Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

126 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY

of the Young Hegelians, he and Engels completed the 'settling of accounts

with our erstwhile philosophical consciousness',^12 a process which had

lasted since the Doctoral Thesis of 1841.

The first thesis contained the essence of Marx's criticism of Feuerbach's

materialism: 'The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of

Feuerbach included) is that the things, reality, sensuousness, is conceived

only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous

human activity, practice, not subjectively'.^15 In the second thesis Marx

outlined his ideas on the unity of theory and practice: 'The question

whether objective truth can be achieved by human thinking is not a

question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth,

i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice.

The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated

from practice is a purely scholastic question.'^14 And in the third thesis Marx

pointed out the deficiencies of the French materialists of the previous

century, who had not realised that their own thinking was just as much a

part of the historical process as anybody else's: 'The materialist doctrine

concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that

circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the

educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two

parts, one of which is superior to society.'^15 In the following theses Marx

declared that Feuerbach was correct in resolving religion into its secular

basis: but he had failed to account for the existence of religion and this 'can

only be explained by the cleavages and contradictions within this secular

basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its

The famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach. The text reads: 'Die Philosophen haben
die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es kommt darauf an, sie zu verandern.' Trans-
lation: 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the
point is to change it.'