Conspectus of the Book
The Holy Family by Marx and Engels

Conspectus of the book “The Holy Family” by Marx and Engels was written by Lenin in 1895 during his first
stay abroad when he left Russia to establish contact with the Emancipation
of Labour group.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s
sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were
located in the original manuscript.

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. | i.e., 26 pages out of 335. |
| --- | --- |
| i.e., 26 pages out of 335. |

The first chapters are entirely criticism of the style ( thewhole ( ! ) 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
Gründlichkeit [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 Jahrbücher [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
überhoben 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 maréchal 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” (ätherisch) 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 ï 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 Eugène Sue [20] : owing to his hypocrisy towards the bourgeoisie, he ideal- ises the grisette morally, evading her attitude to mar- riage, her “naïve” liaison with un étudiant [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 (verselbständigten) 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 à 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 Jahrbücher . |
| “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 Jahrbücher . (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 Jahrbücher . 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- bücher 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
Jahrbücher 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
qualification 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 AGAINSTTHE 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 mündet 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, Helvétius 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 naïve 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 (begründet) 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- stätten [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 Helvétius, while Owen takes
Bentham’s system as his starting- point for founding English communism. Cabet brought com- munist ideas from England into France
(populärste wenn auch flachste [54] representative of communism) 208.
The “more scientific” are Dézamy , 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 è 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 Ⅹ — against Eugène Sue’s defence of the prison cell system
(Cellularsystem). “The mystery of this” (305)
(there was a quotation from Anekdota [58] 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 Eugène 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 Eugène 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] | Has  not  Marx  in  mind  here  the English  Tory  philanthropists  who passed  the  Ten  Hours’  Bill? [66] |
| --- | --- |
| Has  not  Marx  in  mind  here  the English  Tory  philanthropists  who passed  the  Ten  Hours’  Bill? [66] |

---
Notes:
[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.

“The Holy Family” is a mocking reference to the Bauer brothers and their followers
grouped around the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung ( General Literary Gazette ). While
attacking the Bauers and the other Young Hegelians (or Left Hegelians), Marx and Engels at the same
time criticised the idealist philosophy of
Hegel.

Marx sharply disagreed with the Young Hegelians as early as the summer of 1842, when the club of
“The Free” was formed in Berlin. Upon becoming editor of the Rheinische Zeitung ( Rhine Gazette ) in October 1842, Marx
opposed the efforts of several Young Hegelian staff members from Berlin to publish inane and pretentious
articles emanating from the club of “The
Free,” which had lost touch with reality and was absorbed in abstract philosophical
disputes. During the two years following Marx’s break with “The Free,” the theoretical and
political differences between Marx and Engels on the one hand and the Young Hegelians on the other became
deep-rooted and irreconcilable. This was not only due to the fact that Marx and Engels had gone over
from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democratism to communism, but also due to the
evolution undergone by the Bauer brothers and persons of like mind during this time. In the
Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Bauer and his group denounced “1842 radicalism” and its
most outstanding proponent—the Rheinische Zeitung . They slithered into vulgar subjective
idealism of the vilest kind—propagation of a “theory” according to which only select
individuals, bearers of the “spirit,” of “pure criticism,” are the makers of
history, while the masses, the people, serve as inert material or ballast in the historical
process.

Marx and Engels decided to devote their first joint work to the exposure of these pernicious,
reactionary ideas and to the defence of their new materialist and communist outlook.

During a ten-day stay of Engels in Paris the plan of the book (at first entitled Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and Co.) was drafted, responsibility for the various
chapters apportioned between the authors, and the “Preface” written. Engels wrote his
chapters while still in Paris. Marx, who was responsible for a larger part of the book, continued
to work on it until the end of November
1844. Moreover, he considerably increased the
initially conceived size of the book by incorporating in his chapters parts of his economic
and philosophical manuscripts on which he had worked during the spring and summer of 1844, his historical
studies of the bourgeois French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, and a number of his
excerpts and conspectuses. While the book was in the process of being printed, Marx added the words
The Holy Family to the title. By using a small format, the book exceeded 20 printer’s sheets
and was thus exempted from preliminary censorship according to the prevailing regulations in a number
of German states.

[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 Jahrbücher ( Franco-German Annals )—see Marx,
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 . Moscow, 1959, pp. 175-209.

[12] Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ( 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 propriété 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 Eugène Sue’s
novel Les mystères 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
Révolutions de Paris ( Parisian Revolutions ), which appeared in Paris from July
1789 to February 1794. Until September 1790 it was edited by Elisée Loustallot, a revolutionary
publicist.

[29] The great only seem great to us Because we are on our knees. Let us rise!—Ed.

[30] Phänomenologie 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 Jahrbücher .

[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.

Nominalism recognised objects as primary and concepts as secondary. Thus, as Marx says in The Holy Family , nominalism represents the first expression of
materialism in the Middle Ages (see Marx and Engels, The Holy Family, Moscow, 1956, p. 172).

[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
Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft ( Principles of the Philosophy of the Future ) , 1843, which constitutes a continuation of the latter’s
aphorisms Vorläufige 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 Eugène Sue’s novel Mysteries of Paris .

[58] 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.

[59] the law of the talion—an eye for an eye—Ed.

[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. ”

This group was formed in the early 1840s and belonged to the Tory Party. It voiced the dissatisfaction of
the landed aristocracy with the increased economic and political might of the bourgeoisie, and resorted to demagogic
methods to bring the working class under its influence and
use it in its fight against the bourgeoisie.

“In order to arouse sympathy,”
Marx and Engels wrote in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, “the aristocracy were obliged to lose sight,
apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their
indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the
exploited working class alone.”

Ten Hours’ Bill —a law on the l0-hour working day for women and juveniles, adopted by the
English Parliament in 1847.

Ⅹ
“According to Hegel, the criminal in his punishment passes sentence on
himself. Gans developed this theory at greater length. In Hegel this is the
speculative disguise of the old jus talionis [59] that Kant
expounded as the only juridical penal theory. For Hegel, self-judgment of the criminal
remains a mere ‘ Idea ,’ a mere speculative interpretation of the current empirical penal code . He thus leaves the mode of
application to the respective stages of development of the
state, i.e., he leaves punishment just as it is. Precisely in that does he show himself
more critical than this Critical echoer. A penal theory that at the same time sees
in the criminal the man can do so only in abstraction ,
in imagination, precisely because punishment , coercion ,
is contrary to human conduct. Besides, the practical realisation of such a theory would
be impossible. Pure subjective arbitrariness would replace abstract law because in each case
it would depend on official ‘honest and decent’ men to adapt the penalty to the individuality of the
criminal. Plato long ago had the insight to see that the law must be one-sided and
must make abstraction of the individual.
On the other hand, under human conditions punishment will really be
nothing but the sentence passed by the culprit on himself. There will be no attempt to persuade
him that violence from without , exerted on him by others, is violence exerted on himself by
himself. On the contrary, he will see in other men his natural saviours from the
sentence which he has pronounced on himself; in other words, the relation will be exactly
reversed.” (285-286)