ENGELS TO EDWARD PEASE *?> 

[Draft] 
[London,| 27 January 1886 

Dear Sir, 

In answer to your kind note of yesterday I regret to say that my 
time is so entirely taken up by urgent work on hand, that I cannot 
possibly for at least a year to come undertake any fresh engagements 
whatever. 

Having said this much, I need not enter upon other considerations 
which might stand in the way of my writing the article you desire. 
But I may state at all events that the party to which I belong, has no 
fixed ready-made proposals to submit. Our views as to the points of 
difference between a future, non-capitalistic society and that of to- 
day, are strict conclusions from existing historical facts and develop- 
ments, and of no value— theoretical or practical—— unless presented 
in connection with these facts and developments. The economical 
aspect of these points of difference I have tried to establish and to 
explain in my book Herrn E. D. Umwilzung der Wissenschaft 2nd ed. 
p- 253 to 271; reprinted in my pamphlet Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus 
etc. 3rd ed. p. 28-48.* Shorter I cannot possibly do even this partial 

@ The reference is to Engels’ Anti-Duhring and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see 
present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 254-71 and Vol. 24, pp. 306-25). 

abstract, where neither political nor non-economic social questions 
are even touched. To give you a résumé in 600 words is therefore 
a task utterly beyond my powers. 

I am yours faithfully