Conspectus of the Book The Holy Family by Marx and Engels

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THE HOLY FAMILY, OR CRITIQUE OF CRITICAL CRITICISM

AGAINST BRUNO BAUER & CO.

BY FREDERICK ENGELS AND KARL MARX


FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN

LITERARY PUBLISHING HOUSE

(J. RÜTTEN)

1845[1]

This little book, printed in octavo, consists of a foreword (pp. III-IV)[2] (dated Paris, September 1844), a table of contents (pp. V-VIII) and text proper (pp. 1-335), divided into nine chapters (Kapitel). Chapters I, II and III were written by Engels, Chapters V, VIII and IX by Marx, Chapters IV, VI and VII by both, in which case, however, each has signed the particular chapter section or subsection, supplied with its own heading, that was written by him. All these headings are satirical up to and including the “Critical Transformation of a Butcher into a Dog” (the heading of Section 1 of Chapter VIII). Engels is responsible for pages 1-17 Chapters I, II, III and sections 1 and 2 of Chapter IV, pages 138-142 (Section 2a of Chapter VI) and pages 240-245 (Section 2b of Chapter VII):

i.e., 26 pages out of 335.

The first chapters are entirely criticism of the style (t h e w h o l e ( ! ) first chapter, pp. 1-5) of the Literary Gazette [[Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung of Bruno Bauer[3]—in their foreword Marx and Engels say that their criticism is directed against its first eight numbers]], criticism of its distortion of history (Chapter II, pp. 5-12, especially of English history), criticism of its themes (Chapter III, pp. 13-14, ridiculing the GrĂŒndlichkeit[4] of the account of some dispute of Herr Nauwerk with the Berlin Faculty of Philosophy), criticism of views on love (Chapter IV, 3 by Marx), criticism of the account of Proudhon in the Literary Gazette ((IV,4) Proudhon, p. 22 u. ff. bis[5] 74. At the beginning there is a mass of corrections of the translation: they have confused formule et signification,[6] they have translated la justice as Gerechtigkeit[7] instead of Rechtpraxis,[8] etc.). This criticism of the translation (Marx entitles it—Characterisierende Übersetzung No. I, II u.s.w.[9]) is followed by Kritische Randglosse No. I u.s.w.,[10] where Marx defends Proudhon against the critics of the Literary Gazette, counterposing his clearly socialist ideas to speculation.

Marx’s tone in relation to Proudhon is very laudatory (although there are minor reservations, for example reference to Engels’ Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie[11] in the Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher[12]).

Marx here advances from Hegelian philosophy to socialism: the transition is clearly observable—it is evident what Marx has already mastered and how he goes over to the new sphere of ideas.

(36) “Accepting the relations of private property as human and rational, political economy comes into continual contradiction with its basic premise, private property, a contradiction analogous to that of the theologian, who constantly gives a human interpretation to religious conceptions and by that very fact comes into constant conflict with his basic premise, the superhuman character of religion. Thus, in political economy wages appear at the beginning as the proportionate share of the product due to labour. Wages and profit on capital stand in the most friendly and apparently the most human relationship, reciprocally promoting one another. Subsequently it turns out that they stand in the most hostile relationship, in inverse proportion to each other. Value is determined at the beginning in an apparently rational way by the cost of production of an object and its social usefulness. Later it turns out that value is determined quite fortuitously, not bearing any relation to cost of production or social usefulness. The magnitude of wages is determined at the beginning by free agreement between the free worker and the free capitalist. Later it turns out that the worker is compelled to agree to the determination of wages by the capitalist, just as the capitalist is compelled to fix it as low as possible. Freedom of the contracting Parthei[13]” [this is the way the word is spelled in the book] “has been supplanted by compulsion. The same thing holds good of trade and all other economic relations. The economists themselves occasionally sense these contradictions, and the disclosure of these contradictions constitutes the main content of the conflicts between them. When, however, the economists in one way or another become conscious of these contradictions, they themselves attack private property in any one of its private forms as the falsifier of what is in itself (i.e., in their imagination) rational wages, in itself rational value, in itself rational trade. Adam Smith, for instance, occassionally polemises against the capitalists, Destutt de Tracy against the bankers, Simonde de Sismondi against the factory system, Ricardo against landed property, and nearly all modern economists against the non-industrial capitalists, in whom private property appears as a mere consumer.

“Thus, as an exception—and all the more so when they attack some special abuse—the economists sometimes stress the semblance of the humane in economic relations, while, more often than not, they take these relations precisely in their marked difference from the humane, in their strictly economic sense. They stagger about within that contradiction without going beyond its limits.

“Proudhon put an end to this unconsciousness once for all. He took the humane semblance of the economic relations seriously and sharply opposed it to their inhumane reality. He forced them to be in reality what they imagine themselves to be, or, more accurately, to give up their own idea of themselves and confess their real inhumanity. He therefore quite consistently represented as the falsifier of economic relations not one or another particular type of private property, as other economists have done, but private property as such, in its entirety. He has done all that can be done by criticism of political economy from the stand-point of political economy.” (39)

Herr Edgar’s reproach (Edgar of the Literary Gazette) that Proudhon makes a “god” out of “justice,” Marx brushes aside by saying that Proudhon’s treatise of 1840[14] does not adopt “the standpoint of German development of 1844” (39), that this is a general failing of the French, and that one must also bear in mind Proudhon’s reference to the implementation of justice by its negation—a reference making it possible to have done with this Absolute in history as well (um auch dieses Absoluten in der Geschichte ĂŒberhoben zu sein)—at the end of p. 39. “If Proudhon does not arrive at this consistent conclusion, it is owing to his misfortune in being born a Frenchman and not a German.” (39-40)

Then follows Critical Gloss No. II (40-46), setting out in very clear relief Marx’s view—already almost fully developed—concerning the revolutionary role of the proletariat.

...“Hitherto political economy proceeded from the wealth that the movement of private property supposedly creates for the nations to an apology of private property. Proudhon proceeds from the opposite side, which political economy sophistically conceals, from the poverty bred by the movement of private property, to his conclusions negating private property. The first criticism of private property proceeds, of course, from the fact in which its contradictory essence appears in the form that is most perceptible and most glaring and most directly arouses man’s indignation—from the fact of poverty, of misery.” (41)

“Proletariat and wealth are opposites. As such they form a single whole. They are both begotten by the world of private property. The question is what particular place each occupies within the antithesis. It is not sufficient to declare them two sides of a single whole.

“Private property as private property, as wealth, is compelled to maintain itself, and thereby its opposite, the proletariat, in existence. That is the positive side of the contradiction, self-satisfied private property.

“The proletariat, on the other hand, is compelled as proletariat to abolish itself and thereby its opposite, the condition for its existence, that which makes it the proletariat, i.e. private property. That is the negative side of the contradiction, its restlessness within its very self, dissolved and self-dissolving private property.

“The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-alienation. But the former class feels happy and confirmed in this self-alientation, it recognises alienation as its own power, and has in it the semblance of human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in its self-alienation; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existnece. To use an expression of Hegel’s, the class of the proletariat is in abasement indignation at this abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its conditions of life, which are the outright, decisive and comprehensive negation of that nature.

“Within this antithesis the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, the proletarian, the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter, that of annihilating it.

“In any case, in its economic movement private property drives towards its own dissolution, but only through a development which does not depend on it, of which it is unconscious and which takes place against its will, through the very nature of things, only inasmuch as it produces the proletariat as proletariat, misery conscious of its spiritual and physical misery, dehumnaisation conscious of its dehumanisation and therefore self-abolishing. The proletariat executes the sentence that private property pronounced on itself by begetting the proletariat, just as it executes the sentence that wage-labour pronounced on itself by begetting wealth for others and misery for itself. When the proletariat is victorious, it by no means becomes the absolute side of society, for it is victorious only by abolishing itself and its opposite. Then the proletariat disappears as well as the opposite which determines it, private property.

“When socialist writers ascribe this historic role to the proletariat, it is not, as Critical Criticism would have one think, because they consider the proletarians as gods. Rather the contrary. Since the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete in the fully-formed proletariat; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman and acute form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through the no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need—the practical expression of necessity—is driven directly to revolt against that inhumanity; it follows that the proletariat can and must free itelf. But it cannot free itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation. Not in vain does it go through the stern but steeling school of labour. It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment considers as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is irrevocably and clearly foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organisation of bourgeois society today. There is no need here to show that a large part of the English and French proletariat is already conscious of its historic task and is constantly working to develop that consciousness into complete clarity.” (42-45)

CRITICAL GLOSS NO. 3

“Herr Edgar cannot be unaware that Herr Bruno Bauer

based all his arguments on ‘infinite self-consciousness’

and that he also saw in this principle the creative principle

of the gospels, which, by their infinite unconsciousness,

appear to be in direct contradiction to infinite self-con-

sciousness. In the same way Proudhon considers equality

as the creative principle of private property, which is in

direct contradiction to equality. If Herr Edgar compares

French equality with German self-consciousness for an in-

stant, he will see that the latter principle expresses in Ger-

man, i.e., in abstract thought, what the former says in French,

that is, in the language of politics and of thoughtful

observation. Self-consciousness is man’s equality with

himself in pure thought. Equality is man’s consciousness

of himself in the element of practice, i.e., therefore, man’s

consciousness of other men as his equals and man’s attitude

to other men as his equals. Equality is the French expression

for the unity of human essence, for man’s consciousness

of his species and his attitude towards his species, for the

practical identity of man with man, i.e., for the social

or human relation of man to man. As therefore destructive

criticism in Germany, before it had progressed in Feuerbach

to the consideration of real man, tried to solve everything

definite and existing by the principle of self-consciousness,

destructive criticism in France tried to do the same by

the principle of equality.” (48-49)

“The opinion that philosophy is the abstract expression

of existing conditions does not belong orginally to Herr

Edgar. It belongs to Feuerbach, who was the first to de-

scribe philosophy as speculative and mystical empiricism,

and proved it.” (49-50)
“‘We always come back to the same thing... Proudhon

writes in the interests of the proletarians.’[15] He does not

write in the interests of self-sufficient criticism or out of

any abstract, self-made interest, but out of a massive,

real, historical interest, an interest that goes beyond crit-
icism,that will go as far as a crisis. Not only does Proud-

hon write in the interests of the proletarians, he is himself

a proletarian, un ouvrier. His work is a scientific manifesto

of the French proletariat and therefore has quite a different

historical significance from that of the literary botchwork

of a Critical Critic.” (52-53)

“Proudhon’s desire to abolish non-owning and the old

form of owning is exactly identical to his desire to abol-

ish the practically alienated relation of man to his ob-

jective essence, to abolish the political-economic ex-

pression of human self-alienation. Since, however, his

criticism of political economy is still bound by the pre-

mises of political economy, the reappropriation of the ob-

jective world is still conceived in the political-economic

form of possession.

“Proudhon indeed does not oppose owning to non-owning,

as Critical Criticism makes him do, but possession to the

old form of owning, to private property. He declares posses-

sion to be a ‘social function.’ In a function, ‘interest’ is not

directed however toward the ‘exclusion’ of another, but

toward setting into operation and realising my own powers,

the powers of my being.

“Proudhon did not succeed in giving this thought appro-
priate development. The concept of ‘equal possession’ is a

political-economic one and therefore itself still an alienated

expression for the principle that the object as being for

man as the objective being of man, is at the same time the

existence of man for other men, his human relation to

other men, the social behaviour of man in relation to man.

Proudhon abolishes political-economic estrangement

within political-economic estrangement.” (54-55)

[[This passage is highly characteristic, for it shows how

Marx approached the basic idea of his entire “system,” sit

venia verbo,[16] namely the concept of the social relations of

production.]]

As a trifle, it may be pointed out that on p. 64 Marx

devotes five lines to the fact that “Critical Criticism” trans-

lates marĂ©chal as “Marschall” instead of “Hufschmied.”[17]

Very interesting are: pp. 65-67 (Marx approaches the

labour theory of value); pp. 70-71 (Marx answers Edgar’s

charge that Proudhon is muddled in saying that the worker

cannot buy back his product), 71-72 and 72-73 (spec-

ulative, idealistic, “ethereal” (Ă€therisch) socialism—and

“mass” socialism and communism).

p. 76.(Section 1, first paragraph: Feuerbach disclosed

real mysteries, Szeliga—vice versa.)

p. 77.(Last paragraph: anachronism of the n a ĂŻ v e relation

of rich and poor: “si le riche le savait!”[18])

pp.79-85.(All these seven pages are extremely interesting.

This is Section 2, “The Mystery of Speculative Con-

struction”—a criticism of speculative philosophy using

the well-known example of “fruit”—der Frucht—a crit-

icism aimed directly a g a i n s t H e g e l as well.

Here too is the extremely interesting remark that Hegel “very

often” gives a real presentation, embracing the thing

itself—die S a c h e selbst—within the speculative pre-

sentation.)
pp. 92, 93—f r a g m e n t a r y remarks against Degradie

rung der Sinnlichkeit.[19]

p. 101.“He” (Szeliga) “is unable ... to see that industry
and trade found universal kingdoms that are quite

different from Christianity and morality, family hap-

piness and civic welfare.”
p. 102.(End of the first paragraph—barbed remarks on the

significance of notaries in modern society.... “The notary

is the temporal confessor. He is a puritan by profes-

sion, and ‘honesty,’ Shakespeare says, is ‘no puritan.’

He is at the same time the go-between for all possible

purposes, the manager of civil intrigues and plots.”)

p. 110.Another example of ridiculing abstract specula-

tion: the “construction” of how man becomes master

over beast; “beast” (das Tier) as an abstraction is changed

from a lion into a pug, etc.

p. 111.A characteristic passage regarding EugĂšne Sue[20]:

owing to his hypocrisy towards the bourgeoisie, he ideal-

ises the grisette morally, evading her attitude to mar-

riage, her “naĂŻve” liaison with un Ă©tudiant[21] or ouv-

rier.[22] “It is precisely in that relation that she” (gri-

sette) “constitutes a really human contrast to the sanc-

timonious, narrow-hearted, self-seeking wife of the

bourgeois, to the whole circle of the bourgeoisie, that

is, to the official circle.”
p. 117.The “mass” of the sixteenth and the nineteenth

centuries was different “von vorn herein.”[23]

pp. 118-121.This passage (in Chapter VI: “Absolute Cri-

tical Criticism, or Critical Criticism in the Person of

Herr Bruno.” 1) Absolute Criticism’s First Campaign.

a) “Spirit” and “Mass”) is e x t r e m e l y important:

a criticism of the view that history was unsuccessful

owing to the interest in it by the mass and its reliance

on the mass, which was satisfied with a “superficial” com-

prehension of the “idea.”

“If, therefore, Absolute Criticism condemns some-

thing as ‘superficial,’ it is simply previous history, the

actions and ideas of which were those of the ‘masses.’

It rejects mass history to replace it by critical history

(see Herr Jules Faucher on Topical Questions in Eng-

land[24]).” (119)

“The ‘idea’ always exposed itself to ridicule inso-

far as it differed from ‘interest.’ On the other hand,

it is easy to understand that every mass ‘interest’ that
NB
asserts itself historically goes far beyond its real limits

in the ‘idea’ or ‘imagination’ when it first comes on

the scene, and is confused with human interest in

general. This illusion constitutes what Fourier calls

the tone of each historical epoch” (119)—as an illus-

tration of this the example of the French Revolution

(119-120) and the well-known words (1 2 0 in

fine[25]):

“With the thoroughness of the historical action, the

size of the mass who perform it will therefore increase.”

NB
How far the sharpness of Bauer’s division into Geist[26]

and Masse[27] goes is evident from this phrase that

Marx attacks: “In the mass, not somewhere else, is the true

enemy of the spirit to be sought.” (121)

Marx answers this by saying that the enemies of prog-

ress are the products endowed with independent being

(verselbstÀndigten) of the self-abasement of the mass, although

they are not ideal but material products existing in an out-

ward way. As early as 1789, Loustallot’s journal[28] had the

motto:

Les grands ne nous paraissent grands

Que parceque nous sommes Ă  genoux.

Levons-nous![29]

But in order to rise (122), says Marx, it is not enough

to do so in thought, in the idea.

“Yet Absolute Criticism has learnt from Hegel’s Phen-

omenology[30] at least the art of converting real objective

chains that exist outside me into merely ideal, merely sub-

jective chains existing merely within me, and thus of

converting all exterior palpable struggles into pure struggles

of thought.” (122)

In this way it is possible to prove, says Marx bitingly,

the pre-established harmony between Critical Criticism and

the censorship, to present the censor not as a police hangman

(Polizeischerge) but as my own personified sense of tact

and moderation.
Preoccupied with its “Geist,” Absolute Criticism does

not investigate whether the phrase, self-deception and

pithlessness (Kernlosigkeit) are not in its own empty

(windig) pretensions.

“The situation is the same with ‘progress.’ In spite of

the pretensions of ‘progress,’ continual retrogressions and

circular movements are to be observed. Far from suspecting

that the category ‘progress’ is completely empty and

abstract, Absolute Criticism is instead so ingenious as to re-

cognise ‘progress’ as being absolute, in order to explain

retrogression by assuming a ‘personal adversary’ of

progress, the mass.” (123-124)

“All communist and socialist writers proceeded from

the observation that, on the one hand, even the most

favourable brilliant deeds seemed to remain without brilliant

results, to end in trivialities, and, on the other, all progress

of the spirit had so far been progress against the

mass of mankind, driving it to an ever more dehumanised situation.

They therefore declared “progress” (see Fourier) to be an

inadequate abstract phrase; they assumed (see Owen, among

others) a fundamental flaw in the civilised world; that is

why they subjected the real bases of contemporary society

to incisive criticism. This communist criticism immediately

had its counterpart in practice in the movement of the

great mass, in opposition to which the previous historical

development had taken place. One must be acquainted

with the studiousness, the craving for knowledge, the moral

energy and the unceasing urge for development of the French

and English workers to be able to form an idea of the human

nobility of this movement.” (124-125)

“What a fundamental superiority over the communist

writers it is not to have traced spiritlessness, indolence,

superficiality and self-complacency to their origin but to

have denounced them morally and exposed them as the

opposite of the spirit, of progress!” (125)
“The relation between ‘spirit and mass,’ however, has

still a hidden sense, which will be completely revealed

in the course of the reasoning. We only make mention

of it here. That relation discovered by Herr Bruno is, in fact,

nothing but a critically caricatured culmination of Hegel’s

conception of history; which, in turn, is nothing but the

speculative expression of the Christian-Germanic dogma

of the antithesis between spirit and matter, between God

and the world. This antithesis is expressed in history, in

the human world itself, in such a way that a few chosen

individuals as the active spirit stand opposed to the rest

of mankind, as the spiritless mass, as matter.” (126)

And Marx points out that Hegel’s conception of history

(Geschichtsauffassung) presupposes an abstract and

absolute spirit, the embodiment of which is the mass. Par-

allel with Hegel’s doctrine there developed in France the

theory of the Doctrinaires[31] (126) who proclaimed the

sovereignty of reason in opposition to the sovereignty of the

people in order to exclude the mass and rule alone

(allein).

Hegel is “guilty of a double half-heartedness” (127):

1) while declaring that philosophy is the being of the Abso-

lute Spirit, he does not declare this the spirit of the philo-

sophical individual; 2) he makes the Absolute Spirit the

creator of history only in appearance (nur zum Schein),

only post festum,[32]only in consciousness.

Bruno does away with this half-heartedness; he declares

that Criticism is the Absolute Spirit and the creator of his-

tory in actual fact.
“On the one side stands the Mass, as the passive, spirit-

less, unhistorical material element of history; on the other—

the Spirit, Criticism, Herr Bruno and Co. as the active ele-

ment from which all historical action arises. The act of

the transformation of society is reduced to the brain work

of Critical Criticism.” (128)

As the first example of “the campaigns of Absolute Crit-

icism against the Mass,” Marx adduces Bruno Bauer’s

attitude to the Judenfrage, and he refers to the refutation

of Bauer[33] in Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher.

“One of the chief pursuits of Absolute Criticism consists

in first bringing all questions of the day into their

right setting. For it does not answer, of course, the real

questions—but substitutes quite different ones.... It thus

distorted the ‘Jewish question,’ too, in such a way that it

did not need to investigate political emancipation, which

is the subject-matter of that question, but could instead be

satisfied with a criticism of the Jewish religion and a des-

cription of the Christian-German state.
“This method, too, like all Absolute Criticism’s original-

ities, is the repetition of a speculative verbal trick. Spec-

ulative philosophy, in particular Hegel’s philosophy,

must transpose all questions from the form of common

sense to the form of speculative reason and convert the

real question into a speculative one to be able to answer

it. Having distorted my questions and having, like the cate-

chism, placed its own questions into my mouth, specul

lative philosophy could, of course, again like the catechism,

have its ready answer to each of my questions.” (134-135)

In Section 2a (...“‘Criticism’ and ‘Feuerbach’—Damna-

tion of Philosophy...”)—pp. 138-142—written by Engels,

one finds Feuerbach warmly praised. In regard to “Criti-

cism’s” attacks on philosophy, its contrasting to philosophy

the actual wealth of human relations, the “immense content

of history,” the “significance of man,” etc., etc., right up

to the phrase: “the mystery of the system revealed,”

Engels says:

“But who, then, revealed the mystery of the ‘system’?

Feuerbach. Who annihilated the dialectics of concepts, the

war of the gods known to the philosophers along? Feuer-

bach. Who substituted for the old rubbish and for ‘infinite

self-consciousness’ not, it is true, ‘the significance of

man’—as though man had another significance than that of

being man—but still ‘Man’? Feuerbach, and only Feuer-

bach. And he did more. Long ago he did away with the

very categories that ‘Criticism’ now wields—the ‘real

wealth of human relations, the immense content of history,

the struggle of history, the fight of the mass against the spirit,’

etc., etc.

“Once man is conceived as the essence, the basis of all

human activity and situations, only ‘Criticism’ can invent

new categories and transform man himself again into a

category and into the principle of a whole series of categories

as it is doing now. It is true that in so doing it takes the

only road to salvation that remained for frightened and

persecuted theological inhumanity. History does nothing, it

‘possesses no immense wealth,’ it ‘wages no battles.’ It is

man and not ‘history,’ real living man, that does all that, that

possesses and fights; ‘history’ is not, as it were, a person

apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history

is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.If

Absolute Criticism, after Feuerbach’s brilliant reasoning, still

dares to reproduce the old trash in a new form...” (139-140)

etc.—then, Engels says, this fact alone is sufficient to

assess the Critical naïveté, etc.

And after this, in regard to the opposition of Spirit

and “Matter” (Criticism calls the mass “matter”), Engels

says:
“Is Absolute Criticism then not genuinely Christian-

German? After the old contradiction between spiritualism

and materialism has been fought out on all sides and over-

come once for all by Feuerbach, ‘Criticism’ again makes

a basic dogma of it in its ugliest form and gives the victory

to the ‘Christian-German spirit.’” (141)

In regard to Bauer’s words: “To the extent of the prog-

ress now made by the Jews in theory, they are emancipated;

to the extent that they wish to be free, they are free” (142),

Marx says:

“From this proposition one can immediately measure

the critical gap which separates mass profane communism

and socialism from absolute socialism. The first proposition

of profane socialism rejects emancipation in mere theory

as an illusion and for real freedom it demands besides

the idealistic ‘will,’ very tangible, very material conditions.

How low ‘the Mass’ is in comparison with holy Criticism,

the Mass which considers material, practical upheavals

necessary, merely to win the time and means required

to deal with ‘theory’!” (142)

Further, (pp. 143-167), the most boring, incredibly

caviling criticism of the Literary Gazette, a sort of word

by word commentary of a “blasting” type. Absolutely noth-

ing of interest.

The end of the section ((b) The Jewish Question No. II.

pp. 142-185)—pp. 167-185 provides an interesting answer

by Marx to Bauer on the latter’s defence of his book Juden-

frage, which was criticised in the Deutsch-Französische

JahrbĂŒcher. (Marx constantly refers to the latter.) Marx here

sharply and clearly stresses the basic principles of his entire

world outlook.
“Religious questions of the day have at present a social sig-

nificance” (167)—this was already pointed out in the Deutsch-

Französische JahrbĂŒcher. It characterised the “real position

of Judaism in civil society today.” “Herr Bauer explains

the real Jew by the Jewish religion, instead of explaining

the mystery of the Jewish religion by the real Jew.” (167-168)

Herr Bauer does not suspect “that real, worldly Judaism,

and hence religious Judaism too, is being continually pro-

duced by present-day civil life and finds its final develop-

ment in the money system.”

It was pointed out in the Deutsch-Französische Jahr-

bĂŒcher that the development of Judaism has to be sought

“in der kommerziellen und industriellen Praxis”[34] (169),

—that practical Judaism “vollendete Praxis der christlichen

Welt selber ist.”[35] (169)
“It was proved that the task of abolishing the essence

of Judaism is in truth the task of abolishing Judaism in

civil society, abolishing the inhumanity of the present-day

practice of life, the summit of which is the money system.

” (169)
In demanding freedom, the Jew demands something

that in no way contradicts political freedom (172)—it is

a question of political freedom.
“Herr Bauer was shown that it is by no means contrary

to political emancipation to divide man into the non-re-

ligious citizen and the religious private individual.” (172)
And immediately following the above:
“He was shown that as the state emancipates itself from

religion by emancipating itself from state religion and

leaving religion to itself within civil society, so the indi-

vidual emancipates himself politically from religion by re-

garding it no longer as a public matter but as a private

matter. Finally, it was shown that the terroristic attitude

of the French Revolution to religion, far from refuting this

conception, bears it out.” (172)

The Jews desire allgemeine Menschenrechte.[36]
“In the Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher it was

expounded to Herr Bauer that this ‘free humanity’ and

the ‘recognition’ of it are nothing but the recognition of the

selfish, civil individual and of the uncurbed movement

of the spiritual and material elements which are the content

of his life situation, the content of civil life today; that the

Rights of Man do not, therefore, free man from religion

but give him freedom of religion; that they do not free

him from property, but procure for him freedom of prop-

erty; that they do not free him from the filth of gain but give

him freedom of choice of a livelihood.
“He was shown that the recognition of the Rights

of Man by the modern state means nothing more than

did the recognition of slavery by the ancient state. In

fact, just as the ancient state had slavery as its natural

basis, the modern state has civil society and the man of

civil society, i.e., the independent man connected with

other men only by the ties of private interest and uncon-

scious natural necessity, the slave of labour for gain and

of his own as well as other men’s selfish need. The mo-

dern state has recognised this as its natural basis as

such in the universal Rights of Man.”[37] (175)
“The Jew has all the more right to the recognition of

his ‘free humanity’” “as ‘free civil society’ is of a thoroughly

commercial and Jewish nature and the Jew is a necessary

link in it.” (176)

That the “Rights of Man” are not inborn, but arose histor-

ically, was known already to Hegel. (176)

Pointing out the contradictions of constitutionalism,

“Criticism” does not generalise them (faßt nicht den allge-

meinen Widerspruch des Constitutionalismus[38]). (177-178)

If it had done so, it would have proceeded from constitu-

tional monarchy to the democratic representative state,

to the perfect modern state. (178)

Industrial activity is not abolished by the abolition

of privileges (of the guilds, corporations, etc.); on the con-

trary it develops more strongly. Property in land is not

abolished by the abolition of privileges of landownership,

“but, rather, first begins its universal movement with the

abolition of its privileges and through the free division

and free alienation of land.” (180)
Trade is not abolished by the abolition of trade privileges

but only then does it become genuinely free trade, so also

with religion, “so religion develops in its practical univer-

sality only where there is no privileged religion (one calls

to mind the North American States).”
...“Precisely the slavery of bourgeois society is in ap-

pearance the greatest freedom....” (181)

To the dissolution (Auflösung) (182) of the political

existence of religion (the abolition of the state church),


of property (the abolition of the property qualificatio

for electors), etc.—corresponds their “most vigorous life,

which now obeys its own laws undisturbed and develops

into its full scope.”

Anarchy is the law of bourgeois society emancipated

from privileges. (182-183)

... C) CRITICAL BATTLE AGAINST

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

“The ideas”—Marx quotes Bauer—“which the French

Revolution gave rise to did not, however, lead beyond the

order that it wanted to abolish by force.

“Ideas can never lead beyond an old world order but

only beyond the ideas of the old world order. Ideas cannot

carry anything out at all. In order to carry out ideas men

are needed who dispose of a certain practical force.” (186)

The French Revolution gave rise to the ideas of communism

(Babeuf), which, consistently developed, contained the idea

of a new Weltzustand.[39]


In regard to Bauer’s statement that the state must hold in

check the separate egotistic atoms, Marx says (188-189) that

the members of civil society are, properly speaking, by no

means atoms, but only imagine themselves to be such, for they

are not self-sufficient like atoms, but depend on other persons,

their needs continually forcing this dependence upon them.


“Therefore, it is natural necessity, essential human

properties, however alienated they may seem to be, and

interest that hold the members of civil society together;

civil, not political life is their real tie.... Only political

superstition still imagines today that civil life must be

held together by the state, whereas in reality, on the contrary,

the state is held together by civil life.” (189)


Robespierre, Saint-Just and their party fell because they

confused the ancient realistically-democratic society, based

on slavery, with the modern, spiritualistically-democratic

representative state, based on bourgeois society. Before

his execution Saint-Just pointed to the table (Tabelle

a poster? hanging) of the Rights of Man and said: “C’est

pourtant moi qui ai fait cela.”[40] “This very table proclaimed

the rights of a man who cannot be the man of the ancient

republic any more than his economic and industrial relations

are those of the ancient times.” (192)


On the 18th Brumaire,[41] not the revolutionary movement

but the liberal bourgeoisie became the prey of Napoleon.

After the fall of Robespierre, under the Directorate, the

prosaic realisation of bourgeois society begins: Sturm

und Drang[42] of commercial enterprise, the whirl (Taumel)

of the new bourgeois life; “real enlightenment

of the land of France, the feudal structure of which had

been smashed by the hammer of revolution, and which the

numerous new owners in their first feverish enthusiasm now

put under all-round cultivation; the first movements of

an industry that had become free—these are a few of the signs

of life of the newly arisen bourgeois society.” (192-193)

CHAPTER VI. ABSOLUTE CRITICAL CRITICISM,

OR CRITICAL CRITICISM

IN THE PERSON OF HERR BRUNO

. . . 3) ABSOLUTE CRITICISM’S THIRD CAMPAIGN. . .

d) CRITICAL BATTLE AGAINST FRENCH MATERIALISM

(195-211)

[[This chapter (subsection d in the third section of Chap-

ter VI) is one of the most valuable in the book. Here there

is absolutely no word by word criticism, but a completely

positive exposition. It is a short sketch of the history of

French materialism. Here one ought to copy out the

whole chapter, but I shall limit myself to a short summary

of of the contents.]]


The French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and

French materialism are not only a struggle against the exist-

ing political institutions, but equally an open struggle against

the metaphysics of the seventeenth century, namely,

against the metaphysics of Descartes, Malebranch, Spin-

oza and Leibnitz. “Philosophy was opposed to metaphys-

ics as Feuerbach, in his first decisive attack on Hegel,

opposed sober philosophy to drunken speculation.” (196)

The metaphysics of the seventeenth century, defeated by

the materialism of the eighteenth century, underwent a vic-

torious and weighty (gehaltvolle) restoration in German phi-

losophy, especially in speculative German philosophy of the

nineteenth century. Hegel linked it in a masterly fashion with

the whole of metaphysics and with German idealism, and he

founded ein metaphysisches Universalreich.[43] This was fol-

lowed again by an “attack on speculative metaphysics and

metaphysics in general. It will be defeated for ever by mater-

ialism, which has now been perfected by the work of specu-

lation itself and coincides with humanism. Just as Feuerbach

in the theoretical field, French and English socialism and co-

mmunism in the practical field represented materialism coin-

ciding with humanism.” (196-197)

There are two trends of French materialism: 1) from Des-

cartes, 2) from Locke. The latter mĂŒndet direkt in den Soc-

ialismus.[44] (197)

The former, mechanical materialism, turns into French nat-

ural science.

Descartes in his physics declares matter the only sub-

stance. Mechanical French materialism takes over Descartes’

physics and rejects his metaphysics.

“This school begins with the physician Le Roy, reaches its

zenith with the physician Cabanis, and the physician Lamet-

trie is its centre.” (198)

Descartes was still living when Le Roy transferred the

mechanical structure of animals to man and declared the soul

to be a modus of the body, and ideas to be mechanical

movements. (198) Le Roy even thought that Descartes had

concealed his real opinion. Descartes protested.

At the end of the eighteenth century Cabanis perfected

Cartesian materialism in his book Rapports du physique

et du moral de l’homme.[45]

From the very outset the metaphysics of the seventeenth

century had its adversary in materialism. Descartes—Gas-

sendi, the restorer of Epicurean materialism, in England—

Hobbes.

Voltaire (199) pointed out that the indifference of the

Frenchmen of the eighteenth century to the disputes of the

Jesuits and others was due less to philosophy that to Law’s

financial speculations. The theoretical movement towards

materialism is explained by the practical Gestaltung[46]of

French life at that time. Materialistic theories corresponded

to materialistic practice.

The metaphysics of the seventeenth century (Descartes,

Leibnitz) was still linked with a positive (positivem) content.

It made discoveries in mathematics, physics, etc. In the

eighteenth century the positive sciences became separated

from it and metaphysics war fad geworden.[47]

In the year of Malebranche’s death, HelvĂ©tius and Cond-

illac were born. (199-200)

Pierre Bayle, through his weapon of scepticism, theore-

tically undermined seventeenth-century metaphysics. He re-

futed chiefly Spinoza and Leibnitz. He proclaimed atheistic

society. He was, in the words of a French writer, “the last

metaphysician in the seventeenth-century sense of the word

and the first philosopher in the sense of the eighteenth cen-

tury.” (200-201)

This negative refutation required a positive, anti-meta-

physical system. It was provided by Locke.

Materialism is the son of Great Britain. Its scholastic

Duns Scotus had already raised the question: “ob die

Materie nicht denken könne?”[48]He was a nominalist.

Nominalism is in general the first expression of material-

ism.[49]

The real founder of English materialism was Bacon. (“The

first and most important of the inherent qualities of matter is

motion, not only as mechanical and mathematical movement,

but still more as impulse, vital spirit, tension, or ... the throes

(Qual) ... of matter.”—202)

“In Bacon, its first creator, materialism has still concealed

within it a naĂŻve way the germs of all-round development.

Matter smiles at man as a whole with poetical sensuous

brightness.”

In Hobbes, materialism becomes one-sided, menschen-

feindlich, mechanisch.[50] Hobbes systematised Bacon, but

he did not develop (begrĂŒndet) more deeply Bacon’s fund-

amental principle: the origin of knowledge and ideas from

the world of the senses (Sinnenwelt).—P. 203.

Just as Hobbes did away with the theistic prejudices of

Bacon’s materialism, so Collins, Dodwell, Coward, Hartley,

Priestley, etc., destroyed the last theological bounds of

Locke’s sensualism.[51]

Condillac directed Locke’s sensualism against seven-

teenth-century metaphysics; he published a refutation of the

systems of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Malebranche.

The French “civilised” (205) the materialism of the English.

In Helvétius (who also derives from Locke), materialism

was given a properly French character.

Lamettrie is a combination of Cartesian and English mat-

erialism.

Robinet has the most connection with metaphysics.

“Just as Cartesian materialism passes into natural sci-

ence proper, the other trend of French materialism flows

directly into socialism and communism.” (206)

Nothing is easier than to derive socialism from the premis-

es of materialism (reconstruction of the world of the senses—

linking private and public interests—destroying the Geburts-

stÀtten[52] of crime, etc.).

Fourier proceeds immediately from the teaching of the

French materialists. The Babouvists[53] were crude, immature

materialists. Bentham based his system on the morality of

HelvĂ©tius, while Owen takes Bentham’s system as his starting-

point for founding English communism. Cabet brought com-

munist ideas from England into France (populÀrste wenn auch

flachste[54] representative of communism) 208. The “more

scientific” are DĂ©zamy, Gay, etc., who developed the teach-

ing of materialism as real humanism.

On pp. 209-211 Marx gives in a note (two pages of small

print) extracts from Helvétius, Holbach and Bentham, in or-

der to prove the connection of the materialism of the eight-

eenth century with English and French communism of the

nineteenth century.

Of the subsequent sections the following passage is worth

noting:

“The dispute between Strauss and Bauer over Substance

and Self-Consciousness is a dispute within Hegelian

speculation. In Hegel there are three elements: Spinoza’s

Substance, Fichte’s Self-Consciousness, and Hegel’s ne-

cessary and contradictory unity of the two, the Absolute

Spirit. The first element is metaphysically disguised nature in

separation from man; the second is metaphysically disguised

spirit in separation from nature; the third is the metaphysical-

ly disguised unity of both, real man and the real human

race” (220), and the paragraph with its assessment of Feuer-

bach: “In the domain of theology, Strauss quite consistently

expounded Hegel from Spinoza’s point of view, and Bauer

did the same from Fichte’s point of view. Both criticised

Hegel insofar as with him each of the two elements was

falsified by the other, while they carried each of the elements

to its one-sided and hence consistent development.—Both

of them therefore go beyond Hegel in their Criticism, but

both of them also remain within the framework of his specu-

lation and each represents only one side of his system. Feuer-
bach was the first to bring to completion and criticise Hegel

from Hegel’s point of view, by resolving the metaphysical

Absolute Spirit into ‘real man on the basis of nature,’ and

the first to bring to completion the Criticism of religion by

sketching in a masterly manner the general basic features

of the Criticism of Hegel’s speculation and hence of every

kind of metaphysics.” (220-221)

Marx ridicules Bauer’s “theory of self-consciousness” on

account of its idealism (the sophisms of absolute idealism—

222), points out that this is a periphrasing of Hegel, and

quotes the latter’s Phenomenology and Feuerbach’s criti-

cal remarks (from Philosophie der Zukunft,[55] p. 35, that

philosophy negates—negiert — the “materially sensuous,”

just as theology negates “nature tainted by original sin”).
The following chapter (VII) again begins with a series of

highly boring, caviling criticisms [1). Pp. 228-235]. In section

2a there is an interesting passage.


Marx quotes from the Literary Gazette the letter of a “re-

presentative of the Mass,” who calls for the study of reality, of

natural science and industry (236), and who on that account

was reviled by “criticism”:


“Or”(!), exclaimed “the critics” against this representa-

tive of the Mass,—“do you think that the knowledge of his-

torical reality is already complete? Or (!) do you know
of any single period in history which is actually known?”

“Or does Critical Criticism”—Marx replies—“believe that

it has reached even the beginning of a knowledge of histori-

cal reality so long as it excludes from the historical move-

ment the theoretical and practical relation of man to na-

ture, natural science and industry? Or does it think that it

actually knows any period without knowing, for example,

the industry of that period, the immediate mode of pro-

duction of life itself? True, spiritualistic, theological Crit-

ical Criticism only knows (at least it imagines it knows)

the major political, literary and theological acts of his-

tory. Just as it separates thinking from the senses, the

soul from the body and itself from the world, it separates

history from natural science and industry and sees the origin

of history not in vulgar material production on the earth

but in vaporous clouds in the heavens.” (238)
No-

ta

be-

ne

Criticism dubbed this representative of the mass a mas-

senhafter Materialist.[56] (239)

“The criticism of the French and the English is not an abs-

tract, preternatural personality outside mankind; it is the real

human activity of individuals who are active members of

society and who as human beings suffer, feel, think and act.

That is why their criticism is a the same time practical, their

communism a socialism in which they give practical, tangible

measures, and in which they do not only think but even more

act; it is the living real criticism of existing society, the discov-

ery of the causes of ‘decay’.” (244)

[[The whole of Chapter VII (228-257), apart from the pas-

sages quoted above, consists only of the most incredible capti-

ous criticisms and mockery, noting contradictions of the most

petty character, and ridiculing each and every stupidity in the

Literary Gazette, etc.]]

In Chapter VIII (258-333) we have a section on the “Crit-

ical Transformation of a Butcher into a Dog”—and further on

E u g ù n e S u e ’ s Fleur de Marie[57] (evidently a

novel with this title or the heroine of some novel or other) with

certain “radical“ but uninteresting observations by Marx. Worth

mentioning perhaps are only p. 2 8 5 [58] — against Eugùne

Sue’s defence of the prison cell system (Cellularsystem).

“The mystery of this” (305) (there was a quotation from

Anekdota[59] above) “courage of Bauer’s is Hegel’s Phenom-

enology. Since Hegel here puts self-consciousness in the

place of man, the most varied human reality appears only

as a definite form, as a determination of self-consciousness.

But a mere determination of self-consciousness is a ‘pure

category,’ a mere ‘thought’ which I can consequently also

transcend in ‘pure’ thought and overcome through pure

thought. In Hegel’s Phenomenology the material, sensuous,

objective bases of the various alienated forms of human

self-consciousness are left as they are. The whole destructive

work results in the most conservative philosophy [sic!]

because it thinks it has overcome the objective world, the

sensuously real world, by merely transforming it into

a ‘thing of thought,’ a mere determination of self-con-

sciousness, and can therefore dissolve its opponent, which

has become ethereal, in the ‘ether of pure thought.’ The

Phenomenology is therefore quite consistent in ending by re-

placing all human reality by ‘Absolute Knowledge’ —

Knowledge, because this is the only mode of existence of

self-consciousness, and because self-consciousness is con-

sidered as the only mode of existence of man;—Absolute

Knowledge for the very reason that self-consciousness knows

only itself and is no more disturbed by any objective world.

Hegel makes man the man of self-consciousness instead

of making self-consciousness the self-consciousness of man,

of the real man, and therefore of man living also in a real objec-

tive world and determined by that world. He stands the world

on its head and can therefore in his head dissolve all limita-

tions, which nevertheless, of course, remain in existence for e-

vil sensuousness, for real man. Moreover, everything which

betrays the limitations of general self-consciousness— all

sensuousness, reality, individuality of men and of their world—

is neccessarily held by him to be a limit. The whole of the Phe-

nomenology is intended to prove that self-consciousness is the

only reality and all reality....” (306)

...“Finally, it goes without saying that if Hegel’s Phe-

nomenology, in spite of its speculative original sin, gives

in many instances the elements of a true description of hu-

man relations, Herr Bruno and Co., on the other hand,

provide only an empty caricature....” (307)
“Thereby Rudolph unconsciously revealed the mystery,

long ago exposed, that human misery itself, the infinite ab-

jectness which is obliged to receive alms, has to serve as

a plaything to the aristocracy of money and education to

satisfy their self-love, tickle their arrogance and amuse

them.

“The numerous charitable associations in Germany, the

numerous charitable societies in France and the great num-

ber of charitable quixotic societies in England, the concerts,

balls, plays, meals for the poor and even public subscriptions

for victims of accidents have no other meaning.” (309-310)

And Marx quotes from EugĂšne Sue:

“Ah, Madame, it is not enough to have danced for the be-

nefit of these poor Poles.... Let us be philanthropic to the

end.... Let us have supper now for the benefit of the

poor!”[60] (310)

On pp. 312-313 quotations f r o m F o u r i e r

(adultery is good tone, infanticide by the victims of seduction

— a vicious circle.... “The degree of emancipation of woman

is the natural measure of general emancipation....” (312) Civ-

ilisation converts every vice from a simple into a complex, am-

biguous, hypocritical form), and Marx adds:

“It is superfluous to contrast to Rudolph’s thoughts

Fourier’s masterly characterisation of marriage[61] or the

works of the materialist section of French communism.” (313)

P. 313 u. ff., against the political-economic projects of

Eugùne Sue and Rudolph (presumably the hero of Sue’s

novel?), projects for the association of rich and poor, and

the organisation of labour (which the state ought to do),

etc.—e.g., also the Armenbank[62] [7)—b) “The bank for

the Poor” pp. 314-318] = interest-free loans to the unem-

ployed. Marx takes the f i g u r e s of the project and

exposes their meagreness in relation to need. And the idea

of an Armenbank, says Marx, is no better than Sparkas-

sen[63]..., i.e., die Einrichtung[64] of the bank “rests on the

delusion that only a different distribution of wages is needed

for the workers to be able to live through the whole year.”

(316-317) Section c) “Model Farm at Bouqueval” 318-320, Ru-

dolph’s project for a model farm, which was praised by

“Criticism,” is subjected to devastating criticism: Marx de-

clares it to be a utopian project, for on the average one

Frenchman gets only a quarter of a pound of meat per day,

only 93 francs in annual income, etc.; in the project they

work twice as much as before, etc., etc. ((Not interesting.))
320: “The miraculous means by which Rudolph accomp-

lishes all his redemptions and marvellous cures is not his fine

words but his ready money. That is what the moralists are

like, says Fourier. One must be a millionaire to be able to

imitate their heroes.
“Morality is ‘Impuissance mise en action.’[65] Every time

it fights a vice it is defeated. And Rudolph does not even rise

to the standpoint of independent morality based at least on

the consciousness of human dignity. On the contrary, his

morality is based on the consciousness of human weakness.

He represents theological morality.” (320-321)

...“As in reality all differences boil down more and more

to the difference between poor and rich, so in the idea do

all aristocratic differences become resolved into the opposi-

tion between good and evil. This distinction is the last form

that the aristocrat gives to his prejudices....” (323-324)

...“Every movement of his soul is of infinite importance to

Rudolph. That is why he constantly observes and appraises

them....” (Examples.) “This great lord is like the members of

‘Young England,’ who also wish to reform the world, to

perform noble deeds, and are subject to similar hysterical

fits....” (326)

Has not Marx in mind here the

English Tory philanthropists who

passed the Ten Hours’ Bill?[66]
  1. ↑ The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and Co.—the first joint work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It was written between September and November 1844 and was published in February 1845 in Frankfort-on-Main.
  2. ↑ Engels, F. und Marx, K., Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik, Frankfurt a. M., 1845. —Ed.
  3. ↑ Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (General Literary Gazette)—a German monthly published in Charlottenburg from December 1843 to October 1844 by Bruno Bauer, the Young Hegelian.
  4. ↑ pedantic thoroughness—Ed.
  5. ↑ und folgende bis—and following up to—Ed.
  6. ↑ formula and significance—Ed.
  7. ↑ justice—Ed.
  8. ↑ juridical practice—Ed.
  9. ↑ characterising translation No. I, II, etc.—Ed.
  10. ↑ critical gloss No. I, etc.—Ed.
  11. ↑ Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie (Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy) was first published by Engels at the beginning of 1844 in Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher (Franco-German Annals)—see Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Moscow, 1959, pp. 175-209.
  12. ↑ Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher (Franco-German Annals)—a magazine published in German in Paris and edited by Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge. The only issue to appear was a double number published in February 1844. It included Marx’s articles “A Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law (Introduction)” and “On the Jewish Question,” and also Engels’ articles “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy” and “The Position of England. Thomas Carlyle. ‘Past and Present’.” These works mark the final transition of Marx and Engels to materialism and communism. Publication of the magazine was discontinued chiefly as a result of the basic differences between Marx’s views and the bourgeois-radical views of Ruge.
  13. ↑ party—Ed.
  14. ↑ This refers to Proudhon’s work of 1840 Qu’est-ce que la propriĂ©tĂ© ou Recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement (What Is Property? or Studies on the Principle of Law and Government). Marx presents a critique of this work in a letter to Schweitzer dated January 24, 1865 (see Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, pp. 185-192).
  15. ↑ Marx is quoting Edgar.
  16. ↑ if the word may be allowed—Ed.
  17. ↑ blacksmith”—Ed.
  18. ↑ if the rich only knew it!”—Ed.
  19. ↑ debasing of sensuousness—Ed.
  20. ↑ This refers to Eugùne Sue’s novel Les mystùres de Paris (Mysteries of Paris), which was written in the spirit of petty-bourgeois sentimentality. It was published in Paris in 1842-43 and very popular in France and abroad.
  21. ↑ a student—Ed.
  22. ↑ worker—Ed.
  23. ↑ from the outset”—Ed.
  24. ↑ Marx is referring here to articles by Jules Faucher entitled Englische Tagesfragen (Topical Questions in England), which were published in Nos. VII and VIII (June and July 1844) of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung.
  25. ↑ at the end—Ed.
  26. ↑ spirit—Ed.
  27. ↑ mass—Ed.
  28. ↑ Loustallot’s journal of 1789—a weekly publication entitled RĂ©volutions de Paris (Parisian Revolutions), which appeared in Paris from July 1789 to February 1794. Until September 1790 it was edited by ElisĂ©e Loustallot, a revolutionary publicist.
  29. ↑ The great only seem great to usBecause we are on our knees.Let us rise!—Ed.
  30. ↑ PhĂ€nomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Mind) by G. W. F. Hegel was first published in 1807. In working on The Holy Family, Marx made use of Vol. II of the second edition of Hegel’s works (Berlin, 1841). He called this first large work of Hegel, in which the latter’s philosophical system was elaborated, “the source and secret of Hegel’s philosophy.”
  31. ↑ Doctrinaires—members of a bourgeois political grouping in France during the period of the Restoration (1815-30). As constitutional monarchists and rabid enemies of the democratic and revolutionary movement, they aimed to create in France a bloc of the bourgeoisie and landed aristocracy after the English fashion. The most celebrated of the Doctrinaires were Guizot, a historian, and Royer-Collard, a philosopher. Their views constituted a reaction in the field of philosophy against the French materialism of the 18th century and the democratic ideas of the French bourgeois revolution (see Holy Family ch.VI 3. d.).
  32. ↑ after the event—Ed.
  33. ↑ The refutation of the views expounded by Bruno Bauer in his book Die Judenfrage (The Jewish Question), Braunschweig, 1843, was made by Marx in an article entitled “Zur Judenfrage” (“On the Jewish Question”), published in 1844 in Deutsch-Französische JahrbĂŒcher.
  34. ↑ in commercial and industrial practice”—Ed.
  35. ↑ is the perfected practice of the Christian world itself”—Ed.
  36. ↑ the universal rights of man—Ed.
  37. ↑ The Universal Rights of Man—the principles enunciated in the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” and proclaimed during the time of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789-93.
  38. ↑ does not conceive the general contradiction of constitutionalism—Ed.
  39. ↑ world order—Ed.
  40. ↑ Yet it was I who made that.”—Ed.
  41. ↑ The 18th Brumaire (9 November 1799)—the day of the coup d’état of Napoleon Bonaparte, who overthrew the Directorate and established his own dictatorship.
  42. ↑ Storm and stress—Ed.
  43. ↑ a metaphysical universal kingdom—Ed.
  44. ↑ flows directly into socialism—Ed.
  45. ↑ Cartesian materialism—the materialism of the followers of Descartes (from the Latin spelling of Descartes—Cartesius). The indicated book—Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme (Relation of the Physical to the Spiritual in Man) by P. J. G. Cabanis—was published in Paris in 1802.
  46. ↑ mould—Ed.
  47. ↑ became insipid—Ed.
  48. ↑ whether matter can think?”—Ed.
  49. ↑ Nominalism—the trend in medieval philosophy that considered general concepts as merely the names of single objects in contrast to medieval “realism,” which recognised the existence of general concepts or ideas independent of things.
  50. ↑ misanthropic, mechanical—Ed.
  51. ↑ Sensualism—the philosophical doctrine that recognises sensation as the sole source of cognition.
  52. ↑ sources—Ed.
  53. ↑ Babouvists—adherents of Gracchus Babeuf, who in 1796 led a utopian communist movement of “equals” in France.
  54. ↑ the most popular, though most superficial—Ed.
  55. ↑ Lenin is referring to Feuerbach’s GrundsĂ€tze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Principles of the Philosophy of the Future), 1843, which constitutes a continuation of the latter’s aphorisms VorlĂ€ufige Thesen zu einer Reform der Philosophie (Preliminary Theses on the Reform of Philosophy), 1842, in which the author expounds the basis of his materialist philosophy and criticises Hegel’s idealist philosophy.
  56. ↑ mass materialist—Ed.
  57. ↑ Fleur de Marie—heroine of Eugùne Sue’s novel Mysteries of Paris.
  58. ↑ Ⅹ
  59. ↑ Anekdota zur neuesten deutschen Philosophie und Publizistik. Von Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Köppen, Karl Nauwerk, Arnold Ruge und einigen Ungenannten (Unpublished Recent German Philosophical and Other Writings of Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Köppen, Karl Nauwerk, Arnold Ruge and Several Anonymous Writers)—a collection of articles that were banned for publication in German magazines. It was published in 1843 in Zurich by Ruge and included Marx as one of its contributors.
  60. ↑ criminal justice and justice for virtue!—Ed.
  61. ↑ plaything—Ed.
  62. ↑ bank for the poor—Ed.
  63. ↑ savings-banks—Ed.
  64. ↑ the institution—Ed.
  65. ↑ impotence in action”—Ed.
  66. ↑ Tory philanthropists—a literary-political group—“Young England.”