From Preparatory Writings for Anti-Duhring

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Engels’ preparatory writings for Anti-Dühring consist of two parts. The first is made up of separate sheets of various format (altogether—35 manuscript pages), containing extracts from Dühring’s books and Engels’ notes, those that were used in Anti-Diihring being crossed out. The second part consists of large sheets (altogether 17 manuscript pages) divided into two columns: the left-hand column contains mainly extracts from the 2nd edition of Dühring’s Cursus der National- und Socialökonomie, while the right-hand column contains critical notes by Engels; some of the entries, the ones used in Anti-Dühring, are crossed out vertically.

In addition, the preparatory writings for Anti-Dühring include: a note on slavery, extracts from Fourier’s Le nouveau monde industriel et sociétaire (see this volume, pp. 608-09, 612) and the rough draft of the “Introduction” to Anti-Dühring (see Note 314). These three notes are in the first folder of material for Dialectics of Nature (see Note 130).

The present edition contains preparatory writings that essentially supplement the basic text of Anti-Dühring. The notes of the first part of the preparatory writings are arranged in accordance with the text of Anti-Dühring to which they refer. Fragments of the second part are given in the sequence they occur in Engels’ manuscript. The extracts from Dühring’s book, to which the critical notes refer, are given in abridged form and enclosed in square brackets.

The notes comprising the first part of the preparatory writings for Anti-Dühring were evidently written in 1876, and those of the second part in 1877. These preparatory writings were first published, partially, by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU in 1927 (in Marx-Engels Archiv, Bd. II, Frankfurt am Main, 1927), and most fully in 1935 (in Marx/Engels Gesamtausgabe, F. Engels, Herrn Eugen Dühring’s Umwälzung der Wissenschaft/ Dialektik der Natur. Sonderausgabe, Moscow-Leningrad, 1935).

[INTRODUCTION. A ROUGH OUTLINE]

Modern socialism, although it arose essentially from the recognition of the class antagonisms existing in the society found at hand between proprietors and non-proprietors, workers and exploiters, appears, however, in its theoretical form at first as a more logical and further extension of the principles laid down by the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century, socialism’s first representatives, Morelly and Mably, having also belonged among them. Like every new theory, modern socialism had, at first, to connect itself with the intellectual stock-in-trade, ready to its hand, however deeply its roots lay in material facts.

The great men, who in France prepared men’s minds for the coming revolution, were themselves extreme revolutionists. None of the existing authorities had validity for them. Everything, including religion, natural science, political institutions, and society, was subjected to the most unsparing criticism. Everything must justify its existence before the supreme court of reason, or give up existence. Reason was put forward as the sole measure. It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon its head; first in the sense that man’s head and the principles arrived at by means of thought wished to be recognised as the basis of all human views, action and association, and then later, in the sense that, as reality was found to contradict these principles completely, things were, in fact, turned upside down. Every form of society and government then existing, every old traditional view was denounced as being irrational and was thrown out; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be led by absurd prejudices; now, for the first time, the light of day dawned, reason reigned and the whole past deserved only pity and contempt.

We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealised kingdom of the bourgeoisie, that this eternal Right then proclaimed found its corresponding realisation in bourgeois justice; that the government of reason, the Contrat Social of Rousseau, came into being, and only could come into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic. The great thinkers of the eighteenth century could, no more than those of former ages, go beyond the limits imposed upon them by their epoch.

But, side by side with the antagonism between the nobility, monarchy and the burghers, was the general antagonism of exploiters and exploited, of poor workers and rich idlers, and it was precisely this circumstance that made it possible for the representatives of the bourgeoisie to put themselves forward as representing suffering humanity; there also existed, though as yet undeveloped and not in the foreground, the contradiction between workers and capitalists. This prompted individual minds to go further in their criticism, to demand equality not only of political rights, but also of social standing, and to demand the abolition of class differences. Both directions were interwoven with Saint-Simon; the latter predominated with the French ascetic communists; while Owen systematically, in the country with the most developed capitalist production and the contradictions created by it, developed it in direct relation to French materialism.

Right from its beginnings, bourgeois development possessed this inherent contradiction. Thomas Münzer, the Levellers.Thomas More’s Utopia, and so on.

The new transformation of society was again supposed to be based on the eternal laws of reason and justice, but these are as different from those of the bourgeois French philosophers as heaven from hell. A world constructed by these philosophers and according to their principles is quite as irrational and unjust, so it was disposed of just as readily as all the earlier forms of society and government. And if pure reason and justice have not, hitherto, ruled the world, this has been the result of the as yet incorrect understanding of them. What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and understands the truth; the fact that he has arisen is not an inevitable event, a necessary link in the chain of human development, but a mere happy incident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of suffering and error.

This mode of outlook is essentially that of all English, French and of the first German socialists, including Weitling. Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice and has only to be discovered to conquer all the world; but when precisely it is discovered is a matter of pure chance. And in this process absolute reason, truth, and justice are different with the founder of each individual school—compare Owen, Fourier, the Saint-Simonists, Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Pierre Leroux, and Weitling; and since the criterion of truth and justice for each of them is his own subjective understanding, the subjective measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, the only possible outcome is that they mutually erode one another. To make science of socialism, it had to be placed upon a real basis and be provided with firm, unshakable foundation. And this was done by Marx.

Meanwhile, alongside and after French eighteenth-century philosophy, the new German philosophy which culminated in Hegel had arisen. Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the Hegel of the Ancient World, had already analysed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although it also had brilliant exponents of the dialectic (Descartes and Spinoza, for example), was, especially through English influence, become rigidly fixed in the metaphysical mode of reasoning, which also dominated the French of the eighteenth century. Metaphysical reasoning considers things and their mental reflexes, ideas, as isolated, one after the other and apart from each other, as objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. A thing either is or is not; a thing cannot be, at one and the same time, both itself, and something else. This mode of thought, luminous at first sight, was the metaphysical one. Dialectics, on the other hand, is not satisfied with this; it interprets things and concepts in their interdependence, in their interrelations, in their interaction and their consequent changes, in their emergence, development and demise. Since things do not, however, exist on their own in the world, but affect and influence one another, change, appear and disappear, it is easy to understand that metaphysical thought, although correct in certain very broad, but, at the same time, restricted areas, the scale of which is determined by the nature of the given circumstances, sooner or later reaches, in every area, a limit beyond which it becomes one-sided, limited, abstract, and falls into irresolvable contradictions, out of which only dialectics can help it. For everyday purposes, we know, e.g., whether an animal is alive or not; closer inquiry cannot establish absolutely when it began to exist. The jurists know this; they have vainly tried to determine a limit beyond which the killing of a human embryo is murder (and it is just as impossible to determine absolutely the moment of physiological death, which is a protracted process with many stages, as can be read in any physiology textbook). In the same way, every organic being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment some cells die and others are built anew, so the individual is always the same and, at the same time, something else. An exact representation of the universe, of its evolution, of the development of mankind, and of its reflection in the human mind, can therefore only be obtained through a dialectical approach, with constant regard to the innumerable actions and reactions of the life and death, of progressive or retrogressive changes. And this is how the new German philosophy has worked. Kant turned Newton’s stable solar system and its eternal duration, once it had been given the initial impulse, into the result of a historic process of the formation of the sun and all the planets out of an original nebulous mass, a hypothesis that was mathematically substantiated in all its details fifty years later by Laplace and is now accepted by all natural scientists. Hegel completed this philosophy, by creating a system in which the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e. as in constant motion, change, transformation, development. From this viewpoint the history of mankind no longer appeared as a chaotic jumble of senseless acts of violence, all equally standing condemned before the philosophers’ now mature reason, and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible—in comparison with the light of eternal truth that had now dawned—but as the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of philosophy to reveal the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and to follow the inner law running through all its apparently accidental phenomena.

Whether or not Hegel solved this problem is immaterial here. His merit was that he propounded it. He could not possibly have solved it, however, since he was an idealist, i.e., for him thoughts were not pictures of things, but, conversely, things and their evolution were only the realised pictures of the “Idea”, existing somewhere from eternity before the world was. And this, together with the subjective limitations of its creator, is what destroyed the Hegelian system.

The Hegelian system was the last and most consummate form of philosophy, in so far as the latter is represented as a special science superior to every other. All philosophy collapsed with this system. But there has remained the dialectic method of thinking and the conception that the natural, historical and intellectual world moves and transforms itself endlessly in a constant process of becoming and passing away. Not only philosophy but all sciences were now required to discover the laws of motion of this constant process of transformation, each in its particular domain. And this was the legacy which Hegelian philosophy bequeathed to its successors.

Meanwhile, the development of capitalist production had advanced with giant strides, especially in its first homeland — England. The antagonism between the bourgeois and the proletarians was becoming more and more acute; in 1842 the Chartist movement reached its peak, and facts more and more strenuously gave the lie to the teachings of bourgeois economy. In France, the Lyons insurrection of 1834 had likewise proclaimed the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. The English and French socialist theories acquired historic importance and were bound to have their repercussions and criticism in Germany as well, although industry there was only just beginning to climb out of the stage of small-scale production. The theoretical socialism that now took shape, rather among Germans than in Germany, had therefore to import all its material in fact to [...]

Part I

Ch. Ill

[Ideas—Reflections of Reality]

All ideas are taken from experience, are reflections—true or distorted—of reality.

Ch. Ill, pp. 33-34

[Material World and Laws of Thought]

Two kinds of experience—external, material, and internal— laws of thought and forms of thought. Forms of thought also partly inherited by development (self-evidence, for instance, of mathematical axioms for Europeans, certainly not for Bushmen and Australian Negroes).

If our premises are correct and we apply the laws of thought correctly to them, the result must tally with reality, just as a calculation in analytical geometry must tally with the geometrical construction, although the two are entirely different methods. Unfortunately, however, this is almost never the case, and if so, only in very simple operations.

The external world, in its turn, is either nature or society.

Ch. Ill, pp. 33-34; Ch. IV, pp. 39-42; and Ch. X, pp. 88-89

[Relation of Thinking and Being]

The sole content of thinking is the world and the laws of thought. The general results of the investigation of the world are obtained at the end of this investigation, hence are not principles, points of departure, but results, conclusions. To construct the latter in one’s head, take them as the basis from which to start, and then reconstruct the world from them in one’s head is ideology, an ideology which tainted every species of materialism hitherto existing; because while in nature the relation of thinking to being was certainly to some extent clear to materialism, in history it was not, nor did materialism realise the dependence of all thought upon the historical material conditions obtaining at the particular time.—As Dühring proceeds from “principles” instead of facts he is an ideologist, and can screen his being one only by formulating his propositions in such general and vacuous terms that they appear axiomatic, flat. Moreover, nothing can be concluded from them; one can only read something into them. Thus, for instance, the principle of sole being. The unity of the world and the nonsense of a hereafter are a result of the whole investigation of the world but are here to be proved a priori, proceeding from an axiom of thought Hence bosh.— But without this turning around a philosophy apart is impossible.

Ch. Ill, pp. 35-36

[The World as a Coherent Whole.

Knowledge of the World]

Systematics impossible after Hegel. The world clearly constitutes a single system, i.e., a coherent whole, but the knowledge of this system presupposes a knowledge of all nature and history, which man will never attain. Hence he who makes systems must fill in the countless gaps with figments of his own imagination, i.e., engage in irrational fancies, ideologise. Rational fantasy—alias combination!

Ch. Ill, pp. 36-39

[Mathematical Operations and

Purely Logical Operations]

Calculative reason—calculating machine!—Curious confusion of mathematical operations, which are capable of material demonstration, of proof because they are based on direct, even if abstract, material contemplation, with purely logical ones, which are capable only of proof by deduction, hence are incapable of the positive certainty possessed by mathematical operations—and how many of them wrong! Machine for integration; cf. Andrews' speech, Nature, Sept. 7, 76. Scheme=stereotype.

Ch. Ill, pp. 36-38; Ch. IV, pp. 39-41

[Reality and Abstraction]

It is just as impossible for Dühring to prove the exclusive materiality of all being with the aid of the proposition of the oneness of all-embracing being, which the Pope and the Sheikh-ulIslam can subscribe to without detracting from their infallibility and religion, as it is impossible for him to construct a triangle or a sphere or derive the Pythagorean theorem from any mathematical axiom. Both require real preconditions and it is only upon an investigation of these that the above results are arrived at. The certainty that no spiritual world exists separately, besides the material world, is the result of a long and wearisome investigation of the real world, y compris of the products and processes of the human brain. The results of geometry are nothing but the natural properties of the various lines, planes and solids or their combinations, which for the most part occurred in nature long before man existed (Radiolaria, insects, crystals, etc.).

Ch. VI, p. 55 et seqq.

[Motion as the Mode of Existence of Matter]

Motion is the mode of existence of matter, hence more than a mere property of it. There is no matter without motion, nor could there ever have been. Motion in cosmic space, mechanical motion of smaller masses on a single celestial body, the vibration of molecules as heat, electric tension, magnetic polarisation, chemical decomposition and combination, organic life up to its highest product, thought—at each given moment each individual atom of matter is in one or other of these forms of motion. All equilibrium is either only relative rest or even motion in equilibrium, like that of the planets. Absolute rest is only conceivable in the absence of matter. Neither motion as such nor any of its forms, such as mechanical force, can therefore be separated from matter nor opposed to it as something apart or alien, without leading to an absurdity.

Ch. VII, pp. 65-67

[Natural Selection]

Diihring ought to rejoice over NATURAL SELECTION, as it furnishes the best illustration of his theory of conscious end and means.— Whereas Darwin inquires into the form, natural selection, in which a slow alteration takes place, Dühring demands that Darwin should also name the cause of the alteration, of which Herr Dühring likewise knows nothing. No matter what progress science has made, Herr Dühring will always declare that something is still lacking and so will have ample grounds for grumbling.

Ch. VII

[On Darwin]

How great is the stature of the thoroughly modest Darwin, who not only collects, arranges and elaborates thousands of facts from the whole of biology but takes delight in quoting any predecessor, however insignificant, even to the diminution of his own glory, in comparison with that braggadocio Dühring, who while contributing nothing of value himself is over-exacting of others, and who....

Ch. VII, pp. 66-67; Ch. VIII, p. 74

Diihringiana. Darwinism, p. 115. Adaptation of plants is a combination of physical forces or chemical agents; hence, no adaptation. If, “in growing, a plant takes the path along which it will receive most light”, it does so in various ways and by various means, which differ according to its species and peculiarities. The physical forces and chemical agents, however, act differently here in each plant and help the plant, which after all is something other than these "chemical and physical, etc.", to get the light it needs in the way that has become peculiar to it by lengthy precedent evolution. Indeed, this light acts as a stimulus on the plant cells and sets in motion within them, as a response, precisely those forces and agents.* Since this process goes on in an organic cellular structure and assumes the form of stimulation and response, which occurs here just as it does in transmission by nerves in the human brain, the identical expression, adaptation, fits in both cases. And if adaptation is to be accomplished absolutely through the medium of consciousness, where do consciousness and adaptation begin and where do they end? With the moneron, with the insect-eating plant, with the sponge, with the coral, with the first nerve? Diihring would do a very great favour to natural scientists of the old stripe if he should draw this boundary line. Protoplasm stimulation and protoplasm response are to be found wherever there is living protoplasm. And since the influence of slowly changing stimuli calls forth change in the protoplasm too, otherwise it would perish, the same expression, adaptation, must be applied to all organic bodies.

Ch. VII, p. 66 et seqq.

[Adaptation and Heredity]

With regard to the evolution of the species, Haeckel perceives adaptation as negative, or altering; heredity as positive, or preserving factor. Dühring on the contrary states (p. 122) that heredity also has negative results, produces alterations. (Besides, nice trash about preformation.) Now nothing is easier than to turn such opposites, like all other opposites of this kind, around and prove that adaptation, precisely by altering the form, preserves the essence, the organ itself, while heredity, by the fact alone of the mixture of two individuals different each time, constantly brings about changes the accumulation of which does not exclude a change in species. As a matter of fact, the results of adaptation are also inherited! But this does not get us one step further. We must take the facts of the case as they are and investigate them, and then we shall of course find that Haeckel is quite right in considering heredity essentially the conservative, positive side of the process and adaptation, its revolutionising, negative side. Domestication and breeding as well as spontaneous adaptation speak louder here than all of Dühring's "subtle conceptions". * And among animals, too, spontaneous adaptation is most important. [Marginal note.]

Ch. VIII, pp. 75-77

Dühring, p. 141.

Life. That exchange of matter is the most important phenomenon of life has been asserted innumerable times during the last twenty years by physiological chemists and chemical physiologists and is here repeatedly extolled as the definition of life. But neither an exact nor an exhaustive one. Exchange of matter is encountered also in the absence of life, e.g., in simple chemical processes which, given an adequate supply of raw material, constantly reproduce their own conditions, a definite body being the carrier of the process (for example, see Roscoe, 102, manufacture of sulphuric acid), in endosmose and exosmose (through dead organic and even inorganic membranes?), in Traube’s artificial cells and their medium. Exchange of matter, supposed to constitute life, itself requires more exact defining. Thus, despite all deeper foundations, subtle conceptions and closer investigations, we have not yet got to the bottom of this thing and still ask what life is.

To science definitions are worthless because always inadequate. The only real definition is the development of the thing itself, but this is no longer a definition. To know and show what life is we must examine all forms of life and present them in their interconnection. On the other hand, for ordinary purposes, a brief exposition of the commonest and at the same time most significant features of a so-called definition is often useful and even necessary, and can do no harm if no more is expected of it than it can convey. Let us therefore attempt to give such a definition of life, an attempt in which so many people have racked their brains in vain (see Nicholson).

Life is the mode of existence of albuminous bodies and this mode of existence essentially consists in the constant renewal of their chemical constituents by nutrition and excretion...

Then, from the organic exchange of matter as the essential function of albumen and from its peculiar plasticity, are derived all the other most simple functions of life—irritability, which is already included in the mutual interaction between nutrition and albumen; contractibility in the consumption of food; possibility of growth, which at the lowest stage (moneron) includes propagation by fission; internal movement, without which neither swallowing nor assimilation of food is possible. But how the advance from simple plastic albumen to the cell and thus to the organism is accomplished must first be learnt from observation, yet such an inquiry is no part of a simple practical definition of life. (On p. 141 Dühring mentions besides a whole intermediate world, inasmuch as there is no real life without a system of circulation canals and a “germ scheme”. A superb passage.)

Ch. X, pp. 89-95

Dühring—Political Economy.—The Two Men

As long as morality is the point at issue Dühring can set them down as equal, but as soon as political economy comes under discussion that ceases to be so. If, for example, the two men are a yankee BROKEN INTO ALL TRADES and a Berlin student who brings along nothing but his graduation certificate and the philosophy of reality, and in addition arms that on principle have never been strengthened by fencing, where does equality come in? The yankee produces everything, the student only helps here and there, but distribution takes place according to the contribution of each; soon the yankee will have the means capitalistically to exploit any eventual increase in the population of the colony (births or immigration). The whole modern order, capitalist production and all that, can therefore be brought into being by the two men without either of them needing a sabre.

Ch. X, pp. 95-99

Diihringiana.

Equality—Justice.—The idea that equality is the expression of justice, the principle of consummated political and social regulation, arose quite historically. It did not exist in primitive communities, or only very limitedly so, for full members of individual communities, and was saddled with slavery. Ditto in the democracy of antiquity. Equality of all people — Greeks, Romans and barbarians, freemen and slaves, subjects and aliens, citizens and peregrines, etc.—was not only insane but criminal to the mind of the ancients, and in Christendom its first beginnings naturally were persecuted.— In Christianity there was first the negative equality of all human beings before God as sinners, and, more narrowly construed, the equality of all children of God redeemed by the grace and the blood of Christ. Both versions are grounded in the role of Christianity as the religion of the slaves, the banished, the dispossessed, the persecuted, the oppressed. With the victory of Christianity this circumstance was relegated to the rear and prime importance attached next to the antithesis between believers and pagans, orthodox and heretics.—With the rise of the cities and thereby of the more or less developed elements of the bourgeoisie, as well as of the proletariat, the demand for equality as a condition of bourgeois existence was bound gradually to resurge, interlinked with the proletariat’s drawing of the conclusion to proceed from political to social equality. This naturally assumed a religious form, sharply expressed for the first time in the Peasant War.—The bourgeois side was first formulated by Rousseau, in trenchant terms but still on behalf of all humanity. As was the case with all demands of the bourgeoisie, so here too the proletariat cast a fateful shadow beside it and drew its own conclusions (Babeuf). This connection between bourgeois equality and the proletariat’s drawing of conclusions should be developed in greater detail.

So it took almost all of past history to elaborate the principle of equality=justice, and this success was achieved only when a bourgeoisie and a proletariat had come into existence. The principle of equality signifies, however, that there must be no privileges, hence is essentially negative, pronounces all past history wretched. Because of its lack of positive content and its offhand rejection of the entire past it is just as suitable for proclamation by a great revolution, 1789-1796, as for the later blockheads engaged in manufacturing systems. But to represent equality=justice as the highest principle and ultimate truth is absurd. Equality exists only in opposition to inequality, justice—in opposition to injustice; hence they are still saddled with the opposition to old, past history, and hence to old society itself.

This suffices to bar them from constituting eternal justice and truth. A few generations of social development under a communist regime and increased resources must bring mankind to a stage where this boasting about equality and right appears as ridiculous as boasting of privileges of nobility and birth appears today, where the opposition to the old inequality and to the old positive law and even to the new, transitional law, disappears from practical life, where anyone who pedantically insists on being given his equal and just share of the products is laughed to scorn by being given twice as much. Even Dühring will find this to be “foreseeable”, and where else will there be room then for equality and justice if not in the lumber-room of historical reminiscences? The fact that such phrases make excellent propaganda material today will not turn them into an eternal truth by a long shot.

(The content of equality must be elucidated.—Restriction to rights, etc.)

Moreover, an abstract equality theory is still an absurdity today and will remain such for a considerable length of time. It would never occur to a socialist proletarian or theoretician to recognise the abstract equality between himself and a Bushman or Tierra del Fuegan, or even a peasant or semi-feudal agricultural daylabourer; and as soon as this has been overcome, even if only in Europe, the standpoint of abstract equality will also be overcome. With the introduction of rational equality that equality loses all meaning. If equality is now demanded, this is so in anticipation of the intellectual and moral equalisation which thus under present historical conditions follows of itself. Eternal morality must have been possible at all times and must everywhere be possible. But even Dühring does not maintain this in regard to equality; on the contrary, he allows for a provisional period of repression, hence admits that equality is not an eternal truth but a historical product and attribute of definite historical conditions.

The equality of the bourgeoisie (abolition of class privileges) is very different from that of the proletariat (abolition of the classes themselves). If driven further than the latter, i.e., if conceived abstractly, equality becomes an absurdity. And so Herr Dühring is finally compelled to reintroduce, by a back-door, both armed as well as administrative, judicial and police force.

Thus the idea of equality is itself a historical product and its elaboration required the whole of preceding history; hence it did not exist from all eternity as a truth. The fact that now most people take it for granted—en principe—is not due to its being axiomatic but to the spread of the ideas of the eighteenth century. And, therefore, if the two famous men today take their stand on the principle of equality, that is to be explained by their being presented as "eddicated" people of the nineteenth century and its being "natural" with them. How real people behave and did behave depends and always did depend on the historical conditions under which they lived.

Ch. IX, pp. 86-87; Ch. X, pp. 95-99

[Dependence of Ideas on Social Relations]

The notion that the ideas and conceptions of people create their conditions of life and not the other way round is contradicted by all past history, in which results constantly differed from what had been desired and in the further course of events were in most cases even the opposite. Only in the more or less distant future can this notion become a reality in so far as men will understand in advance the necessity of changing the social system [ Verfassung] (sit venia verbo), on account of changing conditions, and will desire the change before it forces itself upon them without their being conscious of it or desiring it.—The same is true of the conceptions of law, hence of politics (AS FAR AS THAT GOES, this point is to be dealt with under "Philosophy", while "force" is reserved for political economy).

Ch. XI, pp. 105-06 (cf. also Part III, Ch. V, pp. 300-02)

Even the correct reflection of nature is extremely difficult, the product of a long history of experience. To primitive man the forces of nature were something alien, mysterious, superior. At a certain stage, through which all civilised peoples passed, he assimilates them by means of personification. It was this urge to personify that created gods everywhere, and the consensus gentium, as regards proof of the existence of God, proves after all only the universality of this urge to personify as a necessary transition stage, and consequently the universality of religion too. Only real knowledge of the forces of nature ejects the gods or God from one position after another (Secchi and his solar system). This process has now advanced so far that theoretically it may be considered concluded.

In the sphere of social phenomena reflection is still more difficult. Society is determined by economic relations, production and exchange, and besides by historical preconditions.

Ch. XII, pp. 110-12 (see also Introduction, pp. 22-24)

Antithesis—if a thing is saddled with its antithesis it is in contradiction with itself, and so is its expression in thought. For example, there is a contradiction in a thing remaining the same and yet constantly changing, being possessed of the antithesis of "inertness" and "change".

Ch. XIII

[Negation of the Negation]

All Indo-Germanic peoples began with common property. Among almost all of them it was abolished, negated, in the course of social development, extruded by other forms—private property, feudal property, etc. To negate this negation, to restore common property on a higher plane of development, is the task of the social revolution. Or: the philosophy of antiquity was originally spontaneous materialism. The latter gave rise to idealism, spiritualism, negation of materialism, first in the shape of the antithesis of soul and body, then in the doctrine of immortality and in monotheism. This spiritualism was universally disseminated through the medium of Christianity. The negation of this negation is the reproduction of the old on a higher plane, modern materialism, which, in contrast with the past, finds its theoretical conclusion in scientific socialism....

It goes without saying that these natural and historical processes have their reflection in the thinking brain and reproduce themselves in it, as is seen in the above examples: —a x —a, etc.; and it is just the paramount dialectical problems that are solved by this method alone.

But there is also a bad, barren negation.—True, natural, historical and dialectical negation (taken formally) is precisely what constitutes the driving principle of all development—the splitting into antitheses, their struggle and resolution. At the same time, on the basis of the experience gained, the original point of departure is again arrived at (in history partly, in thought wholly), but on a higher plane.—A barren negation is a purely subjective, individual one. Not being a stage of development of the thing itself, it is an opinion introduced from without. And as nothing can result from it, the negator must be at loggerheads with the world, sullenly finding fault with everything that exists or ever happened, with the whole historical development. True, the Greeks of antiquity accomplished a few things, but they knew nothing of spectral analysis, chemistry, differential calculus, steam-engines, chaussées, the electric telegraph or the railway. Why dwell at length on the products of people of such minor importance? Everything is bad—so far this sort of negator is a pessimist—save our own exalted selves, who are perfect, and thus our pessimism resolves itself into optimism. And thus we ourselves have perpetrated a negation of the negation!

Even Rousseau’s way of looking at history—original equality, deterioration through inequality, restoration of equality on a higher plane—is a negation of the negation.

Dühring constantly preaches idealism—ideal conception, etc. If we draw conclusions about the future from existing relations, if we perceive and investigate the positive side of the negative elements operative in the course of history—and even the most narrowminded progressist, the idealist Lasker, does that, in his own way—Dühring calls it “idealism” and deduces from it the right to design a plan for the future that provides even the curricula for schools, a plan that, however, is fantastic because based on ignorance. And he overlooks the fact that in doing so he, too, is committing a negation of the negation.

Ch. XIII, pp. 127-28

Negation of the Negation and Contradiction.

The "nothing" of a positive is a definite nothing, says Hegel.

"Differentials can be considered and treated as real zeros, which stand in a relation to one another that is determined by the state of the question under discussion." Bossut continues that mathematically this is not nonsense. 0/0 may represent a very definite value if obtained by the 0 simultaneous disappearance of the numerator and the denominator. Ditto 0:0=A:B, where 0/0=A/B, consequently changes with a change in the value of A or B (p. 95, examples). And is it not a "contradiction" that zeros form ratios, i.e., can have not only value in general but even various values which are expressible in figures? 1:2=1:2; 1-1:2-2=1:2; 0:0=1:2.

Dühring himself says that those summations of infinitely small magnitudes are the highest, etc., of mathematics, in plain words, integral calculus. And how is this done? I have two, three or more variable quantities, i.e., such as maintain a definite relation among themselves when changing—say, two quantities, x and y, and am to solve a definite problem which is not solvable by ordinary mathematics and in which x and y function. I differentiate x and y, i.e., I take x and y as so infinitely small that in comparison with any real quantity, however small, they disappear—that nothing is left of x and y but their reciprocal relation, without any material basis; consequently dx/dy=0/0, but 0/0 expressed in the ratio x/y. That this ratio between two quantities which have disappeared, the fixed moment of their disappearance, is a contradiction cannot disturb us. And now, what have I done but negate x and y, though not in such a way that I need not bother about them any more, but in the way that corresponds with the facts of the case? In place of x and y I have their negation, dx and dy, in the formulas or equations before me. I operate then with these formulas as usual, treating dx and dy as if they were real quantities, and at a certain point I negate the negation, i.e., I integrate the differential formula, and in place of dx and dy put the real quantities x and y, and am then not where I was at the beginning, but by using this method I have solved the problem on which ordinary geometry and algebra break their jaws in vain.

To part II

Ch. II

Wherever slavery is the main form of production it turns labour into servile activity, consequently makes it dishonourable for freemen. Thus the way out of such a mode of production is barred, while on the other hand slavery is an impediment to more developed production, which urgently requires its removal. This contradiction spells the doom of all production based on slavery and of all communities based on it. A solution comes about in most cases through the forcible subjection of the deteriorating communities by other, stronger ones (Greece by Macedonia and later Rome). As long as these themselves have slavery as their foundation there is merely a shifting of the centre and a repetition of the process on a higher plane until (Rome) finally a people conquers that replaces slavery by another form of production. Or slavery is abolished by compulsion or voluntarily, whereupon the former mode of production perishes and large-scale cultivation is displaced by small-peasant squatters, as in America. For that matter Greece too perished on account of slavery, Aristotle having already said that intercourse with slaves was demoralising the citizens, not to mention the fact that slavery makes work impossible for the latter. (Domestic slavery, such as exists in the Orient, is another matter. Here it forms the basis of production not directly but indirectly, as a constituent part of the family, and passes imperceptibly into the family (female harem slaves).)

Ch. Ill

In Diihring’s reprehensible history force holds sway. In the real, progressive historical movement, however, what dominates are the material gains which are retained.

Ch. Ill

How is force, the army, maintained? By money, hence again dependent on production. Cf. Athens’ fleet and policy of 380-340. The force exercised against the allies came to nought for lack of the material means to wage long and energetic wars. The English subsidies, granted by the new industry, modern industry, defeated Napoleon.

Ch. Ill

[The Party and Military Training]

In considering the struggle for existence and Dühring’s declamations against struggle and arms it should be emphasised that a revolutionary party must know also how to struggle. It will have to make the revolution, possibly some day in the near future, but not against the present military-bureaucratic state. Politically that would be as insane as Babeufs attempt to jump from the Directorate immediately into communism; even more insane, for the Directorate was after all a bourgeois and peasant government. But in order to safeguard the laws issued by the bourgeoisie itself the Party may be compelled to take revolutionary measures against the bourgeois state which will supersede the present state. Hence the universal conscription is in our interest and should be taken advantage of by all to learn how to fight, but particularly by those whose education entitles them to acquire the training of an officer in one year’s voluntary service.

Ch. IV

On “Force”

It is recognised that force also operates with revolutionary effect, namely, in all “critical” epochs of decisive importance, such as the transition to sociality, but even then only in self-defence against reactionary enemies abroad. However the upheaval in England in the sixteenth century depicted by Marx also had its revolutionary side. It was a basic condition of the conversion of feudal landed property into bourgeois landed property and of the development of the bourgeoisie. The French Revolution of 1789 likewise applied force to a considerable extent; August 4 merely sanctioned the peasants’ deeds of violence and was supplemented by the confiscation of the estates of the nobility and church. The forcible conquest by the ancient Germans, the foundation, on conquered territory, of states in which the country, and not the town, dominated, as in antiquity, was accompanied — precisely for the latter reason—by the transformation of slavery into the milder serfdom, or feudal dependence (in antiquity the transformation of tilled land into pastures was a concomitant feature of the latifundia).

Ch. IV

[Force, Community Property, Economics and Politics]

When the Indo-Germans migrated to Europe they ejected the aboriginal inhabitants by force and tilled the land, which was owned by the community. Among the Celts, Germans and Slavs community ownership can still be traced historically and among the Slavs, Germans and also the Celts (RUNDALE) it still exists even in the form of direct (Russia) or indirect (Ireland) feudal bondage. Force ceased as soon as the Lapps and Basques had been driven off. In internal affairs equality or voluntarily conceded privilege prevailed. Where private ownership of land by individual peasants arose out of common ownership, this division up to the sixteenth century took place purely spontaneously among the members of the community. It occurred in most cases quite gradually and remnants of common possession could be encountered very frequently. There was no idea of using force; it was applied only against these remnants (England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Germany mainly in the nineteenth century). Ireland is a special case. This common ownership quietly persisted in India and Russia under the most diverse forcible conquests and despotisms, and formed their basis. Russia is proof of how the production relations determine the political relations of force. Up to the end of the seventeenth century the Russian peasant suffered little oppression, enjoyed the right of movement and was hardly a bondsman. The first Romanov attached the peasants to the soil. With Peter began the foreign trade of Russia, which had only agricultural products to export. This brought on the oppression of the peasants. It grew in the same measure as exports, for the sake of which it had been introduced, until Catherine made the oppression complete and completed legislation on the subject. This legislation, however, permitted the landed proprietors to grind down the peasants more and more, so that their yoke became ever harder to bear.

Ch. IV

If force is the cause of social and political conditions, what is the cause of force? The appropriation of products of the labour of others and of labour-power of others. Force was able to change the consumption of products but not the mode of production itself; it could not transform bond labour into wage-labour unless the requisite conditions existed and bond labour had become a fetter on production.

Ch. IV

Hitherto force—from now on sociality. Purely a pious wish, a demand of “justice”. Thomas More set up this demand already 350 years ago, but it has not yet been met. Why should it be fulfilled now? Diihring is at a loss for an answer. In reality, modern industry sets up this demand not as a demand of justice but as a necessity of production, and that changes everything.

T O PAR T III

Ch. I

Fourier (Nouveau Monde industriel et sociétaire).

Element of inequality: “man, being by instinct an enemy of equality”, [p.] 59.

“This swindling mechanism, which is called civilisation”, [p.] 81.

“One should avoid relegating them” (women), “as we are wont to do, to thankless tasks, to the menial roles assigned to them by the philosophy which claims that women were made only to wash pots and patch old trousers”, [p.] 141.

“God has endowed manufacturing labour with a doze of attractiveness which corresponds to only one quarter of the time which social man can give to work.” The rest is to be devoted to agriculture, cattle raising, the kitchen, the industrial armies, [p.] 152.

“Tender morality, the kind and pure friend of trade”, [p.] 161. “Critique of Morality”, [p.] 162 et seqq.

In present-day society, “in the civilised mechanism”, “duplicity of action, contradiction between individual and collective interests” dominate; it is “a universal war of the individuals against the masses. And our political sciences dare to speak of unity of action!” [p.] 172.

“The moderns failed everywhere in the study of nature because they did not know the theory of exceptions or transitions, the theory of hybrids.” (Examples of “hybrids”: “the quince, nectarine, eel, bat, etc.”) [p.] 191.

PART TWO

[The second part of the MS of the preparatory writings for Anti-Dühring consists of excerpts from Dühring’s Cursus der National- und Socialökonomie. We give here only some of Engels’ marginal notes and briefly explain to which of Dühring’s statements they refer.]

[On Dühring’s assertion “that the volitional activity by means of which the various forms of human association are created is itself subject to natural laws” [1], Engels remarked:]

And so, no mention of historical development. Mere eternal law of nature. Everything is psychology and the latter unfortunately is much more “backward” than politics.

[In connection with Dühring’s disquisition on slavery, wage bondage and property based on force as “social-economic constitutional forms of a purely political nature” [5], Engels wrote:]

Always the belief that political economy has only eternal laws of nature and that all change and distortion are brought about by wicked politics.

Hence this much is correct in the whole theory of force that hitherto all forms of society needed force to maintain themselves and to some extent or other were even established by force. This force, in its organised form, is called state. So we have here the banal idea that as soon as man rose above the wildest conditions states existed everywhere and the world did not wait for Dühring to learn this.—But state and force are precisely what all hitherto existing forms of society have had in common, and if I should try to explain, for instance, the Oriental despotisms, the republics of antiquity, the Macedonian monarchies, the Roman Empire and the feudalism of the Middle Ages by stating that they were all based on force, I have explained nothing as yet. The various social and political forms must therefore be explained not as due to force, which after all is always the same, but as due to that to which the force is applied, as due to that which is being robbed — the products and productive forces of the epoch in question and their distribution, resulting from them themselves. It would then appear that Oriental despotism was founded on common property, the antique republics on the cities engaged in agriculture, the Roman Empire on the latifundia, feudalism on the domination of the country over the town, which had its material causes, etc.

[Engels quoted the following from Dühring: “The natural laws of economy can be revealed in all their strictness only by mentally obliterating the effects of the state and social institutions” (!) “particularly those of property based on force and connected with wage bondage, and by being careful not to regard the latter as necessary consequences of man’s abiding nature (!)...” [5]. Engels made the following comment on this descourse of Dühring’s:]

So then the natural laws of economy are discovered only when one abstracts one’s mind from all hitherto existing economy; until now they have never manifested themselves undistortedly! — Abiding nature of man—from ape to Goethe!

Dühring is supposed to explain by this theory of “force” how it happens that everywhere from time immemorial the majority has consisted of those subjected to force and the minority of those applying force. This alone is proof that the relation of force is based on the economic conditions, which it is not so simple to upset by political means.

In Dühring rent, profit, interest and wages are not explained; it is merely stated that they have been instituted by force. Whence force? Non est.

Force gives rise to possession and possession to economic power. Hence force=power.

Marx has shown in Capital (Accumulation) how at a certain stage of development the laws of commodity production necessarily engender capitalist production with all its chicanery and that no force whatever is needed for that purpose.

When Dühring considers political action to be the ultimate decisive power of history and would have you believe it was something new, he merely repeats what was said by all former historians who also held the view that social forms are determined solely by political forms and not by production.

C’est trop bon! The whole Free Trade school, beginning with Adam Smith, indeed, all pre-Marxian political economy regards the economic laws, in so far as it understands them, as “natural laws” and maintains that their action is being distorted by the state, by the “action of the state and social institutions”!

Anyhow, this entire theory is merely an attempt to let Carey substantiate socialism: economics by itself is harmonious, the state by its interference spoils everything.

Eternal justice is a complement of force; it will appear on p. 282.

[Diihring’s views, developed in his criticism of Smith, Ricardo and Carey, were characterised as follows by Engels: “In its most abstract form production may be studied quite well by taking Robinson as an example; distribution, by taking two people alone on an island and imagining all stages intermediate between complete equality and complete opposition between master and slave...” Engels quotes the following sentence from Dühring: “The point of view which in the last analysis is really decisive for the theory of distribution can be arrived at only by serious social”(I) “meditation” [10]. To which Engels remarked:]

So one first abstracts from real history the various legal relations and separates them from the historical basis on which they arose and on which alone they make sense and transfers them to two individuals, Robinson and Friday, where they naturally appear wholly arbitrary. After they have thus been reduced to pure force they are transferred back to real history, and thus one proves that here too everything is based on sheer force. That force must be applied to a material substratum and that the point is precisely to establish where this came from, leaves Dühring unaffected.

[Engels quoted the following passage from Dühring’s Cursus der National- und Socialökonomie: “The traditional view shared by all systems of political economy considers distribution only what may be called a transient process which is concerned with a mass of products created by production and considered as finished joint output; ... a deeper foundation must rather scrutinise a distribution which is concerned with the economic or economically operating laws themselves and not only with the transient and accumulative consequences of these laws” [10-11]. Engels commented on this as follows:]

Thus it is not enough to investigate the distribution of current production.

Land rent presupposes landed property, profit—capital, wages—propertyless workers, possessors of labour-power only. Inquiry should therefore be made where this comes from. In so far as this was his concern, Marx did this in Volume I with regard to capital and propertyless labour-power; investigation of the origin of modern landed property belongs to land rent, and is therefore part of his Volume II.—Dühring’s investigation and historical foundation is confined to the single word: force I Here there is direct mala fides.

For Dühring’s explanation of big landed property see Wealth and Value; these had better be dealt with here.

And so it is force that creates the economic, political, etc., conditions of life of an epoch, a people, etc. But who creates force? Organised force is primarily the army. And nothing depends more on economic conditions than precisely the composition, organisation, armament, strategy and tactics of an army. Armament is the foundation, and it in turn is directly dependent on the level of production. Arms of stone, bronze and iron, armour, cavalry, gunpowder, and then that tremendous revolution which modern industry had brought about in warfare by means of the rifled breech-loader and artillery—products which only modern industry with its rhythmically working machines that turn out almost absolutely identical products could manufacture. Composition and organisation, strategy and tactics, in their turn, depend on armament. Tactics also on the means of communication—the disposition of the troops and successes achieved in the battle of Jena would be impossible with the present chaussées—and lastly the railways! Hence it is precisely force that is dominated more than anything else by the existing conditions of production, something even Captain Jahns has realised. (Kölnische Zeitung— Machiavelli, etc.)

Particular stress is to be laid on modern methods of warfare, from the rifle and bayonet to breech-loader, where the issue is decided not by the man with the sabre but by the weapon; the line, or the column when the troops are bad, but it must be covered by riflemen (Jena contra Wellington), and finally the general dispersion into skirmishers and the change from the slow march to the double.

[According to Diihring, “a skilled hand and a clever head must be regarded as a means of production belonging to society, as a machine whose output belongs to society” [D. C. 260]. To which Engels remarked:]

But while a machine does not add value, a skilled hand doesl The economic law of value, quant à cela, is therefore being prohibited and yet it is to remain in force.

[On Dühring’s conception of the “politico-juridical foundation of the whole of sociality” [D. C. 320-21] Engels had the following comment to make:] Thus at once the idealist measuring stick is applied. Not production itself, but law.

[Concerning Dühring’s “economic commune” [322] and the system of division of labour, distribution, exchange and money system obtaining in it, Engels remarked:]

Hence also payment of wages [324] to the individual worker by society.

Hence also hoarding, usury, credit and all consequences up to and including money crises and money scarcity. Money explodes the economic commune as inevitably as at the present moment it is about to explode the Russian commune, and the family commune as well, once exchange between the individual members is brought about by the agency of money.

[Engels quoted the following sentence from Dühring, giving his comment in parentheses: “Real work in any form therefore constitutes the social law of nature governing healthy organisations [15] (from which it follows that all prior ones were unhealthy)... This occasioned Engels to observe:]

Labour is here conceived either as economic, materially productive labour, in which case the sentence is nonsense and is at variance with all past history. Or labour is conceived in a more general form, so as to comprise every kind of activity necessary or useful in a period, such as governance, administration of justice and military exercises, in which case it is an enormously inflated platitude and has nothing to do with political economy. But to try to impress the socialists with this old trash by styling it “natural law “ iS A TRIFLE IMPUDENT.

[On Dühring’s discussion of the connection between wealth and loot [see D. C. 17] Engels remarked:]

Here we have his whole method. Every economic relation is first conceived from the point of view of production apart from all historical determination. Hence only the most general of all generalities can be said, and if Dühring wants to go beyond that he must take into account the definite historical relations of the epoch in question, i.e., must tumble out of abstract production and create chaos. Then the same economic relation is conceived from the angle of distribution, i.e., the historical process that has gone on hitherto is reduced to the word force, after which indignation is voiced at the evil consequences of force. When we get to natural laws we shall see where this will bring us to.

[On Dühring’s assertion that it takes slavery or feudal dependence to manage a large-scale enterprise [see D. C. 18] Engels commented as follows:]

Therefore, firstly, the history of the world begins with large landed property! The cultivation of large tracts of land is identical with cultivation by large landed proprietors! Italy’s soil, which was turned into pasturage by the latifundists, had lain untilled before! The United States of America owes its vast expansion not to free farmers but to slaves, serfs, etc.!

Again a mauvais calembour: “Cultivation in tracts of considerable size” is to be equivalent to clearing them, but is immediately interpreted as cultivation on a large scale, is made equal to large landed property! And in this sense what an enormous new discovery that if some one possesses more land than he and his family can till he cannot farm it all without the labour of others! Moreover, cultivation by serfs is not cultivation of considerable tracts, but of small holdings and the cultivation always antedates the serfdom (Russia, the Flemish, Dutch, and Frisian colonies in the Slavic mark, see Langethal), the originally free peasants are made serfs, here and there voluntarily on the face of it.

[Dühring’s statement that the magnitude of value is determined by the magnitude of the resistance which the process of satisfying wants encounters and which “necessitates a greater or lesser expenditure of economic energy” (!) [19-20], evoked this comment by Engels:]

Overcoming resistance — a category borrowed from mathematical mechanics and rendered absurd in political economy. Instead of: “I successively spin, weave, bleach and print cotton”, one must now say: “I overcome the resistance of the cotton to being spun, of the yarn to being woven, of the cloth to being bleached and printed.” “I am making a steam-engine” means “I am overcoming the resistance of the iron to being transformed into a steam-engine.” I am expressing the matter in high-sounding circumlocutions, which add nothing but distortion. But in this way I can bring in the distribution value where, too, there is supposed to be resistance that has to be overcome. That’s why!

[Dühring claims that “distribution value exists in pure and exclusive form only where the power to dispose of unproduced things, or” (!), “to use a commoner expression, where these” (unproduced!) “things themselves are exchanged for services or things of real production value” [27], to which Engels remarked:]

What is an unproduced thing? Land cultivated the modern way? or are things meant which the owner did not produce himself? But then there is the antithesis of “real production value”. The following sentence shows that we have here again a mauvais calembour. Objects found in nature, which were not produced, are thrown on one pile with “component parts of value which are appropriated without counter-service” [27].

[Dühring’s claim that all human institutions are strictly determined but that, “unlike the play of external forces in nature”, they are not at all “practically unalterable in their main features” [60] was criticised by Engels as follows:]

Consequently it is and remains natural law.

That hitherto the laws of economy in all unplanned and unorganised production confront men as objective laws, against which they are powerless, hence in the form of natural laws—of that not a word.

[Dühring formulated the “basic law [66] of all political economy” as follows: “The productivity of economic means—natural resources and human energy—is enhanced by inventions and discoveries and this takes place quite irrespective of distribution, which as such may nevertheless be subject to or cause considerable change, but does not determine the imprint” (!) “of the principal result” [65]. Engels’ comment:]

The concluding part of the sentence: “and this takes place”, etc., adds nothing new to the law, for if the law is true, distribution can change nothing in it and it is superfluous to say that it is correct for every form of distribution, otherwise it would not be a natural law. It is added, however, simply because Dühring was too ashamed to dish up this inane and utterly meaningless law in all its platitude. Besides it is self-contradictory, because, if distribution may, nevertheless, cause considerable change, one cannot say “quite irrespective” of it. We therefore delete the concluding part and then obtain the law pure and simple—the fundamental law of all political economy.

But this is not shallow enough. We are further instructed:

[Engels quotes further extracts from Dühring’s Cursus der National- und Socialökonomie.]

[Dühring asserts that economic progress does not depend on the total of means of production “but only on knowledge and the general technical methods of procedure” and this, in Dühring’s opinion, “appears at once, if capital is understood in its natural meaning, as an instrument of production” [70]. On this Engels remarked:]

The steam ploughs of the Khedive lying in the Nile and the threshing machines, etc., of the Russian nobility standing idle in their sheds are proof of this. Steam, etc., too has its historical preconditions which, while comparatively easy to establish, must nevertheless be established. But Dühring is quite proud of having thereby deteriorated that thesis, the sense of which is wholly different, to such an extent that this “idea coincides with our law of overriding importance”, p. 71. The economists still thought this law contained something substantial. Dühring has reduced it to the merest commonplace.

[Dühring’s formulation of the natural law of the division of labour states: “The cleaving of trades and the dissection of activities raises the productivity of labour” [73]. On this Engels observed:]

This formulation is wrong, as it is right only for bourgeois production and the division into specialities here too is already becoming restrictive of production because it cripples and ossifies the individual and in the future will cease altogether. We can see already here that this division into specialities in the manner of today is to Dühring’s mind something permanent, valid also for the sociality.