Abstract
There is impressive, prima facie evidence supporting the view that Karl Marx’s relationship to Charles Darwin should be regarded as a strong case in the history of the interaction between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Consider for example Marx’s straightforward declaration according to which Darwin’s work contained “a scientific basis for the historic class struggle”.1 Or take Friedrich Engels’ emphatic statement at Marx’s graveside: “Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history”.2 Yet, there is also impressive evidence showing that Marx was unwilling to base his social views direct on biology, and that he thoroughly rejected attempts aimed at explaining social traits away with the natural conditions supporting individuals and societies. Besides, Marx liked to stress discontinuity rather than continuity between the animal world and human societies. So, he pointed out that population dynamics followed different laws among animals and in human societies, and he contrasted animals’ instinctive behavior with man’s goal-directed work. It seems thus fair to say that Marx’s relationship to Darwin is a strong case, above all, in that it shows how entangled the interaction between the natural sciences and the social sciences can be.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Karl Marx and F. Engels: Werke [MEW] 39 vols. (Berlin: Dietz, 1957–68), 30: p. 578.
MEW, 19: pp. 333, 335.
The best reconstruction of the story, and an accurate record of the role played by different historians in sorting out the myth, has been offered by Ralph Colp Jr. (Ralph Colp Jr.: “The myth of the Darwin-Marx letter”, History of Political Economy, 1982, 14: 461–482); see also Gerhard H. von Müller: “Darwin, Marx, Aveling — Briefe und Spekulationen. Eine bibliographische Betrachtung”, Dialektik, 1983, 6: 149–159.
See Howard E. Gruber; “Darwin and Das Kapital”, Isis, 1961, 52: 582–583; Julian Huxley, amp; H.B.D. Kettlewell: Charles Darwin and His World ( London: Thames and Hudson, 1974 ), p. 80.
Colp Jr.: (n. 3 supra), p. 463.
Alfred Kelly’s work on Germany is a notable exception: Alfred Kelly: The Descent of Darwin. The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), Chap. 7; see also Linda L. Clark: Social Darwinism in France (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984), Chap. 5.
Shlomo Avineri: “From hoax to dogma: a footnote on Marx and Darwin”, Encounter, 1967, 28: 30–32; Maurice Mandelbaum: History, Man, and Reason. A Study of Nineteenth-Century Thought (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); Maurice Mandelbaum: Philosophy, History, and the Sciences (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); G.A. Cohen: Karl Marx’s Theory of History. A Defence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); Diane B. Paul: “Marxism, Darwinism, and the Theory of two sciences”, Marxist Perspective, 2: 116–143; Yves Christen: Le grand affrontement. Marx et Darwin (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981); Dominique Lecourt: “Marx au crible de Darwin”, pp. 227–249 of Yvette Conry, (ed.): De Darwin au Darwinisme: science et idéologie (Paris: J. Vrin, 1983); Raison présente, monographic issue: “Darwin Marx”, n. 66, 1983; Arthur L. Caplan amp; Bruce Jennings (eds.): Darwin, Marx, and Freud. Their Influence on Moral Theory ( New York and London: Plenum Press, 1984 ).
Maurice Mandelbaum: History, Man, and Reason (n. 7 supra); Giuliano Pancaldi: Charles Darwin: “storia” ed “economia” della natura (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1977), Part II, Chapt. 1; I. Bernard Cohen: Revolution in science (Cambridge Mass. and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), Chapt. 23.
Hamburg: Meissner, 1872).
MEW, 29: p. 524.
On Darwin and teleology see Dov Ospovat: The Development of Darwin’s Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), passim, and Ernst Mayr: “The concept of finality in Darwin and after Darwin”, Scientia, 1983, 77: 97–117.
See for example Mario A. Di Gregorio: T.H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science ( New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984 ).
MEW, 30: p. 131.
MEW, 30: p. 578.
See Robert M. Young: Darwin’s Metaphor. Nature’s place in Victorian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); David Kohn: “Theories to work by: rejected theories, reproduction, and Darwin’s path to natural selection”, Studies in History of Biology,1980, 4: 67–170; Silvan S. Schweber: “Darwin and the political economists: divergence of character”, Journal of the History of Biology,1980, 13: 195–289; Silvan S. Schweber: “The wider British context in Darwin’s theorizing,” pp. 35–69 of David Kohn (ed.): The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton: Princeton Unviersity).
NEW, 30: p. 249.
See Camille Limoges: La sélection naturelle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970); and Giuliano Pancaldi (n. 8 supra).
Pierre Trémaux: Origine et transformation de l’homme et des autres êtres. Première partie indiquant la transformation des êtres organisés, la formation des espèces, les conditions qui produisent les types, l’instinct et les facultés intellectuelles, la base des sciences naturelles, historiques, politiques, etc. ( Paris: Hachette, 1865 ).
NEW, 31: p. 248.
On the reception of Darwinism in France see Yvette Conry, L’introduction du darwinisme en France au XIXe siècle ( Paris: Vrin, 1974 ).
Trémaux was not a member. In 1864, however, he submitted to the Académie a number of memoirs on his travels to Africa and on transformism, which received mixed reviews. See Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences, 1864, 58: 352–3, 526–528, 610–612, 692, 752–755, 1097–8, and 59: 33, 204, 1197.
Trémaux, (n. 18 supra), p. 227 ff., esp. p. 232.
Ibid., p. 435.
Marx read Trémaux in summer 1866 (MEW, 31: pp. 247–9). However, there is no mention of Trémaux’s book in Marx’s published works, and apparently they did not exchange letters. Marx’s interest in Darwin, on the other hand, is documented again in 1867 and in 1872–3 (see below).
Henry Thomas Buckle: History of civilization in England. 2 vols. (London: Parker and Son, 1857–61); John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic. Vol. VIII of J.S. Mill: Collected Works, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press: 1961–1974) p. 931; see Ludmilla J. Jordanova: “Earth science and environmental medicine: the synthesis of the late Enlightenment” pp. 119–146 of L.J. Jordanova and Roy S. Porter, eds.: Images of the Earth. Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences ( Chalfont St Giles: The British Society for the History of Science, 1979 ).
MEW, 31: pp. 259–60.
MEW, 31: p. 530.
See n. 4, supra.
Karl Marx: Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1, transl. Ben Fowkes, intro. by Ernest Mandel (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976 ), p. 650.
Ibid., p. 651.
Ibid., p. 784.
MEW, 30: p. 249.
Marx, (n. 29 supra), p. 380.
MEW, 30: p. 249.
Marx, (n. 29 supra), p. 493 n.
Ibid., p. 286.
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species. Facsimile reprint, 1964, intro. by Ernst Mayr (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1859), p. 149; cfr. Marx, (n. 29 supra), p. 461 n.
See however, on Darwin and breeding as a form of technology, John F. Cornell: “Analogy and technology in Darwin’s vision of nature”, Journal of the History of Biology, 1984, 17: 303–344.
Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection. Being the Second Part of His Big Species Book written from 1856 to 1858. Ed. R.C. Stauffer ( London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975 ), p. 208.
See Schweber: “The wider British context in Darwin’s theorizing” (n. 15 supra), esp. p. 45 f.; on the wedge metaphor and species competition see M.J.S. Hodge and David Kohn: “The immediate origins of natural selection” pp. 185–206 of Kohn (n. 15 supra), p. 194; for a psychoanalytic interpretation of the same metaphor: Ralph Jr. Colp: “Charles Darwin’s vision of organic nature”, New York State Journal of Medicine, September 1979: 1622–1629.
Samuel Butler: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler. Ed. Henry Festing Jones (London: A.C. Fifield, 1913 ), p. 42–7.
Samuel Butler: Erewhon ( London: A.C. Fifield, 1911 ).
Butler (n. 41 supra), p. 43.
Marx (n. 29 supra), p. 284.
Ibid., p. 286.
Ibid., p. 133.
Ibid., p. 92.
MEW, 29: p. 524.
Enrique M. Urefia: “Marx and Darwin”, History of Political Economy,1977, 9: 548–559. esp. p. 557 ff.
MEW, 31: pp. 403–5.
MEW, 16: pp. 226–228.
MEW, 31: p. 404.
MEW, 31: p. 404.
See James Allen Rogers: Russia: Social Sciences,pp. 256–268 of Thomas F. Glick (ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1974); Kelly (n. 6 supra), Chapt. 7; Clark (n. 6 supra), Chapt. 5; Giuliano Pancaldi, Darwin in Italy. Science across Cultural Frontiers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), Chapt. 6.
H.L. McKinney: Wallace and Natural Selection (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972 ), John Landgon Brooks: Just before the Origin: Alfred Russel Wallace’s theory of evolution ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1984 ).
Schweber: “Darwin and the political economists: divergence of character” (n. 15, supra), p. 250 ff.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pancaldi, G. (1994). The Technology of Nature: Marx’s Thoughts on Darwin. In: Cohen, I.B. (eds) The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 150. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3391-5_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3391-5_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4258-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3391-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive