The Holy Family: Critical Battle against French Materialism
Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik. Gegen Bruno Bauer und Consorten (ch. VI, 3d)
Marx’s sketch of the history of French and English materialism from Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes and Locke to Helvetius and Holbach, written against Bruno Bauer’s “critical” account: one line of materialism leads into natural science, the other “directly into socialism and communism” — if man is formed by circumstances, circumstances must be formed humanly.
- Edition
- Chapter VI, section 3 (d), written by Marx, translated for the Compendium from the first edition (Frankfurt am Main: Literarische Anstalt, J. Rütten, 1845). Quotations from Holbach and Bentham are left in French as in the original.
- Source
- Internet Archive (BSB scan of the 1845 edition)
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Contents
- Critical Battle against French Materialism 30 min 16
Against Bruno Bauer’s claim that French materialism was merely a school of Spinoza, Marx sketches its “profane” history. The French Enlightenment fought not only church and state but the whole metaphysics of the seventeenth century, which Hegel later restored and which materialism, now united with humanism, will finally defeat. There were two lines of materialism: one from Descartes’s physics, leading into natural science; the other from Locke, rooted in English materialism — Bacon, whose matter still “smiles at the whole man,” and Hobbes, who made it abstract and geometric — leading through Condillac, Helvetius and Holbach into social theory. The fall of metaphysics is explained by the worldly practice of eighteenth-century life. Because materialism teaches that man is formed by circumstances, education and interest, it leads directly to socialism and communism: circumstances must be formed humanly. Marx traces the line to Fourier, the Babouvists, Bentham, Owen, Cabet and Dézamy, shows that Bauer took his history from Hegel, and adds quotations from Helvetius, Holbach and Bentham.