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Marxism and German scientific


materialism
Ian Mitchell

Clydebank Technical College , Kilbowie Road, Clydebank, Scotland


Published online: 22 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Ian Mitchell (1978) Marxism and German scientific materialism, Annals of Science,
35:4, 379-400
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A N N A L S OF S C I E N C E , 3 5

(1978),

379-400

Marxism and German Scientific Materialism


IAN MITCHELL
Clydebank Technical College, Kilbowie Road, Clydebank, Scotland

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Received 14 November 1977

Summary
Nineteenth-century German science was frequently involved in philosophical disputes and also in political issues. Most thinkers wanted
their systems to be considered ' scientific ', and Marx and Engels were
no exceptions. However, they sharply distinguished their approach
from that of the popularizing ' materialist ' philosophers, Biichner, Vogt
and Moleschott. In this paper we review the relation of Marx and Engels
to these and other tendencies, both in ideas and in personal contacts, and
show how they distinguished their 'dialectical' materialism from that
which they described as ' vulgar '.
1. Introduction
In the past decade or so, Marx's intellectual output has become the object
of study to an enormous extent, and an outpouring of works from the profound
to the journalistic have attempted to deal with the historical significance and
contemporary relevance of his thought. Yet, rather surprisingly, given t h a t
the kernel of the claim of Marxism to superiority over other forms of social
knowledge is the claim to scientific status, the relationship of Marx's (and
Engels's) thought to scientific ideas has received little attention.
In this article 1 we will study an episode which many have heard of, but
none has studied; the relationship of Marx and Engels to the so-called German
' vulgar ' materialists of the mid nineteenth century. In this essay, into which
other than the vulgar materialists themselves will necessarily intrude, we will
t r y to answer certain crucial questions. These are: in what way, if any, did
Marx and Engels differentiate their own materialism from the optimistic
scientific outlook of their contemporaries? Further, did they consider, as did
so many nineteenth-century figures, t h a t political ideas had to be based on
science? A classic statement of such an outlook, usually called ' scientism '
was given by Ernst Haeckol when he observed: ' W e can only arrive at a
correct knowledge of the structure and life of the social body, the State,
through a scientific knowledge of the structure and life of the individuals who
compose it, and the cells of which they are in turn composed ,.a Was this
widespread view also t h a t of Marx and Engels?
2. The vulgar materialists
We can best lead into this question by examining the responses made by
Marx and Engels to two subsequent developments in nineteenth-century
German science; materialism and social Darwinism. The continuity between
1 T h e article is b a s e d u p o n m y u n p u b l i s h e d M.Phil. thesis ' M a r x , E n g e l s a n d t h e n a t u r a l
sciences ' (1975, U n i v e r s i t y of Leeds).
2 E r n s t Haeekel, Weltratzel (1899); t r a n s l a t e d as 2~iddle of the universe (1929, L o n d o n ) , 6.

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these two is not only chronological but also personal, in t h a t the leading
materialists in the 18408 and 18508 became the most noted exponents of social
Darwinism in the 18608 and 1870s. Our investigation must therefore begin
by giving an account of the views of these men, naming them collectively,
as did Engels, the ' vulgar ' materialists.
The philosophical views of the so-called ' v u l g a r ' materialists Ludwig
Biiehner, Karl Vogt and Jacob Moleschott, along with the political and social
views t h a t they deduced from them, is an as yet largely unexplored chapter
in the history of science. Academic writers tend to talk nebulously about
' German materialism ' in the nineteenth century and leave it at that, while
to Marxists these people are known only via the dismissive comments made
by Engels, and later echoed by Lenin who said: ' Engels dissociated himself
from the vulgar materialists Vogt, Btichner and Moleschott for the very
reason . . . t h a t they erred in believing that the brain secretes thought in the
same way as the liver secretes bile ,.a But this lack of awareness of their
views is not inevitable considering the tremendous popularity of their works
in the nineteenth century and the widespread controversy these aroused.
Jacob Moleschott (1822 1893) studied medicine at Heidelberg, and was a
Privatdozent there from 1847 to 1854: he was dismissed in the latter year,
ostensibly for advocating cremation, but in reality for his radical materialism
and involvement in the 1848-1849 Revolution. By this time his Kreislauf des
Lebens (1852), a materialist attack on Liebig, had become notorious. This
attack was motivated by Liebig's defence o f ' vital force ' in organisms. During
his life Moleschott studied the cardiac nervous system and the effect of light
on metabolism, and published many works of popularisation. 4
Ludwig Btichner (1824-1899) graduated from Giessen and later studied
under Virchow. He lectured on, and practised, medicine, but did not do any
independent scientific work, remaining merely a populariser of scientific
advance. Like the others of the trio, Biichner was active in 1848, and kept
up a lively political career thereafter, being inter alia a German Delegate to the
first (Lausanne) Congress of the International Workingmen's Association
(I.W.M.A.) in 1867.~
Karl Vogt (1817-1895) was born in Giessen and studied first under Liebig,
and later under Agassiz at Neufchatel. He was Professor of Zoology at
Giessen in 1848 when the German revolution broke out. Participating in the
radical wing of the revolutionary forces, he belonged to the rump of the
National Assembly t h a t was forcibly dissolved by Prussian Troops at Frankfurt,
and he fled from Germany. In the 18508 he t a u g h t zoology at Geneva, and
published works of popularisation such as Kghlerglaube und Wissenschaft (1855)
as well as independent scientific works on geology, anthropology and physiology. 6
These men were not merely co-thinkers, but actual friends who had a high
mutual regard. They continually refer to each other's work, and can with
accuracy be termed a ' s c h o o l ' of materialists. The ontological and
epistemological views of the trio were direct and simple, and spread through
the Germany of the 18408 and 18508 with hurricane force, forming part of the
3 V. I. Lenin, Materialism and empirio.criticism (1972, Peking), 40-41.
4 F o r Molesehot~, see C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography C1970York: Scribners), vol. 9, 456-457.
5 F o r :Biichner see D S B (footnote 4), vol. 3, 563-564.
8 There is a brief account of V o g t ' s life in his Lectures on man (1864, L o n d o n ) , xi.

, New

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intellectual ferment t h a t surrounded the German revolution 9 Karl Vogt's


Physiologische Briefe (1845-1847) had been the opening battle cry in German
scientific materialism, and here he argued t hat all mental and spiritual processes
were reducable to the laws of physics and chemistry 9 In this work he stated
t h a t the secretion of thought by the brain was analogous to t h a t of urine and
bile by the bladder and kidneys, and this has earned him a rather dubious
immortality.
Vogt was followed by Biictmer, who accepted the basic
reductionist approach to mental phenomena, seeking their explanation in
terms of the only two categories t ha t Biichner allowed in his Universe; matter
and force. Indeed, Kraft und Stoff was the title of a work issued by Biichner in
1855. This catapulted him to fame in a Germany seeking scientific certainties
after the political controversies of 1848-1850. Btichner was heavily influenced
by such discoveries as t h a t of the conservation of energy, and argued t hat only
matter, with its intrinsic property of force, existed in the Universe. All
dualism was rejected; for a monist approach, ' Thought, spirit, soul, are not
material, not a substance, but the effect of the conjoint action of m any
materials endowed with forces or qualities ,.7 This force in m at t er is like the
' force ' of a steam engine, and matter's only essential property.
The ' vulgar ' materialists thought t h a t sense-perception was t he source of
all knowledge, and t h a t given an observer without prejudices, such senseperception could reveal direct truths. In this context we can let Moleschott
speak:
All facts, every observation of a flower, an insect or the detection of the
characteristics of man, what else are they but relations of objects to our senses?
but then the wall is broken down between the thing as it is to us, and the
thing in itself. Because an object is known only through its relation to other
objects, for instance through its relation to the observer, all my knowledge is an
9

objective lcnowledge,s
Of course, within this materialist scenario, there was no room for speculative
thought, which was scorned as unscientific. Especially singled out as an object
of wrath by the ' v u l g a r ' materialists was the whole tradition of German
philosophy. All had been students of Hegel's thought, and involved in the
' Young Hegelian ' movement of the 1840s in Germany, but all had equally
strongly reacted against this movement. In his work of popularisation
Der Mensch und seine Stellung in der Natur, Biichner summed up the outlook
of this school of materialists towards German philosophy:
. . . properly-called speculative philosophy has, especially in Germany,
exercised an influence prejudicial to free and true research9 This philosophy
[is] accustomed to play with obscure or unclear words, with nonsense and
special locution . . . the so-called dialectical method of these philosophers
which dominated the first half of the century, does not burden us down
any more. 9
F. C. C. L. :Biichner, K r a f t u~d Stoff. Empirisch.naturphilosophisehe Studien. I n allgemeinverstdndlieher Darstellung (1855, Frankfurt a. M.), 24; quoted in F. A. Lange, History of materialism
and criticism of its present i m p o r t a n c e . . . (authorized translation by E. C. Thomas: 3 vols. in one,
1925, London), Book 2, 272.
s j . Molesehott, K r a i s l a n f d e s Lebens (1852, Mainz), 120; quoted in Lange (footnote 7), 277,279.
9 F. C. C. L. :Btichner, Der Menseh und seine Stellung in der N a t u r in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart
und Z u k u n f t . . . (2nd ed. 1872, Leipzig), 240. I have used the French translation of this edition,
approved by Btichner himself, and the citation is from L'homme solon la science: son passe, son
prdsent, son avenir . 9 . (1885, Paris), 277.

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Their optimistic outlook stiffened the materialists against persecution, and


lent an air of conviction to their utterances, whether on science or on social
philosophy. Their nearest allies in the history of science would appear to be
the Baconian tradition, and Soviet ' Marxist ' views on science. So influential
were these men that all opponents of materialism, such as F. A. Lange or
F. (Jberweg, concentrated their fire on the trio. 1~
Biichner, Vogt and Moleschott assumed t h a t the correct method for social
thinkers was scientism; and thus they were in the mainstream of nineteenthcentury German thought. The scientistic outlook is based on the assumption
t h a t before attempting to build a social theory, a natural scientific understanding of the Universe is required. Once this has been achieved, one
proceeds from science to society by way of analogy. That this outlook
dominated the trio can be seen quite clearly in the structure of Btichner's
Der Mensch und seine Stellung in der Natur, his most influential work of
scientific popularisation and science-based political theory. The first section
of the book establishes the animal origin of man, the second his non-vitalist
bodily functioning, and the last develops on these bases, a scientific, humanist
reformism.
The first inferences t h a t they drew from their materialism echoed those
drawn by the French materialists of the eighteenth century, and were antitheological and anti-clerical. There was no room for a spiritual being in their
Universe, and on earth the clergy were seen as allies of feudal reaction, especially
in Germany. Biichner felt t h a t ' . . .
in the future science is destined to
replace and render superfluous all forms of religion ,,11 while Moleschott
denounced ' . . . priestly dread, the faithful ally of overweening t y r a n n y ,.lu
The close ties between the Prussian state and clerical forces at this time
obliged all radicals to attack religion. For the pious our trio's atheism was so
synonymous with all evil, and the clerical forces in every area of greater
Germany attacked them. For example, when Franz Ungor was attacked by
the Wiener Kirchenzeitung in 1856, the worst epithet they could think of to
throw at him was ' Der 6sterreichische Vogt-Bticimer-Moleschott ,.la
The publication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of species was further fuel to
their anti-theological fire. Significantly enough, Vogt had rejected evolution
till this time, since it was tainted with the unscientific reek of Naturphilosophie.
In addition, as a pupil of Agassiz, a celebrated opponent of evolution, he must
have been aware that till Darwin's work, any real evidence for descent was
lacking. In 1851 Vogt translated Chambers's Vestiges of creation, along with
a preface to the effect t h a t he coul4 not yet accept evolution on scientific
grounds.
Biichner, of lesser scientific stature, simply swallowed all Chambers's
fantasies. These included the idea that species could at a stroke give birth

10 See, for example, Lange's History of materialism (footnote 7); and F. Uberweg, Geschichte
der Philosophic (1951, Berlin).
11 ~iichner (footnote 9), 270.
12 j . Moleschott, The chemistry of food and diet, with a chapter on food adulteration (1856,
London), 54. This is a translation of his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. t~i~r das Voile (1850,
Erlangen).
13 R. C. Olby, ' F r a n k Unger and the Wiener Kirchenzeitung ', .Folia Mendeliana, No. 2
(1967), 29-37 (p. 31).

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to the next link in the evolutionary chain. 14 Vogt's doubts evaporated when
Darwin published his major work since evolution was now cleansed of
Naturphilosophie, and placed on a scientific basis. From Darwinism Vogt drew
clear anti-theological conclusions. In his Lectures on Man he stated with
typical dryness: ' There is no doubt t h a t Darwin's theory ignores a personal
creator and his direct interference in the transformation and creation of species,
there being no sphere of action for such a being ,.15 Indeed, so strong was
Vogt's atheism and anti-clericalism t h a t the editor of the English translation
of 1864 felt obliged to politely dissociate himself from its harshness to calm his
Victorian readers. Biichner also nurtured his anti-clericalism on Darwin's
ideas, and on meeting Darwin shortly before his death informed him of this.
Darwin dissociated himself from Btichnor's hastiness only, and not his
conclusions. 1
But, if in the 1840s and 1850s Vogt and Biichner had been dominated by
their atheism, their emphasis moved in the next two decades to biological
metaphors of the social Darwinist type, and to these we now turn. Like so
many others in the second half of the nineteenth century, they found a direct
correlation between the Darwinian struggle for existence in nature, and the
harsh turmoil of the rapidly developing industrial capitalism which was
conquering the world. Originally an English doctrine expounded by Herbert
Spencer, social Darwinism came to be the dominant social metaphor in
Germany and the U.S.A. These societies were at this time undergoing the
most massive industrialisation and rupture with traditional institutions, and
Spencer's ideas found a ready audience. In the Germany of the later
nineteenth-century social Darwinism held almost undisputed sway among
natural scientists, iv In this movement the ' v u l g a r ' materialists were to
play a large part.
Biiclmer, for example, unequivically asserts t h a t since man is an animal,
the struggle for existence operates as much in human history and society,
as in the natural world. He states that ' Thus . . . the struggle for existence,
which we have already surveyed with all its vigour in the animal kingdom and
backward civilisations, is transformed into competition between individuals
and peoples to obtain the best, the most valued of earthly goods ,.is
However, Biichner's social Darwinism was of a very unusual sort, and
foreshadows Fabian socialism. He advocated a policy of reforms to equalise
the struggle for existence, which the concentration of wealth and privilege was
nullifying. Among measures he favoured were the abolition of the right of
inheritance, equal opportunities for women, and universal free education. For
all these reasons Biichner was able to associate with the First Working Men's
International of I867-1872. Btichner, nevertheless, was no socialist, and
14 F o r a d i s c u s s i o n of t h e views of V o g t a n d Biichner a t t h i s t i m e , see t h e excellent article
b y Oswei T e m k i n , ' T h e idea of d e s c e n t in p o s t - r o m a n t i c G e r m a n biology ', in B. Glass (ed.),
Forerunners of Darwin (1959, B a l t i m o r e ) , 323-355.
15 V o g t (footnote 6), 449.
16 T h i s i n f o r m a t i o n is g i v e n in t h e article b y R. Colp (Jr.), ' C o n t a c t s b e t w e e n M a r x a n d
D a r w i n ', Journal of the history of ideas, a5 (1974), 329-339.
iv F o r social d a r w i n i s m in t h e U.S.A., see 1~. H o f s t a d t e r , Social Darwinism in American
thought (1945, N e w York); a n d for G e r m a n y , D. G a s m a n , The scientific origins of National
Socialism (1971, L o n d o n ) .
18 L. B i i c h n e r (footnote 9), 206-207.

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explained his aim as rather ' To equalise as much as possible the conditions in
which all individuals fight for existence and struggle with their rivals . . . . In
spite of appearances, all these measures have nothing to do with communism,
since they embody nothing contrary to the principle of private property '.19
For the actual socialist agitation started in the 1860s in Germany by Ferdinand
Lassalle, Btiehner had no sympathy. Instead he advocated the workers'
self-help and co-operative schemes of the reformer Sehultze-Delitzsche.
Btichner attacked Lassalle's German Workers Association, founded in 1863,
as leading the workers into the paths of utopia and class conflict. Socialism,
the aim of this movement, was scientifically impossible, due to the biological
imperfections of man: ' The impossibility [of communism] stems in part from
the general insurmountable antipathy of man for all these communist projects
and in part from the real frailty, the real insufficiency of human nature, which
necessitates long years of education to prepare for such a state of things ,.20
The working class was not the agent of Biiehner's reformist policy, but the
State in alliance with the intelligent sections of the bourgeoisie. Only such
an alliance aiming at reform could avoid social revolution with all its ' horrible
and incalculable consequences ,.21
For Vogt, also, the ' struggle for existence ' was a biological and social fact:
' Man, even at the earliest period, applied his mind to multiplying the means
with which nature had endowed him for the struggle of existence ,.23 Unlike
the more sympathetic Btiehner, Vogt drew ruthlessly racist conclusions from
Darwinism, asserting t h a t Negroes were destined to remain eternally childlike
and backward, and ridiculing as unscientific all conceptions of human equality.
Nevertheless, he attacked slavery in the U.S.A. as preventing the negroes
achieving even what little progress they were capable of.
Molesehott is in every respect the least sophisticated of these three: his
' v u l g a r ' materialism borders on the obscene. To call him a biological
reductionist is a misnomer. His reduetionism is crudely nutritional, and he
asserts t h a t the individual personality, nay the very character of each society,
is the product of nutrition. In one of his works of popularisation, the Lehre der
Nahrugsmittel (subtitled 'ftir das Volk '), he explains: ' T h e effects produced
by food upon man determine the commerce and the character of the people,
as well as the individual ,.~a
For Moleschott, the superiority of English industry was due to its labourers
gorging themselves on roast beef while the Irish and Italians were lazy due to
guzzling potatoes and pasta. He saw hunger as the motive force of social
change, and advocated improving the diet of the poor, for example, by fighting food adulteration, to preserve the social fabric. In his view, ' H u n g e r
desolates head and heart . . . for this reason hunger has caused more revolutions than the ambition of dissatisfied subjects ,.24
For Molesehott the millenium of peace and liberty would result from a
generally adequate diet for the masses. In future, science would banish
19 I b i d . , 225, 228.
20 I b i d . , 224-225.
21 I b i d . , 415.

~2 K. Vogt (footnote 6), 232.


~8 j . Moleschott (footnote 12), 68.
~4 I b i d . , 24.

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religion and hunger from the earth, as well as t y r a n n y : ' . . . a rich blood
produces, together with the muscles, the noble mind and the ardent courage of
liberty. This is the association of thought t hat made Johannes von Miiller say
that liberty thrives where cheese is prepared ,.e5 H e even went so far as to
claim th at nutrition, and variations in it, was one of the main causes of
evolutionary change: ' I no longer fear to give offence by designating food
itself as one of the main causes of differences in our species ,.26 His scientific
metaphor was metabolism, the chemical change of living matter, which he
paralleled to human economic activity. This can be seen clearly in the
following passage from the Kreislauf des Lebens: ' T h e name metabolism has
been given to this exchange of material. We are right not to mention the word
without a feeling of reverence. For just as trade is the soul of commerce, the
eternal circulation of material is the soul of the world ,.e7
The widespread influence of the ' vulgar ' materialists made itself felt on
such men as Liebig, Virchow, Haeckel, Ostwald and Helmholtz. According to
Lilgo, it contributed to the ' idolatry of science ' in Germany after 1850, and
helped to divorce science from the humanities, and elevate it to a branch of
technology. 26
3. Historical and natural-scientific materialism

The way in which the materialism of Marx and Engels differed from that of
such natural-scientific materialists as Vogt and Btichner can be best explained
by examining their more developed critique of another German materialist,
Ludwig Feuerbach, before turning to their views on the ' vulgar ' materialists
themselves.
Feuerbach, who lived from 1804 to 1872, was a dominating influence on
German philosophy in the 1840s, and both Marx and Engels came under his
sway in the early years of t h a t decade. F o r t y years later Engels testified to
the effect t hat Feuerbach's ideas had had on the younger generation in
Germany: ' One must himself have experienced the liberating effect of this
book [the Essence of Christianity] to get an idea of it. Enthusiasm was general;
we all became at once Feuerbachians ,.~9 To Marx and Engels, Feuorbach
represented the humanistic, reforming element in German philosophy. His
followers were styled the ' young ', or ' left ' Hegelians, as against the ' old ',
or ' right ' Hegelians. The latter followed on their master's precepts, and this
meant making an accommodation with the feudal and pietistic regime of
Hohenzollern Prussia.
The school of Feuerbachians in Germany, who published and wrote in the
Kdlnische Zeitung and the Rheinische Zeitung in the early 1840s, included
Bauer, Strauss and Griin as well as Marx and Engels themselves. The ideas
which inspired them were put forward by Feuerbach in the Essence of
Christianity (1841) and the Philosophy of the future (1843). In these works he
25 Ibid., 63.
26 Ibid., 67.
2~ j . Moleschott, Der Kreislauf des Lebens.
Briefe (1852, Mainz), 41.

Physiologisehe Antworten auf Liebig's chemische

2s On this, see the s t i m u l a t i n g analysis of F. A. Lilge, Abuse of learning: the failure of German
universities (1948, New" York).
29 Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy (1973,

Moscow), 20.
A.S.

2C

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based himself on, and continued, the Biblical criticism of Strauss and others,
and attacked religion as causing man's alienation from his real,
human self. He wanted religion to be overthrown and replaced
by an ethical humanism t h a t placed human love on a pedestal
(or an ' o r g y of reconciliation ', as Engels later called it). Feuerbach
was quite explicit in considering himself a materialist. As he stated in the
1843 ' P r e f a c e ' to the Essence of Christianity, ' I n the sphere of strictly
theoretical philosophy, I attach myself in direct opposition to Hegelian
philosophy, only to realism, to materialism . . . . I am nothing but a natural
philosopher in the domain of mind ,.a0
Feuerbach was a cerebral Rabelasian, and his was a naturalistic humanism,
t h a t had as its basis the eating, drinking, loving individual man and his sensual
relations to nature. He wanted to make these bodily functions the ' sacred '
basis of his humanism, as opposed to the alienated forms (the sacraments),
in which these functions appeared in the Christian religion. Man for Feuerbach
only existed through his sensual relations with the world, in fact he was these
relations, and in his Philosophy of the future he coined the notorious phrase:
' D e r Mensch ist was er i s s t ' (Man is what he eats). The context of this
phrase is: ' H u m a n fare is the foundation of h u m a n culture and disposition.
Do you want to improve a people? Then instead of preaching against sin,
give them better food. Man is what he eats ,.al A more explicit account
of his views on the sacred nature of the material bodily functions is given
towards the end of his Essence of Christianity:
Water is the readiest means of making friends with Nature. The bath
is a sort of chemical process, in which our individuality is resolved into the
objective life of N a t u r e . . . eating and drinking is itself a religious act: at least
ought to be so . . . . And if thou art inclined to smile that I call eating and
drinking religious acts . . . place thyself in a position where the daily act is
unnaturally, violently interrupted. Hunger and thirst destroy, not only the
physical, but also the mental and moral powers of man; they rob him of his
humanity. 3~
The ' young ' Hegelians who followed Feuerbach called for the reform of
society; more education, the ending of censorship, limiting the power of the
churches, and constitutional reforms. They were, however, very vague
about how all this was to be achieved. Impatient with their mildness, and
with their fixation on the criticism of religion, Marx and Engels broke with
them as they themselves began to move towards communism in 1843-1844,
a path which the Feuerbachians could not contemplate. In a series of thick
tomes, including the Holy family (1845) and the German ideology (1847), they
settled accounts with this school and began to elaborate for the first time their
new materialist philosophy of history. We are not here concerned with the
criticisms t h a t they made of the social and theological views of Feuerbach.
Rather we must examine how they criticised his materialism, and differentiated
their own from it.
a0 Ludwig Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity (1957, New York), xxxiv.
al Ludwig Feuerbach, Sdmmtliche Werke (1O vols., 1903-1911, Stuttgart), vol. 2, 90; quoted
in J. H. Randall (Jr.), The career of philosophy (2 vols. 1965, New York), vol. 2, 376.
~2 L. A. Feuerbach (footnote 30), 276-278.

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Given t h e scientistic role assumed b y M a r x i s m in the Stalinist period,


a reaction has set in a g a i n s t the idea t h a t M a r x w a s a m a t e r i a l i s t in a n
ontological sense. This widespread v o g u e finds expression in S c h m i d t ' s
The concept of nature in Marx; in a r a t h e r rhetorical vein he asks t h e question:
' H o w far is philosophical m a t e r i a l i s m p r e s u p p o s e d b y a t h e o r y according to
which t h e m a n n e r of p r o d u c t i o n and r e p r o d u c t i o n of m a n ' s i m m e d i a t e life is
the m o m e n t which in t h e last resort d e t e r m i n e s t h e historical m o v e m e n t of
society? ,.33 S c h m i d t goes on to suggest t h a t M a r x did n o t m a k e this
presupposition, though Engels did. B u t it is in no way possible to deny that
M a r x was a materialist; t h a t is, he affirmed t h a t t h e r e existed a n e x t e r n a l
world i n d e p e n d e n t of the perceiving subject, a n d t h a t this e x t e r n a l world
was t h e source of our p e r c e p t i o n a n d hence knowledge. F u r t h e r , in the
Holy family, he recognised this as a presupposition to socialism:
No great wisdom is required to discover the necessary connection of
materialism with communism and socialism . . . .
I f man constructs all his
knowledge, perception, etc., from the world of sense, and from his experience
in the world of sense, then it follows t h a t it is a question of so arranging the
empirical world t h a t he experiences the truly h u m a n in it, t h a t he becomes
accustomed to experiencing himself as a human being, a4
B u t for M a r x t h e question of m a t e r i a l i s m in itself was a n ' a b s t r a c t '
question. To realise t h a t the e x t e r n a l world exists is only m e a n i n g f u l i f we
also recognise t h a t t h e w a y we s t r u c t u r e and i n t e r p r e t our relationships with
it depend, not primarily on natural or biological, but on social and historical
factors. Our p e r c e p t i o n s are historically conditioned, a n d we see t h e e x t e r n a l
world in t h e i r light. I n addition, the source of ideas or t h o u g h t is not the
biological n a t u r e of m a n or the n a t u r e of t h e physical Universe. F o r Marx,
ideas were not ' reflections ' of b r u t e n a t u r e (physical or biological) b u t of
social relations. T h a t is, ideas rise f r o m the complex of social relations t h r o w n
up b y a certain m o d e of p r o d u c t i o n and its historical d e v e l o p m e n t . F o r Marx,
as for the Naturphilosophen, n a t u r e was n o t inert, b u t alive. H o w e v e r , for
M a r x it w a s ' a l i v e ' historically (not spiritually). A n d therefore to s p e a k a b o u t
' n a t u r e ' in t h e a b s t r a c t a n d its relation to individual m a n was a f u n d a m e n t a l l y
wrong m e t h o d .
T h e a b o v e v i e w p o i n t can be given some substance if we t u r n to t h e Theses
on Feuerbach w r i t t e n b y M a r x early in 1845. I n this w o r k he criticises b o t h
F e u e r b a c h ' s m a t e r i a l i s m a n d his lack of concern for political and social relations
a n d their o v e r t h r o w . T h e m a i n critique g i v e n of F e u e r b a c h is t h a t his
m a t e r i a l i s m posits individual m a n as p a s s i v e l y receiving i m p r i n t s f r o m nature,
n o t socialised m a n as a c t i v e l y s t r u c t u r i n g these impressions in t h e light of his
o w n h u m a n condition:
1. The chief defect of all hitherto existing m a t e r i a l i s m - - t h a t of Feuerbach
included--is t h a t the thing [Gegenstand], reality, sensuousness, is conceived
only in the form of the object [Objekt] or of contemplation [Anschauung], but
not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively . . . .
sa A. Schmidt, The concept of nature in Marx {1971, London}, 20.
34K. Marx and F. Engels, The holy family, in Marx-Engels Werke (hereafter ' MEW ': 39 vols.
1959-68, Berlin), vol. 2, 138.

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IX. The highest point attained by contemplative materialism, t h a t is
materialism t h a t does not understand sensuousness as practical activity, is the
contemplation of single individuals in ' civil society '.
X. The standpoint of the old materialism i s ' civil society '; the standpoint
of the new is human society, or socialised humanity. 35

T h u s M a r x did not d e n y t h a t the m a t e r i a l world existed: he m e r e l y asserted


t h a t m a n does not s t r u c t u r e it passively, b u t a c t i v e l y as a socially a n d
historically conditioned subject. Thus he resolves the dichotomy between passive

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materialism and an active idealism9


A l r e a d y in 1843 Marx h a d written to R a g e of his dissatisfaction with the
basis of F e u e r b a c h i a n m a t e r i a l i s m : ' F e u e r b a c h ' s aphorisms are u n s a t i s f a c t o r y
in m y opinion only in this respect, t h a t he refers too m u c h to n a t u r e a n d too
little to politics ,.a6 L a t e r in German ideology he criticised the ' m e r e l y
naturalistic, not historical a n d economic m a t e r i a l i s m ' of Feuerbach, exposing
his ahistorical concept of nature. The cherry t r e e outside the p h i l o s o p h e r ' s
window was no n a t u r e - g i v e n growth, h a v i n g been t r a n s p l a n t e d , and the food
of t h e E u r o p e a n poor was a historical, not a n a t u r e - g i v e n thing. H e ridiculed
F e u e r b a c h ' s naturalistic m a t e r i a l i s m b y p o i n t i n g out t h a t ' H u n g e r is hunger:
b u t t h a t h u n g e r which satisfies itself with cooked m e a t , e a t e n w i t h knife and
fork, is quite a n o t h e r t h i n g f r o m t h a t hunger which swallowed raw m e a t with
t h e aid of h a n d , nail a n d t o o t h ,.aT
I t is clear, t h a t for Marx, F e u e r b a c h ' s m a t e r i a l i s m did not go b e y o n d t h e
l i m i t a t i o n s of all ' h i t h e r t o existing m a t e r i a l i s m ', t h a t is, did not rise b e y o n d
t h a t of the F r e n c h materialists of the e i g h t e e n t h century. I t was basically
a naturalistic, not an historical m a t e r i a l i s m , d r a w i n g its conclusions f r o m n a t u r a l
or biological facts a b o u t m a n and nature. A n a d e q u a t e m a t e r i a l i s m h a d to
include b o t h n a t u r e a n d history, and socialised m a n who was a p a r t of n a t u r e ,
otherwise it would be deficient. F o r Marx, history and not nature was t h e
basis of social theory, a n d this has been well s u m m e d up by Korsch:
the scientific advances made by Marx's historical and social materialism,
over the idealism of Hegel and the materialism of Feuerbach, consists in t h a t
he conceived o f ' m a t t e r ' itself in historical terms, while all his philosophical
predecessors.., had conceived o f ' m a t t e r ' as a dumb, dead, or at the utmost,
biologically animated nature o n l y . . . Marx started from an altogether different
viewpoint from the outset. Physical nature, according to him, does not enter
directly into history. I t does so by indirection, i.e. as a process of material
production which goes on, not only between m a n and nature, but at the same
time between man and men . . . t h a t ' pure ' nature which is presupposed to
all human activity is replaced everywhere by a nature mediated and modified
through human social activity . . . i.e. by nature as material production, as
9

These p r e l i m i n a r y points made, we are in a b e t t e r position to u n d e r s t a n d


the critique t h a t M a r x a n d Engels m a d e of the n a t u r a l scientific m a t e r i a l i s m
of Vogt, Btichner a n d Moleschott. I n t h i s we h a v e to piece t o g e t h e r s c a t t e r e d
3~ K a r l Marx, ' Theses on F e u e r b a c h ' (printed as an a p p e n d i x to Engel (footnote 29)), 63, 65.
ae Marx to R a g e in M E W (footnote 34), vol. 27,417.
aT K. Marx, ' I n t r o d u c t i o n to a critique of political e c o n o m y ', ~VIEW (footnote 34), vol. 13, 624.
as K. Korsch, K a r l M a r x (1938, London), 190-191. K o r s c h ' s views on the materialism of
Marx have recently been subject to criticism b y S. T i m p a n a r o . I n his On m at e r i al i s m (1976,
L o n d o n ) the latter makes a forceful r e - s t a t e m e n t of the idea of a biological and natural-scientific
basis for Marxism.

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remarks r a t h e r in the w a y t h a t a paleontologist tries to construct a dinosaur


from a tooth and a claw. Tooth and claw are possibly a p t when we consider
Engels's dismissal o f ' the u n t h i n k i n g mob s la Vogt ,,a9 or the ' caricature-like
itinerant preachers Vogt, Biichner, etc.'. 4~ Their estimate of this school of
scientific t h i n k e r s was n o t a high one.
F o r Marx, consciousness was an historical, n o t a biological or natural
phenomenon. I n the f a m o u s Preface to the critique of political economy he
gives a succinct s u m m a r y of t h e place of consciousness in historical materialism:
The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society . . . on which rises a legal and political superstructure
and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness . . . . I t is not
the consciousness of men t h a t determines their being, but, on the contrary
their social being t h a t determines their consciousness. 41
Because of this approach, he could obviously h a v e little s y m p a t h y for an
outlook t h a t regarded t h o u g h t as a secretion of the brain, as did Vogt, or
national characteristics as a p r o d u c t of nutrition, as did Moleschott. Thus we
find, in a letter to Engels written after reading a work by Biichner, the
comment:
The great Biichner has sent me his ' Six Lectures, etc., on the Darwinian
theory, etc. ' . . . What especially amused me is the following passage dealing
with the work of Cabanis (1789), ' You would almost think you were listening
to Karl Vogt, when you read in Cabanis remarks like the following " thinking
is to the brain, as digestion is to the stomach, or the secretion of bile out of the
blood is to the liver, etc. " ' Biichner obviously believes t h a t Cabanis has
plagiarized K. Vogt . . . Ce sent des savants s~rieux! 42
Clearly Marx is not impressed b y Btichner's scholarly talents, nor is he
greatly impressed b y V o g t ' s re-iteration of the formula of Cabanis, which he
seems to thiIflr is pure plagiarism. Neither Marx nor Engels was competent
enough in this area to make scientific criticisms of the theories of perception of
the ' v u l g a r ' materialists. Neither had a p p a r e n t l y read J o h a n n e s y o n
Miiller's Handbook of physiology, which could h a v e supplied t h e m with a
scientific basis for such a criticism.
E v e n w i t h o u t this Marx criticised Biichner's materialism in a letter to
K u g e l m a n n . He says t h a t Biichner's ' superficial nonsense a b o u t the history
of materialism is obviously copied from Lange. The w a y in which such a
p i g m y disposes, for example, o f A r i s t o t l e - - a materialist of quite a different
b r a n d from B i i c h n e r - - i s t r u l y astonishing ,.aa
Engels had other sticks with which to beat Vogt and followers. As early
as 1859 he criticised the d o m i n a n t m o o d of G e r m a n science in the 1850s:
' . . . in which the speculative tendency never assumed a n y kind of importance
the new natural-scientific materialism [is] almost indistinguishable
theoretically from t h a t of the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y . . . . T h e . . . mode of t h o u g h t
of p r e - K a n t i a n times we find reproduced even to the most extreme triviality in
3~F. Engels, Anti-Di~hring (1969, Moscow), 16.
4oIbid., 393.
41K. Marx, Preface to the Critique of political economy. Selected Works (2 vols. 1962, Moscow),
vol. 1, 363 (emphasis added).
4s Marx to Engels, 14 November 1868, in MEW (footnote 34), vol. 32, 203.
4a Marx to Kugelmann, in Letters to Kugelmann (n.d., London), 80.

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Biichner and Vogt ,.44 Fur t he r to this, Engels singles out for criticism the
attitude of the ' vulgar ' materialists towards German philosophy. Biichner,
as we recall, had savaged Hegelian dialectics and their harmful effect on
science. In his fragment ' Btichner ', Engels puts his finger on one of his
adversary's crimes. This is the ' . . . abuse directed at philosophy . . . which
in spite of everything is the glory of Germany . . . Btichner is acquainted with
philosophy only as a dogmatist ,.45 Then he gleefully examines a crucial point
in Bfichner's text. Here the latter remarks t h a t at a certain point nature in
man becomes aware of itself, and man, from being the servant, becomes the
master of nature. Engels cries: ' Whence this sudden Hegelianism? Transition
to dialectics ,.46
Lack of dialectics was more than a methodological issue; for in preventing
the German materialists from going beyond the mechanical materialism of ~he
eighteenth century, it also prevented them going beyond the world outlook
of the Enlightenment. This favoured the progressive reform of existing
conditions. B ut now, the dialectics revealed in natural processes allowed
materialists to go beyond this, and achieve an outlook on nature and society
t h a t dissolved all fixity. Hence, by extension, was undermined the fixity of
existing political and economic conditions. Or as Engels saw it, ' But what is
true of nature, which is hereby recognised as a historical process of development,
is likewise true of the history of society in all its b r a n c h e s . . . ' Y
From the superior standpoint of a materialism t h a t was dialectical, Engels
felt confident enough to dismiss the German materialists in an unceremonious
manner. When confronted with Feuerbaeh's estimation of them, Engels says:
Here Feuerbach lumps together the materialism that is a general world
outlook resting upon a definite conception of the relation between matter and
mind, and the specific form in which this world outlook was expressed at a
definite stage, namely the eighteenth century. More than that, he lumps it
with the shallow vulgarised form in which the materialism of the eighteenth
century continues to exist in the heads of naturalists and physicians, the form
in which it was preached on their tours in the fifties by Biichner, Vogt and
Moleschott. 4s
Engels's dissociation of Feuerbach from materialism is significant. In
general he criticised Feuerbach less t h a n did Marx, and he clearly wished to
imply t h a t the last representative o f ' Classical German philosophy ' was in no
way allied with contemporary German scientific materialism. But it is
arguable t h a t the trio of materialists, who had all studied Feuerbach, owed
much to him in creating their own brand of materialism. They certainly
recognised Feuerbach as a co-thinker and one of the sources of their inspiration.
The German philosopher in turn regarded their work as a continuation of his
own, and the similarity of his views with theirs is striking. Here Engels's
polemical orientation rather obscures the real relationship between Feuerbach
on the one hand and Vogt, Btichner and Moleschott on the other.
44 F. E n g e l s , ' K a r l M a r x : a c o n t r i b u t i o n to t h e critique of political e c o n o m y ', in (footnote 41),
vol. 1, 371.
4~ F. E n g e l s , Dialectics of nature (1972, Moscow), 202.
4e Ibid., 202.
4v F E n g e l s (footnote 29), 47.
4 s Ibld., 26.

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Like Fouerbach, these thinkers used their materialism for primarily antitheological purposes. Engels clearly felt t h a t the advances of science were of
more merit than to be used simply as anti-religious propaganda: ' T h e
vulgarizing pedlars who dealt in materialism in the Germany of the fifties,
in no wise went beyond the limits of their teachers. All the advances made by
natural science since then merely served them as fresh arguments against the
belief in a creator of the universe ,.49
To deepen our understanding of Marx's and Engel's materialism, we must
now consider their views on the writings of Joseph Dietzgen. The latter was
a German leather worker by profession, and a lifelong Social Democrat, first
in Germany, where he was born in 1828, and then in the U.S.A., where he died in
1888. Dietzgen was a self-taught philosopher, and from his pen there appeared
in 1869 a work called The nature of human brainwork. This work displays many
of the weaknesses of the autodidact, being repetitious and tending to bombast. 50
In spite of this, the work of this tanner showed many insights into the process
of consciousness, and was highly regarded by both Marx and Engels. Marx,
for example, wrote to Kugelmann when Dietzgen sent him the manuscript of
his work: 'A fairly long time ago he sent me a fragment of a manuscript on
the " faculty of thought " which in spite of a certain confusion and a too
frequent repetition, contains much t h a t is excellent a n d - - a s the independent
product of a working man--admirable ,.51
Dietzgen based himself quite squarely on the materialist view of the world,
and Marx's approval of him is further indirect evidence of the latter's materialist
outlook. Dietzgen, for example, says: ' E v e r y perception of the senses is
based on some object . . . .
The function of the brain is no more a " pure "
process than the function of the eye, the scent of a flower, the heat of a stove,
or the touch of a table ,.52 But for Dietzgen, adherence to materialism did
not solve the question of the ' n a t u r e of human brainwork '. He asserted
t h a t the failure of philosophy, compared with the success of science in the
nineteenth century, meant t h a t thought processes themselves had now to be
studied scientifically. Moreover, the scientific study of thought was a historical
study, not a biological one. Ideas, philosophy, ethical conceptions evolve in
history and suffer from social, historical and class limitations. On the basis
of the recognition of the existence of the external world, Dietzgen--like Marx
in the Theses on Feuerbach--asserted t h a t our perception and structuring of
this external world is relative to our position in history and society. Hence
Dietzgen was able to distinguish his materialism from alternative varieties:
' . . . our materialism is a scientific, historical conquest. J u s t as definitely as
we distinguish ourselves from the socialists of the past, so we distinguish
ourselves from the old materialists. With the latter we have only this in
common, t h a t we acknowledge matter to be the premis, or prime basis of
the idea ,.sa
49 F. Engels (footnote 45), 195.
50 On Dietzgen, see the article by Adam Buick, ' J o s e p h Dietzgen ', Radical philosophy,
10 (Spring 1975), 3-7.
51 Marx to Kugelmann, 5 December 1868, in M E W (footnote 34), vol. 32, 579.
53 j . Dietzgen, The positive outcome of philosophy. The nature of human brainwork (1906,
Chicago), 64.
s3 j . Dietzgen, Kleinere philoeophische Schriften; eine Auswahl (1903 Stuttgart), 140; quoted
in Lenin (footnote 3), 291.

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A n o t h e r element in Dietzgen's outlook t h a t would have endeared him to


Marx was his assertion t h a t dialectical processes operated in the natural world,
t h a t ' Consciousness recognises t h a t all nature, all being, lives in contradictions,
t h a t e v e r y t h i n g is w h a t it is only in co-operation with its opposite ,.54 I n
The nature of human brainwor]c, Dietzgen discusses Btichner's Force and
matter, repeating Engels's criticism of t h a t writer's limited empiricism:
'Although the a u t h o r of Force and matter chose for his m o t t o " Now, w h a t I
w a n t i s - - f a c t s " . . . materialism is n o t so coarse grained t h a t it wants p u r e l y
f a c t s . . , science [wants] not so m u c h facts as explanations, or an u n d e r s t a n d i n g
of facts ,.55
On account of Dietzgen's views Engels was p r e p a r e d to accord him much
higher praise t h a n the guarded welcome which Marx gave to his work. B y
1886, when he came to write the t e x t on Ludwig Feuerbaeh, Engels felt able
to assert t h a t Dietzgen had i n d e p e n d e n t l y advanced the same basic world
outlook as t h a t of Engels himself; 'And this materialist dialectic, which for
years has been our best working tool and our sharpest weapon, was, r e m a r k a b l y
enough, discovered not only by us, b u t also i n d e p e n d e n t l y of us and even of
Hegel, b y a G e r m a n worker, Joseph Dietzgen ,.56
The piecing together of Marx's and Engels's reaction to Dietzgen, as well
as to F e u e r b a c h and to Vogt and Biichner themselves, gives support to the
idea t h a t for Marx a fruitful materialism h a d to include the historical process.
And it also h a d to recognise the historical n a t u r e and limitations of h u m a n
thought. F u r t h e r , this starting point was w h a t distinguished his materialism
from a naturalistic or scientific materialism t h a t set out to investigate the
relations between an ' abstract ' n a t u r e and an ' abstracted ' man. At a t i m e
when the natural-scientific materialists were supremely popular in G e r m a n y ,
Marx directed an aside in Volume 1 of Capital at what he called ' abstract
materialism '. The object of this t h r u s t is not given, b u t there can be little
d o u b t t h a t it was aimed at the ' v u l g a r ' materialists. H e says t h a t ' T h e
abstract materialism of a natural science which excludes the historical process
is defective, as we can see in a m o m e n t when we glance at the abstract and
ideological conceptions voiced by its advocates whenever t h e y v e n t u r e b e y o n d
the bound of their own speciality ,.sv This is a telling critique of a b s t r a c t
materialism and a clear dissociation of historical materialism from it. N e x t
we t u r n to t h e criticisms t h a t Marx and Engels m a d e of certain of the ' abstract
and ideological conceptions ' deduced from this materialism by its practitioners.

4. The critique of scientism


Hero we cannot enter into a discussion of Marx's and Engels's views on
Darwin's biological ideas, p a r t enthusiastic and p a r t critical. 5a Suffice it to
say t h a t their initial u n b o u n d e d acclaim was soon modified by critical analysis
of the concept of the ' struggle for existence '
54 j . Dietzgen (footnote 52), 79.
55 Ibid., 127.
ae F. Engels (footnote 29), 44.
~ K a r l Marx, Capital (1972, London), vol. 1,393.
~8 F o r an account of the evaluation of D a r w i n ' s scientific ideas made b y M a r x a n d Engels,
see c h a p t e r 8 of m y thesis (footnote 1).

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The original enthusiasm of Marx and Engels for Darwinism in the early
1860s was f u r t h e r modified b y the emergence of the social Darwinist m o v e m e n t ,
the most i m p o r t a n t science-based political t r e n d in the nineteenth century.
The conclusions drawn b y Biichner and Vogt from Darwin's theories formed
p a r t of a larger intellectual movement. Outside the growth of the socialist
m o v e m e n t itself, social Darwinism was p r o b a b l y the d o m i n a n t social t h e o r y in
the later n i n e t e e n t h century. The genera] character of this m o v e m e n t , with
its support for militarism and racialism, is well enough k n o w n to make an
outline here unnecessary.
The general implications of the t h e o r y were not lost on radical thinkers.
Later, those who were also scientists, like P e t e r K r o p o t k i n , were to deal with it
directly in works like Mutual aid (1902), which had a wide circulation in the
workers' m o v e m e n t . E v e n at an early date, Marx and Engels, despite their
m a n y commitments, felt obligated to take potice of and warn t h e i r followers
against social Darwinism.
The dominance of social Darwinism in G e r m a n y is shown b y the fact t h a t
~mt only ' v u l g a r ' materialists adopted the ideology, b u t also those in the
opposite camp. H e r e we refer to those involved in the n e e - K a n t i a n antimaterialist revival in G e r m a n y which g a t h e r e d pace from 1870. I t was on one
of these, F. A. Lange, t h a t Marx first concentrated his attention. Lange
(1828-1875) was active in politics, commerce and academic life, becoming a
P r i v a t d o z o n t at B o n n and later Duisburg. His main work is a History of
materialism (1865), which a t t a c k e d this doctrine, especially as espoused by Vogt
and Biichner, and p u t forward his own K a n t i a n position. Lange had a high
regard for Marx personally as an economic scientist, and in the work cited he
talks of Marx as ' Well k n o w n to be the most learned living historian of political
e c o n o m y ,.59 B u t Lange had no s y m p a t h y for socialism and, despite his
philosophical opposition to Biichner, found himself on the same side of the
fence politically. T h a t is, he a d v o c a t e d reform to take the wind out of the
socialist sails, since this unscientific ideology was t h r e a t e n i n g the social fabric.
Lange's views are crystal clear:
But the socialists also favour materialism . . . .
Revolution is with the
extreme leaders of this party their only aim, and it is in the nature of
circumstances that only extreme leaders are possible, because only extreme
tendencies move the masses . . . . There is but one means to meet the alternative
of this revolution . . . solely and entirely in the timely surmounting of
materialism . . . . Ideas and sacrifice may yet save our civilisation, and transform
the path that leads through desolating revolution into a path of beneficent
reforms. 6o
I n his later work Uber die Arbeiterfrage (1870) Lange a t t a c k e d socialism as
impossible from a social Darwinist standpoint, and argued t h a t the struggle
for life was a p e r m a n e n t feature of society which could only be mitigated,
t h o u g h not abolished, by the state. This work came into Marx's h a n d soon
after publication, and he wrote to his friend K u g e l m a n n of his impressions.
F o r Marx, Lange was a n o t h e r bourgeois r e v o l u t i o n a r y of 1848, who had made
59F. A. Lange (footnote 7), Book 1, 319.
60Ibid., Book 3, 333-334.

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his peace with Imperial G e r m a n y and now was using his talents to a t t a c k the
growing socialist movement. Thus he is scornful in his observations:
Herr Lange has made a great discovery. The whole of history is to be
subsumed under one single great law of nature. This law of nature is the
phrase ' struggle for life ', and the content of this phrase is the Malthusian
theory of population, or rather the law of over-population. Thus instead of
the ' st1-dggle for life ' as it presents itself for analysis historically in various
specific social formations, we have nothing else to do than to translate each
concrete struggle into this phrase, and to transform this phrase into the
Malthusian 'population-fantasy'. You must admit that this is a very
profitable method--for pompous, pseudo-scientific bombastic ignorance and
intellectual laziness. 61
This q u o t a t i o n emphasises t h a t for Marx t h e class struggle is not a ' biological '
fact, b u t a historically conditioned process, whose content changes with t h e
d e v e l o p m e n t of social formations. Engels, too, was v e r y quick to point out,
not just the erroneous conclusions of t h e social Darwinists, b u t t h e flimsy basis
of their method. Paul L a v r o v , a Russian sociologist, had w r i t t e n to Engels
in 1875, asking his opinion of Darwinism and its political repercussions. F r o m
Engels's reply, it can be seen t h a t his view was markedly similar to t h a t of
Marx:
I accept of Darwin's teaching the development theory, but only adopt
Darwin's method of demonstration (struggle for life, natural selection) as the
first, provisional incomplete expression of a newly discovered fact . . . the
whole Darwinian teaching about the struggle for life is simply the carrying
over of Hobbes' teaching about bellum omnia contra omnes and the bourgeois
economic doctrine of competition according to the Malthusian population
theory, from society into animated nature. Once this slight of hand has
been c o m p l e t e d . . , then the same theory is taken back from organic nature
again into history, and it is now asserted, its validity has been demonstrated
as an eternal law of human society, e~
Those quotations can, I think, dispose of the idea t h a t Marxism is merely
a form of socialist Darwinism, as has been argued in a loose way b y m a n y
writers. 6a T h e y also show t h a t even for t h e more natural-scientifically prone
Engels, t h e class struggle was an historical and n o t a biological phenomenon.
Although in no way p a r t y to the vogue of building social theories on the
basis of Darwin's ideas, t h e seriousness with which Engels took the growth of
social Darwinist speculations can be seen b y t h e fact t h a t work on the Dialectics
of nature was actually begun as a r e b u t t a l of Biichner's Der Mensch and seine
Stellung in der Natur. T h e f r a g m e n t entitled ' Bfichner ' was the first of all
the m a n u s c r i p t s to be written. T h o u g h it was t o remain unfinished, from
w h a t is in t h e sketch we can discern t h e general outline of a t t a c k which Engels
proposed to adopt. T h e r e is a clear indication of antiscientism when he talks
of Biichner's ' p r e s u m p t i o n of applying theories a b o u t n a t u r e to society . . .
[and] . . . claim to pronounce j u d g e m e n t on socialism and political e c o n o m y
~i M a r x to K u g e l m a n n , 26 J u n e 1870, in M E W (footnote 34), vol. 32, 686.
6~ E n g e l s to L a v r o v , 17 N o v e m b e r 1875, in M E W (footnote 34), vol. 34, 169-170.
sa H e r e I h a v e in m i n d s u c h w o r k s as t h o s e b y G a s m a n (footnote 17); E. H . A c k e r k n e c h t
R u d o l f Virchow (1953, Madison); C. Zirkle Evolution, M a r x i a n biology and the social scene (1959,
Philadelphia). F o r a criticism of Zirkle, see p p . 97-98 o f m y thesis (footnote 1).

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on the basis of the struggle for existence ,.64 And further on in the Dialectics
of nature he gives a concise summary of the divergence between historical
materialism and social Darwinism: ' The conception of history as a series of
class struggles is already much richer in content and deeper than merely
reducing it to weakly distinguished phases of the " struggle for existence " ' 65
Engels kept abreast of developments in the German scientific community,
and one of these caused him to plan another venture into scientific
journalism. A bitter controversy had exploded over Darwinism in the years
1877-1878. In the former year, Rudolf Virchow had published an attack on
Darwinism called Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im modernen Staat. In this
Virchow argued t h a t the evolutionary theory--which he had earlier championed
~ l e d to the spread of socialism. To counteract this he advocated that the
teaching of Darwinism be banned from schools.
An uproar followed Virchow's outburst, and the main rebuttal of his work
came from Ernst Haeckel. The latter, like Virchow, was a firm opponent of
socialism. But unlike Virchow, he felt that the implications of Darwin's ideas
were profoundly anti-egalitarian and anti-socialistic. In his Freie Wissenschaft
und freie Lehre, which appeared in 1878, Haeckel advocated the teaching of
Darwinian theories as the surest antidote to the socialist menace. In this he
was followed by Oskar Schmidt, who published Darwinismus und Socialdemokratie in the same year. Though always squabbling over materialism,
Kantianism and Darwinism, German scientists at this period showed a
remarkable ability to unite against socialism! Engels followed this debate
closely, and wrote to Sehmidt informing him t h a t he intended to reply to the
attacks on socialism made by the German social darwinists. Shortly after he
wrote again to Lavrov with a similar message:
You will have seen that the German Darwinists, with their reply to
Virchow's appeal definitelytake the offensive against the party of socialism...
Haeckel,whosepamphlet I have just received, limits himself therein to speaking
in platitudes about the crazy teachings of socialism . . . . If the reactionary
tendency in Germany is given a free run, then the Darwinists will be the first
sacrifice after the socialists. Whatever happens to them, however, I regard
it as my duty, to answer these gentlemen. 66
An actual refutation of Haeckel's specific form of social Darwinism was to
have been integrated into the Dialectics of nature, as we can see from the
outline plan left by Engels.
A point of interest revealed in the above quotation is that Engels clearly
regarded the social Darwinists as being in the progressive camp in Germany,
and he had a high regard for Haeckel himself as a scientist. Ernst Haeckel
(1834-1919) was also an avid populariser of scientific advances. 67 In later
life he founded the German Monist League, which was devoted to combatting
both Christianity and socialism, seeking to replace them by a vitalistic religion
akin to Nature worship. The activities of the League also lent support to
German militarism and anti-semitism. These aspects of Haeckel's thought
which anticipate Nazism are easy enough to discover with the wisdom of
s4 F. Engels (footnote 45), 202, 205.
6s I b i d . , 308.
66 Engels to Lavrov, 10 August 1878, in M E W (footnote 34), 337.
67 For Haeckel see Gasman (footnote 17); and D S B (footnote 4), vol. 6, 6-11.

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hindsight (as D. Gasman shows in The scientific origins of National Socialism),


but at this time socialists regarded him as a progressive for his opposition to
religion and to the out-dated political structure of Germany. But Engels in
no way eulogised Haeckel. In addition to Engels's desire to attack Haeckel's
political views, he criticised the way in which Haeckel defined materialism.
In his Anthropogenie, Haeckel had argued t h a t the materialistic outlook
saw matter as existing prior to force. Under the relevant excerpt from
Haeckel's work Engels comments scornfully: ' Where does he get his materialism
from? ,.68 But unfortunately, as was the case in the controversy with Bfichner,
Vogt and Moleschott, pressure of work prevented Engels from making an
extended, developed critique of the views of Haeckel. Nevertheless, despite
the paucity of material from the pens of Marx and Engels, their ability to
provide a methodological basis for a critique of social Darwinism is without
any serious rival in nineteenth-century thought.
Further evidence of the ' non-scientistic ' orientation of Marx and Engels
comes from another episode t h a t is not without its humorous overtones, and
concerns Marx's famous correspondent, the gynaecologist Ludwig Kugelmann.
Kugelmann lived from 1828 to 1902, and joined the I.W.M.A. in Germany,
entering into correspondence with Marx from 1862 onwards. Kugelmann was
working in the 1860s with Rudolf Virchow, Haeckel's antagonist in the
controversy over evolution in the German scientific community, which we
have already mentioned.
Virchow enjoyed the reputation of being a major figure in nineteenthcentury science. He was also among the founders of the German Progressive
Party, and sat in the Reichstag from 1870 to 1893. He was active in social
and sanitary reform, and generally was an opponent of Bismarck, being one
of the few who did not capitulate to the growing militaristic and racialistic
sentiments in German science and politics. After an initial enthusiasm for
Darwinism, he reacted against evolution and took up an agnostic position,
becoming an opponent of social Darwinist speculations. This was partly due
to the support they gave to racialist ideas, but also because he felt t h a t by
sanctifying the idea of violent struggle, Darwinism lent support to socialism.
In spite of a flirtation with socialism around the events of 1848, Virchow's
scientific pursuits led him to adopt a scientifically deduced metaphor for
social life t h a t excluded class conflict.
Where Biichner sanctified capitalism via Darwinism, Virchow felt drawn
to support a democratic state via his findings in biology. Ackerknecht
has described very well how Virchow saw social life: ' His theory of cellular
pathology was important to Virchow as it seemed to show objectively in the
human body a situation he strove for and regarded as " natural " in society . . . .
Cellular pathology showed the body to be a free state of equal individuals,
a federation of cells, a democratic cell state. It showed it as a social unit
composed of equals . . . ,.~9 Thus both social Darwinism and socialism
disrupted this organic metaphor and were excluded. Virchow was forthright
in his opposition to socialism. In the Reichstag in 1878 he said: ' The Social
Democrat who purposively pursues his aims is our enemy . . . . We must be
68 F. Engels (footnote 45), 208.
6~ E. It. Ackerknecht (footnote 63), 45.

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independent of the government above and the masses below who threaten
society . . . . Therefore I think we must look to the right for support among
independent men . . . the good old German Biirgertum ,.70
In keeping with his liberal views, Virchow (and the Progressive Party)
opposed Bismarck's legislation in 1878 outlawing the Social Democrats (the
so-called Anti-SociMist Laws), and on occasion his party could unite for limited
reforms with the socialists.
Despite his political deductions from science, and his prominence in political
life in Germany, Virchow never aroused the anger of Marx and Engels. Since
he was representative of the section of the German bourgeoisie who remained
liberal after 1850, had no intention of trying to seek support among the
workers, and opposed the persecution of the socialists, he could be safely left
alone. Indeed, both Marx and Engels seem to have regarded him as a good,
honest bourgeois democrat. He therefore lacked the qualities possessed by a
Biichner or a Haeckel which would have necessitated a crossing of swords on
the question of science and politics. The appearance of Capital in 1867 gave
Kugelmann his chance to convert Virchow to a new metaphor. He presented
the biologist with a copy of the work, and urged him to read it. Then he
wrote to Marx about his intention of converting Virchow to communism:
'P.S. In making him aware of your work, I told him how you regard
commodities as cells, [how you] analyse bourgeois society, etc., t h a t you
follow the same method in political economy as he does in medicine: that your
Capital could therefore be dubbed the social pathology of bourgeois society,
etc. ,.71 A particular episode from his medical co-operation with Virchow drove
Kugelmann into raptures, as proof of his analogy. This was the removal of a
tumour of the mucous membrane of the womb, and he wrote an article showing the similarity of this with the tasks of the workers' movement in society.
Marx appears to have been somewhat at a loss in replying, for he passed the
letter on to Engels to deal with. The latter then wrote to Kugelmann, and his
letter illuminates his negative attitude towards Kugelmann's metaphors on
science and politics. The letter also reveals his attitude to Virchow: ' I was
very interested by your removal of a womb-tumour by splitting and Pressschwamm/2 But the a t t e m p t by means of this tumour to convert Virchow
to communism, seems very similar to a caesarian birth. Even if Virchow had
knowledge and theoretical interests in politics or economics, this honest
bourgeois is far too deeply committed ,.73 At any rate, Kugelmann's efforts to
convert Virchow met with no success. As for Marx and Engels, they showed
little further interest in the biologist.
5. The context of the dispute with the vulgar materialists
I f we deal with the attack on the German materialists, and examine the
relevant texts out of any context, we could easily infer t h a t Engels was
70 Quoted in G. R o t h , The social democrats in Imperial Germany (1963, O t t a w a ) , 144.
71 R. de Rosa, ' R u d o l f V i r c h o w u n d K a r l Marx ', Virchows Archiv, 337 (1964), 593-595
(p. 595).
72 The use of this t e r m in this sentence is obscure. The dictionary t r a n s l a t i o n is ' compressed
sponge '.
7a Engels to K u g e l m a n n , 11 April 1968; quoted in I4. de R o s a (footnote 71), and as yet
unpublished.

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motivated by general philosophical considerations. But the matter is rather


more complicated than that. The original decision of Engels to develop a
critique of Biichner's materialism dates from 1873. 74 This led to the writing
of the fragment ' Biichner ' which was found with the folder of the manuscripts
of the Dialectics of nature after Engel's death.
Now, as is apparent, this is eighteen years after the appearance of Biichner's
Kraft und Stoff, and almost thirty years after the publication of the first of
Vogt's Physiologische Briefe. We are obliged to try to give an explanation for
this time-lag in the critique o f ' vulgar ' materialism. It is no easy way out to
argue that before 1873 Marx and Engels were unaware of the existence of the
' vulgar ' materialists, for they had both read deeply in the popular works of
this influential school in the 18508 and 18608. Neither can it be argued that
Vogt and his coterie only moved into the field of political activity in the 18708.
Evidence has already been given of their extensive political agitation from the
early 1840s, and their involvement in the German Revolution of 1848-1849,
where Vogt, in particular, played a role second to few in its importance.
Neither Marx nor Engels was indifferent to Vogt prior to 1870, their letters
of the 18508 and 18608 being full of disparaging references to him and his
political activities. For Marx, Vogt symbolised the German bourgeoisie
which had abandoned its mission of smashing feudal reaction in Germany.
Instead, it was making its peace with autocracy and militarism, after the
defeat of the 1848-1849 upheaval. Vogt, like so many others, was prepared
to ally with Bismarckian reaction in order to unify Germany. His political
views in another field actually caused him and Marx to cross swords directly.
In 1859 Vogt wrote a tract, advocating the unification of Italy by means
of an invasion of the peninsula by the armed forces of Napoleon III, the
dictator of France. Marx wanted the Italian bourgeoisie itself to unite Italy,
and put an end to reactionary political forces, and he rushed an attack on
Vogt into print. This text, Herr Vogt, appeared in 1860 and is deservedly the
least renowned of Marx's works. In it he pours vitriol on Vogt's politics and
his integrity, arguing that he had become a paid agent of France (an accusation
that was actually true). The edition printed of this work remained largely
unsold, and it was never translated. To add injury to insult, Vogt sued all
his defamers in court--including Marx--and won a nominal victory. 75
But what is really important to us in this rather sordid episode is that in this
substantial work against Vogt, written when the latter was already renowned
for his materialism, there is not a word from M a r x about Vogt' s views on science,
on materialism, or on any possible connection between these and his politics.
The reason for this is that Vogt had not yet attacked socialism from a scientific
standpoint. It is revealing to compare the reaction to Btichner with that
towards Vogt. Marx had crossed swords with the latter, but had in the 1860s
apparently quite amicable contacts with Btichner. Btichner was an advocate
of progressive reform, and was one of the German delegates to the first Lausanne
Congress of the International Working Men's Association in 1867. This
organisation was a grouping of trades unions, socialist clubs and co-operatives
~a Here as elsewhere, the dating of f r a g m e n t s is f r o m the notes to the Moscow 1972 edition
(footnote 45).
75 F o r an account of the Vogt affair, see Otto l~tihle, K a r l M a r x : his lifs and work (1929,
L o n d o n ) , 215-219.

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from several countries. Marx actually wrote its statutes and many of its
publications, and played a prominent part in it throughout.
Marx evidently thought highly enough of Btichner to write to him as late
as 1867, asking if he knew of a French publisher for the first volume of Das
Kapital, which had just appeared. He added that he was aware t h a t Biichner
himself had managed to get Kraft und Stoff published in France. 76 From this
letter grew up a sporadic exchange of correspondence and literature, Marx
receiving and reading several works by Biichner in the later 1860s. The letters
already cited show t h a t Marx formed an opinion of Btichner as a plagiariser and
journalistic writer on science.
But these cursory references soon became inadequate to deal with Biichner.
In 1871, there erupted the Commune of Paris, and Marx sprang tc its defence
in the name of the International. The bloody suppression of the Commune
led to the disintegration of the International (which received much of the
blame for the uprising), and to the flight of many liberal bourgeois from the
workers' movement. In this respect we can only say of Biichner that, while
he was still in the International in 1870, he had left it by 1872. Henceforth,
he began writing social Darwinist tracts against the socialist movement.
The first, his magnum opus, dates from 1872, and his last, Darwinismus und
Socialismus, from 1894. I t seems justified to infer t h a t the Commune was
Btichner's watershed with the labour movement.
It is from this point in time that Engels planned an extended attack on the
materialism of Biichner. As already noted, Engels's fragment ' Biichner ' was
a sketch of a reply to the latter's Der Mensch und seine Stellung in der Natur,
and many of the early fragments were collected with the aim of a comprehensive reply in mind. Henceforth, every casual reference to materialism in
Engels's writing contains the obligatory dismissal of Vogt and Biichner with
the appropriate epithets, and the dissociation of the materialism of Marx and
Engels from theirs. It is clear, moreover, t h a t Engels had no great intellectual
wish to deal with Btichner. In the Dialectics of nature he says that had the
' v u l g a r ' materialists not attacked socialism and German philosophy ' O n e
could let them alone and leave them to their not unpraiseworthy, if narrow
occupation of teaching atheism to the German philistine ,.TT But, the fact
that they had committed such crimes necessitated a reply.
6. Conclusion
Despite the undeveloped nature of many of the arguments advanced by
Marx and Engels against the German scientists we have considered, and the
fact t h a t what exists does so in manuscript or polemical form, we are nevertheless in a position to answer the questions raised at the beginning of the
article.
Though Marx and Engels were undeniably materialists, they sharply
distinguished their own materialism from t h a t prevailing in contemporary
scientific circles. The fundamental outlook of these two men regarding the
relationship of science to politics was non-reductionist and non-scientistic.
Unlike the bulk of nineteenth-century scientists, and unlike many political
writers of the period, they did not feel t h a t it was man's biological make-up
re T h e letter is in M E W (footnote 34), vol. 31, 544-545.
~ F. E n g e l s (footnote 45), 202.

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t h a t determined the structure of the society t h a t he was forced to live in, or t h a t


analogies of a political nature from the models of natural science carried a n y
political categorical imperatives. The raw material of their socialism was
economics and history, but a history conceived of as a differentiated u n i t y
with the material world. The scientific basis of Marxism is not demonstrated
by the number of natural scientific references, or analogies its founders inserted
into their works. R a t h e r their approach to history, by basing it on a science
(political economy), and by treating it in a scientific (that is, dialectical and
theoretical) manner, rendered their socialism 'scientific '.

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