THE 'ECONOMICS' 269cation, not for publication, and whose coherent elaboration according to
the plan indicated will be dependent on external circumstances'.^37 This can
only refer to the 'Paris Manuscripts' of 1844 and the London notebooks of
1850-52. Marx constandy used, and at the same time revised, material
from an earlier date (Capital, for instance, was written with the aid of his
1843-4 5 notebooks).
The beginning of the Grundrisse's chapter on capital reproduces almost
word for word the passages in the Manuscripts on human need, man as
a species-being, the individual as a social being, the idea of nature as (in a
sense) man's body, the parallels between religious alienation and economic
alienation, and so on. The two works also have in common a Utopian and
almost millennial strain. One point in particular emphasises this con-
tinuity: the Grundrisse is as 'Hegelian' as the '184 4 Manuscripts'. This is
sometimes said to have been a superficial Hegelianism, and a letter from
Marx to Engels in January 1858 has often been quoted to justify this: 'In
the method it has been of great use to me that by mere accident I
have leafed through Hegel's Logic - Freiligrath found some volumes that
belonged originally to Bakunin and sent me them as a present.'^38 Marx's
reading of Hegel may have been accidental; but certainly Hegel's influence
on him was profound. Some of the most Hegelian parts of the Grundrisse
- and particularly the index of the part on capital - were written before
the receipt of Freiligrath's present. In a note in the Grundrisse Marx
himself wrote in November 1857 , 'later, before going on to another
problem, it is necessary to correct the idealist manner of this analysis'.^39
Moreover, while finishing the Grundrisse he wrote to Lassalle that Hegel's
dialectic was 'without a doubt the last word in all philosophy' but that
just because this was so 'it is necessary to free it from the mystical side
it has in Hegel'.^40 (A justifiable parallel has sometimes been drawn between
the renewal of Marx's interest in Hegel and Lenin's reading of Hegel that
preceded the writing of his Imperalism and The State and Revolution.) To
give a further example of the continuity of Marx's thought, reference may
be made to the term 'alienation' (which occurs much more in Capital
than some writers appear to think). In the Grundrisse the concept is
central to most of the more important passages.
Marx never disowned any of his writings. It is, of course, true that he
wrote of his embarrassment when re-reading the Holy Family. But this
was characteristic: 'it is self-evident', he commented in 1846 , 'that an
author, if he pursues his research, cannot publish literally what he has
written six months previously'.^41 Again in 1862 , he remarked: 'I find
unsatisfactory a work written four weeks before and rewrite it com-
pletely.^42 He stated that even the Communist Manifesto was in need of
emendation as time went on. Nevertheless he was, for instance, quite