"MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
STUTTGART, 1903

SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM
("VOLKSSTAAT" 1873)
[2-8] Modern socialism is scientific. Just as the natural sciences do not invent their theses out of thin air but take them from sensory observation of material reality, so too the socialist and communist teachings of today are not projects but only recognitions of actually existing facts...
The society to which we aspire differs from the one that actually exists only in form. This means that the world of the future, just as materially, already exists in the present world, like a chick already materially exists in an egg. The contemporary communist socialism is not so much a political party, although it has already grown to this extent, as it is a scientific school...
Just as the clumsy rifles of the ancients were a necessary step toward the current perfected rifles of various systems, so too the metaphysical speculations of Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel are merely conditions or inevitable paths to the finally achieved physical knowledge that the idea, concept, logic, or thinking is not a supposition, not a premise, but first and foremost the result of a material phenomenon...
For religion, the idea is the first cause - that which creates and orders matter. Philosophy, as the daughter of theology, naturally inherited much of its mother's blood. Only its historical development over generations could yield an anti-religious, scientifically irrefutable, and true cognition that the world is not an attribute of the spirit, but on the contrary, that the spirit, thought, and idea are one of the many attributes of this material world. Hegel brought science, if not to the very peak, then at least to such a height that two of his students, Feuerbach and Marx, climbed up to it...
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Marx, the founder of scientific socialism, achieves the most magnificent results by applying the logical law of nature - the recognition of the absolute applicability of induction - to sciences that have hitherto been treated only speculatively...
Wherever concrete phenomena, so to speak, tangible things, are concerned, this method of materialism has long since triumphed...
If we retreat into the solitude of a cell to seek, through deep contemplation, so to speak, in the depths of our brain, the true path along which we think we will proceed tomorrow, we must bear in mind that such an exertion of thought can only be successful because we have already, perhaps even unconsciously, transferred our experience and our experiences from the world into the cell with the help of memory.
This, in fact, is the whole peculiarity of philosophical speculation, or deduction: it presupposes the possibility of knowledge without a material basis from the depths of the brain, whereas in reality it is only unconscious induction - thinking and proving on a material, but indefinite, and therefore confused, basis.
On the other hand, the inductive method differs only in that it deduces consciously.
The laws of natural science are deductions that the human brain draws from empirical material. The spiritualist needs material, and the materialist needs spirit...
"As we," says Friedrich Engels, "depict reality as it is. Proudhon demands that contemporary society transform itself not according to the laws of its own economic development, but according to the prescriptions of justice." 204. Here, Proudhon appears as a typical representative of general unscientific pedantry.
Modern socialism stands infinitely higher, already due to its philosophical origin. Theoretically, this school is united, firm, and cohesive, standing against the boundless disunity of its political opponents, who range in infinite shades from left to right. What religious faith has in dogma - a firm, given foundation - inductive science has in material facts, while the political creed of liberalism is as capricious as ideal concepts, as the ideas of eternal "justice" or "freedom," on which it allegedly rests...
By recognizing material interests as dominant in the world, we do not thereby deny the interests of feeling, NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
spirit, art, science, and other ideals. The issue is not about the already overcome opposition between idealists and materialists, but about its higher unity...
Here, Christianity attempts to object, assuring that under the most varied conditions of production, it has preached its unchanging truth. If it thus wants to prove the independence of the spirit from matter, of philosophy from economics, it completely forgets how often it has changed its cloak...
[10-11] Of course, an individual can rise above their class consciousness and give due to the general interest. Sieyès and Mirabeau, although they belonged to the first estate, still defended the interests of the third estate. But these exceptions only confirm the inductive rule that, both in natural science and in politics, the material is the precondition of the spiritual.
To make Hegel's system the starting point of the materialist method might, of course, seem contradictory, for, as is well known, "the idea" occupies a more prominent place in it than in any other speculative system. But Hegel's idea wants and must realize itself - it is, therefore, a masked materialist. Conversely, reality appears there under the guise of the idea or the logical concept...
The inductive method derives an ideal conclusion from a material fact. Its kinship with the socialist view, which places the ideal conception in dependence on physical need, and political partisanship on material relations of production, is simply astonishing. This scientific path corresponds to the needs of the masses, for whom the primary concern is material existence, while the ruling class insists on the deductive principle, on the anti-scientific prejudice that spiritual development, education, and enlightenment must precede the material resolution of the social question.

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THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

SIX SERMONS
("VOLKSSTAAT" 1870-1875)
[12-17] Dear fellow citizens! The principles of social democracy contain the material for a new religion, which, unlike the old religions, wishes to be comprehended and understood not only by feeling and heart, but also by the mind...
"God," that is, Goodness, Beauty, Holiness, will become human, descend from heaven to earth, but not as in the old days, with the help of miracles, but by a natural, earthly path...
Until now, religion has been the affair of the proletariat. Now, on the contrary, the affair of the proletariat is beginning to become religious, that is, such that it captures believers with all their heart, soul, feelings, and thoughts...
Our opponents - the scribes and Pharisees of the Old Testament - come and go along with the dogmas of their faith; they are incapable of real liberation, they are irrevocably condemned. He, however, who stands on the ground of science, subordinates his judgment to facts; he is a disciple of the new gospel. The contradiction between faith and knowledge, between the Old and New Testaments, existed not only since the time of social democracy...
"Even in chains, man is born free." No! Man is born in chains, but he must conquer his freedom. The heaviest chains, the strongest yoke, were placed upon him by nature. From the very beginning, man has struggled against her adversities. He must wrest clothing and food from her. With the whip of needs, nature stands behind him, and by her favor and disfavor, all his greatness is created and destroyed. And only because religion promised liberation from this slavery could it gain such influence...
Religion has been cultivated and sanctified for so long that even those who have long since abandoned belief in some personified god, some supreme guardian of the human race, still do not wish to remain without religion. In order to

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" please these conservatives, let us retain the old name for the new essence. This is not only a concession we make to prejudice to more easily overcome it, but a name justified by the very essence. Religions differ from one another no more and no less than all of them together differ from antireligious democracy. All of them share one common aspiration - to liberate suffering humanity from its earthly sorrows, to lead it to an understanding of goodness, beauty, right, and divinity. Yes, social democracy is a true religion, a single bliss-giving church, insofar as it strives for the common good not by fantastical means, not by prayers, wishes, and sighs, but by a real, active, actual, and true path, the path of social organization of physical and intellectual labor...
It is about the liberation of the human race in the most genuine sense of the word. If there is anything sacred, then here before us is the holiest of holies. This is not a fetish, not an ark of the covenant, not a sanctuary, and not a monster, but a real, tangible good for all civilized humanity.
This good, or this sanctity, was not invented, did not come through revelation, but grew out of the accumulated labor of history. Just as from the dirt of the workshop, from the expended material and the sweat of the worker, a new product emerges, shining and gleaming with splendor, so from the darkness of barbarism, from the enslavement of the people, from ignorance, superstition, and poverty, from flesh and blood, shining and glowing with the light of knowledge and science, the wealth of the present has grown. This wealth forms the solid foundation for social democratic hope. Our hope for deliverance is built not on a mystical ideal, but on a solid material basis...
What gives the people the right not only to believe in liberation from millennia of suffering, but to see it, to actively strive for it - this is the phenomenal productive force, the amazing productive capacity of their labor...
[19] It is true that man is still dependent on nature. Not all obstacles have yet been overcome. Culture still has much work to do; one might even say that its tasks are boundless. But to a certain extent, we are already masters of the situation: we know the weapons with which we can win, we know the method of turning wild beasts into useful domestic animals. We have moved from prayer and long-suffering to thinking and creating...
[21-22] Of course, new factories are still being opened, and existing ones are running at full capacity, of course, railways are still being built, land is being cultivated, steamship lines, canals, and new markets are being opened. Truth still hides under the guise of its opposite. The wolf dresses in sheep's skin. But he who has eyes to see, notices the general tendency, despite individual contradictions, sees overproduction, sees interruptions in industrial work, despite still smoking chimneys. What does not proceed at the pace it should by its nature, that limps. And who could deny that there is a need and the power to double, triple, or even decuple production? Let agriculture improve here and there, let some little machine be perfected, but in general and as a whole, development stops before the problem of consumption...
Oh, you short-sighted and heartless ones, you who cannot give up your whim
- of measured, organic progress! Do you not see that all your liberal
undertakings turn into insignificant trifles, because a great cause of social liberation is on the agenda? Can you not understand that struggle must precede
creation, destruction - construction, chaotic accumulation of things - systematic organization, storm - calm and general discharge - storm? Neither the liberation of various peoples, nor the emancipation of women, nor the reorganization of schools and the education system, nor
the reduction of taxes and armies, nor any of the demands of the time can be fulfilled before the chains that shackle the worker to poverty, hardship, and destitution fall.
History has stopped, because it is gathering strength for a great catastrophe...
II
[23-28] In the social-democratic movement, we have found a new form of religion insofar as it shares with religion one common goal - to free the human race from the poverty with which, helpless, it had to begin its struggle for existence in a world of hardships...
Religion cultivated the spirit. But what meaning could such a culture have if it did not
serve to cultivate the real world - matter?! I know very well,
dear listeners, that Christianity denies this sole, true, earthly purpose
of its existence; I know well that it asserts that its kingdom is not of this world and that
its task is the salvation of our immortal souls. But we also know well that one does not always achieve what one wants, and indeed, one does not always do
what one intends. We understand the difference between what we actually are and what we want to appear to be. And especially, the materialist-democrat is accustomed to evaluating people not by fragments of their
own thoughts, but by what they actually represent in real life. The actual and realized goal of religion becomes only through the medium of material culture, the culture of matter.
We have called labor the savior and liberator of the human race. Science and craftsmanship, intellectual and
physical activity - are only two different embodiments of the same essence.
Science and craftsmanship, like the father-god and the son-god, are only two images of one whole. I would call this truth the cardinal dogma of the democratic church, if democracy can be called a church at all, and
rational knowledge - dogmas. Science was empty speculation until it reached the consciousness that for thinking, studying, understanding, a tangible object, a palpable subject is necessary...
The science of our forefathers was mostly speculative, i.e., they tried to create it
by thought alone without the aid of sensory reality, without the help of accumulated
experience...
The mutual penetration of these two forms of labor over the centuries has finally brought humanity to the place where the foundation of the temple of democracy is now laid. It lies in the power
of our material production, in the modern productive force of industry. But let us not mean by this only spiritual power. The results of labor accumulated through historical development up to our time consist not only in spiritual or scientific acquisitions, not only in skill, but even more in the availability of material wealth, since the latter is a necessary tool of modern labor...
However, let us return to the teaching of our social-democratic church, which considers the accumulated
wealth, both material and spiritual, as its cornerstone...
Just as the difference between unity and diversity in the nature of things is actually united into one whole and overcome, so too, the social life of the future must give people equal social status and significance, equal right to enjoy personal life, without depriving them, however, of those differences that will point each to his special calling and allow each to be happy in his own way...
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NOTES ON DITZGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

[31-32] Ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois slavery are progressive steps toward the organization of labor...
If religion is understood as belief in supra- or extraterrestrial material forces and beings, in higher gods and spirits, then democracy has no religion...
Democracy places humanity in place of religion...

III
[33-43] In religion, as in democracy, we find a common striving for liberation. But we see that in this respect, democracy goes further and seeks liberation not in the spirit, but through the human spirit, in the flesh, in real, material reality...
The "possessors and educated" who care about truth and science only to the extent that they serve the accumulation of their treasures and the preservation of their privileges, are the actual, vile materialists, for whom nothing is dear except their selfish concerns for their own stomachs and pampered bodies...
However, liberalism takes neither belief nor disbelief seriously. Due to their privileged social position, they are condemned to a contrary indifference, an indifferentism that is neither cold nor hot. Their religious freemasonry, their protest against superstition—every belief is superstition—cannot be sincere, because the religious education of the people is a powerful support for their social dominance...
If the people believe in nothing, who will then sanctify our property and provide cannon fodder for the fatherland?
The petty-bourgeois craftsman, who notices and feels how industrial innovations are unseating him, knows nothing and wants to know nothing about the discoveries and inventions of science. The same happens with the "possessors and educated" in matters of religion. They have the habit of saying: if the truth of religion cannot be proven, then the opposite is even more difficult to prove. Since their interest runs counter to this science, they do not know and do not want to know that Feuerbach has clearly and conclusively demonstrated, almost half a century ago, that all religion is a replacement for human ignorance...
The goal and demands of historical development lie in the aspiration to make all available material factors and forces serve human needs, to harness nature, to create a coherent system in the world with the help of our spirit...
And the same natural instinct that created the world also historically produced its highest product—the rational *genus homo*. As already mentioned, this development consists in making the various manifestations of nature and the world comprehensible to the human mind...
It is not the things that religion venerates that are contemptible in themselves, but the religious manner, which knows no bounds in its veneration...
The lower the stage of development of the idea of divinity, the more concrete it is, and the more modern the forms of religion, the more confused and perverted the religious ideas become. The historical development of religion is characterized by its gradual disintegration...
For enlightened, progressive people, the blessed name of God is no more than the letter A, the beginning of the alphabet of their worldview. Once past the beginning, the world moves forward smoothly and on its own. Everything in the world is natural; only the beginning of the world seems unnatural, or divine, to these unchristian Christians. Therefore, they do not want to give up the belief in the existence of God—a belief, incidentally, which, as already noted above, serves the good purpose of keeping the "uneducated" in check...
The last and therefore the strongest support for unbiased minds is the undeniable purposiveness of nature, or the universe. Who would deny the amazing order of natural phenomena, their harmony, organization, or regularity? Not to mention the countless outdated individual examples, such as the green, blue, and multicolored cuckoo eggs, which always match in color and size the eggs of the birds into which the cuckoo lays them, at every step, there is a universal reasonableness, which manages everything that lives and breathes, crawls and flies, whether matter, animal, or human, as a purposeful part of the whole...
There is an ignorant manner, from which, however, it is infinitely difficult to break away—namely, measuring the external world by the scale of one's internal world. Because man pursues his goals with will and consciousness, he assumes that behind the universal purposiveness of nature there is a being like himself, with consciousness and will. Where free thinking has developed so far that one can no longer speak of an embodied deity, he still cannot give up the philosophical mysticism that tells tales about the will and representation of unconscious things, about the philosophy of the unconscious.
One cannot deny the fact that in dead matter there is a life-giving drive to organize, and thus the material world is not dead but alive. One can only speak of its will and purpose comparatively. However, this universal reasonableness only dimly manifests itself in the instincts of animals and finds pure, definite expression only in the function of the human brain, in other words, in our consciousness. Just as one cannot call twilight, no matter how much light there is, a clear day, so too little does the extra-human purposiveness, will, representation, or reason of nature deserve these names. If I allowed myself to speak of this earlier, dear fellow citizens, it was only with the specific intention of ultimately discrediting this manner of expression. Without a doubt, reason exists in natural things. How else, without religious assistance, could a being endowed with reason come into the world? Whoever recognizes reason, this lever of every system and purposiveness, as a natural product, cannot fail to recognize the systematic purposiveness of nature. But nevertheless, the human spirit is the only spirit. Neither the reason in the movement of the stars, nor in the cuckoo's eggs, nor the common sense in the construction of the beehive...

* - human species. Ed.

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

The spirit, or consciousness, or reason in the form of functions of the human brain alone deserves this name; the heads of ants or apes do not. Our spirit is the highest spiritual being. However, do not fear, pious, that is, attentive listeners, that we will place it on the high pedestal of a religious deity. High and low, in the sense of reality, means only more or less organized. The less independent the parts of any thing are, and the more intensively they function as organs, communicating with other parts of the whole, the higher the latter stands in the natural order of things. Our consciousness is the general central organ, the universal means of communication. But what it is, it is not by itself, like the Lord God, but, according to the democratic concept, only in connection with other things. Scientists à la Vogt argue a lot about what is different in degree and what is absolutely different, whether people and apes are two slightly different species or two completely different genera...

IV
1
[44-50] Strictly speaking, this is a priestly trick - to address you, my dear comrades, from the height of the pulpit. The pulpit, Christianity, religion - these are things and names that have been so abused that an honest person should be repulsed by any contact with them. Nevertheless, it is necessary to approach them as closely as possible in order to finally get rid of all this. To throw the disturber of the peace out of the temple, one has to embrace him. Such is the dialectic of life...
Even if Christianity and socialism have quite a lot in common, still, whoever would make Christ a socialist rightly deserves the name of a harmful muddler. It is not enough to know the general similarity of things - one must also learn their differences. Not what the socialist has in common with the Christian, but what is special in him, what distinguishes him from the latter - this is the subject of our attention.
Recently, Christianity was called the religion of servility. This is indeed its most apt designation. Of course, every religion is servile, but the Christian religion is the most servile of the servile. Let us take at random some ordinary Christian saying. On my way stands a cross with the inscription: "Have mercy, merciful Jesus! Holy Mary, pray for us!" Here before us is the boundless humility of Christianity in all its pitiful insignificance. For he who thus places all his hopes on mercy is truly a pitiful creature...
We, non-religious democrats, have the advantage of clearly understanding the state of affairs...
Did the first Christians want to leave the world? Did they not rather expect that Christ, as a mighty, victorious king, would come down to them on earth to replace the existing bad earthly order with another, better, but still earthly, order? So speaks the sophist-rationalizer, who cares nothing for the truth, but only wants to adorn his free-thinking half-heartedness and cowardice with the resounding name of religion and Christianity...
We do not wish to support the cowardice that wants to present apostasy as the restoration of true Christianity and thus does not want to give up the name. It is necessary to discredit the name in order to destroy the very cause...
What is true in Christianity, for example, the mortification of the flesh as a good antidote to extramarital desires, or the love for all humanity that stands above nationalism, social democracy does not want to deny. On the contrary, it firmly adheres to this, even if the rest of the world were to go mad with hatred against the French. It only does not want, like Christianity or religion in general, to pass off worldly truth as heavenly sanctity...
We also want to love our enemy, to do good to those who hate us, but only when the enemy, harmless, is cast into the dust. And we will say with Gervinus:
One love will not save us, Will not bring us happiness -
Let hatred with its sword
Cut the chains of slavery.
Enough of love!
It will not deliver us:
With hatred we must
Direct our sword at the enemy.
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
2
[51-56] Scientific freedom, which subordinates all things and all qualities to the good of man, is entirely anti-religious freedom. The essence of religious truth lies precisely in the fact that it unnaturally elevates some natural, worldly quality to the heavens, wrenches it from the living stream of life, and condemns it to stagnation in this religious swamp.
Thus, dear comrades, when I often call a simple truth "scientific," I merely mean that scientific truth is also called worldly, or simple. Clarity on this point is necessary because scientific clericalism seriously strives to assist religious clericalism. We would very soon deal with the crudest superstition if the ugly half-measures did not try to fill every gap in science. First and foremost, such a gap is the unfamiliarity with the theory of knowledge, the misunderstanding of the human spirit. Just as the awe-inspiring phenomena of nature make the Lapp or the Fuegian superstitious, so too does the inner miracle of our thought process twist the professor into the horns of superstition. Even the most enlightened free-thinkers, who have already renounced religion and the name of Christian, still wallow in the swamp of religious ignorance until they clearly distinguish religious truth from simple truth, until the cognitive ability, this organ of truth, remains for them a dark domain. After all that was heavenly was materialized by science, the professors had nothing left but to elevate their profession—science—to the heavens. Academic science, in their view, must be of a different nature and character than, for example, the science of the peasant, the dyer, or the blacksmith. Scientific agriculture differs from ordinary peasant farming only in that its methods and its knowledge of so-called natural laws are more extensive and complete...
We deeply despise the pompous phrase about "education and science," the talk of "ideal goods" in the mouths of certified lackeys, who today stupefy the people with forced idealism just as the pagan priests once deceived them with the first secrets of nature they had discovered...
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Professors entangled in religion transform the kingdom of God into the kingdom of the scientific spirit. As God has an antipode—the devil—so the clerical professor has a materialist.
The materialistic worldview is as old as religious disbelief. In our age, developing from the most primitive forms, they have gradually achieved scientific clarity. But academic scholarship refuses to acknowledge this, because the democratic conclusions contained in materialism threaten its honorable social position. Feuerbach says: "The characteristic feature of the professor of philosophy is that he is not a philosopher, and conversely, the characteristic feature of the philosopher is that he is not a professor." Today we have gone even further. Not only philosophy, but science in general, has outpaced its servants. Even where genuine materialistic science has taken the chair, unscientific religious nonsense clings to it as an idealistic remnant, like a shell that has not yet fallen off a hatched chick...
The socialist need for just popular distribution of products demands democracy, demands the political rule of the people, and cannot tolerate the rule of a clique that, with a claim to reason, appropriates the lion's share.
To set reasonable limits to this audacious greed, it is necessary to clearly understand the relationship between spirit and matter. Philosophy thus becomes a very close concern for the working class. However, dear comrades, I do not at all mean by this that every worker must necessarily become a philosopher and study the relationship between idea and matter. Just because we all eat bread, it does not mean that we all must know how to grind and bake. But just as the working class needs millers and bakers, it also needs deep researchers who will track the secret paths of the Baal worshippers and expose their tricks. The immense importance of intellectual work is often underestimated by those engaged in physical labor. A true instinct tells them that the tone-setting scribblers of our bourgeois era are their natural opponents. They see how the craft of deception is covered by the legitimate sign of intellectual labor. Hence, the very understandable...
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" the tendency to undervalue intellectual and overvalue physical labor. This crude materialism must be countered...

The liberation of the working class requires that it fully master the science of our age.
Mere indignation against the injustices experienced is not enough for
liberation, despite our numerical and physical superiority. The weapon of reason must
come to our aid. Among the various means in this arsenal, the theory of knowledge, or
the doctrine of science, i.e., an understanding of the method of scientific thinking, is a universal weapon against religious belief, which will drive it out of its last, most hidden recesses.
Faith in God and gods, in Moses and the prophets, faith in the Pope, in the Bible, in the Emperor with his Bismarck and his government, in short, faith in authorities, can be finally destroyed only by the science of the spirit...
By thus destroying the dualism of spirit and matter, this science removes from the previously existing
dual division of rulers and ruled, oppressors and oppressed, the last theoretical support...
Spirit is not a phantom or the breath of God. Idealists and materialists agree that it
belongs to the category of "earthly things," lives in the human head, and is nothing but an abstract expression, a collective name for thoughts that follow simultaneously and one after another...
Just as line and point are only mathematical concepts, so too, opposites are not realities but only logical concepts, meaning they exist
only relatively. Only relatively is the large small and the small large. Similarly, body and
spirit are only logical, not real, opposites. Our body and our spirit
are so closely linked that physical labor is absolutely unthinkable without the participation of intellectual labor; even the simplest manual labor requires the participation of reason. On the other hand, belief in
metaphysics or the bodilessness of our intellectual labor is nonsense. Even the most abstract research involves some effort of the entire body. Every human labor is simultaneously
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physical and intellectual. Whoever understands something about the science of the spirit knows
that thoughts do not arise only from the brain, i.e., subjectively from matter, but that they
must always have some material as their object or content. Brain matter - this is the subject of thought, and its object - is the infinite materiality of the world...
[58-59] Just as a machinist takes better care of a small nail than a large wheel,
so too we demand that the product of our labor be distributed according to need, that the strong
and weak, the dexterous and the slow, the intellectual and physical powers, insofar as they are human, - that
all of them work and enjoy the fruits of their labor in humane interaction.
Against this demand, dear comrades, religion rises up. Not only the well-known, true, ordinary religion of the priests, but also the purified, elevated, professorial religion of the intoxicated idealists...
Christianity wants to rule the world by virtue of its divinity. A futile endeavor! Unconsciously and against its will, it itself submits to the nature of things...
Simple, scientific truth is not based on personality. Its foundations lie outside*, in its material, it is objective truth...
Let us honor the great men who illuminate our path with the light of knowledge, but let us rely on their words only as long as they are based on material reality.
V
[60-67] Just as we have a common practical need to gain power
over the things of the world, so too, our theoretical need to systematically survey them is universal. We want to know the beginning and end of everything. At the root of the wild cries for a universal, enduring, inevitable religion lies something correct. The absurd denial of this would be
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* When quoting this passage in "Materialism and Empiriocriticism," V. I. Lenin explains in parentheses: "i.e., outside the individual" (see Collected Works, 5th ed., vol. 18, p. 258). Ed.

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" by Russian nihilism, which was rightly expelled from the International...205
Man demands rational consistency in his head in order to be able to carry out rational consistency in life. We, democrats and defenders of the Paris Commune, also have this need. Fawning intermediaries and windbags could, on this basis, ascribe a religion to us. We resolutely reject this word. Not because we do not recognize that there is something common or related between religious and social-democratic wisdom, but because we want to emphasize the difference, because not only internally, but also externally, in actions and in name, we do not want to have anything to do with the priestly business...
Primitive cannibalistic religion has evolved into Christian enlightened religion; philosophy developed culture and, after many unstable, transient systems, finally achieved an unshakable system of science, the system of democratic materialism...
We call ourselves materialists. Just as religion is a general term for various confessions, so materialism is a flexible concept...
Philosophical materialists are characterized by the fact that they place the physical world at the beginning, at the head, and consider the idea or spirit as a consequence—while opponents, in the manner of religion, derive things from the word ("and God said, and it was"), deriving the physical world from the idea.
Serious scientific justification has so far been lacking even for materialists. Now we, social-democrats, call ourselves materialists—a name by which our opponents would like to demean us, knowing that this tarnished name is once again in honor. With just as much right, we could call ourselves idealists, since our system is based on the general results of philosophy, on the scientific investigation of the idea, on the precise knowledge of the nature of reason. How little our opponents are capable of understanding us is evident from the contradictory names they give us. Now we are crude materialists who strive only for material goods, now, when it comes to the communist future, we are incorrigible idealists. In essence, we are both. Sensory, real actuality is our ideal. The ideal of social democracy is material...
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Thus, we begin to reflect on something, but we never reflect on the very beginning. Once and for all, we know that thinking must proceed from the given beginning, from earthly phenomena, and that, consequently, the question of the beginning of the beginning is a meaningless question, one that contradicts the general law of thought. Whoever speaks of the beginning of the world presupposes the beginning of the world in time. Here one can ask: what was there before the beginning of the world? "There was nothing"—these two words, one of which excludes the other...
All metaphysics, which Kant designates as the question of God, freedom, and immortality, in our system receives its final dismissal due to the recognition that reason and intellect are absolutely inductive abilities. This means that the world becomes completely understandable if we arrange and divide the studied things, according to their general properties, into classes, species, concepts, genera. This is such a banal truth that it would not be worth mentioning if the belief in miracles, or superstition, did not still prattle about deduction...
The luminaries of philosophy, one after another, advanced the matter so that we, social-democrats, standing on their shoulders, clearly understand the mechanical nature of all cognition—religious, speculative, and mathematical. The notion that such a scientific result has a party color, although it may seem contradictory, is easily understandable, since social democracy is a party that defends not narrow party interests, but general ones...
Philosophical mysticism is the undigested residue of religious faith. To radically eliminate both, it is necessary to realize that facts rest not on logical foundations, but, on the contrary, the ultimate foundation of all logic is fact, matter, being.
I must apologize to my comrades for burdening them with such details; I know that only a few would wish to delve into these detailed explanations, but a few—this is already enough. As it is superfluous for everyone to calculate the movement of the planets, so it is necessary for some of us to present to the high representatives of the official professoriate the material over which they could break their heads...
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

When the people gather and express their feelings and thoughts, they are set upon by the police.
Is this a system, logic, or consistency? Yes, indeed! It is a system of baseness. Everything they
[ideologues of the "existing order." Ed.] do and say boils down to the logical idea: we are the cream
of society and wish to remain so forever...
VI
[67-70] Time brought new and new phenomena, new experiences, new things that were not foreseen. They did not fit into the existing system, and thus it was necessary to create a new one each time, until finally, we, the social-democrats, became wise enough to have a system broad enough for all present and future phenomena...
All science cannot be concentrated in a single individual, let alone in any single concept. Yet I assert that we possess such a concentration. Does not the concept of matter encompass all the materiality of the world?
Thus, all knowledge has one common universal form, namely, the inductive method...
Induction is a familiar thing in natural science; but that it contains systematic world wisdom, destined to expel all frivolity—religious, philosophical, political—this is already an achievement of social democracy.
Darwin teaches that man descended from an animal. He also distinguishes between the animal and
man, but only as two products of the same matter, two species of the same genus, two
results of the same system. Such systematic separation, consistently carried out, is as unfamiliar to our opponents as is rational unity. How can one not praise the old religious piety! There was at least a system. The earthly and the afterlife, masters and slaves, faith and knowledge—all were under the unified governance of him who says: "I am the Lord your God"...
The devil was then merely an instrument, earthly existence only a transient trial before eternal life. One was subordinated to the other, there was a center of gravity, there was a system. At least, in comparison with modern half-heartedness and freemasonry, there was a certain wholeness...
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The reactionary malice has sniffed out the revolutionary consequences of the inductive system. Even
the teacher Hegel smothered the fire he himself had kindled...
In the religious system, the Lord God is the "first cause." Idealistic masons think they can prove everything through reason. Die-hard materialists seek the causes of all existence in hidden atoms, while social democrats prove everything inductively. We
follow the inductive path in principle, i.e., we know that no knowledge can be extracted deductively, from reason; only through reason, from experience, can knowledge be obtained...
[72-75] Social democracy replaces religion with systematic world wisdom.
This wisdom finds its foundation, its "first cause," in factual circumstances.
The wisdom of other progressives does the same in natural science, in family and business life it is equally rational. Only when it comes to state affairs, it tries to prove, if not by the word of God, then by the revelations of reason...
The use of the same word lulls the mind, like "Our Father." Therefore, for
variety, I want to call our system the "system of empirical truth." The windbags of other parties still speak of divine, moral, logical, and other truths. But we
know neither divine nor human truth, we know only empirical truth. We
can classify it using specific names, but the general characteristic remains. Truths, whatever they may be called, are based on physical, real, material experience...
However diverse they may be—great or small, weighty or weightless, spiritual or
corporeal—all things in the world are similar in that they are empirical objects of our cognitive ability, empirical material for the intellect...
What, then, can prevent us from subsuming all things under the concept of "empirical truth" or
"empirical phenomenon"? And then we can further divide them into organic and inorganic, physical and moral, good and evil, etc. Thanks to the common genus, all
contradictions are reconciled and united, all live under one roof. The difference is only in form,
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" in essence, all these are phenomena of the same order. The ultimate basis of all things
is the empirical phenomenon. Empirical material is called the common prime matter.
It is absolute, eternal, and omnipresent. Where it ends, all reason also ends.
The inductive system can rightly be called the dialectical system. Here we find what is increasingly confirmed by natural science, namely
that essential differences are only differences in degree. No matter how sharply the characteristics distinguishing the organic from the inorganic, the animal kingdom from the plant kingdom, are defined, nature, however, shows that the boundaries disappear, that all differences, all opposites, merge. Cause acts and action causes. Truth appears and
phenomenon is true. Just as heat is cold and cold is hot, and both differ only in degrees, so too the good is relatively bad, and the bad is good. All these are relations of the same matter, forms or types of physical experience...
God, pure reason, the moral world order, and many other things are not composed of empirical material, they are not forms of physical phenomena, and therefore we deny their existence. However, the concepts of these mental objects arose naturally, exist factually. We can perfectly well offer them to our inductive research as material. The words "experiential, physical," etc., are usually given a narrower meaning, so I supplement them with the word "empirical"...

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THE MORALITY OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
TWO SERMONS
(*"VOLKSSTAAT"* 1875)
I
[77] Our party, dear comrades, wants the same thing that the advanced minds of all times and peoples have aspired to - it wants truth and justice. We reject the truth and justice of the priests. Our truth is the material, physical, or empirical truth of exact science, which we first want to understand, and then apply to reality...
In my last lecture, I elaborated in detail on the idea that we, international democrats, systematically base all our thoughts on physical or empirical facts. In the light of modern morality, the "system" itself must justify itself. After all, we only recognize the moral law to the extent that it can be justified materialistically...
[79] Indeed, "free love" is no less moral than Christian restriction to one lawful wife, and in polygamy, what offends us is not so much the rich variety of love as the prostitution of women, the degradation of man, the shameful power of Mammon...
[81-82] Here I must briefly and precisely explain to my comrades the essence of
morality and what true morality is. Adhering to our materialistic system, in such investigations we first focus on the material, in this case, the moral material. In doing so, we will not go beyond the commonly accepted, ordinary terminology. The real chestnuts are those that will be called chestnuts in their common usage everywhere...
confer*
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* - compare. Ed.

NOTES ON DITZGEN'S BOOK *“SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS”*
Only economic materialism, only the communist organization of physical labor, which social democracy strives for, will truly unite humanity...
For a socialist, human development is not some ideal value, a spiritual perfection that has no material measure and can be interpreted in various ways. For us, human development lies in our growing ability to subdue nature. For this great purpose, religion, art, science, and morality are merely actions...
[85-87] Rational people now know that the ideas of an animal or plant did not serve as models for their objects, but, on the contrary, were themselves copies or abstractions of them...
For our opponents, we, socialists, are "materialists," that is, people without any idealistic breadth, who blindly worship only what can be eaten or drunk, or at least consider only the tangible worthy of attention. To make us look pitiful, they give the concept of materialism the narrowest and most odious meaning. To this refined idealism, we oppose our moral truth - the idea or ideal, embodied in flesh or striving to embody itself in life. Where in heaven and on earth will you find such a truly rational, moral, and lofty ideal as the idea of international democracy? In it, the words of Christian love must be embodied in material forms.
The grieving brothers in Christ should become brothers in deed and struggle, until finally, the vale of religious sorrow is transformed into a true kingdom of the people. Amen!
[93] Whoever wants to see a divine beginning in the creation of the world, whoever seeks to find truth in abstract speculation, and good and right in the inner world, follows the same false deductive path, where people, so to speak, think with their belly and understand with their heart...

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
SEVEN LECTURES
(*"VOLKSSTAAT"* 1876)
[94-97] The first English and French socialists, who already foresaw the storm at the end of the last century, perfectly understood the predatory and hypocritical character of our "knights of free property"...
However, they completely failed to understand that the only effective remedy against the social
ailment is already inherent in the nature of things, that the unconscious world process not only sets
the task before us but also already contains the key to its solution...
And then came our comrades, Marx and Engels, who combined the socialist direction and ardent devotion to the people's cause with the necessary philosophical education, thanks to which they were able to rise from assumptions and conjectures to the heights of positive knowledge in the field of social sciences. Philosophy revealed to them the fundamental principle that, at the initial stage, not the world conforms to ideas, but, on the contrary, ideas must conform to the world. From this, they concluded that true state forms and social institutions cannot be found ready-made in the inner world of man through speculative means, but must be derived materialistically from objective conditions...
Marx was the first to understand that human well-being, in general, depends not on some enlightened politician, but on the productive power of social labor...
He understood - and this understanding is the foundation of social science - that human well-being depends on material labor, not on spiritualist fantasies. This well-being we no longer seek in religious, political, or legal revelations; we see how it mechanically grows out of the development of so-called political economy. Not science
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" and education can bring us closer to it, and productive labor, which, incidentally, with the help of science and education, becomes more and more productive.
Here the question is about what stands first: mechanical labor or spiritualist science? At a superficial glance, this may seem like mere sophistical quibbling, but in reality, this question has immense significance for establishing the correct viewpoint. Before us is the same old question: idealist or materialist? And now it is so clear that there can be no doubt as to what answer we should finally give. The fact that we, socialists, prefer "coarse" labor does not make us enemies of education...
The question is, what is primary—thinking or being, speculative theology or inductive natural science? People are proud and rightly so, of the spirit they carry in their heads, but they should not childishly attribute the greatest importance in the world to what is only most important for them. Idealists are those who overestimate the value of human reason, who deify it and tend to ascribe to it religious or metaphysical miraculousness. This sect is becoming fewer in number every day; even its last Mohicans have long since shed religious superstition, but still cannot renounce the "belief" that such concepts as, for example, justice, freedom, beauty, etc., create the human world. Of course, this is true to some extent, but primarily the material world creates the content of our concepts; it determines what is actually meant by freedom, justice, etc. It is very important that we clearly understand the essence of this process, as from it follows the method by which we can give our concepts the correct content. The question: what is first—spirit or matter, is the great general question of the true direction and the right path to truth...
[100-101] The theoretical unanimity of Social Democracy, emphasized above, is based on the fact that we no longer seek salvation in subjective plans, but see that it necessarily arises from the world process as a mechanical product of it.
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We must limit our activity to merely assisting in the birth. The inevitable world process, which created the planets and gradually formed crystals, plants, animals, and humans from their fiery liquid substances, also inevitably pushes us toward the rational application of our labor, toward the continuous development of productive forces...
Social Democracy's confidence rests on the mechanism of progress. We recognize our independence from anyone's good will. Our principle is purely mechanical, our philosophy is materialistic.
[101] However, the materialism of Social Democracy is much richer and more deeply grounded than all preceding materialistic systems. It has grasped its opposite—the idea—through clear contemplation, fully mastered the world of concepts, and overcome the contradiction between mechanics and spirit. The spirit of negation in us is at the same time positive, our element is dialectics. "When I," writes Marx in a private letter, "shake off the economic burden, I will write 'Dialectics.' The true laws of dialectics are already present in Hegel, though in a mystical form. It is necessary to free them from this form."206 Since, on my part, I fear that we will have to wait a long time before Marx delights us with the promised work, and since I have studied this subject extensively and independently from a young age, I will attempt to give the curious mind a little introduction to dialectical philosophy. It is the central sun from which light emanates, illuminating not only economics but also the entire development of culture, and which, ultimately, will illuminate all of science to its "very foundations."
My comrades know that I did not go through higher education, that I am a simple tanner who learned philosophy on my own. I can only use my leisure hours for my philosophical works. Therefore, I will publish my articles with some intervals, paying more attention to making each one readable on its own rather than to their internal coherence. And since I do not attach much importance to academic clutter, I will not be verbose; I will also omit everything that might obscure our topic...
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REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
II
[102-104] In the preface to his book "The Condition of the Working Class in England," Friedrich Engels already speaks of the overcoming of philosophy by Feuerbach. But theology gave Feuerbach so much trouble that he had too little inclination and time left for a complete and final victory over philosophy...
An old man who wishes to start life anew, in order to repeat it, actually wishes not to repeat it, but to correct it. He acknowledges the path he has taken as erroneous; yet, nevertheless, he seems inclined to the contradictory conclusion that this path still taught him much. Just as this old man is critical of his past, so too does social democracy relate to philosophy. The latter is precisely that false path on which one had to go astray in order to reach the knowledge of the true path. To walk the right path, without being misled by any religious or philosophical absurdities, one must carefully study the wrong path of all wrong paths—philosophy.
Whoever understands this requirement in the literal sense will, of course, find it absurd...
Everything that really exists is subject to constant change, and the movement of the world is so boundless that every thing at any given moment is no longer what it was before...
Social democracy has spoken out against the word "religion," and here I insist that it should also speak out against the word "philosophy." Only for a transitional stage do I allow the possibility of speaking about "social-democratic philosophy." In the future, dialectics, or the general theory of science, would be a fully appropriate name for this critical subject...
[106-108] Each of them [professors and associate professors. Ed.] has more or less a significant residue of superstitious, fantastic mysticism, which clouds their vision. A striking proof of this is found in the words of Mr. von Kirchmann, who, in his "Popular Philosophical Lecture" (according to the report in "Volkszeitung" on January 13 of this year), stated that philosophy is nothing more and nothing less than the science of the highest concepts of being and knowledge...
Before us once again is our old acquaintance, rejuvenated. It is now called "the science of the highest concepts of being and knowledge." This is how it is referred to in "popular language"...
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Let us assume that philosophy and natural science deal with the same subject, using the same means, but the way they apply these means is different.
One involuntarily asks oneself, what results from this difference? The results of natural science are known. But in what have the results of philosophy been expressed? Von Kirchmann reveals the secret: philosophy protects religion, state, family, and morality. Thus, philosophy is not a science, but a means of defense against social democracy. But in such a case, there is no wonder if social democrats have their own, special philosophy...
"Special sciences," like common sense in general, derive their knowledge through the intellect from experience, from the material world...
Modern followers and admirers of classical philosophy are called upon to protect religion, state, family, and morality. As soon as they deviate from this calling, they cease to be philosophers and become social democrats. All those who call themselves "philosophers," all these professors and associate professors, despite their apparent free-thinking, are more or less entangled in superstition and mysticism, and in essence, they differ little from one another and form, in opposition to social democracy, a single, uneducated, reactionary mass...
III
[109-110] Usually, "method" is presented as the characteristic feature that distinguishes philosophy from the special sciences. But the speculative method of philosophy is nothing but a senseless recourse to vague indeterminacy. Without any material, like a spider extracting its web from itself, and even more so—groundlessly, without any premises, the philosopher strives to extract his speculative wisdom directly from his head...
Profound books are only obvious accumulations of the very poison that deeply
Experience - material of the world*
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* - Experience = material of the world. Ed.
** - in the end. Ed.

REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALLER PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
has taken root in the flesh of peoples from their very infancy and which is still widespread among
the most diverse strata of the population. An instructive example was recently presented to us by the learned
Professor Biedermann in his polemic with the workers. He demands from socialists "in return for vague, unclear hints, a clear picture of the social system which, in their opinion
and according to their wishes, should reign among us in the future. It is especially interesting to obtain from
them clear indications of how all this will be consistently implemented in practice"...
When we think about the future organization of society, we primarily rely on already known material. We think materialistically...
IV
[116-123] In the previous articles, philosophy is presented as an offspring of religion, which, like it, has become a dreamer, although not so pretentious...
Dühring must have foreseen the entire uselessness of the philosophical craft, since he
grants it also a "practical application." In his opinion, philosophy should not only
scientifically comprehend the world and life, but also confirm this with all its thoughts, worldview, and its attitude to the organization of life. And this path leads to social democracy. But
once the philosopher has advanced so far, he will soon reach complete knowledge and decisively
reject philosophy. True, man in general cannot do without a certain worldview, but without philosophy, as its special kind, it is very easy to do without. Its worldview
is something intermediate between religious and strictly scientific...
We remind once again: method is the characteristic distinguishing feature of religion, philosophy, and science. They all seek wisdom. The religious method of revelation seeks it on Mount Sinai,
behind the clouds or among ghosts. Philosophy turns to human reason, but until
it is shrouded in religious fog, it does not understand itself, asks and acts
perversely, unsubstantiatedly, speculatively, or haphazardly. The method of exact science, finally, operates on the basis of the material of the sensory world of phenomena. And as soon as we recognize this method as the only
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rational course of action of the intellect, all fantasizing loses ground under itself.
If these arguments fall into the eyes of some inveterate philosopher, he will smile sarcastically and, if he deigns to object to us, will try to prove that the proponents of special sciences are uncritical materialists who accept without any verification the sensory, empirical world of experience as truth...
But in popular life, where it is a matter of masters and servants, of labor and profits, of rights and
obligations, of laws, customs, and orders, the priest and the professor-philosopher are widely given the floor, and each of them has his own special method, in order to... mask
the truth. Religion and philosophy, which were previously innocent delusions, now, when the ruling classes are interested in reaction, become sophisticated means of political deception.
The lesson given to us in the previous article by Professor Biedermann has taught us that we should not
turn to vague uncertainty, even in the search for truth. Here philosophy
becomes in opposition to sound human reason. It does not seek, like all
special sciences, definite empirical truths, but like religion strives
to find a completely special kind of truth - absolute, transcendental, unfounded, supernatural. What is real for the world - what we see, hear, smell,
touch, our bodily sensations - is not real enough for it. Phenomena of nature for
it are only phenomena, or "appearance," about which it wants to know nothing...
The philosopher, possessed by religious prejudices, wants to step over the phenomena
of nature, he seeks behind this world of phenomena some other world of truth, with the help
of which the first must be explained...
It should be noted that I have attributed to Descartes much more than he actually did. The matter stands as follows: our philosopher turned out to have two souls - one
ordinary, religious, and the other - scientific. His philosophy represented a mixed product of both. Religion made him believe that the sensory world is nothing, while the inherent
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REMARKS ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALLER PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
scientific cast of mind tried to prove the opposite. He began with decay, with doubt in sensory truth, and proved the opposite with the bodily sensations of his being. However, the scientific current could not yet manifest itself so consistently then. Only an impartial thinker, repeating Descartes' experience, finds that if thoughts and
doubts are swarming in the head, then only bodily sensation convinces us of the existence of a thought
process. The philosopher distorted the fact; he wanted to prove the incorporeal existence of abstract thought, he believed that it was scientifically possible to prove the supernatural truth of the religious and philosophical soul, while in reality he only stated the ordinary truth of bodily sensations...
Idealists, in the good sense of the word, are all honest people. And all the more so - social democrats. Our goal is a great ideal. Idealists, however, in the philosophical sense
- are non compos mentis. They claim that everything we see, hear, touch, and
so on, that the whole world of phenomena around us does not exist at all, that all this is only fragments of thoughts. They claim that our intellect is the only truth, that
everything else is only "representations," phantasmagoria, hazy dreams,
phenomena in the bad sense of the word. Everything that we perceive from the external world,
in their opinion, are not objective truths, real things, but only a subjective game of our intellect. And when sound human reason nevertheless
revolts against such assertions, they very convincingly prove
to him that although he sees with his own eyes every day how the sun rises in the
east and sets in the west, nevertheless science should enlighten him so much
that he learns to recognize this truth with the help of his imperfect senses.
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Sinne**
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* The remarks underlined with slant lines were written by V. I. Lenin in the corner of the page. Therefore, here and elsewhere, if it is not possible to determine precisely to which part of the text Lenin's remark refers, the entire text of the given page is provided. Ed.
** - Phenomena in the bad sense. Ed.

And just as the proverb says, even a blind hen finds a grain now and then. Such a blind hen is philosophical idealism. And it has seized upon a grain, namely, the thought that what we see, hear, or feel in the world are not real objects or things. Natural scientific physiology of the senses, in turn, is increasingly approaching the fact that the colorful objects our eyes see are merely colorful visual sensations, that all the coarse, fine, heavy things we feel are only sensory sensations of heaviness, fineness, or coarseness. There is no absolute boundary between our subjective feelings and objective objects. The world is a world of our sensations...
Things in the world do not exist "in themselves," but receive all their properties through mutual connection... Only at a certain temperature is water a liquid; in the cold, it becomes dense and solid, in the heat, it turns into vapor; usually, it flows from top to bottom, but, encountering a lump of sugar on its way, it rises upward.
It does not have any properties or existence in itself, but receives them only in connection with other objects.
Everything is only a property, or predicate, of nature; it surrounds us not in its supernatural objectivity or truth, but everywhere and always with its fleeting, diverse phenomena.
Questions about how the world would look without eyes, without the sun, or without space, without temperature, intellect, or without sensations are absurd questions, and only fools can ponder them. Indeed, in life and in science, we can differentiate, classify, and categorize endlessly, but in doing so, we must not forget that everything constitutes a single whole and is interconnected. The world is sensory, and our sensations, our intellect, are entirely earthly.
This is not yet the "boundary" of man, but whoever wants to cross it reaches absurdity. If we prove that the immortal soul of the priest or the undoubted intellect of the philosopher is of the same, most ordinary nature as all other phenomena of the world, then it will be demonstrated that "other" phenomena are just as true and necessary as the undoubted Cartesian intellect. We do not only believe, think, assume, or doubt that our sensations exist, but we truly and actually feel them. Conversely: all truth and reality rest only on sensation, on bodily sensations. Soul and body, or subject and object, as is often said nowadays, are of the same earthly, sensory, empirical nature.
"Life is a dream," said the ancients; now philosophers bring us the news: "the world is our representation"...
To base truth not on the "word of God" and not on traditional "principles," but, on the contrary, to build one's principles on bodily sensations—this is the essence of social-democratic philosophy...
V
[123-130] The Lord God created the human body from a clod of earth and breathed into it an immortal soul. Since that time, there has been a dualism, or the theory of two worlds. One is the physical, material world, which is considered dross, and the other is the spiritual, or intellectual world of spirits, which is the breath of the Lord. Philosophers have perpetuated this fable, that is, they have adapted it to the spirit of the times. Everything visible, audible, and sensible, in short, physical reality, is still considered unclean; whereas, with the thinking spirit, the idea of a realm of some supernatural truth, freedom, and beauty is associated. In both the Bible and philosophy, the word "world" has a foul connotation. Of all the phenomena or objects of nature, philosophy deigns to pay attention only to one—the spirit, the familiar breath of the Lord;
and only because, to its muddled mind, it appears to be something higher, supernatural, and metaphysical...
A philosopher who, with a clear head, considers the human spirit along with other objects as the goal of knowledge ceases to be a philosopher, that is, one of those who, by studying the riddle of existence in general, retreats into a misty indeterminacy. He becomes a specialist, and "special science" in the theory of knowledge is his specialty...
The question of whether there is some noble, idealistic spirit in our heads or just an ordinary, precise human reason,
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behind this lies the practical question of whether power and right belong to the privileged nobility or to the common people...
Professors become leaders in the camp of evil. On the right flank, Treitschke commands, in the center von Sybel, and on the left - Jürgen Bona Meyer, a doctor and professor of philosophy in Bonn...
In the previous article, we have already spoken about the Cartesian trick, which is almost daily performed by professors of higher magic, or philosophy, before the public, in order
to finally confuse it. The breath of the Lord is demonstrated as truth. Indeed, this name
has a bad reputation: one cannot speak of the immortal soul before enlightened liberals. Therefore, they pretend to be sober materialists, speaking of consciousness, thinking or cognitive ability...
We feel within us the physical existence of the thinking mind and in exactly the same way,
with the same senses, we feel outside of us clumps of clay, trees, bushes. What we feel
inside us and what is outside us do not particularly differ from each other. Both belong to the category of sensory phenomena, empirical material, both are matters of sensation. How, in this case, to distinguish subjective sensations from objective ones, the internal from the external, a hundred real thalers from a hundred imaginary ones - we will discuss this at another time. Here, it should be understood that both inner thought and inner pain equally have their objective existence and that, on the other hand, the external world is subjectively closely linked to our organs...
Let us give the word to Jürgen himself: "Even the principle non-believer will again and again
come to the philosophically proven truth that all our knowledge ultimately still rests on some kind of belief. Even the very existence of the sensory world, the materialist accepts on faith. He has no immediate knowledge of the sensory world; he immediately knows only the representation of it that exists in his imagination.
He believes that this his representation corresponds to the represented something, that the represented world is exactly as he imagines it, he therefore believes in the sensory external world on the basis of the arguments of his spirit"...
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
Meyer's faith is "philosophically" proven, yet he knows only that he knows nothing, and that everything is faith. He is modest in knowledge and science, but completely immodest in faith and religion. Faith and science are constantly confused by him - both, obviously, do not have serious significance for him.
Thus, it is "philosophically proven" that "all our knowledge has come to an end." To help the benevolent reader understand this, we will allow ourselves to report that the guild of philosophers recently held a general meeting and solemnly decided to withdraw the word 'science' from circulation and replace it with 'faith.' All knowledge is now called faith. Knowledge no longer exists...
However, the professor corrects himself and says verbatim the following: faith in the sensory world is faith in one's own spirit. Thus, - everything, both spirit and nature, again rest on faith. He is wrong only in that he wishes to also subject us, the materialists, to the decision of his guild. For us, this decision has no binding force. We remain with the old terminology, retain knowledge for ourselves, and leave faith to the priests and doctors of philosophy.
Of course, "all our knowledge" also rests on subjectivity. It is quite possible that the wall against which we could break our heads and which we therefore consider impenetrable, may be, I say, effortlessly overcome by gnomes, angels, devils, and other phantoms, perhaps the entire mass of the sensory world does not even exist for them - what is it to us? What business do we have with a world that we do not feel, do not perceive?
Perhaps what people call fog and wind, in essence, objectively or "in itself," are celestial flutes and double basses. But precisely for this reason, we have no concern for such absurd objectivity. Social-democratic materialists
reason only about what a person perceives through experience. This also includes his own spirit, his thinking ability, or power of imagination. What is accessible to experience we call truth, and only this is the object of science for us...
Since Kant made the critique of reason his specialty, it has been established that our five senses alone are not sufficient for experience, that the participation of the intellect is also required for this...
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However, the great philosopher found it impossible to completely forget the fable of the clay, to fully liberate the spirit from the oppression of spiritual fog, and to separate science from religion. The lowly view of matter, the "thing-in-itself," or the supernatural truth, held all philosophers, to a greater or lesser degree, in the captivity of idealistic deception, which is exclusively maintained by faith in the metaphysical nature of the human spirit. This small weakness of our great critics is exploited by the Prussian government philosophers to prepare a new religious ciborium, albeit an extremely pitiful one.

"Idealistic belief in God," says J. B. Meyer, "is, of course, not knowledge and will never become such; but it is no less clear that materialistic disbelief, in turn, is not knowledge, but merely a materialistic belief, equally incapable of ever transforming into knowledge"...

VI
[130-136] All sing in unison: "back to Kant." In this light, the question that interests us takes on a significance far beyond the petty personality of General Jürgen. They do not wish to return to Kant because this great thinker dealt a powerful blow to the fable of the immortal soul enclosed in dirty clay, which he indeed did; but because his system, on the other hand, left a loophole through which a little bit of metaphysics could be smuggled back in...

It is perfectly clear that all false wisdom rests on the false use of our intellect. And no one has so consciously and so successfully endeavored to study the latter, to create a science of the theory of knowledge, as the universally venerated Immanuel Kant. But there is a significant difference between him and his present-day hangers-on. In the great historical struggle, he stood on the side of the right cause against evil; he used his genius for the revolutionary development of science, while our governmental Prussian philosophers have put their "science" at the service of reactionary politics...

The maneuver by which Kant removed metaphysics from the temple, leaving a back door open for it, is clearly indicated by one phrase in his preface or introduction to the "Critique of Pure Reason." Since I do not have the text at hand, I quote from memory. This phrase states: our knowledge is limited to the phenomena of things. What they are in themselves, we cannot know...

It cannot be denied: where there are phenomena, there is also something that appears. But what if this something itself is a phenomenon, if the phenomena themselves appear? There would be nothing illogical or absurd if, throughout nature, subjects and predicates were of the same kind. Why must that which appears necessarily be of a completely different quality than the appearance itself? Why can the things "for us" and the things "in themselves," or the appearance and the truth, not be of the same empirical material, of the same nature?

Answer: because the prejudice about the metaphysical world, because the belief in the thoroughly exposed nonsense and in the unnatural, extraordinary truth that must necessarily be contained within it, also took root in the mind of the great Kant.

The position that where there are phenomena that we can see, hear, and touch, there must also be something else, so-called true or elevated, which cannot be seen, heard, or touched, is illogical, contrary to Kant...

The intellect must operate only in conscious connection with materialist experience, and all appeals to vague indefiniteness are futile and meaningless.

But, according to Heine, the professor from Königsberg had a servant, a simple man of the people named Lampe, for whom, it is said, castles in the air were a spiritual necessity. It was over him that the philosopher took pity and concluded as follows: since the world of experience is closely tied to the intellect, it provides only intellectual experiences, i.e., phenomena or fragments of thought. Material things, known through experience, are not real truths, but only phenomena in the bad sense of the word, phantoms, or something similar. The actual things, the things "in themselves," the metaphysical truth, are not known through experience; in them, one must believe, according to the well-known argu-
Erscheinungen im bosen
Sinne des
Wortes*
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NB
NB
NB
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* - Phenomena in the bad sense of the word. Ed.

mentu: where there is a phenomenon, there must also be something (metaphysical) that appears.
Thus, faith was saved, the supernatural was saved, and this came in very handy not only for the servant Lamp, but also for the German professors in the "cultural struggle" for "public education" against the hated, radical atheist social democrats. Here, Immanuel Kant proved to be a useful man, helping them find a desirable, if not scientific, then very practical middle ground...
The social democrats are firmly convinced that clerical Jesuits are far less harmful than "liberals." Of all parties, the most despicable is the party of the middle.
It uses education and democracy as a fake label to foist its counterfeit goods on the people and discredit genuine principles. True, these people justify themselves by saying they act according to their conscience and to the best of their understanding; we readily believe that they know little, but these scoundrels do not want to know anything, do not want to learn anything...
Almost a century has passed since Kant; in this time, Hegel and Feuerbach lived, and the wretched bourgeois economy triumphed, which exploits the people and throws them out on the street without work or wages when it can no longer extract anything from them...
Our educated ones, the modern wage workers, are sufficiently developed to finally understand the social democratic philosophy, which is capable of separating natural phenomena as material for theoretical, or scientific, empirical, experiential, materialistic, or, if you will, also subjective truth on one side, from pretentious or supernatural metaphysics on the other.
Just as in politics, in accordance with economic development, which aims to displace the middle classes and create a division between property owners and the propertyless, parties increasingly group into two camps: on one side, employers, and on the other, employees,
NB
very good!
very good!
NB
2 schools in philosophy
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[ 403
Page from I. Dietzgen's book "Small Philosophical Works"
with remarks by V. I. Lenin

Reduced

NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" and science divides into two basic classes: there - metaphysicians, here - physicists, or materialists. Intermediate elements and reconciling charlatans with various labels - spiritualists, sensualists, realists, etc., etc., fall now into one, now into another current. We demand decisiveness, we want clarity. Idealists call themselves reactionary obscurantists, while materialists should be those who strive to free the human mind from metaphysical gibberish. To avoid being confused by terms and definitions, we must firmly remember that the general confusion in this matter has so far prevented the establishment of precise terminology.
If we compare both parties to the solid and the fluid, then in the middle lies something porridge-like. Such an unclear indeterminacy is one of the main characteristics of all things in the world. Only understanding or science can bring clarity to the matter, just as science created the thermometer to determine heat and cold and agreed to consider the freezing point as the exact boundary where the diversity of temperature is divided into two distinct classes. The interests of social democracy require it to perform the same procedure with the wisdom of the world, to divide all thoughts into two categories: idealistic fantasy that requires faith and sober, materialistic thinking.
VII
[136-142] Although we, the social democrats, are non-religious atheists, still we have faith, i.e., the abyss between us and religious people is deep and wide, but, like any abyss, a bridge can be thrown across it. I intend to lead my democratic comrades onto this bridge and from there show them the difference between the desert in which believers wander and the promised land of light and truth.
NB
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written in
1876
!!NB very good!
NB
NB
NB The goal of his "reconciliation"

The highest commandment of Christianity says: "Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself." So - God above all, but what is God?
He is the beginning and the end, the creator of heaven and earth. We do not believe in his existence and yet find a rational meaning in the commandment that commands us to love him above all...
We must understand that, although the spirit is called to rule over matter, this rule must inevitably remain extremely limited.
With our intellect, we can rule over the material world only formally. In particulars, we may perhaps direct its changes and movements at our discretion, but in the whole, the essence of things - matter in general* - is above the human mind. Science manages to transform mechanical force into heat, electricity, light, chemical force, etc.; it may perhaps manage to transform force into matter and matter into force and depict them as different forms of the same essence; but still, it can only change the form, the essence remains eternal, unchanging, indestructible. Intellect can trace the paths of physical changes, but these are still material paths, which the proud spirit can only follow, but cannot prescribe. A sound human reason must constantly remember that along with the "immortal soul" and proud knowledge of reason, it is only a subordinate part of the world, although our contemporary "philosophers" still tinker with the trick of how to turn the real world into "human perception." The religious commandment - love the Lord above all - means in the mouth of a good social democrat: love and honor the material world, physical nature, or sensory existence, as the first foundation of all things, as being without beginning and end, which was, is, and will be forever...
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freedom and necessity
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freedom and nece-
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freedom and necessity
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* - generally. Ed.

NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Physical, tangible, sensory, and material phenomena are referred to as the general category to which all existence belongs, whether it is weighty or weightless, body or spirit...
Although we do oppose the physical to the spiritual, this distinction is only relative; they are merely two forms of existence, no more and no less opposed than dogs and cats, which, despite their well-known enmity, nevertheless belong to the same class or genus - that of domestic animals.
Natural science, in the narrow, commonly accepted sense of the word, however convincingly it may demonstrate the origin of species and the development of the organic world from the inorganic, cannot provide us with a monistic worldview (a doctrine of the unity of nature: the unity of "spirit" and "matter," the organic and the inorganic, etc.), to which our time so eagerly aspires. The natural sciences arrive at all their discoveries only through the intellect. The visible, weighty, and tangible part of this organ indeed belongs to the domain of natural science, but its function, thinking, already constitutes the subject of a separate science, which can be called logic, theory of knowledge, or dialectics. The last sphere of science - the understanding or misunderstanding of the functions of the spirit - is thus the common homeland of religion, metaphysics, and antimetaphysical clarity. Here lies the bridge that leads from degrading superstitious bondage to humble freedom; and in the realm of proud, knowledgeable freedom, humility reigns, i.e., submission to material, physical necessity.
The inevitable religion, which for "philosophers" becomes an inevitable metaphysics, transforms into an irresistible theoretical need for a monistic worldview for the sound, scientific human reason. The existing force-matter, also called the world or *Monistische Weltanschauung* [monistic worldview. Ed.]
NB NB
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is mystified by theologians and philosophers because they do not understand that matter and intellect belong to the same kind, as they falsely represent the relationship between both. Just as our understanding of political economy, so too our materialism is a scientific, historical achievement. We clearly distinguish ourselves from both the socialists of the past and the former materialists. With the latter, we share only that we recognize matter as the presupposition or the first basis of the idea.
For us, matter is substance, and spirit is only an accident; empirical phenomena for us are a genus, and the intellect is only a species or form of it...
Where there is intellect, knowledge, thinking, consciousness, there must also be an object, material, which is known and which, after all, is the most important. This is precisely the old question that divides idealists and materialists: what is "primary" - matter or intellect? But this question, again, is not a question but merely a phrase, mere words. The actual disagreement between the parties lies in the fact that one wants to turn the world into some kind of sorcery, while the other does not want to know anything about it...
Since all natural phenomena can be perceived by us only through the intellect, all our perceptions are intellectual phenomena. This is entirely correct. But among these perceptions, there is one special perception or phenomenon, considered "intellectual" par excellence - this is ordinary, sound human reason, intellect, or cognitive ability, while everything else, that is, the entire mass, is called matter. Therefore, it all boils down to the fact that matter, force, and intellect, separately and together, are of the same origin.
To call the phenomena of the world material or intellectual is to engage in petty quibbling. The question is whether all things are of the same kind, or whether the world should be divided into the supernatural, mysterious *See p. 142* [See this volume, p. 409. Ed.]
?))
Parties in philosophy
NB
?
NB

and witchcraft on one side, and natural, foul clay on the other.
To clarify this, it is not enough to derive everything from weighty atoms, as the old materialists did. Matter is not only weighty; it is also fragrant, bright, and resonant, so why not rational?..
The prejudice that objects of touch are more understandable than those of hearing or sensation in general led the old materialists to their atomistic speculations, leading them to consider the tangible as the first cause of all things. The concept of matter must be broadened. It includes all real phenomena, and therefore our ability to know and explain.
When idealists call all natural phenomena "representations" or "intellectual," we readily admit that these are not things "in themselves" but only objects of our sensation. In turn, the idealist will agree that among the sensations called the objective world, [142] there is a special thing, a particular phenomenon, called subjective sensation, soul, or consciousness. Accordingly, it is perfectly clear that the objective and subjective belong to the same genus, that soul and body are of the same empirical material.
For an unbiased person, there can be no doubt that the spiritual material, or, more precisely, the phenomenon of our cognitive ability, is part of the world, not the other way around. The whole governs the part, matter governs the spirit, at least in the main, although the world is sometimes governed by the human spirit. In this very sense, we must love and revere the material world as the highest good, as the first cause, as the creator of heaven and earth...
If the social democrats call themselves materialists, by this name they mean only that they do not recognize anything that goes beyond the scientifically functioning human reason, that all sorcery must cease...

NB
? ?
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THE UNFATHOMABLE

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION

SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY
(*"VORWARTS"* 1877)
[143-147] Priests and professors agree in denying the absolute cognitive capacity of the human intellect, the possibility of achieving unconditional clarity, and confine it to the character of a limited, subservient understanding...
Professional philosophers have taken a step forward and replaced heavenly science with earthly; but here they ultimately occupy the same dual position as "progressives" in politics. The same mixture of mediocrity and ill will that keeps the latter from freedom, keeps the professors from wisdom. They do not wish to renounce the search for the mysterious; if not in heaven, not in sacred gifts, then at least in nature there must be something mystical, incomprehensible, in the "essence of things" and in the "ultimate foundations" there must be absolute limits or "boundaries of our knowledge of nature." It is the duty of social democracy to stand up against such incorrigible mystics in defense of the radical unboundedness of the human intellect.
Of course, there is much that remains ungrasped, who would argue with that?..
The capacity of the human intellect is so unbounded that over time it makes new discoveries, in the light of which all past erudition seems sheer ignorance.
And although I thus defend the absolute endowment of our cognitive ability, I am nevertheless filled with a sense of the limitations of all people and all times, and, therefore, despite my self-assured tone, I am, in essence, a completely modest person...
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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK *“MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS”*
Reason, perhaps, predominates, but only in connection with the ordinary—our five senses and the material objects of the world...
"In this world," no one has ever heard of an intellect surpassing the human.
But about how things stand on "the other side" with angels, gnomes, and nymphs, history is silent. And even if we were to agree with this childishness, even if we were to admit that unearthly spirits are bustling about on the moon and stars, still these latter, if they bake bread, must make their bread from flour, not from tin or wood. Similarly, if these supernatural spirits possess reason, then this reason must be of the same general nature, the same structure as ours...
If in the heavens and beyond the clouds there exist things of entirely different properties than those on earth, then they must have other names: and since we do not know how to speak this language (the language of angels), it is better to keep silent where talk turns to "something higher," metaphysical or mysterious.
Amazing but true! Such reasoning seems "philosophers" unheard of.
They still follow Kant, maintaining that we can grasp only the phenomena of nature, but what lies behind them—the "thing-in-itself," or the mystery—is incomprehensible. And yet this mysticism, this entire mystery, is nothing but a wild idea that these gentlemen form about the intellect...
Indeed, there is the incomprehensible and the unfathomable, there are limits to our cognitive ability; but only in the everyday sense, just as there is the invisible and the inaudible, as there are limits to sight and hearing...
I repeat: the exaggerated notion of the intellect, unreasonable demands on our cognitive ability, in other words, theoretical-epistemological ignorance—this is the cause of all superstition, all religious and philosophical metaphysics...
[149] First, it was necessary to overcome metaphysics or supernatural ideas, so that we could come to a sober understanding that our intellect is an ordinary, formal, mechanical ability...

NB
versus
Kant

THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE
(*"VORWARTS"* 1877)
[151-152] The editorial office of *Vorwarts* recently received an anonymous letter concerning the question that interests us, written by an experienced specialist who attempted to prove objectively that philosophy and social democracy are two different things, that one can belong to the party with all one's heart and yet not agree with "social-democratic philosophy," and that, therefore, it is clear that the central organ should not allow philosophical questions to take on a sharply partisan character.
The *Vorwarts* editorial board was kind enough to allow me to familiarize myself with this letter, which had a direct bearing on my articles. The author, however, expressed a clear desire not to provoke public discussion with his objections, because, as he says, newspaper polemics preclude the possibility of serious consideration of such issues; I, on the contrary, think that he would hardly find it presumptuous if his remarks and criticisms served us as a means to clarify a question that is very close to both my heart and his, and, as is evident from the general interest in it, to the current generation as well. As for thoroughness, I believe that thick folios are no more suitable for this purpose than short newspaper articles. On the contrary, so much multi-volume chatter has already been produced on this issue that it has completely sapped the public's interest in it.
First of all, I disagree that philosophy and social democracy are separate, unrelated things. True, one can be an active member of the party and yet
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REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

At the same time, he is a "critical philosopher," perhaps even a good Christian. In practice, we must be extremely tolerant, and, undoubtedly, no social democrat would think of dressing the members of his party in a single uniform. But a theoretical uniform must be worn by anyone who respects science. Theoretical unity, systematic consistency, is the cherished goal and high advantage of every science...

Social democracy does not strive for eternal laws, once-and-for-all established institutions, or rigid forms, but for the well-being of the human race in general. Spiritual enlightenment is the most necessary means for this. Whether the cognitive apparatus is limited, i.e., subordinate, whether scientific research provides true concepts, truth in its highest form and final instance, or only poor "surrogates" over which the incomprehensible reigns—everything that is called the theory of knowledge is a matter of primary importance for socialism...

[156-160] It is said about Kant that his system "quite accurately established the boundaries of formal knowledge." But precisely this point we contest with all our might; on this point, social-democratic philosophy completely diverges from professional philosophy. Kant did not sufficiently accurately establish the boundaries of formal knowledge, for with his famous "thing-in-itself," he preserved faith in another, higher knowledge, in a superhuman, supernatural reason. Formal knowledge! Knowledge of nature! "Philosophers" may still yearn for other knowledge, but they should prove where it is and what it consists of.

They speak of the actual knowledge we use daily with the same contempt as the ancient Christians spoke of "weak flesh." The real world is an imperfect phenomenon, and its true essence is a mystery...

Phenomenon*
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* - Phenomenon, appearance. Ed.

If natural science is content with the phenomenon everywhere and always, why not also be content with the phenomenology of the spirit? Beyond the "boundaries of formal knowledge" invariably lies a higher, unlimited, metaphysical reason, behind the professional philosopher—the theologian—and the "incomprehensible" inherent in both...

But what is the incomprehensible?—it is asked in the above-mentioned letter to the editorial board of "Vorwärts"...

To this question, the professional philosopher gives an answer, explaining that "being" as absolute rest can in no way transform into the absolute movement of thought. With these words, the opponent continues, the boundary of knowledge is defined, i.e., the incomprehensible. But does it follow from this that we must deny its existence, that we will never approach it? Of course not. Every scientific attempt to approach it, to understand, or at least to feel it, brings us closer to this dark point and sheds new light on it, even if we never fully illuminate it. In pursuing this goal lies the task of philosophy, in contrast to the task of natural science, which considers only the given and explains only phenomena.

Explains phenomena: phenomenon! Hmm, hmm!

Thus, the object of philosophy—the incomprehensible—is a bird from which, with the help of our cognitive ability, we can pluck individual feathers here and there, but we can never completely pluck it, and it must forever remain incomprehensible. If we look more closely at the feathers already plucked by philosophers, we can recognize the bird itself: here we are talking about the human spirit. And so, we are again at the decisive boundary separating materialists from idealists: for us, the spirit is a phenomenon of nature, for them, nature is a phenomenon of the spirit. And it would be good if they were satisfied with this. No, somewhere behind lies the bad intention to elevate the spirit to some "being" of a higher order and to reduce everything else to insignificance...

On the contrary, we assert: what can be comprehended under certain conditions is not incomprehensible. Whoever wishes to understand the incomprehensible is simply fooling around. Just as I can grasp only the visible with my eye and only the audible with my ear, so too, with my cognitive ability, I can grasp only the comprehensible. And although social-democratic philosophy teaches that everything existing is absolutely knowable, this does not at all mean that there is nothing incomprehensible. This could be acknowledged, but not in the dual, absurd "philosophical

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NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

In the sense that somewhere in the "cloudy spheres" it again transforms the incomprehensible into the comprehensible. We take this matter seriously; we know of no higher knowledge other than ordinary human knowledge. We know positively that our reason is true reason and that the existence of another, fundamentally different from our reason, is as unthinkable as are square circles. We place intellect among ordinary things, which cannot change their nature without changing their name.

Social-democratic philosophy fully agrees with the "professional" one that "being in no way transforms into thinking," just as any part of it does not. But we do not at all consider the task of thinking to be transforming being; the task is merely to formally order it, to find classes, rules, laws—in a word, to do what we call "cognition of nature." Comprehensible is everything that can be classified, and incomprehensible is everything that cannot be transformed into thought. We cannot, should not, and do not wish to do this, and therefore we reject it. But we can do the opposite: transform thinking into being, in other words, we can classify the ability to think as one of many kinds of being...

We consider intellect to be empirical data just like matter. Thinking and being, subject and object, are equally within the bounds of experience. To distinguish one as absolute rest and the other as absolute motion is incorrect since natural science reduces everything to motion. What the "philosopher" comrade said about the incomprehensible, namely, that every scientific attempt brings us closer to the unknown, even if we never achieve complete clarity, applies without any mystification to the object of natural science—the unknown.

Cognition of nature also has its boundless goal, and without mysterious "limits," we move ever closer to the unknown, never reaching complete clarity; this means that science has no limits...

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OUR PROFESSORS AT THE BOUNDARIES OF KNOWLEDGE
("VORWARTS" 1878)
I
[162-164] At the "fiftieth congress of German natural scientists and physicians" in Munich, in September 1877, Professor von Nägeli from Munich once again touched upon the well-known lecture previously given by his colleague from Berlin—Du Bois-Reymond—and delivered a remarkable speech on "the boundaries of scientific cognition." Credit must be given to the professor from Munich for his truthfulness and clarity, which far surpassed those of his predecessor from Berlin, but he still failed to rise to the level of his time. He almost clarified the issue; but the small, concluding point that he missed is precisely the cardinal point—it concerns the great abyss separating physics from metaphysics, sober science from romantic faith.

His predecessor Du Bois-Reymond, as is known, wanted to prove that such an insurmountable boundary indeed exists and that faith must, in any case, be assigned a special domain. Only this role of a small refuge for religious romanticism gave his report its apparent significance and its dissemination. Since then, the zealots of the incomprehensible have been jubilant. True, Professor von Nägeli is not very pleased with this jubilation, but his high professorial position does not allow him to fight with full determination. Having clearly, precisely, and definitively shown his predecessor that he did not understand natural-scientific cognition, he concludes as follows:
"If Du Bois-Reymond ended his report with the devastating words: 'Ignoramus et ignorabimus'* [We do not know and will not know], I would like to conclude with a conditional, but consoling view, that the fruits of our research are not just knowledge, but actual cognitions containing the germ of almost (!) infinite growth, without the slightest claim to omniscience. If we exercise reasonable restraint, if, as mortal and transient beings, we are content with human understanding, not aspiring to divine cognition, then we have the right to say with full confidence: 'We know and will know'..."

The religious romanticism of Du Bois-Reymond calls all the fruits of scientific research "mere knowledge," but not "actual cognitions," which the poor human mind cannot reach...

II
[166-167] "Regarding the ability of our self to cognize natural things, the decisive factor is the undeniable fact that, whatever the structure of our thinking ability, only sensory perceptions provide us with information about nature. If we could not see or hear, taste or feel, we would not know that there is anything outside of us, we would not even know that we physically exist."

This is a bold statement. Let us hold to it and see whether the professor holds to it as well...
"Our ability to perceive nature through our immediate senses is limited in two respects. We probably (!) lack sensations for entire areas of natural life (for example, for gnomes, spirits, etc.? I.D.), and in the measure that we do have them, they touch on an infinitely small part of the whole in terms of time and space."
Yes, nature is above the human spirit; it is its inexhaustible object...
... Our ability to investigate is limited only insofar as its object, nature, is unlimited...

III
[168] We recognize only one, single world, "that which is communicated to us by sensory perceptions." We remind Nägeli of his own words, that where we can see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing—there we can know nothing...

1)
2)
NB
NB
versus
Kant
NB

The Unknowable, the absolutely inaccessible to the senses, does not exist for us and does not exist "in itself," so that we cannot even speak of it without venturing into the realm of fantasy...
IV
[171] Whoever is drawn to another world, from the world of experience to the world of premonitions or divinity, and whoever speaks of this, is either a self-willed person or a charlatan...
[173-174] I would like to help the reader understand what, to my knowledge, our professors have not yet understood, namely, that our intellect is a dialectical instrument, an instrument that reconciles all opposites. The intellect creates unity through diversity and recognizes difference in similarity...
"But what is this world, subject to the human spirit? It is not even a grain of sand in the eternity of space, not even a second in the eternity of time, but only a negligible part of the true essence of the Universe." This is exactly what the priest says. And it is perfectly correct as long as it serves merely as an enthusiastic expression of the feeling of the grandeur of being; but it is complete nonsense when Professor Nägeli wishes to say by this that our space and our time are not parts of infinity and eternity, complete nonsense if it is meant to imply that "the true essence of the Universe" is hidden beyond phenomena, in incomprehensible religion or metaphysics...
V
[178] The unity for which Nägeli contends is lost to him as soon as he approaches the "world of premonition" and divine "omniscience," and Professor Virchow loses it as soon as he touches on the difference between organic and inorganic. Even more repugnant to him is the connection between man and animal, and the question of the opposition between body and soul seems to him entirely indisputable, because their unification could produce the most terrible confusion in the "mind of a socialist" and would inevitably lead to the overthrow of all professorial wisdom.

versus
Kant
NB
NB
NB

NOTES ON DITZGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"
EXCURSIONS OF A SOCIALIST INTO THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
PREFACE
[180-181] If not slaves, then servants of nature we must eternally remain.
Knowledge can give us only possible freedom, which at the same time is the only rational freedom...
Whoever wants to become a true social democrat must perfect their way of thinking. The perfected method of thinking helped the recognized founders, Marx and Engels, to raise social democracy to the scientific standpoint on which it now stands...
I

"NO MORTAL SPIRIT CAN PENETRATE INTO THE DEPTHS OF NATURE"
[183-186] Just as idolaters deified the most ordinary things—stones and trees—so too, "mortal spirit" was attributed something divine and mysterious first by religion, then by philosophy. What religion called faith and the supernatural world, philosophy called metaphysics. However, we should not overlook the advantage of metaphysics, which had the good intention of transforming its subject into a science, which it ultimately succeeded in doing.
From the metaphysical world wisdom, a specialized discipline of modest theory of knowledge grew almost behind its back.
Before philosophy could penetrate the essence of the mortal spirit, it had to demonstrate through the practical application of natural science that the human mental apparatus indeed possesses the hitherto doubted ability to illuminate the inner essence of nature...
Thanks to the concept of "universe" in the human mind, man knows a priori*, as if this knowledge were innate, that all things and celestial bodies are in the universe and have a universal, common nature. The mortal spirit is no exception to this scientific law...
Belief in the immortal, supernatural religious spirit prevents the recognition that the human spirit is created and reproduced by nature itself, meaning it is her own child, toward which she shows no particular shyness.
And yet, nature is shy: it never reveals itself completely and at once.
It cannot reveal itself entirely because it is inexhaustible in its gifts. And the mortal spirit, this child of nature, is a lamp illuminating not only the external but also the internal of nature. To separate the internal from the external with regard to the physically infinite and inexhaustible single essence of nature means to confuse concepts...
The "great spirit" of religion is the cause of the diminishment of the human spirit, for which the poet, who denies the spirit's ability to "penetrate into the depths of nature," is responsible. Yet, the immortal, supernatural spirit is only a fantastic reflection of the mortal physical spirit. Epistemology, in its most developed form, can fully prove this proposition.
It shows us that the mortal spirit borrows all its ideas, thoughts, and concepts from the single monistic world, which the natural sciences call the "physical world"...
The mortal spirit, thanks to its knowledge, penetrates into the very depths of nature, but it cannot go beyond its limits not because it is limited, but because the mother—nature, the natural infinity—exists outside of which nothing exists.
From its wondrous mother, the natural child inherits consciousness. The mortal spirit comes into the world with the ability to be conscious that it is the child of its good mother-nature, who has endowed it with the ability to create excellent images of all other children of its mother, all its brothers and sisters.
NB
??
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* - a priori, before experience. Ed.

* - Marx and Engels = recognized founders. Ed.

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Thus, the "mortal spirit" possesses images, representations, or concepts of air and water, earth and fire, etc., and at the same time has the consciousness that these images created by it are excellent and true. Indeed, it is convinced through experience that the creations of nature are changeable, and it observes, for example, that water consists of the most diverse kinds of water, in which no drop is absolutely equal to another. But one thing it has inherited from its mother—it knows from itself, a priori, that water cannot change its universal, inherent nature as water without ceasing to be water; it therefore knows, so to speak, prophetically, that, despite all changes occurring in things, their universal nature, their universal essence, cannot change. The mortal spirit can never know whether this or that is possible or impossible for its immortal mother; but that water in all cases is wet and that the spirit, even if it were to dwell above the clouds, cannot change its universal nature—the mortal spirit knows with certainty by virtue of the nature inherent in it by birth...
[189-190] Just as the ability to see is closely connected with light and color, or the subjective ability to touch is connected with the objective property of being tangible, so too is the mortal spirit closely linked with the riddle of nature. Without the intelligible things of the external world, no intellect within the head can be real...

Philosophy has discovered the art of thinking; the fact that it has given much attention to the consideration of the question of the most perfect being, the concept of divinity, Spinoza's "substance," Kant's "thing-in-itself," and Hegel's "absolute" is explained by the fact that a sober concept of the universe, of the all-encompassing, which has nothing above, beside, or outside itself, is the first requirement of correct, consistent thinking, which knows about itself and all possible and impossible objects that everything belongs to a single, eternal, and infinite whole, which we call the cosmos, nature, or the universe...
[192] The law of natural logic and logical "nature" states that every thing belongs to its kind, that kinds and species, indeed, are changeable, but not to such an excessive degree that they could go beyond the universal kind, beyond the boundaries of the natural. Therefore, there cannot be a spirit so deeply penetrating into the essence of nature that it could, so to speak, fold and hide it in a pocket.
NB
? ? NB

Is this confidence, imparted to us by nature, something miraculous? Is it not clear that this thinking part of nature has inherited from its mother the conviction that the omnipotence of nature is rational omnipotence? Would it not have been more incomprehensible if the daughter had thought of her mother as omnipotent and omnipresent in a sense contrary to reason?..
II
ABSOLUTE TRUTH
AND ITS NATURAL MANIFESTATIONS
[192-204] Was it Goethe or Heine? I recall a saying of one of them: only the poor are modest. I renounce all beggarly modesty, for I think I will be able to make a small contribution to the great cause of science. This opinion is strengthened by the May issue of "Neue Zeit" for 1886, where the worthy Friedrich Engels, in his article on Ludwig Feuerbach, speaks approvingly of my works. In such cases, the essential is so closely linked with the personal that excessive modesty can harm the clarification of the essential...
The year 1848, with its reactionaries, constitutionalists, democrats, and socialists, aroused in my then young soul an irresistible need to acquire a critically secure, undoubted point of view, a positive opinion about what, in fact, of all that was written and heard for and against, is undoubtedly and unconditionally true, good, and right. Since I very much doubted the existence of God and had no faith in the church, it was very difficult for me to sort all this out. In my search, I came across Ludwig Feuerbach and became acquainted with his teachings; a thorough study of the latter advanced me greatly. Even more, my thirst for knowledge was quenched by the "Manifesto of the Communist Party," which came to my attention through the newspapers during the Cologne trial of the communists. But most of all, I owe my further development, finally, after I had become acquainted with various philosophical writers in my secluded rural life, to the book by Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," which appeared in 1859. In the preface to this book, it is stated—
NB
NB
NB
NB
1)
2)

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

It is stated, as the passage cited here approximately reads, that the method by which a person acquires a piece of bread, the cultural level at which a given generation has to work physically, determines the intellectual level or how it thinks and must think about truth, good and right, about God, freedom and immortality, about philosophy, politics, and jurisprudence... The cited proposition points us in the right direction and teaches us how human knowledge and absolute and relative truth generally stand.

What I am now relating as a personal experience is an insight acquired by humanity over the centuries. If I were the first to place these questions and this striving for absolute truth in a vague uncertainty, I would remain the fool who waits endlessly for an answer. However, the fact that I did not remain a fool and received a satisfactory answer is due to the historical course of events, which prompted me to raise the mentioned questions at a time when a whole series of preceding generations, through their best minds, had already been engaged in their study, preparing the explanation that, as can be seen from the previous account, was given to me by Feuerbach and Marx. What I mean to say is that what these scholars gave me was not only their individual affair but a communist product of the cultural movement, ascending to prehistoric times...

To more accurately understand the nature of absolute truth, it is first necessary to overcome the entrenched prejudice that it is of a spiritual nature. No, we can see, hear, smell, and touch absolute truth; we can undoubtedly also know it, but it does not enter entirely into knowledge; it is not pure spirit. Its nature is neither bodily nor spiritual, neither one nor the other—it is all-encompassing, both bodily and spiritual. Absolute truth does not have a particular nature; its nature is rather the nature of the universal. Or, expressed without any metaphors: universal natural nature and absolute truth are identical. There are not two natures—one bodily, the other spiritual; there is only one nature, in which all that is bodily and all that is spiritual is contained...

Human knowledge, being itself relative truth, connects us with other phenomena and
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NB
NB
NB

relations of absolute being. However, the ability to know, the knowing subject, must be distinguished from the object, but this difference should remain a limited, relative difference, because both the subject and the object are not only different but also similar in that they constitute parts, or phenomena, of that universal essence which we call the universe...
What we know are truths, relative truths, or phenomena of nature. Nature itself, absolute truth, cannot be known directly, but only through its phenomena. But how do we know that behind these phenomena lies absolute truth, the universal nature? Is this not a new mysticism?
Certainly, yes. Since human knowledge is not something absolute, but is merely
an artist creating certain images of truth, true, real, and truthful images, it follows that the picture does not exhaust the subject, that the artist remains behind his model. Nothing more meaningless has ever been said about truth and knowledge than what common logic has been saying for millennia: truth is
the correspondence of our knowledge with the object of the latter. How can a picture "correspond" with
a model? Approximately, yes. But which picture does not correspond approximately to its subject? After all, every portrait is more or less similar. But a completely and entirely similar portrait is an absurd thought.
Thus, we can only know nature and its parts relatively; for although every part is only a relative part of nature, it still has the nature of the absolute,
the nature of the natural whole in itself, which is not exhausted by knowledge.
How then do we know that behind the phenomena of nature, behind the relative truths, stands the universal, unlimited absolute nature, which does not fully reveal itself to man? Our vision
is limited, the same must be said of our hearing, touch, and also of our knowledge, and yet
we know relatively about all these things that they are limited parts of the boundless. Whence
do we have this knowledge?
NB
NB
NB
NB
NB
NB

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

It is innate to us. It is given along with consciousness. Human consciousness is knowledge of one's personality as part of the human race, humanity, and the universe. To know means to form images and, in doing so, to be aware that both the images and the things from which they are derived have a common mother, from whom they all originate and into whose bosom they return. This maternal bosom is absolute truth; it is entirely true and yet mystical, i.e., it is an inexhaustible source of knowledge, and therefore, ultimately unknowable.

What we come to know about the world and in the world, despite its truthfulness and correctness, is still only known truth, i.e., a modification, a kind, or a part of truth. If I say that knowledge of the infinite, absolute truth is innate to us, that it is the single and only a priori knowledge, then experience still confirms this innate knowledge. We learn that every beginning and every end is only a relative beginning and a relative end, based on the absolute, which no experience can exhaust. We learn from experience that every experience is a part of what, following Kant, goes beyond all experience.

A mystic might say: there is something that takes us beyond physical experience. We answer this—yes and no at the same time. For the old metaphysics, which does not recognize boundaries, there is nothing of the sort. For consciousness that has become aware of its essence, every particle, whether a speck of dust, a stone, or a piece of wood, is something ultimately unknowable, i.e., each particle is an inexhaustible material for human cognitive ability, and thus something that goes beyond experience.

When I say that the consciousness of the beginninglessness and infinitude of the physical world is innate and not acquired through experience, that it is a priori consciousness preceding*?
NB versus
Kant
NB

* - On Experience. Ed.

all experience, I must still add that it initially exists only as a germ and that it has developed, through experience, in the struggle for existence, and through sexual selection, into what it is now...

Unhealthy mysticism unscientifically separates absolute truth from relative truth. It makes two categories out of the appearing thing and the "thing-in-itself," i.e., out of appearance and truth, categories that are different from each other toto caelo* and are not "contained in a sublated form" in any general category. This murky mysticism turns our knowledge and our ability to know into "surrogates" that allow us to feel embodied truth, a superhuman, supernatural spirit, in the transcendent sky.

Humility always befits a person. However, the assertion of the inability of a person to know the truth has a dual, worthy and unworthy meaning. Everything we know, all scientific conclusions, all phenomena, are parts of the real, true, and absolute truth. Although the latter is inexhaustible and cannot be exactly reproduced in knowledge or representation, the pictures provided by science about it are excellent pictures in a human, relative sense of the word, just as the propositions I am writing here have a certain, precise meaning and, at the same time, do not have it if someone decides to distort or misinterpret them...

Spinoza says: there is only one substance; it is universal, infinite, or absolute. All other so-called finite substances flow from it, float in it, or sink in it; their being is only relative, transient, and contingent. Spinoza was fully justified in considering all finite things as modes of the infinite substance, just as our modern natural science stands on the point of view of the eternity of matter and the inexhaustibility of force, i.e., fully confirms the position that all finite things are modes of the infinite substance. In some respects, although very significant, it remained for subsequent philosophy to correct Spinoza.
NB
NB
versus
Kant
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NB
To correct
Spinoza

* - wholly, in every respect, fundamentally. Ed.

NOTES ON DITZGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

According to Spinoza, the infinite, absolute substance has two attributes: it is infinite in space and possesses infinite thought. Thought and extension—these are the two Spinozist attributes of the absolute substance. This is erroneous: precisely, absolute thought is completely unfounded...
What Spinoza called infinite substance, what we call the universe or absolute truth, is as identical with finite phenomena, with relative truths that we encounter in the Universe, as a forest is identical with its trees or as a genus is with its species. The relative and the absolute are not so far apart as the underdeveloped sense of infinity, called religion, depicted them to man...
Philosophy, like religion, lived by faith in an excessive, absolute truth. The solution to the problem lies in the recognition that absolute truth is no more than generalized truth, that the latter lives not in the spirit—at least no more there than anywhere else—but in the object of the spirit, which we call by the general name "universe."
The excessive, absolute truth, which religion and philosophy designated by the name of God, was a mystification of the human spirit, which mystified itself with this fantastic image. Philosopher Kant, who engaged in the critique of the cognitive ability of our spirit, found that man cannot know the excessive, absolute truth. We add to this: man cannot even excessively know ordinary objects. But if he modestly uses his ability and applies it relatively, as everything should be approached in this manner, then everything is open to him and nothing is hidden, and he can also know and understand the general truth.
Just as our eye can see everything, though perhaps with the help of lenses, and yet not everything, for it cannot see sounds or smells,
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NB
Absolute truth in the object
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versus
Kant
.
NB

or anything generally invisible, so too our cognitive ability can know everything and, nevertheless, not everything. The unknowable it cannot know. But this is also excessive, an excessive desire.
If we acknowledge that the absolute truth, which religion and philosophy sought in the excessive, or transcendent, exists in reality as a material universe, and that the human spirit is merely a bodily, or real, actual and acting part of the general truth, destined to reflect other parts of the general truth, then the problem of the limited and unlimited will be completely resolved. The absolute and the relative are not so excessively demarcated; both are interconnected in such a way that the unlimited consists of infinite limits, and each limited phenomenon contains the nature of the infinite...

III
MATERIALISM AGAINST MATERIALISM
[204-215] "The realization that existing German idealism is entirely false inevitably led to materialism, but, it should be noted, not simply to the metaphysical materialism of the 18th century," says Friedrich Engels 210.
This latest materialism, which is derived here from the complete inadequacy of German idealism and one of whose founders is Friedrich Engels, is often poorly understood, although it constitutes the main theoretical foundation of German social democracy. Let us, therefore, examine it in more detail.
This specifically German, or, if you prefer, social-democratic, materialism is best characterized by contrasting it with the "metaphysical, exclusively mechanical materialism of the 18th century"; and if we further compare it with German idealism, from whose inadequacy it arose, then the character of its social-democratic basis, which, due to
Absolute truth
NB
NB
Anti-
Duhring,
p. 10
NB

its materialistic name, often causes misunderstandings, will become completely clear.
First of all, the question: why does Engels call the 18th-century materialism "metaphysical"? Metaphysicians were people who were not content with the physical, or natural, world, but constantly had in their minds a supernatural, metaphysical world; in the preface to his "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant reduces the problem of metaphysics to three words: God, freedom, immortality. It is well known that the all-good God was a spirit, a supernatural spirit, which created the natural, physical, material world. The famous materialists of the 18th century were not friends or admirers of this biblical story. The problems of God, freedom, and immortality, insofar as they concerned the supernatural world, did not interest these atheists at all; they adhered to the physical world and were, therefore, not metaphysicians.
Engels, therefore, calls them metaphysicians in another sense.
With the primary, cloud-dwelling great spirit, the French and English materialists of the last century somehow managed, but they still continued to deal with the derivative, human spirit. Two opposing understandings of this spirit, its nature, origin, and essence, separate the materialists from the idealists. The latter consider the human spirit and its ideas as products of the supernatural, metaphysical world. However, they were not content with mere belief in this distant origin, but, since the time of Socrates and Plato, took it much more seriously, trying to scientifically substantiate, prove, and explain it—just as they prove and explain the physical things of the concrete world. In this way, the idealists transferred the science of the properties of the human spirit from the realm of the supernatural and metaphysical into the real, physical, material world, which manifests itself as a world with dialectical properties, where spirit and matter, despite their duality, are united, i.e., are like brother and sister, of the same blood, from the same mother.
Initially, the idealists were convinced adherents of the religious pre-
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NB

premises that the spirit created the world, but they were wrong in this, for ultimately the result of their own investigations was that, on the contrary, the natural material world is something primary, not created by any spirit, and that it is rather the creator, having developed from itself and brought forth man with his intellect.
Thus, it turned out that the uncreated higher spirit is only a fantastic image of the natural spirit, which grew along with the human head and within it.
Idealism, which received its name from the fact that it considered the general idea and the ideas arising in the human mind to stand both in time and in value above the material world and to precede it, - this idealism
undertook its task in the most dreamy and metaphysical manner; but as it developed, the dreaminess diminished, and it became increasingly sober, so that the philosopher Kant, in response to the question he posed to himself: "How is
metaphysics possible as a science?" answered: metaphysics as a science is impossible, another world, i.e., the supernatural, can only be imagined and grasped by faith. Thus, the untenability of idealism was gradually overcome, and modern
materialism emerged as a product of philosophical, as well as general scientific, development.
Since the untenability of idealism in the person of its last famous representatives - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel - was purely German, the result of this, dialectical materialism, is primarily a product of German origin.
Idealism derives the physical world from the spirit, following in the footsteps of religion, where the great spirit, hovering over the waters, has only to say, "Let there be," for everything to come into being.
Such an idealistic derivation is metaphysical. But, as already mentioned, the last famous representatives of German idealism were no longer such ardent metaphysicians. They had largely freed themselves from the extramundane, supernatural, heavenly spirit; but they did not free themselves from the dreams about the natural, this-worldly spirit. Christians, as is known, deified the spirit, and this deification
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dialectical materialism
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NOTES ON DIALECTEN'S BOOK "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" so permeated the philosophers that they could not refrain from making
our intellect the creator or producer of the material world even when the sober object of their research became the physical, human spirit. They
continue to work to clearly understand the relationship between our mental representations and the material things we represent, think, and understand.
For us, dialectical or social-democratic materialists, the spiritual
capacity for thinking is a developed product of material nature, whereas according to German idealism, the opposite is the case. Therefore, Engels speaks of the "perversity" of this way of thinking. The infatuation with the spirit was a survival of old metaphysics.
The English and French materialists were, so to speak, premature
opponents of dreaminess. This prematurity prevented them from fully freeing themselves from it. They were overly radical and fell into the opposite
error. As philosophical idealists were carried away by the spirit and the spiritual, so they were carried away only by the body and the bodily. Idealists were carried away by the idea, old materialists -
by matter; both were dreamers and, therefore, metaphysicians; both excessively separated the spirit from matter. Neither of these two parties rose to the consciousness of the unity and singularity, the commonality and universality
of nature, which is neither material nor spiritual, but both together.
The metaphysical materialists of the last century and their contemporary, still surviving, continuators undervalue the human spirit and the investigation of its essence and its actual application, just as idealists overvalue it...
For the old materialists
NB !!
NB

only matter is the supreme subject, and everything else is a predicate subordinate to it.
In this way of thinking, there is an overvaluation of the subject and an undervaluation of the predicate. It is overlooked that the relationship between subject and predicate is absolutely changeable. The human spirit can freely make any predicate a subject and, conversely, any subject a predicate. Snow-white color, although intangible, is just as substantial as snow of white color. To believe that matter is the substance, or the main cause, and its predicates, or properties, are merely secondary appendages, is an old, limited way of thinking that completely disregards the achievements of German dialecticians. It must finally be understood that subjects are formed exclusively from predicates.
The assertion that thought is a secretion, a product, or an excretion of the brain, like bile is an excretion of the liver, is uncontroversial, but at the same time, it should not be forgotten that we have here a very poor and inadequate comparison. The liver, the subject of this perception, is something tangible and weighty; likewise, bile is what is produced by the liver, its product and consequence. In this example, both the subject and the predicate, i.e., both the liver and the bile, are weighty and tangible, but this very fact obscures precisely what the materialists wanted to say, presenting bile as a consequence and the liver as the acting cause. We must, therefore, especially emphasize what in this example is entirely uncontroversial but in the comparison of the brain and thinking activity is completely overlooked. Namely: bile is not so much the result of the liver's activity as it is the result of the entire life process...
When stating that bile is a product of the liver, materialists do not at all deny and should not deny that both objects are equally valid objects of scientific research. But when it is said that consciousness, the capacity for thinking, is a property of the brain, then only the tangible subject should be
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NB

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS" truly worthy object, and with the spiritual predicate, it is thus already done away with.
We call this mode of thinking of the mechanical materialists limited,
because it makes everything tangible and ponderable, in a certain sense, the subject, the bearer of all other properties, without noticing that this overly exalted tangibility plays in the world whole the same subordinate, predicative role as any other subordinate subject of universal nature.
The relation between subject and predicate does not explain either matter or thought.
However, for clarifying the connection between the brain and mental activity, it is important to understand the connection between subject and predicate.
Perhaps we will come closer to resolving the question if we choose another example—one in which the subject is material, and the predicate is such that, at least, it is doubtful whether it belongs to the material or spiritual category. If,
for example, legs walk, eyes see, ears hear, then the question arises whether both
the subject and the predicate belong to the material category, whether the light we see,
the sound we hear, and the movement performed by the legs are something material or immaterial? Eyes, ears, legs—tangible and ponderable subjects,
while the predicates—seeing and light, hearing and sound, movement and steps (not to mention the legs that produce the movement)—are intangible and weightless.
What, then, is the scope of the concept of matter? Do colors, light, sound, space, time, heat, and electricity belong to this concept, or must we find another category for them? Here, we cannot get by with merely distinguishing between subject and predicate, things and properties. When the eye sees, the tangible eye, in any case, is the subject. But just as well, one can turn the phrase around and say that the weightless seeing, the forces of light and vision, are the main facts, the subjects, while the material eye is merely an instrument, a secondary thing, an attribute, or a predicate.
One thing is clear: substances have no greater significance than forces, and forces no greater than substances. The materialism that gives preference to substance
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NB

and, at the expense of force, is carried away by the material, poorly understands the relativity, the fluidity of the distinction between substance and property.
The concept of matter and the material has so far remained an extremely confused
concept. Just as lawyers cannot agree on when the life of a child begins in the mother's womb, or as linguists argue about where language begins—
whether the summoning cry or the love song of a bird is language, or whether the language of mimicry and gestures should be included in the same category as articulate speech—so too, the materialists of the old mechanical school argue about what matter is:
does this concept apply only to the tangible and ponderable, or to everything visible, smellable, audible, and, finally, to all of nature, which serves as material for investigation, and accordingly, everything can be called material, even the human spirit, for
this object also serves epistemology as material.
Thus, the characteristic that distinguishes the mechanical materialists of the last century from the social-democratic materialists, who have passed through the school of German idealists, is
that the latter extended the limited concept of only tangible matter to all that is generally material.
There is nothing to be said against the fact that extreme materialists distinguish the ponderable or tangible from the smellable, the audible, or, finally, from the world of ideas. We
can only reproach them for overusing this distinction, for overlooking the kinship and commonality in things or properties, and for distinguishing the ponderable and tangible matter "metaphysically," or toto caelo, and for not seeing the significance of the general class that encompasses the opposites.
Modern natural science still, in many respects, stands entirely on the viewpoint of the materialists of the last century. These materialists were general theorists, so to speak, philosophers of natural science, insofar as it still limits its research to the mechanical, i.e., the concrete, tangible, and ponderable.
True, natural science has long since begun to overcome this viewpoint; chemistry has already gone beyond mechanical limitations, and new knowledge has emerged about the transformation of forms of force, about the transition of gravity into heat, electric-
NB
NB
NB
Matter and Spirit
NB
NB

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Electricity, etc. But natural science still remains limited. The study of the human spirit and all those relations which it engenders in human life, i.e., political, legal, economic, and all other such relations, are excluded from the sphere of its investigation, still being under the influence of the old prejudice that the spirit is something metaphysical, a child of some other world.

Natural science does not deserve criticism for its limitation because it distinguishes between mechanical, chemical, electrical, and other knowledge, setting them apart as special domains, but because it exaggerates this division, overlooking the connection between spirit and matter, and has yet to rid itself of the "metaphysical" mode of thinking...

It is not different views on stars or animals, plants or stones, that divide people into materialists and idealists; the decisive factor is solely and exclusively the view on the relationship between body and spirit.

The conviction of the complete fallacy of German idealism, which continued to regard the spirit as a metaphysical first principle, supposedly creating and producing tangible, visible, olfactory, and other matters, inevitably led to socialist materialism, which calls itself "socialist" because Marx and Engels, the socialists, were the first to clearly and precisely establish that the material and specifically economic relations of human society form the basis that ultimately determines the entire superstructure of legal and political institutions, as well as religious, philosophical, and other conceptions of each historical epoch. Instead of explaining human existence from consciousness, as was done before, now, on the contrary, consciousness is explained from existence, and primarily from the economic position of man, from the way he earns his bread.

Socialist materialism understands by "matter" not only the weighty and tangible but also all real being—everything contained in the universe, for the universe contains everything, and everything and the universe are just two names for the same thing; and socialist materialism wants to encompass everything with one concept, one name, one class—regardless of whether this universal class is called reality, actuality, nature, or matter.

We, the newest materialists, do not hold the narrow view that weighty and tangible matter* is the matter par excellence; we stand on the point of view that the fragrance of flowers, sounds, and all kinds of odors are also matter. We do not regard forces as a mere appendage, as a pure predicate of substance, but rather see tangible substance as the "thing" that dominates all properties. We look at substance and forces democratically. Both have equal value for us; taken separately, they are no more than properties, appendages, predicates, or attributes of the great whole—nature. One cannot view the brain as the master and spiritual functions as its subordinate servant. No, we, modern materialists, assert that function is an independent entity to the same degree as tangible brain substance or any other material thing. Thoughts, their source, and their nature are just as real matter and as worthy of study as anything else.

We are materialists because we do not make the spirit into any kind of "metaphysical" monster. For us, the power of thought is no more a "thing in itself" than the force of gravity or a lump of earth. All things are but links in the great universal chain; it alone is eternal, true, constant; it is not a phenomenon but the sole "thing in itself" and absolute truth.

Since we, socialist materialists, have a single concept that unites matter and spirit, so-called spiritual relations, such as politics, religion, morality, and so on, are also material relations for us; and we view material work, its substances, and questions of the stomach only to the extent that they serve as the basis, premise, and foundation of all spiritual development, since the animal precedes the human in time, which in no way prevents us from highly valuing the human and his intellect.

Socialist materialism is distinguished by the fact that, unlike the materialists of the old school, it does not undervalue the human spirit, nor does it overvalue it like the German idealists, but in its evaluation, it knows the measure, critically and dialectically examining both mechanism and philosophy as links in the indivisible world process and world progress...

[218-226] Since we do not agree with the old materialists, who believe they have sufficiently explained what intellect is by calling it a property* * *

* - par excellence. Ed.

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

If we cannot separate ourselves from our object, the human spirit, with one stroke of a knife, then the speculative path, which tries to understand the essence of the spirit through mere ruminations within the brain, cannot be our way, as the speculative idealists have achieved too insignificant results with it. And here comes Haeckel very opportunely with his view on the correct method of science. He considers the human spirit as it has acted historically, and this seems to us to be the entirely correct method...

The first proper spiritual synthesis, according to Haeckel, was Darwin's discovery of natural selection in the struggle for existence, published only in 1859, but we allow ourselves to hold a different opinion on this matter.
Let the esteemed reader not misunderstand me: we do not wish to dispute that Darwin and Haeckel correctly and scientifically connected their individual spirits with the world of plants and animals and created pure crystals of knowledge, but we merely want to note that the latest dialectical materialism stands on the position that Darwin and Haeckel, however great their merit, were not the first and only ones to create such crystals. The "poor" museum zoologists and herbarium botanists also left us a part of genuine science...

By perceiving and collecting facts and describing them, new light is obtained, or rather, the previously acquired light is increased. Darwin's merit is great, but not so boundless that Haeckel had grounds to consider "science" something higher than the everyday connection of the human spirit with material facts.

In the first part of the present study, it was pointed out that limited materialism not only considers the human spirit to be a property of the brain—this is undisputed—but from this connection directly or indirectly infers that the predicate of rationality or cognitive ability attributed to the brain is not a substantial object of investigation, but, on the contrary, the study of the material brain is sufficient to explain the properties of the spirit.

In contrast, our dialectical materialism proves that the question should be considered, following Spinoza's indication, from the perspective of the universe, *sub specie aeternitatis*.
Old Materialism
NB
NB

* - from the perspective of eternity. Ed.

In the infinite universe, the matter of the old and already outdated materialists, tangible matter, does not have the slightest right to consider itself more substantial, i.e., more immediate, clear, or definite, than any other natural phenomenon...
Those materialists who transform tangible matter into substance and intangible brain function only into an accident unduly diminish this function. To gain a more successful and correct understanding of it, it is first necessary to return to the fact that they are children of the same mother, that they are two natural phenomena, which we illuminate, describe, and classify into classes, species, and subspecies.
If we state about matter, with which, of course, no one disputes, that it is a natural phenomenon, and say the same about the spiritual capacity of man, then we still know very little about both; but we know that they are brothers and that no one can excessively separate them from each other; no one can draw a distinction *toto genere, toto coelo* between them.
If we want to learn more, for example, about matter, then we must proceed as the museum zoologists and herbarium botanists did in the past, we must learn its various classes, families, species, investigate them, and describe their origin, destruction, and transformation into one another. This is the science of matter. Whoever wants more than this wants too much and does not understand what knowledge is; he does not understand either the organ of science or its application. If the old materialists deal with specific types of matter, they act absolutely scientifically; but when they deal with abstract matter, with the general concept of it, they are completely helpless in this abstract science. The merit of the idealists
is that they, at least, advanced the art of using abstraction and general concepts to such an extent that the latest socialist materialism can finally understand that both types of matter and concepts are ordinary products of nature, and there is nothing and can be nothing that does not belong to the single, unlimited category of the natural world.
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The Merit of Idealism
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* - in all respects; entirely, in every way, fundamentally. Ed.

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Our materialism is distinguished by its specifically expressed acquaintance with the general nature of spirit and matter. Where this modern materialism makes the human spirit the object of its research, it considers it as any other material for research, i.e., in the same way that museum zoologists, herbarium botanists, and Darwinists proceed with the investigation and description of their objects. Undoubtedly, the first [i.e., the early systematists] illuminated thousands of species through their classification; however, this was not a sufficiently strong light, and Darwin so intensified it that this additional illumination overshadowed the beginning. But the old systematists had to "know" before they classified, and therefore Darwin's knowledge is nothing but a classification subsumed under the concept of development, which, thanks to the description of natural processes, provides a more accurate representation of the collected facts...

The materialist theory of knowledge amounts to the recognition that the human organ of cognition does not emit any metaphysical light but is a piece of nature reflecting other pieces of nature, the creative essence of which is elucidated by our description of it. Such a description requires from the theorist of knowledge, or the philosopher, that he consider his object as precisely as the zoologist does the animal he studies. If I am reproached for not doing this immediately, one must not forget that Rome was not built in a day.

It is remarkable that these enlightened natural scientists, who understand so well that the eternal movement of nature, through adaptation, heredity, natural selection, the struggle for existence, etc., has created elephants and apes from protoplasm and mollusks, cannot comprehend that the spirit has developed along the same path. Why should what could happen to bones not also happen to reason?...

Just as the museum zoologist studied his animals through the description of class, species, and family, into which they are divided, so too the human spirit must be investigated through the study of the various kinds of this spirit. Each individual possesses their own particular intellect, and all intellects together can be considered as branches of a common general spirit. In part, this common human spirit, like the personal one, has its development in the past, and in part, in the future; it has undergone various, diverse metamorphoses, and if we trace them, we will reach the beginning of the human race, where the divine spark falls to the level of animal instinct. The human spirit, having become an animal, thus serves as a bridge to the actual animal spirits, and in this way, we reach the spirit of plants, trees, and mountains.

This means: we thus arrive at the understanding that between spirit and matter, as between any parts of the universal unity of nature, there are gradual transitions and a vanishing difference only in degree, but not a metaphysical difference.

Since the old materialism did not understand these facts, since it was unable to comprehend matter and spirit as abstract images of concrete phenomena, and, despite its religious free-thinking and low estimation of the divine spirit, did not know where and how the natural spirit originated, and because of this ignorance, it could not overcome metaphysics—Friedrich Engels called this helpless, incapable of dealing with abstract science, materialism, metaphysical, while the materialism of social democracy, which, thanks to the preceding German idealism, went through a better school, he called dialectical.

From the standpoint of this materialism, spirit is a collective name for spiritual phenomena, just as matter is a collective name for material phenomena, and both together form one concept and are called by one name—phenomena of nature. This is a new theoretical-cognitive mode of thinking that penetrates all individual sciences, all individual thoughts, and establishes the position that all things in the world must be viewed *sub specie aeternitatis*, from the perspective of the universe. This eternal universe is so fused with its temporal phenomena that all eternity is temporal, and all temporality is eternal.

And the substantial mode of thinking of social democracy illuminates this problem anew, over which idealism so agonized, posing the question: what is true thinking, and how to distinguish subjective thoughts from objective ones? The answer is: one should not make excessive distinctions; and the best representation and the most
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NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

True thought can only provide an image of the universal diversity that exists within and outside of you. Distinguishing real images from fantastic ones is not so difficult, and every artist can do this with the greatest precision. Fantastic representations are taken from reality, and the most accurate representations of reality necessarily come to life with the breath of imagination.
Accurate representations and concepts render us great service precisely because they possess not ideal fidelity, but only relative.
Our thoughts cannot and should not "coincide" with their objects in the exaggerated metaphysical sense of the word. We want, must, and can obtain only an approximate idea of reality. Therefore, reality can only approach our ideals. Outside of the idea, there are no mathematical points or straight lines. All straight lines in reality have a contradictory curvature, just as the highest justice is still closely linked with injustice. The nature of truth is not ideal, but substantial; it is materialistic; it is grasped not by thought, but by eyes, ears, and hands; it is not a product of thought, but rather the opposite: thought is a product of universal life. The living universe is embodied truth.
IV
DARWIN AND HEGEL
[226-233] By this, we wish to indicate that philosophy and natural science are not so far apart. The human spirit works in both areas according to the same method. The scientific method is more precise, but only in degree, not in essence...
We readily acknowledge the nearly forgotten Hegel as the forerunner of Darwin. Lessing* once called Spinoza a "dead dog." Similarly, Hegel has outlived his time, despite the fact that, according to his biographer Haym, he once enjoyed the same weight in the literary world as Napoleon I in the political. Spinoza, this "dead dog," has long since
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* There is an inaccuracy in the text: Dietzgen, apparently, refers to Hegel's Preface to the second edition of the "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences," where it is said: "Lessing once said that Spinoza was treated like a dead dog" (see Hegel. Collected Works, vol. I, M.-L., 1929, p. 352). Ed.

risen, and Hegel will also meet with deserved recognition from posterity. If he does not enjoy it now, it is only a transient phenomenon.
As is well known, the teacher said that among his numerous students, only one understood him, and even that one understood him incorrectly. This universal misunderstanding, in our opinion, is more a result of the teacher's own obscurity than the students' lack of understanding—there can be no doubt about this. Hegel cannot be fully understood because he himself did not fully understand himself. And yet, he is a genius predecessor of Darwin's theory of evolution; similarly, it is correct and true to say the opposite: Darwin is a genius continuator of Hegel's theory of knowledge...
The flights into the heavens, sporadically undertaken by natural scientists, and the flashes of precise thinking in philosophers should indicate to the reader that the general and the specific are in harmony with each other...
To clarify the relationship between Darwin and Hegel, we need to touch on the deepest and darkest questions of science. Among these is the object of philosophy. Darwin's object is unambiguous; he knew his subject, but it should be noted that Darwin, who knew his subject, still wanted to investigate it, i.e., he did not know it completely. Darwin investigated his subject—the "origin of species"—but not to the end. This means that the object of any science is infinite. Whether someone wants to measure infinity or the tiniest atom, they always deal with something that cannot be measured to the end. Nature, both as a whole and in its individual parts, cannot be fully investigated; it is inexhaustible, unknowable to the end; it is, therefore, without beginning and without end. The cognition of this real infinity is the result of science, while its starting point was the supernatural, religious, or metaphysical infinity.
Darwin's subject is as infinite and inexhaustible as Hegel's. The former investigated the question of the origin of species, the latter tried to explain the process of human thought. The result for both was a theory of development.
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The atom is immeasurable, infinite
The atom is inexhaustible

REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Before us stand two great men and one great cause. We strive to prove that both of them worked not in opposing directions, but on a common cause. They elevated monistic world-view to such a height and supported it with such positive discoveries, which were unknown before...
To our Hegel belongs the merit of establishing the self-development of nature on the broadest basis and freeing science in its most general form from the classifying point of view. Darwin criticizes the traditional classifying approach from the standpoint of zoology,
while Hegel does so universally. Science moves from darkness to light. And philosophy, whose central concern is the clarification of the process of human thought, moved forward; that it tended to stop instinctively at its specific object, was to some extent clear even before Hegel...
Hegel gives us a theory of development; he teaches that the world was not made, was not created, that it is not an unchanging [233] being, but a becoming, producing itself. Just as in Darwin all classes of animals transition into one another, so in Hegel all categories of the world—nothing and something, being and becoming, quantity and quality, time and eternity, conscious and unconscious, progress and stagnation—inevitably transition into one another...
No one would claim that Hegel brilliantly completed his task. His teaching, like Darwin's, did not make further development unnecessary, but it gave a tremendous impetus to all of science and all of human life. Hegel anticipated Darwin, but, unfortunately, Darwin did not know the Hegel who was so close to him.
By this "unfortunately," we do not mean to reproach the great naturalist; we merely wish to remind that Darwin's work as a specialist must be complemented by the work of the great synthesizer Hegel, in order to go beyond them and achieve greater clarity.
We have seen that Hegel's philosophy was so obscure that the teacher had to say about his best student that he misunderstood him. The clarification of this obscurity was aided not only by his successor Feuerbach and other Hegelians, but also by all the scientific, political, and economic development of the world...
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[235-243] In the fact that our greatest poets and thinkers expressed a tendency toward a "monistic, purest form of faith" and a striving for a physical view of nature, which makes
all metaphysics impossible and eliminates the supernatural god along with all the rubbish of miracles from
the realm of science, Haeckel is entirely correct. But when he gets carried away and says that this
tendency "has long since found its most perfect expression," he is very much mistaken, even regarding himself and his own creed. Even Haeckel has not yet learned to think monistically.
We will now provide a more detailed justification for this criticism, but first we wish to establish the fact that this criticism is deserved not only by Haeckel, but by the entire school of our contemporary natural science, as it neglects the results of almost three thousand years of philosophical development, which has a long and rich history, as substantial as empirical natural science...
In Haeckel's words, there are three points that we want to highlight and which will prove to us that "monistic world-view" has not yet found its perfect expression in its most radical, natural-scientific representative.
The old faith sees the general foundation of all being in its personal god, who is supernatural, indescribable, incomprehensible to our concepts, who is spirit, something mysterious. The new religion à la Haeckel posits that nature, to which it gives the old name of god, is precisely the foundation of all things...
The difference between the ordinary, natural and unnatural, between physical and metaphysical revelation, religion and divinity is so great that a view of nature, as it appears to the Darwinist Haeckel, free from all extraneous elements, would have every right to reject the old names and the divine, revelation-based religion and to appear "destructively" against the latter in the full armor of monistic world-view. By not doing this, Darwinism reveals only the limitations of its theory of development...
That Haeckel, the most prominent representative of natural-scientific monism, still clings to this dualistic position, is vividly demonstrated by his third point, which asserts that "with the current organization of our brain," the ultimate first cause of all phenomena is unknowable.
What does unknowable mean?
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NOTES ON DIETZGEN'S "SMALL PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

The entire context of the sentences in which this word is used clearly demonstrates that our natural scientist is still entirely entangled in the web of metaphysics. No thing, no atom is completely knowable. Every thing is inexhaustible in its mysteries, eternal and indestructible...
Nature is full of mysteries, which for the investigating mind turn out to be the simplest, most ordinary phenomena. Nature is inexhaustible in the richness of scientific problems. We investigate them, but we never reach the end in our investigations. The sound human reason is quite right when it finds that the world and nature cannot be investigated to the end, but it is no less right when it rejects the metaphysical unknowability of the world as excessive thoughtlessness, as superstition. In our investigation of nature, we never reach the end, and yet, as natural science advances in its research, it becomes increasingly evident that there is absolutely nothing to fear from the inexhaustible mysteries of nature, that here—according to Hegel's words—there is nothing that is inaccessible to it. From this, it follows that we daily draw from the inexhaustible "first foundation of all things" and precisely with the help of our cognitive apparatus, the capacity of which for investigation is just as universal and infinite as the infinite richness of nature in ordinary mysteries.
"With the present organization of our brain!" Of course! Our brain, thanks to sexual selection and the struggle for existence, will develop in all its strength, and will penetrate more and more into the natural first foundation. If these words have such a meaning, then we readily agree with them. But the point is that the Darwinist, still entangled in metaphysics, does not give them such a meaning. The human reason, he wants to say, is too small for a complete investigation of the world; therefore, we must believe in the existence of a "higher," supernatural spirit and not fight against it "destructively"...
Hegel expounded the doctrine of development much more universally than Darwin. In saying this, we do not mean to prefer or place one above the other, but only consider it necessary to supplement one with the other.
*Kein Atomchen ist auszukennen*
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* - No atom is knowable to the end. Ed.

If Darwin teaches us that amphibians and birds are not isolated species, but living beings that arise from each other and transform into each other, then Hegel teaches that all species, the whole world, represent a living being, having no fixed boundaries anywhere; the knowable and unknowable, the physical and the metaphysical, constantly transform into each other; the absolutely unknowable is something that belongs not to monistic, but to religious, dualistic worldviews...
According to our monism, nature is the ultimate foundation of all things; it is also the foundation of our cognitive ability, and yet, according to Haeckel's view, this ability is too limited to know the ultimate foundation. How to reconcile this?
Nature, known as the ultimate foundation, at the same time turns out to be "unknowable"!?
Fear of destructive tendencies has even seized such a resolute theorist of evolutionism as Haeckel; he retreats from his theory and prefers the belief that the human spirit should be content with the phenomena of nature, that it cannot reach the true essence of nature; the ultimate first foundation turns out to be an object outside the domain of natural science...
Regarding the pantheistic views of our greatest poets and thinkers, views that culminate in the conviction of the unity of God and nature, Hegel left us a particularly characteristic theory. According to it, we know not only unity but also the difference of things. A Spitz is as much a dog as a Pug, but this unity does not exclude difference. Nature, after all, has much in common with the all-merciful God: it reigns from eternity to eternity. Since our mind is a natural instrument of it, nature knows everything that is accessible to knowledge; it is omniscient, but despite this, "natural" wisdom is so different from divine wisdom that there are sufficient scientific reasons for the destructive tendency aimed at the complete displacement of the concepts of God, religion, and metaphysics—displacement in the rational sense of the word, as far as possible. Confused ideas have always existed and will exist until the deep eternity...
And if the old knowledge of the animal world gives only an incomplete, and the new knowledge, developed by Darwin, more *Erscheinungen*
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* - phenomena. Ed.

NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

If we are to obtain a true, complete, and genuine picture, the benefit that follows for our knowledge is not limited to animal life: at the same time, we gain knowledge of our cognitive ability, namely, that it is not some supernatural source of truth, but a mirror-like instrument reflecting the things of the world, or nature...

[248-249] Kant argues as follows: if our reason must be confined to the knowledge of natural phenomena, and if we can know nothing more, still we must believe in something mysterious, higher, and metaphysical. Here, he concludes, something must be hidden, "for where there are phenomena, there must be something that appears,"—a conclusion that is only apparently precise. Is it not enough that natural phenomena manifest themselves, and that behind them there is nothing supernatural, nothing incomprehensible, nothing beyond their own nature?

But let us leave this aside. Kant expelled metaphysics, at least formally, from science, so that it would get stuck in faith...

[251] Kant left his followers with the extremely modest thought that the lamp of human knowledge is too small to illuminate the great monster. By proving that it is not too small, that our light is neither less nor more, neither less nor more wondrous than the object to be illuminated, we will put an end to belief in wonders, in the monster, and to metaphysics. Thus, man loses his excessive modesty, and Hegel contributed significantly to this.

What is metaphysics? By its name, it was a scientific discipline that still casts its shadow today. What does it seek, what does it want? Of course, enlightenment! But about what? About God, freedom, and immortality—this sounds completely pastoral today. And even if we designate the content of these three concepts by the classical names of truth, goodness, and beauty, it is still extremely important to clarify for oneself and the reader what the metaphysicians actually seek and want; without this, one cannot adequately assess and depict Darwin, Hegel, or what they did, and what they missed, and what therefore remains to be done by posterity...

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V
THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE
[255-266] One can cite numerous passages from contemporary literature that confirm the absolute chasm between general knowledge of nature and the metaphysical need—meaning that the question, "where does the light come from?" is infinitely complicated. A truly classic example of this complexity is F. A. Lange's "History of Materialism." If we abstract from many brilliant and excellent, but secondary, aspects of this work, as well as from the author's democratic kinship with the socialist party—which we note with great pleasure—nevertheless, Lange's philosophical viewpoint is the most pitiful floundering in metaphysical snares that has ever occurred. It is precisely this constant indecision and uncertainty that give the work its significance, because although the task is not resolved and nothing is decided, the problem is posed so clearly that its ultimate resolution becomes inevitably close.

Then come opponents like Dr. Gideon Spicker ("On the Relation of Natural Science to Philosophy"), who, pointing to this floundering, abuse their just criticism to discredit not only Lange but also materialism...

Materialism, which successfully deals with the knowledge and explanation of various fields of science, has not yet attempted to explain the field of knowledge itself, and therefore its benevolent historian could not achieve a complete victory over the ruins of idealism...

"There are two questions before which the spirit must pause. We are unable to understand atoms, and we cannot explain even the slightest phenomenon of consciousness from atoms and their movements...

No matter how one twists the concept of matter and its forces, one always runs up against something incomprehensible.

It is not without reason, therefore, that Du Bois-Reymond goes so far as to assert that all our knowledge of nature is not really knowledge, but only a surrogate of explanation...

This is the point past which the systematizers and apostles of the mechanistic worldview pass with such disdain—the question of the limits of knowledge of nature" (F. Lange, History of Materialism, Vol. II, pp. 148-150).

This exact reference is, in fact, superfluous, as such statements are well known. Not only Lange, but also Jürgen Bona Meyer and von Sybel have made similar statements.

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NOTES ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Sheffle and Zamter, if they had to touch upon this subject; so says the authoritative world, insofar as it has outgrown the Capuchins. But Lange did not know the social democrats well enough, otherwise he would have known that in this point they complemented the mechanistic worldview.

"The great shortcoming of Hegel compared to Kant," says Lange, "is that he completely lost the idea of a more general, than human, way of knowing things." Thus, Lange regrets that Hegel did not speculate on superhuman knowledge, and we respond to this: the reactionary slogan "back to Kant!" which is now heard from all sides, arises from a monstrous tendency—to turn science back and subordinate human knowledge to a "more general way of knowing." In it, there is a desire to once again renounce the already won mastery of man over nature and to fetch the old scarecrow's crown and scepter from the storeroom, so that superstition may reign again. The philosophical aspiration of our time consists in a conscious or unconscious reaction against the clearly growing freedom of the people.

It is enough to delve a little into the metaphysical thought about the "limits of knowledge," which runs like a red thread through Lange's famous book and is so often repeated by contemporary scholars, to immediately recognize it as a meaningless phrase. "Atoms cannot be understood, and consciousness cannot be explained." But the whole world consists of atoms and consciousness, of matter and spirit. If both are incomprehensible, then what remains for the intellect to understand and explain? Lange is right: actually, nothing. For, according to them, our understanding is not at all understanding, but only a surrogate. Perhaps those gray animals, commonly called donkeys, are only surrogates of donkeys, and real donkeys must be sought among more highly organized beings...

The light of knowledge makes man the master of nature. With its help, man can have ice in summer and the fruits and flowers of summer in winter. But this mastery always remains limited. Everything that man can do, he can do only with the help of natural forces and materials.
[261] As in technical production, natural phenomena appear in their physical form, so in science, changes in nature appear to us from their spiritual side. As production ultimately leaves exaggerated creative needs unsatisfied, so science, or "knowledge of nature," does not fully satisfy our exaggerated need for causal explanation. But just as a sensible person will not complain that for creation we eternally need material and that from nothing, from good wishes, we can make nothing, so too, one who delves into the nature of knowledge will not want to go beyond experience. For both creation and knowledge, or explanation, we need material. Therefore, no knowledge can clarify where the material comes from or originates. The world of phenomena, or material, is something primitive, substantial, without beginning or end, without origin.

Material is present, its existence is material (in the broader sense of the word), and human ability to know or be conscious is part of this material existence, which, like any other part, can perform only one specific, limited function, namely, the knowledge of nature...

Since the fourth estate advanced its claims, our official scholars have been compelled to pursue a conservative, reactionary policy. Now they persist, wanting to legitimize their error and retreat back to Kant. Let it be that with the late Lange this happened during an innocent but erroneous excursion; but many of his followers—cunning Jesuits—use the work of their predecessor as a good means against the new society and force us to carry the critique of reason to its very roots.

Everything we perceive, say the Neo-Kantians, can only be perceived through the glasses of consciousness. Everything we see, hear, feel, must come to us through sensations, therefore through the soul. Therefore, we cannot perceive things in their pure, true form, but only as they appear to our subjectivity. According to Lange, "sensations are the material from which the real external world is created." "The fundamental question at issue (vol. II, p. 98) can be defined quite precisely. It is a kind of apple of sin, according to Kant: the relation between subject and object in knowledge."

Thus, they shift the blame for post-Kantian philosophy. Here is what Lange says: "According to Kant, our knowledge arises from the interaction of both (subject and object)—an infinitely simple yet often ignored proposition. From this view, it follows, continues Lange, that our world of phenomena is not only a product of our representation, but also a result of objective influences and their subjective depiction.
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REMARKS ON DITGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Not what an individual knows in one way or another due to a chance mood or imperfect organization, but what humanity as a whole must know through its sensibility and understanding, Kant called, in a certain sense, objective. He called such knowledge objective because we speak only of our experience; on the contrary, he called it transcendental or, in other words, false, if we extend such knowledge to things-in-themselves, that is, to absolute, independently existing things...
Yes, materialists have not yet bothered to take into account the subjective element of our cognition and have uncritically accepted sensory objects at face value. This error must be corrected.
Let us accept the world as it is according to Kant: a mixture of subject and object, but let us stand firm on the idea that the entire world is one mixture, one unity; let us also acknowledge that this unity is dialectical, i.e., composed of its opposite, of a mixture or multiplicity. And in the multiplicity of the world, there are things like boards, stones, trees, and heaps of clay, which are undoubtedly called objects. I say: "they are called," but I do not yet say that they are objects. There are also things like colors, smells, warmth, light, and so on, whose objectivity is already more doubtful; then there are things even further removed, like physical pain, thirst for love, and springtime feelings, which are undoubtedly subjective. Finally, there are objects that are even more subjective and the most subjective, in the comparative and superlative degree, such as chance moods, dreams, hallucinations, and the like.
Here we come to the very essence of the matter. Materialism has triumphed, for it must be acknowledged that a dream is a real, undoubted, although considered subjective, process. In such a case, we are ready to join the "critical" philosophers who assert that boards and stones, all those things that are called undoubted objects, are also perceived by our organs of sight and touch, and therefore they are not pure objects but subjective phenomena. We readily admit that the very thought of a pure object, or "thing-in-itself," is an absurd thought, which, so to speak, has squinted its eyes toward another world.
Objective* according to Kant
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* - objective. Ed.

The distinction between subject and object is relative. Both are of the same kind. What we perceive with the capacity of understanding, we perceive as part of a whole and as a whole part...
[268-272] The recognition of this dialectic illuminates and fully explains the mystical striving
to seek truth behind appearance, that is, to seek a subject behind every predicate. Only when unable to operate dialectically with concepts does this striving take such a false direction that it seeks the subject outside the predicate, the truth outside phenomena. Critical theory of knowledge must recognize the instrument of experience itself as something experienced, and therefore, talk about going beyond all experience becomes meaningless.
If contemporary philosophers, led by the historian of materialism, approaching the very essence of the matter, declare that the world is phenomena, i.e., objects of natural cognition, that this cognition deals with changes, but that we still seek a higher cognition or eternal, essential objects, it becomes clear that these are either deceivers or fools who are not content with studying all the grains of sand in a heap of sand, but seek behind all the grains some heap of sand without grains.
Whoever has completely severed ties with our vale of tears—the world of phenomena—let them sit together with their immortal soul in a fiery chariot and ascend to heaven. But whoever wants to remain here and believe in the salvific power of scientific knowledge of nature, must trust in materialist logic. And its § 1 states: the intellectual kingdom is of this world, and § 2: the activity we call cognition, understanding, explanation, can consist in
classifying the sensible world by genera and species, permeated by the unity of being; it cannot engage in anything other than formal knowledge of nature. There is no other knowledge.
But then comes the metaphysical striving, which is not satisfied with "formal knowledge" and wants—without knowing how—to know. It seems insufficient to it to classify the data of experience accurately with the mind. What natural science calls science, for it, is merely a surrogate, a pitiful, limited knowledge; it demands unlimited spiritualization, so that things dissolve completely in the concept. But why does this charming striving not want to understand that it is only setting excessive demands? The world does not arise from spirit, but the reverse. Being is not a kind of intellect, but the reverse, intellect is a kind of empirical existence. Being is the absolute that is omnipresent and eternal; thinking is only a special, limited form of it...
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REMARKS ON DITZGEN'S BOOK "MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS"

Science or knowledge should not replace life, for life is something greater and cannot be exhausted by science. Therefore, no thing can be overcome by cognition or explanation. No thing can be fully known: this cherry is as little known as this sensation. Even if I have studied and understood the cherry according to all the requirements of science—botanically, chemically, physiologically, etc.—I have truly come to know it only after simultaneously perceiving it: seeing, touching, and eating it...

The impoverished philosophical criticism that is currently raging portrays human reason as a pitiful pauper, capable of explaining only the superficial phenomena of things, while the true explanation is supposedly closed off, and the essence of things is incomprehensible to it. And the question arises: does each thing have its own special essence, an infinite multitude of these essences, or is the whole world just one unity? Here it is easy to see that our mind has the ability to bring everything into connection, to sum up all parts, and to divide all sums. The intellect makes all phenomena into essences, and it knows essences as phenomena of a single great essence—nature. The contradiction between phenomenon and essence is not at all a contradiction, but a logical operation, a dialectical formality. The essence of the Universe is a phenomenon, and its phenomena express the essence.

Therefore, long live this striving, this metaphysical need to seek the essence behind every appearance, but on the condition that it recognizes "formal knowledge of nature" as the only rational practice of science. The striving to go beyond phenomena to truth and essence is divine, heavenly, i.e., scientific. But it must not overreach; it must know its limits. It must seek the divine and the heavenly in the earthly and the transient and not separate its truths and essences from phenomena; it must seek only subjective objects and relative truth.

Perhaps even the old and new Kantians would agree with the latter, but we cannot agree with their gloomy resignation, with the furtive glance they cast at the higher world, which accompanies their teaching. We do not agree that "the boundaries of knowledge" will cease to be boundaries, with faith constantly accompanying the unbounded intellect. Their reason says: "Where there are phenomena, there must also be something transcendent that appears." Our critique says: "What appears is the phenomenon itself; subject and predicate are homogeneous..."

The monistic worldview of natural scientists—in the narrower sense—is insufficient... Our view can become monistic only through a materialist theory of knowledge. Once we understand the general relationship between subject and predicate, it will no longer be possible to deny that our intellect is a kind or form of empirical reality. Materialism, indeed, long ago established this fundamental position, but it remained a bare assertion, more of a foreshadowing. For proof, a general view is necessary, that science generally does not and cannot want anything other than the classification of sensory observations into genera and species. Dissection or dissected unity, this is all it can and wants to do.

Savages deify the sun, moon, and other things. Civilized people have made spirit into a god and the capacity for thinking into a fetish. In the new society, this should not be. There, people will live in dialectical communication, as a multitude in unity; and the light of knowledge will also be destined to become a tool among other tools.

101: Marx on Dialectics*.
256: Lange - most pitiful floundering in metaphysical snares.
233: Hegel above Darwin in the doctrine of development.

Notes written no earlier than
February - no later than October
1908.
Published for the first time, from the original

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NB
NB

* The text on the left side of the page was written by V. I. Lenin on the cover of J. Ditzgen's book; the numbers indicate the pages of Ditzgen's book (see the present volume, p. 390, 448, 443). Ed.