KARL MARX

t
IO KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
improve mankind and himself, but left it to him to seek the means by
which he must attain this goal, left it to him to choose the position in
society which is most appropriate and from which he can best elevate
both himself and society. This choice offers a great advantage over
other creatures but at the same time is an act which can destroy man's
entire life, defeat all his plans, and make him unhappy. 38
To every person there had been allotted his own purpose in life, a
purpose indicated by the 'soft but true' interior voice of the heart. It was
easy to be deluded by ambition and a desire for glory, so close attention
was necessary to see what one was really fitted for. Once all factors had
been coolly considered, then the chosen career should be eagerly pursued.
'But we cannot always choose the career for which we believe we have a
vocation. Our social relations have already begun to form, to some extent,
before we are in a position to determine them.'" This sentence has been
hailed as the first germ of Marx's later theory of historical materialism. 40
However, the fact that human activity is continuously limited by the
prestructured environment is an idea at least as old as the Enlightenment
and the Encyclopedists. It would indeed be surprising if even the germ
of historical materialism had already been present in the mind of a
seventeen-year-old school-boy. It would be a mistake to think that, in his
early writings, Marx was raising questions to which he would later produce
answers: his later work, coming as it did after the tremendous impact on
him of Hegel and the Hegelian School, contained quite different questions
- and therefore quite different answers. In any case, the subsequent
passages of the essay, with their mention of physical or mental deficiencies,
show that Marx here merely means that when choosing a career one
should consider one's circumstances.
Marx then went on to recommend that a career be chosen that conferred
on a man as much worth as possible by permitting him to attain
a position that was 'based on ideas of whose truth we are completely
convinced, which offers the largest field to work for mankind and
approach the universal goal for which every position is only a means:
perfection'. 41 This idea of perfectibility was what should above all govern
the choice of a career, always bearing in mind that
The vocations which do not take hold of life but deal, rather, with
abstract truths are the most dangerous for the youth whose principles
are not yet crystallised, whose conviction is not yet firm and unshakeable,
though at the same time they seem to be the most lofty ones
when they have taken root deep in the breast and when we can sacrifice
life and all striving for the ideas which hold sway in them. 42
11 ere, too, commentators have tried to discover an embryo of Marx's later