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To cite this article: Ian Mitchell (1978) Marxism and German scientific materialism, Annals of Science,
35:4, 379-400
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033797800200311
A N N A L S OF S C I E N C E , 3 5
(1978),
379-400
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.
380
Ian Mitchell
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
381
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.
382
Ian Mitchell
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).
383
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.
384
Inn Mitchell
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.
385
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.
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
386
Ian Mitchell
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.
387
388
Ian Mitchell
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
389
390
Ian Mitchell
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.
391
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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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).
395
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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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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399
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.
400