MARX TO ENGELS*” 

[London,] 18 June 1862 

Dear Engels, 

The idea of pouring out my misére to you again sickens me, but 
que faire’? Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children 
were Safely in their graves, and I really cannot blame her, for the 
humiliations, torments and alarums that one has to go through in 
such a situation are indeed indescribable. As you know, the £50 
went on debts, more than half of which remain to be paid.**? The 
£2 on gas. The wretched money from Vienna won’t arrive till the 
end of July, and then there’ll be damned little of it, since the 
swine aren’t even printing 1 article a week now. To that must be 
added the fresh expenditure since the beginning of May. I won’t 
say anything about what, in London, is the truly parlous situation 
of being without a centime for 7 weeks—since for us it is a 
chronically recurring state of affairs. But from your own 
experience, you will at any rate know that, all the time, there. are 
current expenses that have to be paid in cash. This has been done 
by putting back in pawn the stuff that had been redeemed at the 
end of April. But that source was exhausted weeks ago, so much 
so that, a week ago, my wife attempted to sell some books of mine 
‘in vain’. I feel all the more sorry for the unfortunate children in 
that all this is happening during the exuisition season,’ * when their 
friends are having fun, whereas they themselves live in dread lest 
someone should come and see them and realise what a mess they 
are in. 

For the rest, I myself, by the ‘by, am working away hard and, 
strange to say, my grey matter is functioning better in the midst of 
the surrounding misére than it has done for years. I am expanding 
this volume,” since those German scoundrels estimate the value 
of a book in terms of its cubic capacity. Incidentally, another thing 
I have at last been able to sort out is the shitty rent business 
(which, however, I shall not so gnuch as allude to in this part).** I 
had long harboured miscivincs as to the absolute correctness of 
Ricardo’s theory, and have at length got to the bottom of the 

* what can one do? 

swindle.* Again, since we last saw each other, I’ve hit on one or 
two pleasing and surprising novelties in connection with what’s 
already going into this volume. 

I’m amused that Darwin,” at whom I’ve been taking another 
look, should say that he also applies the ‘Malthusian’ theory to 
plants and animals, as though in Mr Malthus’s case‘ the whole 
thing didn’t lie in its not being applied to plants and animals, but 
only—with its geometric progression—to humans as against 
plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin rediscov- 
ers, among the beasts and plants, the society of England with its 
division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, 
‘inventions’ and Malthusian ‘struggle for existence’. It is Hobbes’ 
bellum omnium contra omnes* and is reminiscent of Hegel's 
Phenomenology,“ in which civil society figures as an ‘intellectual 

‘animal kingdom’, whereas, in Darwin, the animal kingdom figures 
as civil society. 

Buckle has played a trick on Ruge by dying. In his imagination, 
Ruge had envisaged another library to be written by Buckle and 
‘transposed’ into German by Ruge. Poor Ruge! And poor Buckle 
who, this very day, is traduced by a ‘friend’ in a testimonium 
pietatis' in The Times 

Have you and Lupus received the 2 Julian Schmidts? I sent off? 

Apropos. If it could be done very briefly, without making undue 
demands on you, I should like to have a sample of Italian 
book-keeping (with explanations). It would help to throw light on 
Dr Quesnay’s Tableau Economique.*”° 

No one comes to see me, and I’m glad of it, for I don’t give a 
woteess for the sort we have here. A fine crew! 

Your 
K. M. 

* See this volume, pp. 394-98. - bCh. Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of 
Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London, 
1859. - © T. R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, as It Affects the Future 
Improvement of Society, with the Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Goldwin, M. Condorcet, 
and Other Writers, London, 1798. - 4 war of all against all (Th. Hobbes, Leviathan, or 
the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil). - 
© G. W. Hegel, Phdnomenologie des Geistes. - £ an obituary - & J. S. Glennie’s obituary 
of Buckle, The Times, No. 24275, 18 June 1862. - » F. Lassalle, Herr Julian Schmidt der 
Literarhistoriker (see this volume, p. 376). ‘ 

I’ve heard from Lassalle. He may come over here in July. In the 
late autumn he will make a start on the initial draft of his ‘Political 
Economy’, which, however, is going to take him a ‘long time’. He’s 
in for a surprise.