Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
A Table of Contents has been added.
This work takes us back nearly sixty years, to a time when what is now amovement of universal significance was in its infancy. Hegel and theRevolution of 1848; these are the points of departure. To the former, weowe the philosophic form of the socialist doctrine, to the latter, itspractical activity as a movement.
In the midst of the turmoil and strife and apparent defeat of those daystwo men, Marx and Engels, exiled and without influence, betookthemselves to their books and began laboriously to fashion the form anddoctrine of the most powerful intellectual and political movement of alltime. To the task they brought genius, scholarship, and a capacity forhard work and patient research. In each of these qualities they weresupreme. Marx possessed a colossal mind; no thinker upon socialsubjects, not even Herbert Spencer, has been his superior, for thelonely socialist could claim a comprehensiveness, a grasp of relationsand a[Pg 4] power of generalization, together with a boldness of conception,which place him in a class by himself. Engels was the able co-adjutorand co-worker with Marx. He was a deep and acute thinker, a most patientinvestigator, a careful writer. More practical than his friend, he wasbetter able to cope with material problems, and his advice and his pursewere always at the disposal of Marx.
The latter could hardly have worked under more discouraging conditions.Poverty, inadequate opportunities, lack of stimulating companionship,and the complete absence of any kind of encouragement and such sympathyas a man of his affectionate temperament craved fell to his lot. Hismost learned works were written for groups of workingmen, his mostlaborious efforts were made without the slightest hope of recognitionfrom the learned and the powerful.
All through these years Engels remained his faithful friend, and helpedhim over many hard places when family troubles and straitenedcircumstances pressed upon the old revolutionist.
This work is Engels' testimony with regard to the method employed bythem in arriving at their philosophical conclusions. It is the statementof the philosophical foundations of modern socialism by one who helpedto lay them; it is an old man's account of the case upon the prep