Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring". Engels Friedrich
the contradiction concealed in the system which apparently triumphs, and in the triumph of the system he sees also the triumph of the contradiction. He waits until that shadowy proletariat which haunts the system takes on itself flesh and blood and shakes the system with which it has grown up. But this waiting for the development of the inevitable is weary work to those who want to realise forthwith, so they, unable to confound the logic of Engels, attack the "abstractions" on which his theory is founded. They still oppose their "eternal truths" to the dialectic.
Thus in England, where the strife between the two parties in the socialist movement has lately been waged with a somewhat amusing ferocity, Engels is charged with a wholesale borrowing from Hegel. In any other country than England this would not be laid up against a writer, but the Englishman is so averse to philosophy that the association of one's name with that of a philosopher, and a German philosopher in particular, is tantamount to an accusation of keeping bad company. But a glance at the following pages should tend to dispose of so romantic a statement which could, in fact, only have been made by those who know neither Hegel nor Engels.
That Hegel furnished the original philosophic impetus to both Marx and Engels is true beyond question, but the impetus once given, the course of the founders of modern socialism tended ever further from the opinions of the idealistic philosopher. In fact Engels says somewhat self consciously, not to say boasts, that he and his followers were pioneers in applying the dialectic to materialism. Whatever accusation may be made against Engels, this much is certain that he was no Hegelian. In fact both in the present work and in "Feuerbach" he is at great pains to show the relation of the socialist philosophy as conceived by himself and Marx to that of the great man for whom he always kept a somewhat exaggerated respect, but from whom he differed fundamentally. Engels' attack upon the philosophy of Duehring is based upon dislike of its idealism, the fundamental thesis upon which the work depends being entirely speculative. Duehring insisted that his philosophy was a realist philosophy and Engels' serious arguments, apart from the elaborate ridicule with which he covers his opponent and which is by no means a recommendation to the book, is directed to show that it is not realist, that it depends upon certain preconceived notions. Of these notions some are axiomatic, as Duehring claims, that is they are propositions which are self evident to Herr Duehring but which will not stand investigation. Others again are untrue and are preconceptions so far as they are out of harmony with established facts.
Much of Engels' work is out of date judged by recent biological and other discoveries, but the essential argument respecting the interdependence of all departments of knowledge, and the impossibility of making rigid classifications holds good to-day in a wider sense than when Engels wrote. Scientific truths which have been considered absolute, theories which have produced approximately correct results, have all been discredited. The dogmas of science against which the dogmatic ecclesiastics have directed their scornful contempt have shared the same fate as the ecclesiastical dogmas. Nothing remains certain save the certainty of change. There are no ultimates. Even the atom is suspect and the claims of the elements to be elementary are rejected wholesale with something as closely resembling scorn as the scientist is ever able to attain. A scientific writer has recently said "What is undeniable is that the Daltonian atom has within a century of its acceptance as a fundamental reality suffered disruption. Its proper place in nature is not that formerly assigned to it. No longer 'in seipso totus, teres, atque rotundus' its reputation for inviolability and indestructibility is gone for ever. Each of these supposed 'ultimates' is now known to be the scene of indescribable activities, a complex piece of mechanism composed of thousands of parts, a star-cluster in miniature, subject to all kinds of dynamical vicissitudes, to perturbations, accelerations, internal friction, total or partial disruption. And to each is appointed a fixed term of existence. Sooner or later the balance of equilibrium is tilted, disturbance eventuates in overthrow; the tiny exquisite system finally breaks up. Of atoms, as of men, it may be said with truth 'Quisque suos patitur manes.'"
The discovery of radium was in itself sufficient to revolutionise the heretofore existing scientific theories and the revolution thereby effected has been enough to cause Sir William Crookes to say, "There has been a vivid new start, our physicists have remodelled their views as to the constitution of matter." In his address to the physicists at Berlin the same scientist said, "This fatal quality of atomic dissociation appears to be universal, and operates whenever we brush a piece of glass with silk; it works in the sunshine and raindrops in lightnings and flame; it prevails in the waterfall and the stormy sea" and a writer in the Edinburgh Review (December, 1903) remarks in this connection "Matter he (Sir William Crookes) consequently regards as doomed to destruction. Sooner or later it will have dissolved into the 'formless mist' of protyle and 'the hour hand of eternity will have completed one revolution.' The 'dissipation of energy' has then found its correlative in the 'dissolution of Matter.'"
The scope of this revolution may only be gauged by the fact that one writer ("The Alchemy of the Sea," London "Outlook," Feb. 11, 1905) has ventured to say, and this is but one voice in a general chorus: "To-day no one believes in the existence of elements; no one questions the possibility of a new alchemy; and the actual evolution of one element from another has been observed in the laboratory – observed by Sir William Ramsey in London, and confirmed by a chemist in St. Petersburg." Helium being an evolution of radium and it is expected furthermore that radium will prove to be an evolution of uranium and so there is a constant process as the writer points out of what was formerly called alchemy the transmutation of one metal into another.
It is clear that in face of these facts the arguments of Engels possess even greater force at the present day than when they were enunciated and that the old hard and fast method of arguing from absolute truths is dead and done for.
Only statesmen see fit to still harp on the same phrases which have become as it were a part of the popular mental structure and by constant appeals to the old watchwords to obscure the fact of change. Were one not acquainted with the essential stupidity of the political mind and the lack of grasp which is the characteristic of statesmen, it might be imagined that all this was done with malice aforethought and that there was a sort of tacit conspiracy on the part of the politicians to delude the people. But experience of the inexcusable blunders and the inexplicable errors into which statesmen are continually driven forces the conclusion that they are in reality no whit in advance of the electorate and that only now and then a Beaconsfield appears who can understand the drift of events. Such a man is the "revolutionist" which Beaconsfield claimed himself to be. But what shall we say of the President of the country that has attained the highest place in industrial progress among the nations, whose whole history is a verification of the truth of the dialectic and who can still appeal to "individualism" as a guiding principle of political action? It is a wanton flying in the face of the experience of the last quarter of a century and such rashness will require its penalty. "Back to Kant" appears to be the hope of reactionary politicians as well as of reactionary philosophers.
CHAPTER II
PREFACES
The following work is by no means the fruit of some "inward compulsion," quite the contrary.
When three years ago, Herr Duehring suddenly challenged the world, as a scholar and reformer of socialism, friends in Germany frequently expressed the wish that I should throw a critical light upon these new socialist doctrines, in the central organ of the Social Democratic Party, at that time the "Volkstaat." They held it as very necessary that new opportunity for division and confusion should not be afforded in a party so young and so recently definitely united. They were in a better condition than myself to comprehend the condition of affairs in Germany, so that I was compelled to trust to their judgment. It appeared furthermore that the proselyte was welcomed by a certain portion of the socialist press, with a warmth, which meant nothing more than kindliness to Herr Duehring, but it was seen by a portion of the party press that a result of this kindly feeling towards Herr Duehring was the introduction unperceived of the Duehring doctrine. People were found who were soon ready to spread his doctrine in a popular form among the workingmen, and finally Herr Duehring and his little sect employed all the arts of advertisement and intrigue to compel the "Volksblatt" to change its attitude respecting the new teachings which put forth such tremendous claims.
However, a year elapsed before I could make up my mind to engage in so disagreeable a business to the neglect of my other labors.