contrary to his openly revolutionary side, the dialectic method. But
this method was of no service in its Hegelian form. According to Hegel
the dialectic is the self-development of the Idea. The Absolute Idea
does not only exist from eternity, but it is also the actual living soul
of the whole existing world. It develops from itself to itself through
all the preliminary stages which are treated of at large in "Logic," and
which are all included in it. Then it steps outside of itself, changing
with nature itself, where it, without self-consciousness, is disguised
as a necessity of nature, goes through a new development, and, finally,
in man himself, becomes self-consciousness. This self-consciousness now
works itself out into the higher stages from the lower forms of matter,
until finally the Absolute Idea is again realized in the Hegelian
philosophy. According to Hegel, the dialectic development apparent in
nature and history, that is a causative, connected progression from the
lower to the higher, in spite of all zig-zag movements and momentary
setbacks, is only the stereotype of the self-progression of the Idea
from eternity, whither one does not know, but independent at all events
of the thought of any human brain. This topsy-turvy ideology had to be
put aside. We conceived of ideas as materialistic, as pictures of real
things, instead of real things as pictures of this or that stage of the
Absolute Idea. Thereupon, the dialectic became reduced to knowledge of
the universal laws of motion--as well of the outer world as of the
thought of man--two sets of laws which are identical as far as matter is
concerned but which differ as regards expression, in so far as the mind
of man can employ them consciously, while, in nature, and up to now, in
human history, for the most part they accomplish themselves,
unconsciously in the form of external necessity, through an endless
succession of apparent accidents. Hereupon the dialectic of the Idea
became itself merely the conscious reflex of the dialectic evolution of
the real world, and therefore, the dialectic of Hegel was turned upside
down or rather it was placed upon its feet instead of on its head, where
it was standing before. And this materialistic dialectic which since
that time has been our best tool and our sharpest weapon was discovered,
not by us alone, but by a German workman, Joseph Dietzgen, in a
remarkable manner and utterly independent of us.
But just here the revolutionary side of Hegel's philosophy was again
taken up, and at the same time freed from the idealistic frippery which
had in Hegel's hands interfered with its necessary conclusions. The
great fundamental thought, namely, that the world is not to be
considered as a complexity of ready-made things, but as a complexity
made up of processes in which the apparently stable things, no less than
the thought pictures in the brain--the idea, cause an unbroken chain of
coming into being and passing away, in which, by means of all sorts of
seeming accidents, and in spite of all momentary setbacks, there is
carried out in the end a progressive development--this great foundation
thought has, particularly since the time of Hegel, so dominated the
thoughts of the mass of men that, generally speaking, it is now hardly
denied. But to acknowledge it in phrases, and to apply it in reality to
each particular set of conditions which come up for examination, are two
different matters. But if one proceeds steadily in his investigations
from this historic point, then a stop is put, once and for all, to the
demand for final solutions and for eternal truths; one is firmly
conscious of the necessary limitations of all acquired knowledge, of its
hypothetical nature, owing to the circumstances under which it has been
gained. One cannot be imposed upon any longer by the inflated
insubstantial antitheses of the older metaphysics of true and false,
good and evil, identical and differentiated, necessary and accidental;
one knows that these antitheses have only a relative significance, that
that which is recognized as true now, has its concealed and
later-developing false side, just as that which is recognized as false,
its true side, by virtue of which it can later on prevail as the truth;
that so-called necessity is made up of the merely accidental, and that
the acknowledged accidental is the form behind which necessity conceals
itself and so on.
The old methods of enquiry and thought which Hegel terms metaphysics,
which by preference busied themselves by enquiring into things as given
and established quantities, and the vestiges of which still buzz in the
heads of people, had at that time great historical justification. Things
had first to be examined, before it was possible to examine processes;
man must first know what a thing was before he could examine the
preceding changes in it. And so it was with natural science. The old
metaphysic which comprehended things as stable came from a philosophy
which enquired into dead and living things as things comprehended as
stable. But when this enquiry had so far progressed that the decisive
step was possible, namely, the systematic examination of the preceding
changes in those things going on in nature itself, then occurred the
death-blow of the old metaphysics in the realm of philosophy. And, in
fact, if science to the end of the last century was chiefly a collecting
of knowledge, the science of actual things, so is science in our day
pre-eminently an arranging of knowledge, the science of changes, of the
origin and progress of things, and the mutual connection which binds
these changes in nature into one great whole. Physiology, which examines
the earlier forms of plant and animal organisms; embryology, which deals
with the development of the elementary organism from germ to maturity;
geology, which investigates the gradual formation of the earth's crust,
are all the products of our century.
But, first of all, there are three great discoveries which have caused
our knowledge of the interdependence of the processes of nature to
progress by leaps and bounds. In the first place, the discovery of the
cell, as the unit, from the multiplication and differentiation of
which, the whole of plant and animal substance develop so that not only
the growth and development of all higher classes of all higher organisms
is recognized as following a universal law, but the very path is shown
in the capacity for differentiation in the cell, by which organisms are
enabled to change their forms and make thereby a more individual
development. Secondly, the metamorphosis of energy which has shown us
that all the so-called real forces in inorganic nature, the mechanical
forces and their complements, the so-called potential energies, heat,
radiation (light, radiating heat), electricity, magnetism, chemical
energy, are different forms of universal motion, which pass, under
certain conditions, the one into the other, so that in place of those of
the one which disappear, a certain number of the other appear, so that
the whole movement of nature is reduced to this perpetual process of
transformation from one into the other. Finally, the proof first
developed logically by Darwin, that the organic products of nature about
us, including man, are the result of a long process of evolution, from
a few original single cells, and these again, by virtue of chemical
processes, have proceeded from protoplasm or white of egg.
Thanks to these three great discoveries and the resultant powerful
advance of science, we have now arrived at a point where we can show the
connection between changes in nature, not only in specific cases, but
also in the relation of the specific cases to the whole and so give a
bird's eye view of the interrelation of nature in an approximately
scientific form by means of the facts shown by empirical science itself.
To furnish this complete picture was formerly the task of the so-called
philosophy of nature. It could then only do this by substituting ideal
and imaginary hypotheses for the unknown real interconnection, by
filling out the missing facts with mind-pictures and by bridging the
chasms by empty imaginings. It had many happy thoughts in these
transports (of imagination), it anticipated many later discoveries, but
it also caused the survival of considerable nonsense up to the present
time which could not otherwise have been possible. At present, when the
results of the investigation of nature need only be conceived of
dialectically, that is in the sense of their mutual interconnection, to
arrive at a system of nature sufficient for our time, when the
dialectical character of this interconnection forces itself into the
metaphysically trained minds of experimental scientists, against their
will, today a philosophy of nature is finally disposed of, every attempt
at its resurrection would not only be superfluous, it would even be a
step backwards.
But what is true of nature, which is hereby recognized as an historical
process, is true also of the history of society in all its branches, and
of the totality of all sciences which occupy themselves with things
human and divine. Here also the philosophy of jurisprudence, of history,
of religion, etc., consisted in this, that in place of the true
interconnection of events, one originating in the mind of the
philosopher was substituted; that history, in its totality as in its
parts, was comprehended as the gradual realization of ideas, but, of
course, always of the pet idea of the philosopher himself.
History worked up to now, unconsciously but necessarily, towards a
certain predetermined, fixed, ideal goal, as for example in the case of
Hegel, towards the realization of his Absolute Idea, and the unalterable
trend towards this Absolute Idea constituted the inward connection of
historic facts. In the place of the real, and up to this time unknown,
interrelation, man set a new mysterious destiny, unconscious or
gradually coming into consciousness. It was necessary in this case,
therefore, just as in the realm of nature, to set aside these artificial
interrelations by the discovery of the real, a task which finally
culminated in the discovery of the universal laws of progress, which
established themselves as the dominating ones in the history of human
society.
The history of the growth of society appears, however, in one respect
entirely different from that of nature. In nature are to be found as far
as we leave the reaction of man upon nature out of sight--mere
unconscious blind agents which act one upon another, and in their
interplay the universal law realizes itself. From all that happens,
whether from the innumerable apparent accidents which appear upon the
surface, or from the final results flowing from these accidental
occurrences, nothing occurs as a desired conscious end. On the contrary,
in the history of society the mere actors are all endowed with
consciousness; they are agents imbued with deliberation or passion, men
working towards an appointed end; nothing appears without an intentional
purpose, without an end desired. But this distinction, important as it
is for historical examination, particularly of single epochs and events,
can make no difference to the fact that the course of history is
governed by inner universal laws. Here also, in spite of the wished for
aims of all the separate individuals, accident for the most part is
apparent on the surface. That which is willed but rarely happens. In the
majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and interfere with
each other, and either these ends are utterly incapable of realization,
or the means are ineffectual. So, the innumerable conflicts of
individual wills and individual agents in the realm of history reach a
conclusion which is on the whole analogous to that in the realm of
nature, which is without definite purpose. The ends of the actions are
intended, but the results which follow from the actions are not
intended, or in so far as they appear to correspond with the end
desired, in their final results are quite different from the conclusion
wished. Historical events in their entirety therefore appear to be
likewise controlled by chance. But even where according to superficial
observation, accident plays a part, it is, as a matter of fact,
consistently governed by unseen, internal laws, and the only question
remaining, therefore, is to discover these laws.
Men make their own history in that each follows his own desired ends
independent of results, and the results of these many wills acting in
different directions and their manifold effects upon the world
constitute history. It depends, therefore, upon what the great majority
of individuals intend. The will is determined by passion or reflection,
but the levers which passion or reflection immediately apply are of very
different kinds. Sometimes it may be external circumstances, sometimes
ideal motives, zeal for honor, enthusiasm for truth and justice,
personal hate, or even purely individual peculiar ideas of all kinds.
But on the one hand, we have seen in history that the results of many
individual wills produce effects, for the most part quite other than
what is wished--often, in fact, the very opposite--their motives of
action, likewise, are only of subordinate significance with regard to
the universal result. On the other hand, the question arises: What
driving forces stand in turn behind these motives of action; what are
the historical causes which transform themselves into motives of action
in the brains of the agents?
The old materialism never set this question before itself. Its
philosophy of history, as far as it ever had one in particular, is hence
essentially pragmatic; it judges everything from the standpoint of the
immediate motive; it divides historical agents into good and bad and
finds as a whole that the good are defrauded and the bad are victorious,
whence it follows that, as far as the old materialism is concerned,
there is nothing edifying that can be obtained from a study of history,
and for us, that in the realm of history the old materialism is proved
to be false, since it fixes active ideal impulses as final causes
instead of seeking that which lies behind them, that which is the
impulse of these impulses. The lack of logical conclusion does not lie
in the fact that ideal impulses are recognized, but in this, that there
is no further examination into the more remote causes of their activity.
The philosophy of history, on the contrary, particularly as it was
treated by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and even the real
motives of the men who figure in history, are by no means the final
causes of historical events, that behind these events stand other moving
forces which must be discovered; but it seeks these forces not in
history itself, it imports them mostly from the outside, from
philosophical ideology, into history. Instead of explaining the history
of ancient Greece from its own inner connection, Hegel, for example,
explains it solely as if it were nothing but the working out of a
beautiful individuality, the realization of art, as such. He says much
about the old Greeks that is fine and profound, but this does not
prevent our dissatisfaction, now-a-days, with such an explanation, which
is mere phraseology.
If, therefore, we set out to discover the impelling forces, which,
acknowledged, or unacknowledged, and for the most part unacknowledged,
stand behind historical figures, and constitute the true final impulses
of history, we cannot consider so much the motives of single
individuals, however pre-eminent, as those which set in motion great
masses, entire nations, and again, whole classes of people in each
nation, and this, too, not in a momentarily flaring and quickly dying
flame, but to enduring action culminating in a great historical change.
To establish the great impelling forces which play upon the brains of
the acting masses and their leaders, the so-called great men, as
conscious motives, clear or unclear, directly or ideologically or even
in a supernatural form, that is the only method which can place us on
the track of the law controlling history as a whole, as well as at
particular periods and in individual lands. All that sets men in motion
must act upon their minds, but the force which acts upon the brain
depends very largely upon circumstances. The workers have by no means
become reconciled to the machine power of the capitalists although they
no longer break the machines to pieces as they did on the Rhine in
1848.
But while the discovery of these impelling forces of history was
entirely impossible in all other periods, on account of the complicated
and hidden interrelations with their effects, our present period has so
far simplified these relations that the problem can be solved. Since the
establishment of the great industry, at least since the peace of Europe
in 1815, it has been no longer a secret to anyone in England that the
whole political fight has been for supremacy between two classes, the
landed aristocracy and the middle-class. In France, with the return of
the Bourbons, the same fact was perceived; the writers of history, from
Thierry to Guizot, Mignet, and Thiers in particular, pronounce it as a
key to an understanding of French history, especially since the Middle
Ages. And since 1830 the working class, the proletariat, has been
recognized as the third competitor for mastery in both countries.
Circumstances had become so simplified that one would have had to close
his eyes not to see in the fight of these three classes and in the
conflict of their interests, the moving forces of modern history, at
least in the two most advanced countries.
But how came these classes into existence? If the great feudal ancient
property in land can have its origin ascribed to political causes
through forcible seizure of territories, this could not be done as
regards the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There are in this case
clearly exposed the origin and progress of two great economic classes
from plain and evident economic causes. And it was just as clear that in
the fight between the landholding class and the bourgeoisie, no less
than in that between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, economic
interests were the most important, and that political force served only
as a mere means of furthering these.
The bourgeoisie and the proletariat both arose as results of a change in
economic conditions, or, strictly speaking, in methods of production.
The transition, first from hand labor, controlled by the gilds, to
manufacture and thence from manufacture to the greater industry, with
steam and machine force, has developed these two classes. At a certain
stage new forces of production were set in motion by the bourgeoisie,
following upon the division of labor and the union of many different
kinds of labor in one united manufacture, and the methods of exchange
and requirements of exchange developed by their means, were incompatible
with the existing historical surviving methods of production consecrated
by the law, that is to say the gilds and the innumerable personal and
other privileges (which for the unprivileged were only so many fetters)
of the feudal social organization. The forces of production brought into
being by the bourgeoisie rebelled against the methods of production
originated by the gildmasters and the feudal landlords; the result is
known; the feudal fetters were struck off, in England gradually, in
France at one blow; in Germany the process is not yet quite complete. As
manufacture came into conflict at a certain stage of progress with
feudal methods of production, so has the greater industry now joined
battle with the bourgeois organization of industry established in their
place. Bound by this system, owing to the narrow limits of the
capitalistic methods of production, there occurs on the one hand an
ever increasing conversion of the mass of the people into proletarians,
and on the other hand an ever increasing amount of products which cannot
be disposed of. Over-production, and suffering on the part of the
masses, the one the cause of the other, that is the absurd contradiction
in which it runs its course, and which of necessity requires a control
of the forces of production, through a change in the methods of
production.
In modern history, at least, it is therefore proved that all political
contests are class contests and that all fights of classes for
emancipation, in spite of their necessarily political form (for every
class struggle is a political struggle), finally, are directed towards
economic emancipation. Here, at least, therefore, the State, the
political arrangement is the subordinate, bourgeois society, the rule of
economic relations, the deciding element. The old fashioned philosophy
which even Hegel respected saw in the State the determining element and
in bourgeois society the element determined by it. Appearances
corresponded with this idea. As all the impulses of each single agent
pass through his individual brain and must transform themselves into
motives of his will in order to set him to work, so must also the
desires of bourgeois society, no matter which class happens to be
dominant, penetrate the will of the state in order to secure universal
validity in the form of laws. That is the formal side of the matter
which is self evident, the question only is what content has this merely
formal will--of the individual as well as of the State--and whence comes
this content--why is just this desired and nothing else? And if we
enquire into this we discover that in modern history the will of the
State, as a whole, is declared through the changing needs of bourgeois
society, through the domination of this or that class, in the last
instance through the development of the forces of production and the
conditions of exchange.
But if in our modern times, with their gigantic methods of production
and commerce, the State is not an independent affair with an independent
development, but its existence as well as its evolution is to be
explained in the last resort from the economic conditions of the life
of society, so much the more must the same thing be true of all earlier
times when the production of the necessities of existence was not
furthered by these extensive aids, where, therefore, the necessities of
this production must exercise a greater control over men. If the State
is today, at the time of the great industries and steam railways,
merely, as a whole, the summarized, reflected form of the economic
desires of the class which controls production, it must, therefore, have
been still more so at a period when a generation of men must spend the
greater portion of their united life-time in the satisfaction of their
material needs, and man was, therefore, much more dependent on them than
we are today. The examination of the earlier epochs of history, as far
as it is earnestly conducted in this direction, establishes this
abundantly, but manifestly this cannot here be taken in hand.