose gradual march , through all its straypaths

,and its eternal law,

through all

its seeming fortuitousness,it now became

the task of the intellect to trace and to discover. ”

Kirkup, in his“History of Socialism

,

has this to say upon the dialectic methodof investigation as used by Marx : “ In thesystem of Marx

,it mean s that the business

of enquiry is to trace the connection and

concatenation in the links that make up theprocess of historic evolution

,to investigate

INTRODUCTION 31

how one stage succeeds another in the development of society, the facts and forms ofhuman life and history not being stable andstereotyped things, but the ever- changingmanifestations of the fluent and unrestingreal

,the course of which it is the duty of

science to reveal . ”

The translator has endeavored to renderthe meaning of the original in as simple anEnglish form as possible, and to, generallyspeaking, avoid technical terms .

AUSTIN s rs

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34 AUTHOR ’S PREFACE

Since then more than forty years haveelapsed

,and Marx has died without either

of us having had an opportunity of comingback to the antithesis . As regards our positiou with reference to Hegel

,we have ex

plained that,as occasion has arisen

,but

,

nowhere,as a whole . We never came back

to Feuerbach,who occupies an intermediate

position between the philosophy of Hegeland our own .

In the meantime the Marxian philosophyhas found champions beyond the boundaries of Germany and of Europe

,and in all

the languages of the civilized world. Onthe other hand

,the clas sic German philos

0phy has had a sort of new - birth abroad ,particularly in England and Scandinavia,and even in Germany they appear to besubstituting the thin soup of eclecticismwhich seems to flow from the universitiesunder the name of philosophy.

Under these circumstances a short,com

pact explanation of our relations to theHegelian philosophy, of our going forthand departure from it, appears to me to bemore and more required . And just in the

AUTHOR ’S PREFACE 5

same waya full recognition of the influencewhich Feuerbach, more than al l the otherpost- Hegelian philosophers , had over us ,during the peri od of our youthful enthu~

siasm,presents itself to me as an unen~

durable debt of honor. I also seize the 0pportunity the more readily since the edit01of the “Neue 'eit” has asked me for a crit

ical discussion of Starcke’s book on Feuer

bach. My work was published in the fourth

and fifth volumes of 1886 of that publication and here appears in a revised specialediti on .

Before sending this manuscript to pressI once again hunted up and examined theold manuscript of 1845 - 6. The part of itdealing with Feuerbach is not complete.

The portion completed consists in an exposi

tion of the materialistic V iew of history andonly proves how incomplete at that time

was our knowledge of economi c history.

The criticism of Feuerbach ’s doctrine isnot given in it. It was therefore unsuitablefor our purpose. On the other hand, I havefound in an old volume of Marx the elevenessays on Feuerbach pri nted here as an ap

36 AUTHOR ’S PREFACE

pendix. These are notes hurriedly seribbled in for later elaboration, not in the leastdegree prepared for the press

,but inval

uable, as the first written form,in which is

planted the genial germ of the new phiFRIEDRICH EN GELS .

London,21 February, 1888 .

FEUERBACH

I .The volume before us brings us at onceto a period which, in the matter of time,lies a full generation behind us , but whichis as foreign to the present generation inGermany as if it were quite a century old .

And,still

,it was the period of the prepara

tion of Germany for the revolution of 1848,

and all that has happened to us since is onlya continuation of 1848

,only a carrying out

of the last will and testament of the revo

Just as in France in the eighteenth, so inGermany in the nineteenth century

,revolu

tionary philosophic conceptions introduceda breaking up of existing political conditions . But how different the two appear 'The French were engaged in open fight withall recognized science

,with the Church

,fro

quently also with the State,their writings

38 FEUERBACH

were published beyond the frontiers in Holland or in England

,and they themselves

were frequently imprisoned in the Bastile .

The Germans,on the contrary, were profos

sors, appointed instructors of youth by the

State,their writings

,recognized text- books,

and their definite system of universal progress, the Hegelian ,

raised, as it were, to‘the

rank of a royal Prussian philosophy of

government. An d behind these professors,

behind their pedantically obscure utteranecs

,in their heavy wearisome periods,

was it possible that the revolution couldconceal itself Were not just the people who were looked upon at that timeas the leaders of the revolution, the Liberals

,the bitterest opponents of the

brain - turn ing philosophy ? But what neither the Governmentalists nor the Liberalssaw,

that saw,at least. oneman

,and that

man was Heinrich Heine.Let us take an example . No philosophicstatement has so invited the thanks of nara

row-minded governments and the anger ofthe equally narrow Liberals as the famousstatement of Hegel : “All that is real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real .”

FEUERBACH 39

This was essentially the blessing of all thatis

,the philosophical benediction of despot

ism,police - government

,star- chamber jus

tice and the censorship . So Frederi ck William III and his subjects understood it ; but,according to Hegel

,not. everything which

exists is,without exception

,real . The at

tribute of reality belongs only to that whichis at the same time necessary. Realitv

proves itself in the course of its development as necessity. Any governmental act— I

Iegel himself instances the example

of a certain “ tax law” by no meansstrikes him as real in the absence of otherqualities . But what is necessary provesitself in the last instance as reasonable also ,and applied to the Prussian government,the Hegel doctrine

,therefore

,only means ,

this state is reasonable, corresponding withreason

,as long as it is necessary

,and if it

appear to us an evil,but in spite of the

evil still continues to exist,the evil of the

government finds its justification and itsexplanation in the corresponding evil of thesubjects . The Prussians of that day hadthe government which they deserved.

But reality, according to Hegel, i s by no

40 FEUERBACH

means an attribute which belongs to a givensocial or political condition

,under all cir

cumstances and at all times . 'uite thecontrary. The Roman Republic was real ,but the Roman Empire which replaced itwas also real. The French Monarchy hadbecome unreal in 1789; that is, it had lostall the quality of necessity

,and was so con

trary to reason that it had to be destroyedby the Great Revolution

,of whi ch Hegel

always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm .

Here,therefore

,the monarchy was the un

real,the revolution the real . So in the

course of progress all earlier reality be

comes unreality, loses its necessity; itsright of existence

,its rationality ; in place

of the dying reality comes a new vital reality, peaceable when the old is sufficientlysensible to go to its death without a struggle

,forcible when it strives against this

necessity. And so the‘

Hegelian statementthrough the Hegelian dialectic turns to itsopposite— all that is real in the courseof human history becomes in the processof time irrational and is

,therefore

, ao

cording to its destiny,irrational

,and has

fromthe beginning inherited want of

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42 FEUERBACH

nothing more to look forward to, except tcfold its hands in its lap and contemplate theabsolute truth already gained. And justas it is in the realm of philosophic knowledge

,so is it with every other kind of

knowledge,even with that of practical com

merce . And just as little as knowledge canhistory find a conclusion

,complete in one

completed ideal condi tion of human ity, a

completed society,

a perfect state,

are

things which can only exist as phantasies,on the contrary, all successive historicalconditions are only places of pilgrimage inthe endless evolutionary progress of humansociety from the lower to the higher. Everystep is necessary and useful for the timeand circumstances to which it owes its origin

,but it becomes weak and without justi

fication under the newer and higher conditions which develop little by little in itsown womb

,it must give way to the higher

form,which in turn comes to decay and

defeat. As the bourgeoisie through thegreater industry

,competition

,and the

world market destroyed the practical valueof all stable and anciently honored institutions

,so this dialectic philosophy destroyed

FEUERBACH 43

all theories of absolute truth,and of an ab

solute state of humanity corresponding withthem . In face of it nothing final

,absolute

or sacred exists,it assigns mortality indis

criminately, and nothing can exist before itsave the unbroken process of coming intoexistence and passing away

,the endless

passing from the lower to the higher, themere reflection of which in the brain of thethinker it is itself. It has indeed also a

conservative side,it recogni7 es the suitabil

ity of a given condition of knowledge andsociety for its time and conditions

,but only

so far. This conservatism of this philosophical view is relative

,its revolutionary

character is absolute,the only absolute

which it allows to exist.We do not, at this point, need to go into

the question whether this philosophy isconsistent throughout with the present position of natural science which predicts forthe earth a possible end and for its inhabitability

,a fairly certain one ; which , there

fore,also recognizes that in human history

there is not only an upshooting but also a

down - growing branch . We find ourseles,

at any rate, still a considerable distance

44 FEUERBACH

from the turning point, where the historyof society begins to descend, and we cannotexpect the Hegelian philosophy to meddlewith a subject which at that time sciencehad not yet placed upon the order of theday.

What must,indeed, be said is this, that

the Hegelian development does not,accord

ing to Hegel,show itself so clearly. It is a

necessary consequence of his method whi chhe himself has never drawn with this ex

plicitness. And for thi s simple reason, because he was compelled to make a system,

and a system of philosophy must, in accordance wi th all its understood pretensions,close somewhere with a definition of absolute truth. SoHegel, therefore, in his logic,urged that this eternal truth is nothing elsebut the logical

,that is

,the historical pro

cess itself yet in spite of this he finds himself compelled to place an end to this process , since he must come to an end with hissystem somewhere or other. He can makethis end a beginning again in logic

,since

here the point of conclusion—the absoluteidea, which is only absolute in so far as hehas nothing clear to say about it—divests it

FEUERBACH 45

self in nature, that is, becomes transformed ,and later on , in spirit, that is, in thoughtand in history, comes to itself again . Butin the last philosophical analysis , a returnto the beginning is only possible in oneway, namely, if one place the end of historyin this fact

,that mankind comes to a knowl

edge of the absolute idea, and explain thatthis knowledge of the absolute idea is ohtained in the Hegelian philosophy. But inthis way the whole dogmatic content of theHegelian philosophy in the matter of absolute truth is explained in contradi ction tohis dialectic

,the cutting loose from all dog

matic methods,and thereby the revolution

my side becomes smothered under the dominating conservative . And what can be

said of philosophical knowledge can al sobe said of historical practice . Mankind

,

that is,in the person of Hegel

,has arrived

at the point of working out the absoluteidea, and must also practically have arrivedso far as to make the absolute idea a reality. The practical political demands of theIabstract idea upon his contemporaries can

not, therefore, be stretched too far. And sowe find as the conclusion of the philosophy

46 FEUERBACH

of Rights that the absolute idea shall realize itself in that limited monarchy whichWilliam III. so persistently, vainly promised to his subjects ; therefore, in a limited,mod erate

,indirect control of the possessing

classes , suitable to the dominating smallbourgeois class in Germany whereby

,in ad

dition,the necessity to us of the existence

of the nobility is shown in a speculativefashion .

The essential usefulness of the system issufficient to explain the manufacture of avery tame political conclusion by mean s ofa thoroughly revolutionary method of reasoning . The special form of this conclusion springs from this

, as a matter of fact.that Hegel was a German

,and

, as in thecase of his contemporary Goethe

,he was

somewhat of a philistine. Goethe and

Hegel,each of them was an Olympian 'eus

in his own sphere , but they were neither ofthem quite free from German philistinism.

But all this does not hinder the Hegeliansystem from playing an incomparablygreater role than any earlier system and byvirtue of this role developing ri ches ofthought which are astounding even to day.

FEUERBACH 47

Phemonology of the mind (which onemayparallel with embryology and palaeontology of the mind ) , an evolution of the indi ‘

vidual consciousness , through its differentsteps

,expressed as a brief reproduction of

the steps through whi ch the consciousnessofman has historically passed

,logic

,nat

ural philosophy, mental philosophy, and

the latter worked out separately in its deta iled historical subdivisions

,philosophy

of history,of jurisprudence

,of religion

,

history of philosophy, esthetics, etc. Hegellabored in all these difierent historical fieldsto discover and prove the thread of evolution

,and as he was not only a creative

genius,but also a man of encyclopedic

learning,he was thus, from every point of

view,the maker of an epoch . It is self- evi

dent that by virtue of the necessities of the“ System” he must very often take refugein certain forced constructi ons

,about which

his pigmy opponents make such an ado

even at the present time. But these constructions are only the frames and scaffoldings of his work ; if one does not stop umnecessarily at these but presses on furtherinto the bui lding one will find uncounted

48 FEUERBACH

treasures which hold their full value to day.

As regards all philosophers , their system isdoomed to perish and for this reason

,be

cause it emanates from an imperishable desire of the human soul

,the desire to abolish

all contradictions . But if all contradictionsare once and for all disposed of

,we have

arrived at the so- called absolute truth,hlSd

tory is at an end,and yet it will continue to

go on,although there is nothing further left

for it to do— thus a newer and more insoluble contradiction . So soon as we have onceperceived— and to this perception no onehas helped us more than Hegel himselfthat the task thus imposed upon philosophysignifies nothing d ifierent than the task thata single philosopher shall accomplish whatit is only possible for the entire humanrace to accomplish, in the course of its pro

gressive development— as soon as we nu

derstand that,it is all over with philosophy

in the present sense of the word . In thisway one discards the absolute truth, unattainable for the individual, and follows instead the relative truths attainable by wayof the positive sciences

,and the collection of

their results by means of the dialectic mode

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50 FEUERBACH

under it the most diverse practical opinions,

and the practical,in the then theoretic Ger

many,consisted in only two things reli

gion and politics . He who laid the greateststress upon the Hegelian system

,might be

moderately conservative in both these re

spects , while he who considered the dialectic method of the greatest importance couldbelong to the extreme left in religious andpolitical affairs . Hegel himself

,in spite of

the frequent outbursts of revolutionarywrath in his books

,was inclined

,on the

whole,to the conservative side . His system

,

rather than his method,had cost him the

hard thinking. At the end of the thirties,

the division in the school grew greater andgreater. The left wing

,the so- called 'oung

Hegelians,in their fight with the pious orth

odox,abandoned little by little

,that marked

philosophical reserve regarding the burn~

ing questions of the day, which had up tothat time secured for their teachings Statetoleration and even protection

,and as in

1840 orthodox pietism and absolutist’

feudalreaction ascended the throne with FrederickWilliam IV .

,Open partisanship became una

voidable The fight was still maintained

FEUERBACH 51

with philosophical weapons , but no longeralong abstract philosophical lines ; theywent straight to deny the dominant religionand the existing state

,and although in the

“Deutschen Jahrbuechern ” the practicalaims were still put forward clothed in philosophical phraseology, the younger Hegelian school threw off disguise in the“Rheinische 'eitung

,as the exponents of the phi

losophy of the struggling radicals, and usedthe cloak of philosophy only to deceive thecensorship .

But politics were at that time a verythorny field

,and so the main fight was di

rected against religion . But this was also,

particularly since 1840,indirectly a politi

cal fight . Strauss ’ “Leben Jesu,

” published in 1835, had given the first cause ofoff ense . The theory therein developed re

garding the origin of the gospel mythsBruno Bauer later dealt with

, adding theadditional proof that a whole series ofevangelical stori es had been invented bytheir authors . The fight between these twowas carried on under a philosophi cal dis~

guise,as a battle of mind with matter ;

the question whether the marvellous stories

52 FEUERBACH

of the gospel came into being through an

unconscious myth- creation in the womb ofsociety

,or whether they were individually

invented by the evangelists broadened intothe question whether in the history of therace

,mind or matter carried the real

weight,

and lastly came Stirner,the

prophet of modern anarchism—Bakuninehas taken very much fromhim— and

overtopped the sovereign power of con

sciousness with his sovereign power of theindividual .We do not follow the decomposition of the

Hegelian school on this side any further.What is more important for us is this : T hemass of the most decided young Hegelianswere driven back upon English - Frenchmaterialismthrough the necessities of theirfight against positive religion. Here theycame into conflict with their school system .

According to materialism,nature exists as

the sole reality,it exists in the Hegelian

system only as the alienation of the absolute Idea

,as it were a degradation of the

Idea ; under all circumstances, thought, andits thought- product

,the Idea, according to

thi s view, appears as the original, nature,

FEUERBACH 53

which only exists through the condescensionof the Idea as the derived, and in this con

tradiction they got along as well or as ill asthey might.Then came Feuerbach ’s “Wesen des

Christenthums.

” With one blow it cut thecontradiction

,in that it placed materialism

on the throne again without any circumlocution . Nature exists independently of all

philosophies . It is the foundation uponwhich we, ourselves products of nature, arebuilt. Outsideman and nature nothing exists

,and the higher beings which our reli~

gious phan tasies have created are only thefantastic reflections of our individuality.

The cord was broken , the system was scattered and destroyed, the contradiction , sinceit only existed in the imagination, wassolved . One must himself have experiencedthe delivering power of this book to get aclear idea of it. The enthusiasm was universal

,we were all for the moment followers of

Feuerbach . How enthusiastically Marxgreeted the new idea and how much he wasinfluenced by it

,in spite of all hi s cri tical

reservations , one may read in the “HolyFamily .

”

54 FEUERBACH

The very faults of the book contributedto its momentary effect. The literary, impressive

,even bombasti c style secured for

it a very large public and was a constantrelief after the long years of abstract andabstruse Hegelianism . The same result alsoproceeded from the extravagant glorification of love

,which in comparison wi th the

insufferable sovereignty of pure reason,found an excuse

,if not a justification . What

we must not forget is,that just on these

two weaknesses of Feuerbach “ true Socialism” in educated Germany fastened itselflike a spreading plague since 1844

,and

set literary phrases in the~place of scientific

knowled ge,the freeing of mankind by

means of love in place of the emancipationof the proletariat

,through the economic

transformation of production,in short lost

itself in nauseous fine writing and in sicklysentimentality,

of the type of which class ofwriters was Herr Karl Gruen .

We must furthermore not forget thatthough the Hegelian school was destroyedthe Hegelian philosophy was not criticallyvanquished . Strauss and Bauer took each aside and engaged in polemics . Feuerbach

FEUERBACH 55

broke through the system and threw it as awhole aside . But one has not finished witha philosophy by simply declaring it to befalse

,and so enormous a work as the Hegel

ian philosophy which has had so tremendous an influence upon the mental development of the nation did not allow itself tobe put aside peremptorily. It had to bedestroyed in its own way, which means inthe way that critically destroys its form butsaves the new acquisitions to knowledge wonby it. How this was brought about we shallsee below .

But for the moment,the Revolution of

1848 put aside all philosophica l discussionjust as unceremoniously as Feuerbach laidaside Hegel . And then Feuerbach was himself crowded out.

FEUERBACH

The great foundation question of all,es

pecially new, philosophies is conn ected withthe relation between thinking and being.

Since very early times when men,being in

complete ignorance respecting their ownbodies

,and stirred by apparitions

,

'arrived

at the idea that thought and sensation werenot acts of their own bodies

,but of a special

soul dwelling in the body and deserting itas death

,ever since then they have been

obliged to give thought to the relations ofthis soul to the outside world . If it be

'

tookitself from the body and lived on

,there

was no reason to invent another death for it ;thus arose the conception of their immortality

,which

,at that evolutionary stage

,did

not appear as a consolation,but as fate,

against which a man cannot strive, and

often enough,as among the Greeks

,as a

positive misfortune. Not religious desire‘T o th is very day the idea is preva lent among savagesand barbarians that the human forms appeari ng in ourdreams are sou l s which temporari ly leave the body , andthat , therefore , the rea l man becomes l iable for the deedsdone to the dreamer by h is dream appearance . So Imthurm , for examp le , found i t in 1884 among the Indi ansin G uiana.

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58 FEUERBACH

relation of thought to existence, a question

which had also played a great role in thescholasticism of the Middle Ages

,the ques

tion what is at the beginning spiri t or nature, this question was in spite of the churchnow cut down to this : “Has God madethe world or is the world from etern ity ?As this question was answered this way

or that the philosophers were divided intotwo great camps . The one party whichplaced the origin of the spirit before that ofnature

,and therefore in the last instance

acepted creation, in some form or otherand this creation , is often according to thephilosophers

,according to Hegel foi' ex

ample,still more odd and impossible than

in Chri stianity—made the camp of idealism.

The others,who recognized nature as the

source,belong to the various schools ofma

terialism.

The two expressions signify somethingdifferent from this . Idealism and materialism, originally not used in any other sense,are not here employed in any other sense .We shall see what confusion arises whenone tri es to force another signification intoth em .

FEUERBACH 59

The question of the relationship of thinking and being has another side ; in what relation do our thoughts with regard to theworld surrounding us stand to this worlditself ? Is our thought in a position to recognize the real world ? Can we, in our ideasand notion of the real world

,produce a cor

rect reflection of the reality ? This questionis called in philosophical language the question of the identity of thinking and being

,

and is affirmed by the great majorityof philosophers . According to Hegel, for.example

,its affirmation is self- evident

,for

that which we know in the actual world isits content, according to our thought, thatwhich compels the world to a progressiverealization as it were of the absolute Idea,which absolute idea has existed somewhere

,

lunattached from the world and before theworld ; and that thought can recognize a

content which is already a thought contentlherein

,from the beginning

,appears self '

evident. It is also evident that what is hereito be proved is already hidden in the hypothesis. But that does not hinder Hegel

,

by any means , from drawing the furtherconclusion from his proof of the identity of

60 FEUERBACH

thought and existence that his philosophy,

because correct for his thought,is

,there

fore,the only correct one

,and that the iden

tity of thought and existence must show itself in this

,that mankind should forthwith

translate his philosophy from theory topractice and the whole world shift itself toa Hegelian base . This is an illusion whichhe shares alike w ith all philosophers .In addition there is still another class of

philosophers , those who dispute the possibility of a perception of the universe or atleast of an exhaustive perception . To thembelong

,among the moderns

,Hume and

Kan t,and they have played a very distin

guished role in the evolution of philosophy.

This point of view has been now refuted byHegel

,as far as possible, from the idealistic

standpoint . The materialistic additionsmade by Feuerbach aremore ingenious thandeep . The most destructive refutatien ofthis as of all other fixed philosophic ideasis actual result, namely experiment and industry. If we can prove the correctness ofour idea of an actual occurrence by experi

encing it ourselves and producing it fromits constituent elements

,and using it for our

FEUERBACH 61

own purposes into the bargain,the Kant

ian phrase “ Ding an Sich” ( thing in itself ) ceases to have any meaning. Thechemical substances which go to form thebodies of plants and animals remained justsuch “Dinge an Sich” until organic chemistry undertook to show them one after theother

,whereupon the thing in itself became

a thing for us,as the coloring matter in the

roots of madder, alizarin,which we no

longer allow to grow in the roots of themadder in the field

,but make much more cheap

ly and simply from coal tar. The Copernican system was for three hundred years ahypothesis

,with a hundred

,a thousand

,or

ten thousand chances in its favor, but stilla hypothesis . But when Leverrier by meansof the data of this system not only d iscovered the existence of a certain unknownplanet

,but even calculated the position in

the heavens which this planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galles really foundthis planet, then the Copernican system wasproved . If, nevertheless , the resurrection'of the Kantian idea in Germany is beingl tried by the N eo-Kantian s

,and of that of

lHume in England (where they never died ) ,

62 FEUERBACH

by the agnostics,that is

,in the face of the

long past theoretical and practical refutation of these doctri nes , scientifically, a stepbackwards, and practically, merely the aoceptance of materialism in a shame - facedway, clandestinely, and the denial of it before the world .

But the philosophers were during thislong period from Descartes to Hegel and

from Hobbes to Feuerbach by no means,as

they thought,impelled solely by the force of

pure reason . On the contrary,what really

impelled them was,in particular, the strong

and ever quicker conquering step of naturalscience and industry . Among thematErialists this very quickly showed itself on thesurface

,but the idealistic systems filled

themselves more and more withmaterialistic content and sought to reconcile the eu

tagonismbetween spirit and matter bymeans of pantheism

,so that finally the

Hegelian system represented merely amaterialismturned upside down , according toidealistic method and content.Of course Starcke in his “ Characteristicsof Feuerbac enquired into the fundamental question of the relati ons of thinking

FEUERBACH 63

and being. After a short introduction inwhich the ideas of preceding philosophers ,particularly since Kant

,are portrayed in

unnecessarily heavy philosophical languageand in which Hegel , owing to a too formalinsistence on certain parts of his work doesnot receive due credit

,there follows a co

pious description of the development of themetaphysics of Feuerbach, as shown in thecourse of the recognized writings of thisphilosopher. This description is industriously and carefully elaborated

,and , like

the whole book,is overballasted with, not

always unavoidable,philosophical expres

sions,which is all the more annoying in that

thewriter does not hold to the vocabulary ofone and the same school nor even of Feuerbach himself

,but mixes up expressions of

svery difierent schools , and especially of thepresent epidemic of schools calling themselves philosophical .The evolution of Feuerbach is that of a

lHegelian to materialism—not of an orthodox Hegelian

,indeed— ah evolution which

from a definite point makes a completebreach with the idealistic system of his predecessor. With irresistible force he brings

64 FEUERBACH

himself to the view that the Hegelian idea ofthe existence of the absolute idea before theworld

,the pre - existence of the logical cate

gories before the universe came into being,is nothing else than the fantastical survivalof the belief in the existence of an extramundane creator ; that the material, sensible

,actual world

,to which we ourselves be

long,is the only reality

,and that our con

sciousness and thought,however supernat

ural theymay seem,are only evidences of a

material bodily organ , the brain . Matteris not a product of mind

,but mind it

self is only the highest product ofmatter.This is

,of course

,pure materialism. When

he reached this point Feuerbach came to astandstill . He cannot overcome ordinaryphilosophical prejudi ce

,prejudice not

against the thing , but against the namematerialism. He says “Materialism is for methe foundation of the building of the beingand knowledge ofman ,

but it is not formewhat it is for the physiologists in the narrowsense, as Moleschott, for example, since necessarily from their standpoint it is the building itself. Backwards

,I amin accord with

the materialists but not forwards .

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66 FEUERBACH

mechanics of gravity, in short, had reachedany definite conclusions . Chemistry existedat first only in a childish

,phlogistic form .

Biology still lay in swaddling clothes ; theorganism of plants and animals was examined only in a very cursory manner, andwas explained upon purely mechanicalgrounds ; just as an animal was to Descartesnothing but a machine

,so wasman to the

materialists of the eighteenth century. Theexclusive application of the measure of mechanics to processes which are of chemicaland organic nature and by which

,it is true

,

the laws of mechanics are also manifested,but are pushed into the background by oth erhigher laws

,this application is the cause of

the peculiar, but, considering the times , unavoidable

,narrowmindedness of the French

materialism .

The second special limitation of thismateri alismlies in its incapacity to representthe universe as a process , as one form ofmatter assumed in the course of evolutionary development. Thi s limitation corresponded with the natural science of the timeand the metaphysic coincident therewith

,

that is the anti - dialectic methods of the phil

FEUERBACH 67

osophers. Nature,as was known , was in

constant motion,but this motion

,according

to the universally accepted ideas, turnedeternally in a circle , and therefore nevermoved from the spot

,and produced the same

results over and. over again . This idea wasat that time inevitable . The Kantian theoryof the origin of the solar system was at firstexhibited and considered as a mere curiosity.

The hist ory of the development of the earthgeology was still unknown, and the idea thatthe living natural objects of to day are theresult of a long process of development fromthe simple to the complex could not bescientifically established at that time Thisanti - historical comprehension of nature was,therefore

,inevitable . We cannot reproach

the philosophers of the eighteenth centurywith this

,as the same thing is also found

in Hegel . According to him ,nature is the

mere outward form of the Idea,capable of

no progress as regards time,but merely of

an extension of its manifoldness inspace

,so that it displays all the stages of

development comprised in it at one and thesame time together

,and is condemned to a

repetition of the same processes . And thi s

68 FEUERBACH

absurdity of a progress in space but outsideof time— the fundamental condition of all

progress—Hegel loads upon nature,just at

the very time when geology,embryology

,

the physiology of plants and animals,and

inorganic chemistry,were being built up

,

and when above all genial prophecies of thelater evolution theory appeared at the verythreshold of these new sciences (e . g . ,Goethe

and Lamark ) , but the system so required it,and the method

,for love of the system,

had to prove untrue to itself.This unhistoric conception had its eff ects

also in the domain of history. Here thefight against the remnants of the Midd leAges kept the outlook limited . The MiddleAges were reckoned as a mere interruptionof history by a thousand years of barbarism .

The great advan ces of the Middle Ages— thebroadening of European learn ing, the bringing into existence of great nations, whicharose

,one after the other

,and finally the

enormous technical advances of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries— all this noone saw. Consequently a rational V iew ofthe great histori c development was rendered impossible

,and history served prin

FEUERBACH 69

cipallyas a collection of examples and illustrations for the use of philosophers .The vulgarizing peddlers who during the

fifties occupied themselves with materialismin Germany di d not by any mean s escapethe limitations of their doctrine. A ll theadvances made in science served them onlyas new grounds of proof against the existence of the Creator

,and indeed it was far

beyond their trade to develop the theory anyfurther. Idealism was at the end of itstether and was smi tten with death by theRevolution of 1848 . 'et it had the satisfaction that materialism sank still lower. Feu

erbach was decidedly right when he refusedto take the responsibility of this materialism

,only he had no business to confound

'

the teachings of the itinerant spouters withmaterialism in general .However

,we must here remark two differ

ent things . During the life of Feuerbachscience was still in that state of violent fermentation which has only comparativelycleared during the last fifteen years ; newmaterial of knowledge was furnished in a

hitherto unheard of measure but the fixingof interrelations

,and therewith of order

,in

70 FEUERBACH

the chaos of overwhelming discoveries wasrendered possible quite lately for the firsttime. True, Feuerbach had lived to see thethree distinctive discoveries that of thecell

,the transformation of energy and the

evolution theory acknowledged since thetime of Darwin . But how could the solitarycountry - dwelling philosopher appreciate attheir full value discoveries which naturalists themselves at that time in part contested and partly did not understand how toavail themselves of sufli ciently? The disgrace falls solely upon the miserable conditions in Germany owing to which thechairs of philosophy were filled by pettifogging eclectic pedants

,while Feuerbach

,who

towered high above them all,had to rusti

cate and grow sour in a little village . It. istherefore no shame to Feuerbach that henever grasped the natural evolutionaryphilosophy which became possible with thepassing away of the partial views ofFrench materialism.

In the second place,Feuerbach held quite

correctly that scientific materialism is thefoundation of the building of human knowledge but it is not the building itself. For

FEUERBACH 71

we live not only in nature but in human so

ciety, and thi s has its theory of developmentand its science no less than nature . It wasnecessary

,therefore

,to bring the science of

society,that is the so- cal led historical and

phi losophical sciences , into harmony withthe materialistic foundations and to rebuildupon them . But this was not granted toFeuerbach . Here he stuck

,in Spite of the

foundations,

” held in the confining bondsof idealism

,and to this he testified in the

words “Backwards I amwith the materialists, but not forwards . But Feuerbach him~

self did not go forward in his views of human society from his standpoint of 1840and1844

,chiefly owing to that loneliness

which compelled him to think everythingout by himself, instead of in friendlyand hostile conflict with other menof his calibre, although of all philosophershe was the fondest of intercourse with hisfellows . We shall see later on how he

thus remained an idealist. Here wecan only call attention to the fact thatStarcke sought the ideal ism of Feuerbach inthe wrong place. “ Feuerbach is an idealist ;he believes in the advance of mankind” (p.

FEUERBACH

The foundations,the underpinning

of the whole,is therefore nothing less than

idealism . Realism is for us nothing morethan a protection against error while wefollow our own idealisti c tendencies . Are notcompassion

,love and enthusiasm for truth

and justice ideal forces ? ”

In the first place,idealism is here defined

as nothing but the following of ideal aims .But these have necessarily to do principallywith the idealism of Kant and hi s “ Cate

gorical Imperative . But Kan t himselfcalled his philosophy “ transcendental ideal

because he deals thereinwith moral ideals

,but on quite other

grounds,as Starcke will remember.

The superstition that philosophical idealism pivots around a belief in moral, that isin social ideals , arose with the German nonphilosophical Philistine

,who commits to

memory the few philosophical morselswhich he finds in Schiller ’s poems . Nobody has criticised more severely the feebleCategori cal Imperative of Kant—feeble because it demands the impossible and therefore never attains to any reality—nobodyhas ridiculed more cruelly the Philistine

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74 FEUERBACH

idealism . The French materialists had thisconviction

,to a fanatical degree

,no less than

the deists, Voltaire and Rousseau, and made

the greatest personal sacrifices for it . Ifanybody ever concentrated his whole life tothe enthusiasm for truth and justice

,taking

the words in a moral sense,it was Diderot,

for example . Therefore,since Starcke has

explained all this as idealism,it simply.

proves that the word materialism has lostall significance for him,

as has also the antagonismbetween the aims of the two .

The fact is that Starcke here makes an uhpardonable concession to the prejudices ofthe Philistines caused by the long continued slanders of the clergy against the wordmaterialism ,

even if without consciously doing so . The Philistine understands by theword materialism,

gluttony,drunkenness

,

carnal lust,and fraudulent speculation

,in

short all the enormous vices to which hehimself is secretly addicted

,and by the word

idealism he understands the belief in virtue,universal humanitarianism

,and a better

world as a whole, of which he boasts beforeothers

,and in which he himself at

most believes,only as

FEUERBACH 75

the blues which follow necessarily from hiscustomary “materialistic ” excesses

,and so

sings his favorite song “What isman ?Half beast, half angeAs for the rest

,Starcke takes great pains

to defend Feuerbach against the attacks anddoctrines of those collegians who plumethemselves in Germany as philosophers nowa - days . It is true that this is a matter of importance to those people who take an interest in the afterbirth of the German classicphilosophy

,to Starcke himself this might

appear necessary. We spare the reader this,however

76 FEUERBACH

The distinct idealism of Feuerbach is evident directly we come to his philosophy ofreligion and ethics . He does not wish toabolish religion by any means ; he wants toperfect it. Philosophy itself will be ah

sorbed in religion .

“ The periods of humanprogress are only distinguishable by religious changes . There is only a real historicalprogress where it enters the hearts of men .

The heart is not a place for religion,so that

it should be in the heart,it is the very be

ing of religion.

” Religion is,according to

Feuerbach,a matter of the feelings— the

feelings of love betweenman andman whichup to now sought its realization in the fantastic reflected image of the reality— in theinterposition through one or more gods ofthe fantastic reflections of human qualities

- but now bymeans of love between ego ’

and“ tu ” finds itself directly and wi thout

any intermediary. According to Feuerbachlove between the sexes is , if not the highestform

,at least one of the highest forms, of

the practice of his new religion .

FEUERBACH 77

Now,feelings of affection between man

andman,and particularly between members

of the two sexes,have existed as long as

mankind has. Love between the sexes hasbeen cultivated especially during the lasteighteen hundred years and has won a

place which has made it,in this period

,a

compulsory motive for all poetry. The existing positive religions have limited themselves in this matter to the bestowal of complete consecrati on upon the State regulationof sexual love, and might completely disappear tomorrow without the least differencetaking place in the matter of love and

friendship . Thus the Christian religion inFrance was

,as a matter of fact

,so com

pletely overthrown between the years 1793and 1798 , that Napoleon himself could notre- introduce it without opposition and diff.culty

,without, in the interval , any desire for

a substitute, in Feuerbach’s sense

,making

itself felt.Feuerbach ’s idealism consists in this

,that

he does not simply take for granted themutual and reciprocal feelings of men for onean other such as sexual love, fri endship , compassion

,self- sacrifice, etc.

,but declares that

78 FEUERBACH

they would come to their full real ization forthe first time as soon as they were cousecrated under the name of religion . Themainfact for him is not that these purely humanrelations exist

,but that they wil l be conceiv

ed of as the new true religion . They willbe ful ly realized for the first time if. theyare stamped as religions . Religion is derived from religare

”and means original ly

“ fastening.

” Therefore,every bond be

tween men is religion . Such etymologicalartifices are the last resort of the ideal isticphilosophy. Not what the word means according. to the histori cal development of itstrue significance, but what it shouldmeanaccording to its. derivation is what counts,and so sex - love and the intercourse betweenthe sexes is consecrated as a

“ religion”

only so that the word religion , whi ch is dearto the mind of the idealist, shall not vanishfrom the language. The Parisian reformerof the stripe of Louis Blanc used to speakjust in the same way in the forties, for theycould only conceive of aman without religion as a monster, and used to say to us“Atheism

,then

,is your religion .

”

If Feuerbach wants to place true religion

FEUERBACH 79

upon the basis of real materialistic philosophy, that would be just the same as conceiving of modern chemistry as true al

chemy. If religion can exist without itsGod then alchemy can exist without its philoSOpher

’s stone. There exists

,by the way, a

very close connection between alchemy and

religion . The philosopher ’s stone has manyproperties of the old gods

,and the Egyp

tian - Greek alchemists of the first two cen

turies of our era have had their hands in thedevelopment of Christian doctrines, as

Kopp and Berthelot prove.Feuerbach ’s declaration that the periodsof man ’s development are only differentiated through changes in religion is false .Great historical points of departure are co

incident with religious changes only as far

as the three world - religions which exist upto the present are concerned—Buddh ism,

Christianity and Islam. The old tribal andnational religions originating in naturewere not propagandist and lost al l power ofresistance as soon as the independence ofthe tribe and people was destroyed . Amongthe Germans simple contact with the decaying Roman Empire and the Christian world

80 FEUERBACH

religion springing from it and suitable toits economic

,political and ideal circum

stances,was sutficient. In the first place,

as regards these more or less artificialworld- religions

,particularly in the cases of

Christianity and Mohammedanism,we find

that the more universal historical movements will take on a religious stamp , and as

far as concerns Christianity in particular,

the stamp of the religion affecting revolu

tionarymovements of universal sign ificancestopped short at the commencement of thefight of the bourgeois for emancipationfrom the thirteenth to the seventeenth century

,and showed itself not as Feuefbach

declares in the hearts of men and the thirstfor religion

,but in the entire earlier history

of the Middle Ages which knew no otherform of idealism than religion and theology.

But as the bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century was sufficiently strong to have its ownideology suitable to its own standpoint, itforthwith made its great and final revolution

,the French

,by means of an appeal ex

clusively to juristic and political ideals , andtroubled itself with religion only so far as

it stood in its way. It never occurred to it

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82 FEUERBACH

the Christian God is only the fantastic reflection

, the reflected image of man . Butthat God is himself the product of a lengthyprocess of abstraction

,the concentrated

quintessence of the earlier tribal and na

tional gods . Andman also whose reflectionthat God is

,is not a realman

,but is like

wise the quintessence of many real men,the

abstract human,and therefore himself again

the creature of thought . The same Feuerbach who on each page preaches sensation ,diving into the concrete

,the real

,becomes

thoroughly abstract as soon as he begins totalk of more than mere sensual intercoyrsebetween human beings .Of this relationship only one side appeals

to him,the moral

,and Feuerbach ’s aston

ishing lack of resources as compared withHegel is striking . The ethic or rather moraldoctrine of the latter

,is the Philosophy of

Right and embraces : 1, Abstract Right ; 2,Morality ; 3, Moral Conduct, under whichare again comprised : the family, bourgeoi s,society

,and the State. As the form is here

idealistic,the content is realisti c . The en

tire scope of law,economy

,politics , is there

in,bes ides ethics . With Feuerbach, it is just

FEUERBACH

the reverse . He is realistic in form ;he beginswithman

,but the discussion has absolutely

nothing to do with the world in which thisman lives

,and so

,instead of theman ,

standsan abstractman , who preaches sermons concerning the philosophy of religion . Thisman is not even the son of a mother ; he hasdeveloped from the God of the monotheisticreligions . He does not live in real historicconditions and the world of history. Hecomes into relationship with other men, buteach of the others is just asmuch an abstraetion as he himself is . In the “ philosophy ofreligion” we had still men and women

,but

in the ethic ” this final distinction vanishes .At long intervals Feuerbach makes suchstatements as : Aman thinks difierently ina palace than in a hut. ” “When you havenothing in your body to ward off hunger andmisery

,you have nothing in your head

,

mind and heart for morality .

” “Politicsmust be our religion ,

” etc . But Feuerbachwas absolutely incapable of extracting any

meaning from these remarks ; they remain .

purely literary expressions,and Starcke

himself is obliged to admit that the sci enceof politics was an insuperable obstacle to

84 FEUERBACH

Feuerbach and the science of society,soci

ology,for him a terra incognita.

He appears just as uninspired in comparison with Hegel in his treatment of theantithesis of good and evil . “ One thinkshe is saying something great

,

” Hegel remarks “ if one says that mankind is by na

ture good,but it is forgotten that one says

something far greater in the words “man isby nature evil. According to Hegel

,evil

is the form in which the mechanical powerof evolution shows itself

,and indeed in this

lies the double idea that each new step forward appears as an outrage against a sacredthing

,as rebellion against the old

,dyi

‘

ng,

but through custom,sanctified

,circum

stances,and on the other hand that since

the rising of class antagonism,the evil pas

sions of men,greed and imperiousness

serve as the levers of historical progress ,of which

,for example

,the history of feud

alismand the bourgeoisie affords a conspic

nous proof. But Feuerbach does not trouble himself to examine the role of moral evil .History is to him a particularly barren andunwonted field . Even his statement

,

“Man

as he sprang from nature originally was

FEUERBACH 85

only a mere creature, not aman .

“Man isa product of human society, of education ,and of history .

” Even this statemen t remains from his standpoint absolutely unproductive.What Feuerbach communicates to us respecting morals must therefore be exceedingly narrow. The desire for happiness isborn within man and must hence be thefoundation of all morality. But the desi refor happiness is limited in two ways ; first,through the natural results of our acts ; after the dissipation comes the headache

,as a

result of habitual excess,sickness ; in the

second place,through its results upon soci

ety,if we do not respect the similar desire

for happiness on the part of other people,

they resist us and spoil our pursuit of happiness. It follows

,therefore

,that in order

to enjoy our pursuit of happiness,the re

sult of our acts must be rightly appreciated,and

,on the other hand

,must allow of the

carrying out of the same acts on the part ofothers . Practical self- control with regardto ourselves and love

,always love

,in our

intercourse with others are therefore thefoundation rules of Feuerbach ’s morality

,

86 FEUERBACH

from which all others lead,and neither the

enthusiastic periods of Feuerbach nor theloud praises of Starcke can set off the thinness and flatness of this pair of utterances .The desire for happiness contents itselfonly very exceptionally

,and by no means

to the profit of one ’s self or other peoplewith self. But it requires the outside worldmeans of satisfying itself— therefore meansof subsistence

,an individual of the other

sex,books

,convention

,argument

,activity,

these means and matters of satisfaction arematters of utility and labor. Feuerbach ’ssystem of morality either predicates thatthese mean s and matters of satisfaction

'

are

given to everyman per 3 6 , or, since it giveshim only unpractical advice

,is not worth a

jot to the people who are without thesemeans. And this Feuerbach himself showsclearly in forcible words

,

“ One thinks differently in a palace than in a hut.

‘Whereowing tomisery and hunger you have nomaterial in your body

,you have also noma

terial in your head, mind and heart formorals.

Are matters any better with the equalright of another to the pursut of happiness ?

FEUERBACH 87

Feuerbach set this statement out as abso

lute,as applicable to all times and circum

stances . But since when has it been true ?Was there in the olden time between slaveand master or in the Middle Ages betweenserf and baron any talk about equal rightsto the pursuit of happiness ? Was not theright to the pursuit of happiness of thesubject class sacrificed to the dominantclass regardlessly and by means of law ?nay, that was immoral, but still equality ofrights is recognized now - a- days— recogniz

ed in words merely since the bourgeoisie inits fight against feudalism and in the insti~

tution of capitalistic production , was com

pelled to abolish all existing exclusive,that

is,personal

,privileges

,and for the first

time to introduce the right of the private individual

,then also gradually the right. of the

State,and equality before law. But the

pursuit of happiness consists for the least.part only in ideal rights, and lies , for themost part

,in means of material satisfac

tion takes care that only enough for baresubsistence f alls to the great majority ofthose persons with equal rights

,and there

88 FEUERBACH

fore regards the equality of right to the pursuit of happiness hardly better than slaveryor serfdom did. And are we better off asregards mental means of happiness—meansof education ? Is not the schoolmaster ofSadowa a mythical person ?Further

,according to the ethical theory

of Feuerbach,the Bourse is the highest tem

ple of morality,only provided that one spec

ulate rightly. If my pursuit of happinessleads me to the Bourse

,and I

,in following

my business,manage so well that only what

is agreeable and nothing detrimental comesto me

,that is that I win steadily

,Feuer

bach ’s precept is carried out. In this wayI do not interfere with the similar pursuitof happiness of anyone else

,since the other

man goes on the Bourse just as voluntarilyas I do

,and at the conclusion of his affairs

a sentimental expression,for each finds in

the other the satisfaction of his pursuit ofhappiness which it is just the business oflove to bring about

,and which it here prao

tically accomplishes . And since I carry onmy operations with more exact prudenceand therefore with greater success I fulfillthe strongest maxims of the Feuerbach mor

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90 FEUERBACH

can do it without punishment,and love ,

which is to unite all,appears today in wars ,

controversies,lawsuits

,domestic broils and

as far as possible mutual plunder.But how was it possible that the powerfulimpetus given by Feuerbach turned out sounprofitable to Feuerbach himself. Simplyin this way, because Feuerbach could notfind his way out of the abstraction , which hehated with a deadly hatred

,to living reality.

He clutches hard at Nature and Humanity,but “Nature” and “Humanity” remainempty words with him . He does not know.

how to tell us anything positive about realnature and real men . We can only reach living men from the abstract men of Feuerbach if we regard them as active historicalagents . Feuerbach strove against that,hence the year 1848, which he did not understand

,signified for him merely the final

break with the real world, retirement intosolitude. German conditions must for themost part bear the guilt of allowing him tostarve miserably.

But the step which Feuerbach did notmake had not yet been made. The cultus ofman in the abstract which was the kernel of

FEUERBACH 1

Feuerbach ’s religion must be replaced bythe knowledge of realmen and their historical development . This advance of Feuerbach ’s view beyond Feuerbach himself waspublished in 1845 by Marx in the “HolyFami ly.

92 FEUERBACH

Strauss,Bauer

,Stirner

,Feuerbach, these

were the minor representatives of the Hegelian philosophy

,so far as they did not

abandon the field of philosophy. Strausshas

,in addition to the “Life of Jesus ” and

Dogmatics,

” only produced philosophicaland ecclesiastical historical work of a literary character, after the fashion of Renan ;Bauer has merely done something in the de

partment of primitive Christianity, butthatsignificant ; Stirner remained a

“ freak”

even after Bakunine had mixed him withProudhon and designated his amalgamation ‘Anarchism .

’ Feuerbach alone possescd any significance as a philosopher ; but notonly did philosophy remain for himthevaunted superior of all other sciences , thequintessence of all science

,an impassable

limitation,the untouchable holy thing

,he

stood as a composite philosopher ; the underhalf of him was materialist, the upper halfidealist. He was not an apt critic of Hegel

FEUERBACH 93

but simply put him aside as of no account,while he himself

,in comparison with the

encyclopedic wealth of theHegelian system,

contributed nothing of any positive value ,except a bombastic religion of love and a

thin,impotent system of ethics .

But from the breaking up of the Hegelianschool there proceeded another, the only onewhich has borne real fruit

, and this tendencyis coupled with the name of Marx .

'

In this case the separation from the Hegelian philosophy occurred by means of a

return to the materialistic standpoint,that

is to say, a determination to comprehend theactual world nature and history as itpresents itself to each one of us

,without any

‘It is incumb ent upon me to make a personal explanationat th is p lace . P eop le have lately referred to my sharein th is theory , and so I can hardly refrain from sayinga few words here in settlement of tha t particu lar matter.I canno t deny that I had before and during my fortyyears ’ co llaboration w ith M arx a certain independentshare no t only in laying out the foundations

,bu t more

particu lar ly in work ing ou t the theory . But the greatest part of the lead ing essentia l th ink ing , particularly inthe realm of econom ics , and espec ial ly its fina l sharpstatement , be longs to M arx alone . W hat I contribu tedM arx could qui te read i ly have carried out w i thout mew i th the exception of a pai r of spec ia l app lications . W hatM arx supp l ied , I could no t have read i ly brought. M arxstood h igher , saw further , took a w ider , clearer , qu ickersurvey than al l o f us . M arx was a gen ius , we o thers , atthe best. ta lented . W ithout h im the theory wou ld not bewhat i t is today, by a long way. I t therefore rightlybears h is name .

94 FEUERBACH

preconceived idealistic balderdash interfera

ing ; it was resolved to pitilessly sa crificeany idealistic preconceived notion whichcould not be brought into harmony withfacts actually discovered in their mutual relations

,and without any visionary

notions . And materialism in general claimsno more. Only here

,for the first time in

the history of the materialistic philosophy,was an earnest endeavor made to carry itsresults to all questions arising in the realmof knowledge

,at least in its characteristi c

features .Hegel was notmerely put on one side, theschool attached itself on the contrary to hisopenly revolutionary side

,the di alectic

method. But this method was of no servicein its Hegelian form . According to Hegelthe dialectic is the self- development of theIdea. The Absolute Idea does not only exist from eternity, but it is also the actualliving soul of the whole existing world. Itdevelops from itself tself through all

the preliminary stage ich are treated ofat large in Logic

,

”and which are all in

cluded in it Then it steps outside of itself,changing with nature itself

,where it

,with

FEUERBACH 95

out self- consciousness, is disguised as a ne

cessity of nature , goes through a. new development, and

,finally

,in man himself

, be

comes self- consciousness . This self- consciousness now works itself out into thehigher stages from the lower forms ofmatter

,until finally the Absolute Idea is again

realized in the Hegelian philosophy.

According to Hegel, the dialectic develOpment apparent in nature and history

,that is a causative

,connected

progression from the lower to the higher,in

spite of all zig—zag movements and momentary setbacks

,is only the stereotype of the

self- progression of the Idea frometernity,whither one does not know

,but independent

at all events of the thought of any humanbrain . This topsy- turvy ideology had tobe put aside. We conceived of ideas asmaterialistic

,as pictures of real things, instead

of real things as pictures of this or thatstage of the Absolute Idea. Thereupon

,the

dialectic became reduced to knowledge ofthe universal laws of motion— as well ofouter world as of the thought ofman .

sets of laws which are identical as far asconcerned but whi ch differ as re

96 FEUERBACH

gards expression,in so far as the mind of

man can employ themconsciously,while

,

in nature,and up to now

,in human his

tory,for the most part they accomplish

themselves,unconsciously in the form of

external necessity,through an endless suc

cession of apparent accidenta l Hereupon'

the dial ectic of the Idea became itself merely the conscious reflex of the dialecticevolution of the real world

,and therefore

,

the dialectic of Hegel was turned upsidedown or rather it was placed upon its feetinstead of on its head

,where it was stand

ing before. And this materialistic dialecticwhich since that time has been our best tooland our sharpes t weapon was discovered,not by us alone

,but by a German workman,

Joseph Dietzgen , in a remarkable mannerand utterly independent of us .But just here the revolutionary side of

Hegel ’s philosophy was again taken up , andat the same time freed from the idealisticfrippery which had in Hegel ’s hands interfered with its necessary conclusions . Thegreat fundamental thought, namely, thatthe world is not to be considered as a com

plexity of ready-made things, but as a com

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98 FEUERBACH

false,good and evil, identical and di ffer

entiated,necessary and accidental ; one

knows that these antitheses have only a relative significance

,that that which is recog

nized as true now,has its concealed and

later- developing false side, justas that which

is recognized as false,its true side

,by vir

tue of which it can later on prevail as thetruth ; that so- called necessity is madeup of the merely accidental

,and that the ao

knowledged accidental is the form behindwhich necessity conceals itself and so on .

The old methods of enquir y and thoughtwhich Hegel terms metaphysics

,which by

preference busied themselves by enquiringinto things as given and established quantitics

,and the vestiges of which still buzz in

the heads of people,had at that time great

historical justification . Things had first to beexamined , before it was possible to examineprocesses ;man must first know what a th ingwas before he could examine the precedingchanges in it. And so it was with naturalscience . The old metaphysic which comprehended things as stable came from a philosOphy which enquired into dead and livingthings as th ings comprehended as stable.

FEUERBACH 99

But when this enquiry had so far progressedthat the decisive step was possible, namely,the systematic examination of the precedingchanges in those things going on in natureitself

,then occurred the death - blow of the

old metaphysics in the realm of philosophy.

And,in fact

,if science to the end of the last

century was chiefly a collecting of know1~

edge,the science of actual things , so is

science in our daypre- eminently an arrang

ing of knowledge,the science of changes ,

of the origin and progress of things , and themutual connection which binds thesechanges in nature into one great whole .Physiology

,which examines the earlier

forms of plant and animal organisms ; embryology

,which deals with the development

of the elementary organismfrom germ tomaturity ; geology, which investigates thegradual formation of the earth ’s crust, areall the products of our century.

But,

first of all,there are three great dis

coveries which have caused our knowledgeof the interdependence of the processes ofnature to progress by leaps and bounds . Inthe first place

,the discovery of the cell. as

the unit,from the multiplication and diftep

100 FEUERBACH

entiation of which,the whole of plant and

animal substance develop so that not onlythe growth and development of all higherclasses of all higher organisms isrecognized as following a universal law,

but the very path is shown in thecapacity for differentiation in the cell,by which organisms are enabled tochange their forms and make. thereby amoreindividual development. Secondly, the metamorphosis of energy which has shown usthat all the so- called real forces in inorganicnature

,the mechanical forces and their com

plements, the so- called potential energies,heat, radiation ( light, radiating heat) , electricity,magnetism, chemical energy, are different forms of universal motion, whichpass

,under certain conditions

,the one into

the other,so that in place of those of the one

which disappear, a certain number of the

other appear,so that the whole movement

of nature is reduced to this perpetual process of transformation from one into theother. Finally

,the proof first developed

logically by Darwin , that the organic products of nature about us , includingman ,

are

the result of a long process of evolution,

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102 FEUERBACH

conceived of dialectically,that is in the

sense of their mutual interconnection,to

arrive at a system of nature sufficient forour time

,when the dialectical charac

ter of this interconnection forces itself intothe metaphysical ly trained minds of expe~

rimental scientists,against th eir will, today

a philosophy of nature is finally disposedof

,every attempt at its resurrection would

not only be superfluous, it would even be astep backwards .But what is true of nature

,which is here

by recognized as an historical process,is

true also of the history of society in all its

branches,and of the total ity of all sciences

which occupy themselves with things human and divine. Here also the philosophyof jurisprudence, of history

,of religion

,

etc . , consisted in this, that in place of thetrue interconnection of events

,one originai

ing in the mind of the philosopher was substituted ; that history, in its totality as inits parts

,was comprehended as the gradual

realization of ideas,but

,of course

,always

of the pet idea of the philosopher himself.History worked up to now

,unconsciously

but necessarily,towards a certain pred e

FEUERBACH 103

termined , fixed,ideal goal

,as for example

in the case of Hegel,towards the real izati on

of his Absolute Idea, and the unalterabletrend towards this Absolute Idea constitutedthe inward connection of histori c facts . Inthe place of the real

,and up to this time un

known,interrelation

,man set a newmyste

rious destiny,unconscious or gradually com

ing into consciousness . It was necessaryin this case

,therefore

,just as in the

realm of nature,to set aside these artificial

interrelations by the discovery of the real ,a task which finally culminated in the discovery of the universal laws of progress

,

which established themselves as the dominating ones in the history of human society .

Theh istory of the growth of society ap

pears,however

,in one respect entirely differ

ent from that of nature . In nature are to befoundGas far as we leave reaction ofmanupon nature out of sightblind agents which act one upon another

,

and in their interplay the universal law re

alizes itself. From all that happens , whetherfrom the innumerable apparent accidentswhich appear upon the surface, or from thefinal results flowing from these accidental

104 FEUERBACH

occurrences, nothing occurs as a desiredconscious end . On the contrary, in thehistory of society the mere actors are all endowed with consciousness ; they are agentsimbued wi th deliberation or passion

,men

working towards an appointed end ; nothingappears without an intentional purpose

,

without an end desired. But this distinction

,important as it is for historical exam

ination,particularly of single epochs and

‘

events, canmake no difference to the fact

that the course of h is governed byinner universal laws re also

,in spite

of the wished for f all the separateindividuals

,accident for the most part is

apparent on the surface . That which iswilled but rarely happens . In the majorityof instances the numerous desired endscross and interfere with each other, and

either these ends are utterly inca pable ofrealization , or the means are ineffectual .So

,the innumerable conflicts of individual

wills and individual agents in the realm ofhistory reach a conclusion which is on thewhole analogous to that in the realm of nature

,which is without definite purpose . The

ends of the actions are intended, but the re

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106 FEUERBACH

hand, we have seen in history that the results of many individual wills produce effects

,for the most part quite other than

what is wished— often,in fact

,the very op

posite— their motives of action, likewise, areonly of subordinate significance with re

gard to the universal result. On the otherhand

,the question arises : What driving

forces stand in turn behind these motives ofaction ; what are the historical causes whichtransform themselves into motives of actionin the brains of the agents ?The old set this ques

tion before itself. sophy of history,as far as it ever in particular

,is

hence essentially pragmatic ; it judges ev

erything from the standpoint of the immediatemotiv divides historical agents intogood and and finds as a whole that thegood are defrauded and the bad are victo

rious,whence it follows that

,as far as the

old materialism is concerned,there is noth

ing edifying that can be obtained from a

study of history,and for us , that in the

realmof history the old materialism isproved to be false

,since it fixes active ideal

impulses as final causes instead of seeking

FEUERBACH 107

that which lies behind them,that which is

the impulse of these impulses . The lack oflogical conclusion does not lie in the factthat ideal impulses are recogni zed , but inthis

,that there is no further examination

into the more remote causes of their activity. The philosophy of history, on the confrary, particularly as it was treated byHegel

,recognizes that. the ostensible and

even the real motives of the men who figurein history

,are by no means the final causes

of historical events , that behind these eventsstand other moving forces which must bediscovered ; but it seeks these forces not inhistory itself

,it imports them mostly from

the outside,from philosophical ideologyt

into history. Instead of explaining the his .

tory of ancient Greece from its own innerconnection

,Hegel

,for example , explains it

solely as if it were nothing but the workingout of a beautiful individuality

,the realiza

tion of art,as such . He says much about

the old Greeks that is fine and profound,

but this does not prevent our dissatisfaction ,now- a- days

,with such an explanation

which is mere phraseology.

If,therefore

,we set out to discover the

108 FEUERBACH

impelling forces, which , acknowledged , or

unackn owledged, and for the most part un

ackn owledged,stand behind historical fig

ures, and constitute the true final impulsesof history

,we cannot consider somuch the

motives of single individuals , however pre~

eminent, as those which set in motion greatmasses

,entire nations, and again, whole

classes of people in each nation,and this,

too,not in a momentarily flaring and quick

ly dying flame,but to enduring action cul

minating in a great historical change. To

establish the great impelling forces whichplay upo us of the actingmassesand their d great men

,as

cons or unclear,directly

or ideologically or even in a supernaturalform) that is the only method which can

place us on the track of the law controllinghistory as a whole, aswell as articlar pe

riods and in in setsmen in motion nds

,

but the force which acts upon the braindepends very largely upon circumstances .The workers have by no means become reconciled to the machine power of the capitalists although they no longer break the

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110 FEUERBACH

their interests,the moving forces of modern

history,at least in the two most advanced

countries .But how came these classes into existence ?

If the great feudal ancient property in landcan have its origin ascribed to politicalcauses through forcible seizure of territories

,this could not be done as regards the

bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There arein this case clearly exposed the origin and

progress of two great economic classes fromplain and evident economic causes . And itwas just as clear that in the fight betweenthe landholding class and the bourgeoisie,no less than in that between the bourgeoisieand the proletariat, economic interests werethe most important

,and that politi cal force

served only as a mere means of furtheringthese .The bourgeoisie and the proletariat both

arose as results of a change in economicconditions

,or

,strictly speaking

,in methods

of production . The transition,

first fromhand labor

,controlled by the gilds

,toman

ufacture and thence from manufacture tothe greater industry

,with steam and ma

chine force, has developed these two classes .

FEUERBACH 111

At a certain stage new forces of productionwere set in motion by the bourgeoisie, following upon the division of labor and theunion of many different kinds of labor inone united manufacture

,and the methods

of exchange and requirements of exchangedeveloped by their means

,were incompati

ble with the existing historical survivingmethod s of production consecrated by thelaw

, that is to say the gilds and the innumerable personal and other privileges (whichfor the unprivileged were only somany fetters ) of the feudal social organization . Theforces of production brought into being bythe bourgeoisie rebelled against the methodsof production originated by the gildmastersand the feudal landlords ; the result isknown ; the feudal fetters were struck off ,in England gradually

,in France at one

blow ; in Germany the process is not yet

quite complete. As manufacture came intoconflict at a certain stage of progress withfeudal methods of production

,so has the

greater industry now joined battle with thebourgeois organization of industry established in their place. Bound by this system

,owing to the narrow limits of the capi

112 FEUERBACH

talistic methods of production , there occurson the one hand an ever increasing conversion of the mass of the people into proletarians

,and on the other hand an ever increas

ing amount of products which cannot be disposed of. Over- production

,and suffering

on the part of the masses,the one the cause

of the other,that is the absurd contradic

tion in whi ch it runs its course,and which

of necessity requires a control of theforces of production , through a change inthe methods of production .

In modern history,at least, it is therefore

proved that all political contests are,class

contests and that all fights of classes foremancipation

,in spite of their necessarily

political form ( for every class struggle isa political struggle) , finally

,are directed

towards economic emancipation . Here,at

least,therefore

,the State

,the political ar

rangement is the subordinate,bourgeois so

ciety, the rule of economic relations, thedeciding element . The old fashioned phi~

losophy which even Hegel respected saw inthe State the determining element and inbourgeois society the element determinedby it. Appearances corresponded with this

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114 FEUERBACH

plained in the last resort fromthe econom1cconditions of the life of society

,so much the

more must the same th ing be true of all

earlier times when the production of thenecessities of existence was not furthered bythese exten sive aids

,where

,therefore

,the

necessities of this production must exercise a greater control over men . Ifthe State is today

,at the time of the

great industries and steam railways,

merely,

as ' a whole,the summarized

,

reflected form of the economic desiresof the class which controls production

,it

must, therefore, have been still more so at

a period when a generation of men mustspend the greater portion of their unitedlife - time in the satisfaction of their materialneeds

,andman was

,therefore

,much more

dependent on them than we are today . The

examination of the earlier epoch s of history,

as far as it is earnestly conducted in thisdirection

,establishes this abundantly

,but

manifestly this cannot here be taken in hand.

If the State and public law are the creatures of economic condi tions

,so

,obviously

,

is private law,which only sanctions rela

tions between individuals under given nor

FEUERBACH 115

mal economic circumstances . The form inwhich th is appearsmay, however, vary considerably. One can

,as happened in Eng

land in accordance with the whole nationaldevelopment

,retain

,for the most part

,the

forms of the old feudal law,and give them

a middle - class content,even read a middle

class meaning into the feudal names,but

onemay also,as in the western part of the

European continent,use as a. foundation the

first general law of a society producing commodities

,the Roman

,with its unsurpassa

bly keen elaboration,of all the legal rela

tions of possessions of commodities ( sellersand buyers

,creditors and debtors

,contracts

,

obligations,

by which we can bring itdown as common - law to the use and benefitof a still small bourgeois and half feudalsociety ; or, wi th the help of pseudo en

lightened and moralizing jurists,a code

(which is bad from a legal point of V iew )can be worked out suitable to the conditionsof the particular society (as the Prussianland law ) . And

,still again

,after a great

bourgeois revolution,a classical code for

bourgeois society,such as the. French Code

Civil ,”may be worked out . If, therefore,

16 FEUERBACH

the bourgeois laws only declare the economic circumstances of society

,these may be

good or bad according to conditions .In the State appears the first ideologicalforce over men . Society shapes for its elfan organ for the protection of its generalinterests against attack from the outside orinside . This organ is the force of the State .Hardly did it come into being before thisorgan dominated society

, and as a matterof fact, in proportion as it becomes the or

gan of a particular class, it brings into existence the supremacy of that class . Thefight of the subject against the dominantclass becomes of necessity political

,a fight

in thenext place against the politica l controlof this latter class . This consciousness ofthe connection of the political fight with itsunderlying economic causes becomes moreand more obscure and may be altogetherlost. Where this is not altogether the casewith the combatants it becomes nearly al

together so with the historians . Of the eucient sources of history with regard to thecontest within the Roman Republi c

,Appian

alone gives us plain and clear informationrespecting its final cause, which was prop

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118 FEUERBACH

ber of links betwen them,but it exists . A s

the whole Rennaissance from the middle ofthe fifteenth century was an actual productof the city

,and therefore of the bourgeois

domination,so was also the philosophy

,

since that time newly awakened. Its content was actual ly only the philosophical expression of the thoughts corresponding withthe development of the smal l and middlebourgeois into the great bourgeois . Amongthe Eng lish and French of the precedingcentury

,whowere for the most part as g JOd

politi cal economists as they were philoso~

phers, this is quite evident, and we haveproofs on its very face, as regards theHegelian school.Let us now give a slight glance at religion since it appears to stand furthest awayfrom and to be most foreign to material li fe.Religion arose at a very remote period ofhuman development, in the savage state ,from certain erroneous and barbaric conceptions of men with regard to themselves andthe outside world of nature around them .

Every ideological notion develops , however,when once it has arisen ; it grows by additions to the given idea

,and develops it fur

FEUERBACH 119

ther,otherwise there would be no ideology,

that is,no occupation with thoughts as with

independent thought existence, developingindependently and subject only to its ownlaws . That the material conditions of lifeof the men wi thin whose head s this thoughtforce is atwork finally determine the courseof this thought- process necessarily remainsstill unknown to these men, otherwise therewould be an entire end of the ideology.

These ori ginal religious notions,therefore,

which are for the most part common to eachkindred group of peoples

,develop after the

separation of the group in a special mannerpeculiar to each tribe

,according to its par

ticular conditions of existence,and this

process is for a class of groups of people ,and particularly for the Aryans (IndoEuropeans ) shown individually bycomparative mythology. The gods developed by each tribe were nationalgods , whose power extended no further than to protect the national territory ; beyond the frontier other gods heldundisputed sway. They could only be conceived of as existing as long as the nation existed . Theyfellwith itsdecline. Thisdoctrine

120 FEUERBACH

of the old nationalities brought about theRoman Empire

,whose economic conditions

we do not need to examine just now. The oldnational gods fell

,as those of the Romans

did also,which were only attached to the

narrow limits of the city of Rome . The desire to make the empire a world - empire

,by

means of a world- wide religion,is clearly

shown in the attempts to provide recognition and altars in Rome for all the respectable foreign gods

,next to the indigenous

ones . But a new world - religion was not tobe made in this fashion by imperial decrees . The new world- religion

,Christian

ity,had already ari sen in secret by a

mixture of combined oriental religions,Jewish theology and popularized Greekphilosophy and particularly Stoic philosOphy. We must first be at the pains to discover how it originally made its appearance,since its official form as it has come to us ismerely that of a State religion

,and this end

was ach ieved through the Council of Nice .Enough

,the fact that after two hundred and

fifty years it was a state religion shows thatit was a religion answering to the circumstances of the times . In the Middle Ages it

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122 FEUERBACH

ination to the bourgeois heretics .The failure to exterminate the protestant

heresy corresponded with the invincibilityof the rising power of the bourgeois of thattime ; as this power grew,

the fight with thefeudal nobles

,at first pre - eminently local

,

began to assume national proportions . Thefirst great conflict occurred in Germany

,the

so- called Reformation,The power of the

bourgeois was neither sufficiently strongnor sufficiently developed for an open rebellious stand

,by uniting under the standard

of revolt the city plebeian s,the smaller no

bility, and the peasants of the country districts. The nobility was struck first

,the

peasants took up a position which was thehigh - water mark of the entire revolution,the cities left them in the lurch

,and so the

revolutionwas left to the leaders of the country gentry who gathered the whole victoryto themselves . Thenceforth for three hundred years Germany disappeared from theranks of independent

,energetic progressive

countries . But after the German Luther,arose the French Calvin . With naturalFrench acuteness he showed the bourgeoischaracter of the revolution in the Church,

FEUERBACH 123

republicanised and democratised. Wh ilethe Lutheran Reformation fell in Germanyand Germany declined

,the Calvinistic

served as a stand ard to the republicans inGeneva, in Holland, in Scotland , freed Holland from German and Spanish domination ,and gave an ideological dress to the secondact of the bourgeois revolution which proceeded in England . Here Calvinism proveditself to be the natural religious garb of theinterests of the existing rule of thebo-urgeoisand was not realised any further than thatthe revolution of 1689 was completed by a

compromise between a portion of the nobility and the middle - class . The EnglishEstablished Church was restored, but notin its earlier form with the king for Pope

,

but was strongly infused with Calvinism .

The old- established Church had kept up themerry Catholic Sunday and fought againstthe tedious Calvinistic one

,the new bour

geois Church introduced the latter and

added thereby to the charms of England.

In France the Calvinistic minority wassubdued in 1685

,either made Catholic or

hunted out of the country. But what wasthe good ? Directly after that the free think

124 FEUERBACH

er Pierre Bayle was at work, and in 1694Voltaire was born . The tyrannical rule ofLouis XIV . only made it easier for theFrench bourgeoisie to be able to make itsrevolution in the political form finally suitable to the progressive atheistic bourgeoisie .Instead of Protestants

,free thinkers took

their seats in the National Assembly. Thereby Christianity entered upon the last lap ofthe race . It had become incapable of serving a progressive class any further as theideological clothing of its efforts , it becamemore and more the exclusive possession ofthe dommant classes

,and these used it

merely as a simple means of government tokeep the lower classes i n subjection. Sothen each one of the different classes employed its own suitable religion

,the land

holding squires catholic jesuitism or protestant orthodoxy

,the liberal and radical

bourgeois rationalism,and it makes no di f

ference therefore whether people themselves believe in their respective religions ornot.Thus we see religion once arisen contains

material of tradition, hence in all ideological matters religion is a great conservative

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126 FEUERBACH

and proceeded to action . Hand- labor dependent upon small production and manufacture was done away wi th by the greatindustry— Germany again appeared in theworld - market. The new particularisticGermany

,at all events did away with the

most crying anomalies,which the rule of the

petty states,the remnants of feudalism and

the bureaucratic economy,had placed in the

way of their development, but just in pro

portion as speculation abandoned the studies of philosophers to attain its temple inthe Bourse

,that great theoretic thought

which had been the glory of Germany inthe period of its deepest political humilia~

tion,the zeal for pure scientific progress,

irrespective of practical, profitable results ,and of the disapproval of the pol1ce, becamelost in educated Germany. It is true thatthe German official natural scrence maintained its position

,particularly in the field

of individual discovery,at the head of its

time,but now the American journal

“ Science justly remarks that the decisiveadvances in the matter of the broadest inelusive statement of the relations betweensingle facts

,and the harmonising of them

FEUERBACH 127

with law, aremaking the greater headwayin England, instead of, as earlier, in Germany. And with regard to the sciences ofhistory

,phi losophy included

,with the class

ical philosophy,the old theoretical spirit,

wi th its carelessness of personal results,first completely disappeared. Thoughtlesseclecticism, eager backward glances at a

career, and income down to the meanestsycophan cy occupy their places . The officialrepresentatives of thi s sort of science havebecome the open ideologi sts of the bour

geoisie and the existing state,but at a time

when they both stan d in open antagonismto the working classes .Only among the working classes does theGerman devotion to abstract thought stead«

ily continue to exist. Here it cannot be gotrid of. Here we find no backward glancesat a career, at profit making, at kindly protection fromthe upper classes, but on the

contrary the more independent and unre~

stricted the path of science, just so muchthe more does it find itself in accord

the interests and endeavors of the

9 new tendency,which

128 FEUERBACH

labor made known the key to theunderstanding of the universal history ofsociety addressed itself in the first place tothe working class and found in them theready acceptance which it neither soughtnor expected from official science. TheGerman working - class movement is the heirof the German classical philosphy.

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30 FEUERBACH

The question if objective truth is possibleto human thought is not a theoretical but apractical question . In practice man mustprove the truth

,that is the real ity and force

in his actual thoughts. The dispute as tothe reality or non - real ity of thought whichseparates itself,

“ the pcraxis,” is a purely

scholastic question.

The materialistic doctrine thatmen are

the products of conditions and education,difierent men therefore the products ofother conditions and changed education ,forgets that circumstances may be alteredby. men and that the educator has himselfto be educated. It necessarily happenstherefore that society is divided into twoparts, of which one is elevated above so

ciety (Robert Owen for example ) .The occurrence simultaneously of a

change in conditions and human activity canonly be comprehended and rational lyderstood as a revolutionary fact.

FEUERBACH 131

IV.

Feuerbach proceeds froma religious selfalienation, the duplication of the world intoa religious

,imaginary

,and a real world .

His work consists in the di scovery of thematerial foundations of the religious world.

He overlooked the fact that after carryingthis to completion the importan t matterstill remains unaccomplished. The factthat the material foundation annuls itselfand establishes for itself a realmin the

clouds can only be explained fromthe heterogeneity and self- contradiction of the material found ation . This itselfmust first becomeund erstood ln its contradiction s and so be

come thoroughly revolutionized by the elimination of the contradiction . After the earthly family has been discovered as the secretof the Holy Family, one must have theoretically critici sed and theoretically revolu

tionised it beforehand.

V.

Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstractthought

,invokes impressions produced by

the senses, but does not comprehend sensation as practical sensory activiti es.

132 FEUERBACH

Feuerbach dissolves religion in humanity. But humani ty is not an abstractiondwelling in each individual . In its realityit is the ensemble of the conditions of society.

Feuerbach,who does not enquire into thi s

fact,is therefore compelled

1. To abstract religious sentiment fromthe course of hi story

,to place it by itself,

and to pre- suppose an abstract,isolated

,hu

man individual .2 . Humani ty is therefore only comprehended by him as a species , as a hidden sortof merely natural identity of qualities inwhichmany individual s are embraced.

Therefore Feuerbach does not see that religious feeling is itself a

?

product of society,and that the abstract individual which heanalyses belongs in real ity to a certain formof society.

The life of society is essentially practical .A ll the mysteries which seduce speculativethought intomysticism find their solution in

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