JOSEPH DIETZGEN: - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Joseph Dietzgen and the Proletarian Method
interrelation of all things in the universe. It was only by means of this
perfection that dialectics could grow into a consistent monism, a uniform
world philosophy. From this moment dates the discovery of a cosmicdialectic
method of thought which guarantees a strictly systematic and
“logical uniformity in the theory of all studies, no matter how wide and
irreconcilable may seem the contradiction of the questions treated. This is
the only method of research which exterminates dualism and superstition
in all fields of studies, and clears the road for every science to its very last
conclusions where each science merges into the universal interrelation of
nature. These words may here suffice to indicate the principal
accomplishment of Joseph Dietzgen.
In St. Petersburg, he also wrote his articles on “Capital,” by Karl Marx,
which appeared in the “Demokratische Wochenblatt,” at Leipzig, in 1868,
which paper was the precursor of the “Volksstaat” and the present Berlin
“Vowarts.”
Karl Marx makes a highly commendatory reference to the economic
understanding of my father in the preface of the second edition of the first
volume of “Capital.” He also visited my father in Siegburg.
At this point I must remember another friend of my father’s, who deeply
influenced his mental development. This is Ludwig Feuerbach, with whom
my father entertained a correspondence. When in 1871 the news of the
poverty and death of this philosopher reached my father, I remember seeing
him cry for the first time.
His small tannery in Siegburg permitted him to study with little
interruption, since he did not care to accumulate material wealth, his
Siegburg heirloom guaranteeing in a modest way the necessities of life for
himself and family, so long as it was kept together. That he did not succeed
in keeping this heirloom intact, was a cause of much subsequent trouble to
my father. There were always a great number of friends who needed
assistance that injured him. In one case he went to Denmark in order to
assist a comrade financially in his tanning business. But the attempt failed,
with great loss to himself. At the same time, his leather store and tannery
in Siegburg were less and less able to compete with the growing great
capitalist industries and to yield profits. Finally his last customers were
almost wholly lost when he was taken into custody for three months,
pending his trial in Cologne, in 1878. This arrest was made under the
influence of the momentary excitement which had seized the German
authorities after the attempt of Hodel and Nobiling, in 1878, to kill the
6
Joseph Dietzgen and the Proletarian Method
These words characterize the essence of the purely deductive and
unconditional “science.” Or, to use another variation:
“I tell you this: A man who speculates
Is like a beast upon some arid, heath,
Led in a circle by some evil sprite,
While round about is pasture fresh and green.”
The human mind can form abstract concepts only by combining
impressions derived from concrete objects and ascertaining in what respect
they are generally identical. Hence we do not fully understand abstract
concepts, until we have had practical intercourse with the concrete
phenomena which are their premise. All concepts are more or less abstract
and flexible. Because the parts of the universe, and our experiences relating
to them, are in a process of continuous development, our concepts of them
likewise remain fluid and flexible. The green pasture of the concrete
phenomena turns into the arid heath of abstract concepts as soon as we
forget the interrelation of the latter with the former. The fact that this
interrelation has been overlooked in the first place, is due to the
circumstance that man, overawed by the supreme power of nature and the
wealth of its phenomena, and feeling his dependence upon them, mistook
the way of fantasy and faith for the only one which would lead to the
blessedness of an explanation of the world satisfactory to the mind and
heart. The faculty of memory, which permitted him to retain and collect
past impressions, forsook him when it would have been proper for him to
recollect the objective and perceptible origin of all impressions, especially
after such great abstracta as god, morality, liberty, immortality, etc., had
been instilled in his mind without criticism for generations in the shape of
dogmas or eternal truths. It was not until he had reached a high stage of
development, when an understanding of social and natural interrelations
had convinced him more and more of the passing nature and relative truth
of all dogmas, that he restored consciously this psycho-physical connection
on one field of research after another. Many sciences had far advanced
before the theory of understanding became scientific. An epoch-making
advance in this direction is due to Kant, who ascertained that experience,
that is to say, the interrelation of mind with sense-perceptions, is the
indispensable premise of all science. But Kant left to faith the task of
replying to so-called final questions concerning the origin and end of the
43