233

p What exactly is this system? Chernyshevsky does not state openly in any of his works whom he regards as his teacher in philosophy. He never goes any further than hints; but his hints are very transparent. For example, in his Polemical Gems he says that 234 his teacher’s system is the latest link in a series of philosophical systems and that it emerged from Hegel’s system just as Hegel’s system emerged from Schelling’s. "And probably you would like to know who this teacher is that I am talking about?" he asks, addressing his opponent Dudyshkin. "To help you in your inquiries I will tell you that he is not a Russian, not a Frenchman or an Englishman, not Biichner. not Max Stirner. not Bruno Bauer, not Moleschott. not Vogt. Who is it then?" One would have to be very slow-witted not to reply: Ludwig Feuerbach. And in philosophy Chernyshevsky was indeed a follower of Feuerbach.

p There can be no doubt that Feuerbach’s philosophy developed from Hegel’s philosophy, just as the latter developed from Schelling’s. But Hegel was a resolute idealist, whereas Feuerbach was an equally resolute opponent of idealism. However, since he was at the same time fully aware of what constituted the weakness of Kant’s “critical” dualism,  [234•*  one must count him as a materialist.  [234•**  Some of the most important Neo-Kantians believe that he was never a materialist. But this is a mistaken view. If the reader should wish to convince himself of that, we can suggest a simple, but very effective way of doing so: let him read in the April and May issues of the Sovremennik for 1860 Chernyshevsky’s article "The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy" which caused such a stir, and let him decide whether there can be the slightest doubt that it advances a materialist view of nature and man. Any unprejudiced reader will say: no, there can be no doubt whatever about that. And if this is so, one is also bound to call Feuerbach. from whose works Chernyshevsky’s view is borrowed in its entirety, a materialist.  [234•***  But in this case we shall perhaps be asked why the Neo-Kantians refuse to recognise Feuerbach as a materialist. We shall reply without the slightest hesitation: simply and solely because Messieurs Neo-Kantians have a mistaken idea of materialism.

p This idea is to a considerable extent supported by Lange’s well-known book. This is not the place to analyse it; we shall confine ourselves to criticising what it says specifically about Feuerbach’s philosophy.

p Feuerbach says in his Grundsatze: "The new (i.e., his) philosophy makes man, including nature as the basis of man, the sole, 235 universal and supreme content of philosophy, that is, it makes anthropology, including physiology, a universal science."

p In this connection Lange remarks: "This one-sided elevation of man is a feature which comes from Hegel’s philosophy and sets Feuerbach apart from the materialists proper. It is again the philosophy of the spirit which appears to us here in the form of a philosophy of sensualism. The real materialist will always be inclined to direct his gaze to the great oneness of external nature and to see man as a wave in the ocean of the movement of matter. Man’s nature for the materialist is merely an individual event in the chain of the physical processes of life. He is most ready to place physiology among the general phenomena of physics and chemistry, and he is most pleased to relegate man as far as possible into the ranks of other creatures. There can be no doubt that in practical philosophy he will refer to man’s nature also, but here too he will be little inclined to ascribe divine attributes to this nature, as Feuerbach did."  [235•* 

p Let us note, first and foremost, that in Feuerbach’s case the divinity of the attributes of human nature has a quite special meaning. The French materialists of the last century would not, of course, have approved of Feuerbach’s terminology in their discussion of these attributes. But this terminological disagreement would not have been of any essential significance and would have been produced by purely practical considerations. Such considerations no longer existed for those French writers of the nineteenth century who, like Dezamy, for example, were ardent followers of the materialism of the last century. And we do not think that Dezamy would have objected to ascribing divine attributes to human nature in the sense that they have in Feuerbach. His view of this nature in general is very reminiscent of what Feuerbach says about it. And although Dezamy very firmly places physiological phenomena among the general phenomena of physics and chemistry, he is convinced at the same time "that the principle and criterion of all certitude lies in complete and synthetic knowledge of man and all that influences man".  [235•**  This is almost literally the same as man and nature as the basis of man. Dezamy’s system also has a place for religion, again in the same sense which it has in Feuerbach. And it would be wrong to assume that in this system French materialism underwent a great change. For this is precisely what it did not do! 236 Only details changed.  [236•*  The materialists of the eighteenth century, of course, would not have referred to as religion that which Dezamy calls religion; but they too would not have refused to admit that the sign of all certitude lies in knowledge of man and of all that influences him. In general it must be said that Feuerbach’s "philosophy of sensualism" and the materialist philosophy of the author of the Systeme de la Nature are extremely alike. The only difference is that Feuerbach is more categorical than Holbach. "Truth, reality and sensualism are identical,” says Feuerbach. "Only a sensual essence is a true and real essence, only sensualism is truth and reality.” The cautious Holbach expresses himself differently: "We do not know the essence of a single .thing, if the word essence is used to denote the inner nature of things. We cognise matter only through the perceptions, sensations and ideas that it gives us—We do not know either the essence or the true nature of matter, although we can judge certain of its qualities by its effect on us.... For us (i.e., for people) matter is that which in some way or other influences our senses.” This is the same "philosophy of sensualism”. If Lange had taken these thoughts of Holbach’s into consideration, he would, firstly, not have said that "materialism stubbornly takes the world of sensual appearance for the world of real objects”,  [236•**  237 and secondly, he would not have hesitated to regard Feuerbach as a materialist. He would then have understood that this thinker’s system is only one of the forms of materialism.

p “Whereas earlier philosophy had as its point of departure the proposition: I am an abstract, only thinking being, my body does not belong to my essence,” says Feuerbach, "the new philosophy, on the contrary, begins with the proposition: I am a real, sensual essence; my body belongs to my essence, even in its entirety my body is my ego, my very essence.” From these words it is clear what he actually understood by sensualism and how he arrived at it. It appeared as the negation of Hegel’s intellectualism.

p What is Hegel’s absolute idea? It is no more than the process of our thinking taken independently of its subjective character and proclaimed as the essence of the whole world process. To show that the absolute idea is a mere psychological abstraction was to reveal the Achilles’ heel of German idealism of that time. This is what Feuerbach did. By showing that the absolute idea is merely "the essence of man" presented to us in the form of the world essence, which is independent of the latter, he showed at the same time that Hegel took a one-sided view of human essence: for him the essence of man was thought, whereas in fact sensation also belongs to it: "only through the senses is the object conveyed in its true form, and not through thought in itself".

p “Sensualism” came to the fore and was bound to do so in philosophy that was not only the further development of Hegel’s philosophy, but also its negation.  [237•*  Feuerbach’s philosophy could not appear otherwise than in the costume of its day. But if we go further than its costume and examine its “essence”, we are struck by its similarity to French materialism of the last century. Feuerbach’s main efforts were directed towards the struggle against the dualism of spirit and matter. This dualism was also the main target of Holbach’s attacks. It is amazing that Lange did not notice this.

p True, Feuerbach himself, as far as we can remember, does not actually call himself a materialist anywhere. On the contrary, 238 even in his work which is aimed specially against the dualism of body and spirit, he says: "Truth is not in materialism and not in idealism, not in physiology and not in psychology, truth is in anthropology.” In his Nachgelassene Aphorismen there are some even more definite passages:

p “Materialism,” he says there, "is a most unsuitable name, which gives a wrong idea and can be justified only by the desire to draw a distinction between the non-material nature of thought and its material nature; for us, however, there exists only organic life, only organic action, only organic thought. Therefore it would be more correct to say organism.  The consistent spiritualist denies that an organ is necessary for thinking, whereas the natural view of the matter shows that there is no activity without an organ.” Also in the Aphorisms Feuerbach says that materialism is only the basis of human essence and human knowledge, but not as yet knowledge itself, as physiologists and naturalists in the narrow meaning of the word, such as Moleschott, think. There too he declares that he only goes along with the materialists to a certain point (Riickwarts stimme ich den Materialisten vollkommen bei, aber nicht vorwärts).  [238•* 

p Why is he not perfectly satisfied with “physiology”? The answer to this is to be found in his work, already quoted by us on several occasions, against dualism of body and spirit. In it Feuerbach says that "physiology reduces everything to the brain, but the brain is no more than a physiological abstraction; it is only the organ of thinking as long as it is connected with the head and the body".  [238•**  This, as you can see, is by no means an essential difference of opinion with “physiology” and materialism. It would be more correct to say that there is no difference of opinion here at all, since of course no physiologist or materialist would maintain that intellectual activity can continue in a head that has been severed from a body. Feuerbach was too ready to ascribe to materialists a weakness for what he called physiological abstractions.

p This happened because he had a poor knowledge of the history of materialism. As evidence we quote, for example, his work Ueber Spiritualismus und Materialismus besonders in Beziehung auf die Willensfreiheit, where he contrasts German materialism, with which he sympathises greatly, with the materialism of Holbach and the "pate aux truffes" of La Mettrie, obviously without even suspecting how close he is to both of them."  [238•***  In pointing to the distinguishing features of German 239 materialism, he is, again without realising it, pointing to the distinguishing features of the materialism expressed in the Systeme de la Nature and the Homme machine. One would hardly expect such a mistake from a person whose whole life was devoted to the study of philosophy. But one must remember the intellectual climate in which Feuerbach grew up. At the time when he was a student idealism reigned supreme in Germany, only rarely mentioning its antagonist, materialism, as a doctrine that was already dead and buried. In histories of philosophy materialism, particularly the French materialism of the eighteenth century, was mentioned only in passing. Hegel was much fairer in his attitude to French materialism than the other idealists, but he too allotted it very little space in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Given such a state of affairs a mistaken view of French materialism was able to exist quite peacefully even in the most restless and thinking heads. Later, after revolting against idealism, Feuerbach could have and, of course, should have paid more attention to French materialism. But at first he was distracted by the need to destroy idealism with its own dialectical weapon, and a knowledge of French materialism was not necessary in this struggle. And in the fifties in Germany there appeared a form of materialism which could only confirm all the prejudices against this doctrine that remained in his head. We are referring to the materialism of Karl Vogt, Moleschott and the like. It is not at all surprising that Feuerbach did not sympathise fully with this materialism. It is rather surprising that he felt any sympathy for it at all, that he went along with materialists of this type to a certain point. These materialists really were caught up in abstractions, and with regard to their theories Feuerbach had every right to say "that they were not yet the whole truth. That was even putting it too mildly.

For example, these materialists said that thought is the movement of matter. But to agree with this means to contradict the law of conservation of energy, i.e., in other words, it means renouncing any possibility of the scientific explanation of nature. When Feuerbach says that truth is not in materialism and not in idealism, but in “organism”, he merely wishes to say that thought (sensation) is not movement, but the inner state of matter placed in certain conditions (of the brain connected with the body, etc.). But this is precisely what all the great materialists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thought. When Hobbes asked: "What is the nature of the movement that produces sensation and imagination in living beings?" he was obviously not equating matter with movement. The same can also be said of Toland and the French materialists. Toland "regarded thought as a phenomenon in the nervous system which accompanies its material movements,” says Lange. This is right. But 240 Feuerbach regarded it in exactly the same way too. Toland is a materialist. Why cannot Feuerbach also be called a materialist then? We do not understand!