104 

Manchester, 6 November 1868 

Dear Moor, 

Herewith return back Eichhoff’s letters?’ and Dietzgen’s 
manuscript. The latter I had placed in a safe place, away from the 
tidying females, and there it was completely forgotten. 

It is difficult to pass absolutely definite judgement on the thing; 
the man is not a born philosopher and, in addition, half 
self-taught. Some of his sources (e. g., Feuerbach, your book* and 
various trashy publications on the natural sciences) can be 

a the first volume of Capital 

immediately traced partly from his terminology, but one cannot 
tell what else he has read. The terminology is, of course, still very 
confused, hence the lack of precision and frequent reiterations in 
new terms. There is also dialectics in it, but appearing more in the 
form of flashes than in any connected way. The presentation of 
the thing-in-itself as a conceivable thing [Gedankending] would be 
very nice and even brilliant if one could be certain that he himself had 
discovered it. There is plenty of wit in it and, despite the poor 
grammar, a marked talent for style. All in all, however, a remarkable 
instinct to think out so much that is correct on the basis of such 
inadequate studies. 

The repetitions are, as I said, partly a result of the shortcomings 
in terminology, partly due to his lack of logical schooling. It will 
be a hard job to get rid of them all. If the man definitely wants to 
print his stuff, I do not know if the reduction to 2 printed sheets 
would be the best for him; in any case, it would be a frightful job 
for him, since he is not aware of his repetitions. In addition, I do 
not know whether 2 sheets would get any attention at all. 6-8 
sheets would be more likely to do this. But he will never get it into 
a Magazine. 

Borkheim has written to ask whether I would agree that he 
should reprint my Bakunin article from the Neue Rheinische 
Zeitung* in Liebknecht’s paper” and says, in this connection, that 
this article ‘fits, for him, most excellently in his framework’. I 
replied ** that we planned to publish our earlier articles, etc., 
jointly, that we were already negotiating with a book-dealer, but 
that I did not know how things stood at the moment and had 
therefore written to you. I don’t know though which article he 
means; there are several and he speaks of one. Besides, he repeats 
his nonsense about Bakunin, Eichhoff, etc. 

Eichhoff’s thorough defence made me laugh. 

Best greetings. 

Your 
F. E.