Dialectics of Nature - Fredrick Engels

This lecture is going to be divided into two different parts. The first part is a broad overview of what Engels is discussing when he talks about the dialectics of nature. The second part will delve deeper into the specifics of how nature operates in a dialectical manner. I want you to keep in mind the previous lecture in which Hegel presents his grand vision of dialectics as the laws of change that affect thought, nature, and history. These laws determine these elements.

Hegel primarily views these as laws of thought. In other words, they are abstract laws of thought on the basis of which history, philosophy, and nature unfold. However, Engels and Marx take a very different view. To understand the dialectics of nature, the first thing you need to comprehend is the thought processes of people—especially scientists, scholars, theologians, and others—in the medieval period. They perceived the world and nature, in particular, as immutable, stable, and harmonious.

These are the qualities they ascribe to it. Why did they think that the world was immutable, stable, harmonious, etc.? They believed that the world was governed by divine order and that there was a fixed hierarchy of elements, encompassing everything the world is composed of, as well as a fixed hierarchy of beings, with humans at the top and other beings below them, including inanimate matter. They viewed celestial beings, such as the stars and the moon—the entirety of what one could see in the night sky—as immutable, believing that God had created these entities and that they had always existed. This idea was, in part, drawn from Aristotle, for whom everything was defined by its final cause. Everything had a purpose; everything was created for a purpose. This final cause—the purpose for which everything was created, and for which every particular thing is created—is referred to as "teleos."

And this particular way of looking at the universe, the world, or nature is referred to as teleology. The teleological view of nature posits that everything in nature serves a purpose and is designed to fulfill that specific purpose. Of course, Aristotle was writing at a time when Christianity had not yet emerged, but Christianity later adopted Aristotelian thought and synthesized it with Christian doctrine, creating Thomism, which is the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. This became the standard perspective for the Church following Aquinas's writings. In this view, God's eternal and unchangeable will is reflected in nature.

And so nature itself had to be unchangeable, immutable, absolutely stable, and unchanging. Aquinas believed that the laws of nature were divinely ordained, meaning that while individual natural events could change, the overarching order of the cosmos was fixed, immutable, and reflected God's perfect wisdom. Think of it this way: for the ancient Greeks, knowledge—perfect knowledge, absolute knowledge—was something that was unchangeable, unchanging, timeless, and so on. Independent of time, independent of space, independent of matter, independent of circumstances. That's how they thought; that's what they believed about God's divine reflection.

And God's divine reflection was the material secular world that we see. Since divine knowledge had to be timeless and perfect, the world created in accordance with that timeless divine plan had to be immutable and stable as well. There was a fixed hierarchy reflecting the divine order. Medieval scholars, in fact, spoke of the Great Chain of Being, where there was a hierarchy of animals from the lower to the higher order, and so on—a kind of ladder of creation, from the lowest creation to the highest.

And the highest creation was man. The ladder was fixed; it was immutable and did not change. Similarly, there was a structure to everything, from minerals to angels, from the smallest item to the biggest thing.

There was a hierarchy here that was immutable and unchangeable. It was ordained by divine will, and the natural world reflected the divine mind. Therefore, natural laws, such as the motion of the planets or the behavior of animals, were seen as part of a stable order with little room for variability. The apparent stability and regularity in natural phenomena, like the changing of the seasons or the phases of the moon, contributed to this perception.

It was seen as evidence of God's consistent governance. This is also found in Muslim philosophy, by the way. If you look at Al-Ghazali, for example, he also states that the reason we find consistency in the universe is because God's will is consistent. However, God can, if He chooses to, change His view and therefore alter all the laws of physics. It’s simply the case that He doesn't because there is a divine plan, there is divine wisdom, and there is divine providence, and everything based in matter is grounded in that.

And hence, everything in matter is immutable. What a strange idea! I think you will probably say to yourself, "This is a very strange idea, right?" But it was considered pretty much the normal idea until natural science, Hegel, and philosophy slowly eroded this notion. So, this lecture is actually the story of how the idea of nature being immutable, unchanging, and harmonious has been overthrown. In fact, nature can be chaotic; rather than being harmonious, it is often in contradiction, with conflicts, chaos, and struggles occurring. Rather than being stable, nature is actually very unstable and is constantly evolving and changing. This is a completely different perspective, and it required a significant change in thinking.

Darwinism is very much only one part of this larger change in the way humanity perceived nature. In the medieval period, nature was viewed as essentially stable, whereas in the post-medieval or modern period, it is seen as constantly changing. Engels discusses what especially characterizes the medieval period, noting that it is marked by a peculiar general outlook. This outlook is defined by a strange and particular perspective in which the central idea is the absolute immutability of nature. Understanding this concept is very important for us.

This extends to everything. It extends to species, elements, plants, continents, and the stars in the sky. Everything is created according to a divine plan, and hence it is immutable. In that plan, there is nothing to prevent change; it's just the structure of the hierarchy.

Created by God, okay? Now, modern natural science began to challenge this central idea of the immutability of nature. He states that after the Renaissance, a scientific revolution erupted in Europe. Modern science, which he says dates from the late 15th century in particular, began to change this idea of the immutability of nature.

He says we can date that from the period. It really doesn't begin then, but it begins soon afterward, often referred to as the Reformation; at times, it is called the Renaissance by the French and the Quattrocento by the Italians, among others. In other words, there is a significant change underway in how humanity and scholars are perceiving nature. This shift rapidly escalates from the 15th century onwards. This is also a period during which modern bourgeois society, in other words, modern capitalist society, is being created.

Royalty, with the support of the burghers of the town—who are the burghers? Burghers are essentially the traders who emerged from the peasantries. They broke the power of the feudal nobility and established the great monarchies based primarily on nationality, within which the modern European nations and contemporary bourgeois societies developed. In other words, what happened was that the traders, the merchants, the East India Company types, and others wanted to gain political power. So, how did they obtain political power?

They somehow managed to maneuver in such a way that the king would support the trading class and not side with the nobility against it. This was also referred to as a period of absolute monarchy. The absolute monarchists of this particular period were essentially people who were very strongly pro trading class. The biggest example of that is Henry VIII, who even married someone from the trading class—Anne Boleyn.

Right? So that illustrates the power of the traders, etc. Similarly, in Germany, the Peasant Wars were occurring, and they pointed prophetically to future class struggles at the beginning of the modern proletariat, with the red flag in their hands and the demand for common ownership of goods on their lips, etc. So in Germany, we have the Reformation. We have the Protestant Reformation taking place.

So, this is also a period of political change, as well as intellectual change. The Renaissance and the period that comes after it are considered by him to be one of the greatest and most progressive revolutions that mankind has seen so far. Unlike many post-modernists, who continue to argue that the Enlightenment was a good thing—like Foucault, Derrida, and others—Marx and Engels do not share that view at all. In fact, their opinion is exactly the opposite. They believe this period was amazing.

What happened after the Renaissance through the Enlightenment was a great revolution that mankind experienced. Without it, we would have been stuck in the medieval period. How did this happen? Manuscripts from the fall of Byzantium and antique statues dug out of the ruins of Rome revealed a new world to the astonished West—the world of ancient Greece.

Suddenly, the Italians discovered their Roman heritage and their Greek heritage, and they were amazed. They wanted to know much more about this, and over time, although this enthusiasm was initially encouraged by the Church, it eventually broke the Church's dictatorship over people's minds. The Church was the institution through which all of Europe functioned; outside of the Church, there were rarely any individuals who could read or write. Even princes and kings often could not read or write. The people who could read and write were mainly monks, priests, and scholars. This is where all the knowledge was focused and concentrated. Not only did they have knowledge of religious matters, but the Church was also the institution where scientific, artistic, and philosophical knowledge was truly centered.

So that was the state of Europe at the time. The Church had a monopoly on the intellectual production of Europe, which allowed it to dominate the minds of everyone, as they were the ones truly engaged in intellectual work. However, the Renaissance broke that monopoly. The Germans adopted Protestantism.

The Latins adopted free thought that was taken over from the Arabs. From the Muslims? Really? They adopted free thought from us? This is so weird.

It's not so weird if you think about the fact that he's principally referring to Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd is very much responsible for creating the foundation for or laying some of the additional ideas of the European Renaissance. In fact, there was a whole school of Christian thinkers who were Christian in their religion but followed Ibn Rushd in their philosophy. Nourished by the newly discovered Greek philosophy, this prepared the way for the materialism of the 18th century. So, materialism as a doctrine really comes about in the Enlightenment period, but the Renaissance already starts the process of this scientific revolution, which is going to change people's opinions, minds, and so on as time goes on.

And this is great. At this time, we have what is called the "Renaissance man" or "Renaissance woman," which was rarer but nonetheless present. They pursue their lives amid practical struggles. For them, these are not just academic questions; this is about real struggles against real enemies, etc.

Real opponents, etc. There was the powerful Catholic Church, and here were the scientists who were saying Galileo is right or Copernicus is right, etc. These are all practical people, and they traveled extensively. They loved to travel. However, when we travel, we don't actually want to experience something different from what we are used to. We travel mostly to go and work, etc.

And then we're going to come back. When we travel, we're only going to meet other Pakistanis. At best, we'll meet some Indians, etc., because they're a lot like us. But the Renaissance traveler was someone who wanted to learn about alien cultures and different societies.

During this period, they wrote numerous travelogues about Indians, China, Africa, and all the fascinating places they had visited, along with the diverse people they encountered and their unique traditions. These travelogues were extremely popular in Europe. Readers would remark, "Did you know that the Chinese don't believe in God? They are like an atheist people."

They believe in Confucianism, which is just a philosophy, but they don't have any overarching deity. They believe in ancestors, among other things. It shocked people when they discovered that the Chinese didn't really have the same kind of concept of God as Christianity or Islam. This realization opened people's minds in a significant way. Then you had influential figures like Leonardo da Vinci, who was a painter, mathematician, mechanic, engineer, and physicist. Albert Dürer was an engraver, sculptor, architect, and he invented a system of fortification. Machiavelli was a statesman, historian, poet, and notable military author. You also had Martin Luther, who criticized the Church, created modern German prose, and composed music. Then there was Taimur Rahman, who had the Lal Band and used to teach. Oh, no, no—sorry.

He wasn't there. Exactly. You see, they were not people who said, "Oh, this is my specialty. I'm going to learn about post-Hegelian philosophy only in the 18th century, and that too in Germany." No.

They were people who had broad knowledge. By the way, this is where the idea originates that is so frequently taught in universities: you need to have broad knowledge. You know how we have these out-groups and in-groups, and you're often forced to take courses that you don't really want to take, etc. This is where you get that idea.

Because when you have broad knowledge, you are able to make cross-disciplinary connections and say, "Well, this is happening in geology, and that's happening in philosophy, and that's happening in history," and bring it all together to see what you get. It’s very creative to do that; it stimulates the mind. Except, of course, if you’re only doing it for grades, in which case it doesn't do anything. So these were practical, real struggles, not just academic ones, and so on.

They used to take sides; they used to join in the fight, some by speaking and writing, others with the sword, many with both. Hence, the fullness and force of character that make them complete men. In other words, for them, this was not a one-sided endeavor. They were like revolutionaries of their time, proclaiming, "We are going to change society." They wanted to learn as much as possible about everything. It wasn't just about wanting to learn about science.

I want to learn about science, art, philosophy, history, and everything. Everything. "That which is human is not alien to me" was one of the great slogans of this period. I want to learn everything that concerns me as a human being.

Natural science also developed amidst this general revolution. Science was indeed revolutionary. Nowadays, we may not fully appreciate this because, at the time, subjects like science, art, and philosophy felt fresh, alive, and transformative. They were changing the world. All of these disciplines—science, art, and philosophy—were vibrant and groundbreaking.

It's changing the world. This was a time when there were real martyrs who were killed in the struggle for their beliefs. It was not just the Catholics who did this; the Protestants did it as well. In fact, the Protestants outdid the Catholics in persecuting modern science. Calvin had Servetus burned at the stake when the latter was on the verge of discovering the circulation of the blood. Indeed, he kept him roasting alive for two hours. For the Inquisition, it was sufficient to have Giordano Bruno simply burned alive. He was a poor soul.

This guy was roasted for his success. The circulation of blood—he was right. Having those kinds of views, even back in the day, could get you into so much trouble. Anatomy was considered completely taboo for religious people. You know why? Because they believed that the body would be resurrected in heaven. If you cut it up, it would be cut up in heaven as well, so you had to preserve it carefully. Of course, I mean, God can heal a body. It's not difficult for God.

But anyway, I thought that anatomy was considered really taboo when Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others studied the hand. They examined the veins, muscles, and bones of the hand. They would go to places where they could find deceased individuals and carefully cut the flesh to understand how the bones and muscles were structured. They did this so they could be good artists and accurately depict the anatomy in their work. They needed to know the bone and muscle structure inside the hand in order to represent it in stone and other mediums. Isn't that amazing? It's incredible how far these artists went to gain knowledge. Then, of course, the big revolution came about.

It starts in astronomy, really. If you want to know more about it, watch "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan or its remake by Neil deGrasse Tyson, titled "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey." It's a beautiful series that discusses how science was revolutionary during its time and how it changed the way people thought. It began with this guy here, Nicolaus Copernicus, who was the first to suggest that the universe is not centered around the Earth.

That's wrong. In fact, the universe is much bigger, and we are moving around the sun. Today, it sounds insane that the Church would have fought against that idea. But think about it from the Church's perspective as well. They believed that the Earth was at the center, and everything else revolved around it, because that is the way it appears to us when we look at the sky.

Look at the sky. It doesn't appear to you that you're moving, right? It seems to you like everything else is moving. You are stable, and literally, it seems like everything is moving around you.

You really look at the night sky. You feel like you’re at the center. It takes a great power of abstraction to see that what your senses are showing you is, in fact, not necessarily accurate. It requires an enormous ability to mentally abstract to be able to perceive that. The first person to recognize this was actually the Greeks, but in the medieval period, it was Copernicus who revolutionized our understanding. He was so terrified that when he wrote his book, "The Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres," he didn’t want it published because he feared that the Church would kill him. He thought they would absolutely burn him alive. So, he decided to keep the book locked up in a safe and then gave a copy to his friends or patrons.

When he was on his deathbed, he said, "When I die, you can publish it." That's what happened. When he died, they published it because he was so scared of what the church would do to him. Antiquity had bequeathed Euclid and the Ptolemaic solar system. The Arabs had left behind decimal notation, the beginnings of algebra, modern numerals, and alchemy. And the Christian Middle Ages? What did they leave? Nothing at all. Take care of these; these are the contributions made by others. Do you know what this is? This is the numerical system: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

You recognize that, right? But what you won't recognize is, well, it's pretty much always one like that. But two, which we write over here, if you just change it to two, you see that? That's Urdu for three. That's how they were used: four, etc., and so on.

So this is just the same two. Look, this is like this. And if I just turn it around, this is the same two, but it's written upwards like that. Do you see that? So this was the Indian writing system that the Arabs learned from us.

Okay? They took it from us, and then the Europeans took it from the Arabs. The Europeans referred to it as the Arab writing system, while the Arabs referred to it as the Hindu writing system or Indian writing system. By the way, let me tell you one more interesting thing: we were the first people to invent this little symbol here, which is zero, the concept of numerical zero. This is, of course, very important for being able to write numbers in this particular way.

So you know how Europeans write numbers? Well, they should just use sticks like one, two, three, four, five. I'm not joking. That's how they write. Then they take five sticks and make one "V" out of them.

They took ten sticks and made an "X" out of them, etc. But that's basically how they wrote. Okay, so the first big breakthroughs came in astronomy. The most fundamental natural science, the mechanics of terrestrial and heavenly bodies, occupied first place. Alongside it, as a handmaiden, was the discovery and perfecting of mathematical methods, which was done by a guy named Johannes Kepler. He figured out that the orbit was not circular but actually a kind of ellipse, etc.

The basic features of the most essential mathematical methods were established: analytical geometry by Descartes, logarithms by Napier, and differential and integral calculus by Leibniz and Newton. Kepler discovered the laws of planetary movement, and Newton formulated them from the perspective of the general laws of motion of matter. This was a monumental revolution in the way people thought about the stars and planets. However, there was a problem. Despite the advancement of natural science in the first half of the 18th century, it still stood above Greek antiquity and knowledge, even in the evaluation of its material.

So they knew more, but there was a problem. It stood just as deeply below Greek antiquity in the theoretical mastery of this material. Their theory had not caught up with all their empirical work in the general outlook on nature.

Their general outlook on nature was still the medieval perspective, despite the many new discoveries about the natural world. What was this? Science was still deeply intertwined with theology. Science needed to break free from that metaphysical theological view regarding the immutability of nature. For Greek philosophers, the world essentially emerged from chaos; however, for the scientists of that period, nature was ossified—something immutable, and for most of them, something that had to be created in one stroke.

Everything in nature just came about by God, etc. Everything came instantaneously. Nothing new was created; no new species came into being, no new plants emerged, no new continents could be formed, and no new elements could be created. No, it all had to come into being in one instant. That's how they viewed it.

Everywhere it sought and found its ultimate resort in an impulse from outside that could not be explained by nature itself. In every instance, they would ask, "Okay, how did the solar system come into being?" The answer was, "It was created by God. End of story," and so on. There was no examination of how gaseous clouds could have come together and revolved, or its own evolution, etc.

So, this was a major issue. Science still held on to the idea of the absolute immutability of nature. For example, planets and their satellites, moved by the mysterious first impulse, circled on and on in their predestined ellipses for all eternity. The planets and the stars were believed to go around and around like that for all eternity; they were neither created nor would they die. Stars remained fixed and immovable in their place, keeping one another in position through universal gravitation. The Earth, too, was thought to have persisted without alteration from all eternity.

The continents, as they are, have always been like that. The way the Earth is has remained constant. The five continents have always existed with the same mountains, valleys, rivers, climate, and flora and fauna, except for changes or cultivation caused by human activities. Nature, therefore, was immutable. The species of plants and animals had also been established once and for all and could not change.

Now, logical consistency of thought is the only thing that could overcome this defective knowledge. This is where philosophy plays a key role in science. Philosophers are essential to the further development of science because they engage with scientists' work. They are often the first to assert that if all of what scientists are saying is true about the natural world, then our philosophical view of the natural world—especially regarding its immutability—must change.

He writes, "It is to the highest credit of the philosophy of the time that it did not let itself be led astray by the restricted state of contemporary natural knowledge, and that from Spinoza right to the great French materialists, it insisted on explaining the world from the world itself and left the justification in detail to the natural science of the future." So, they didn't have all the evidence back when Spinoza was writing. But from little bits of evidence, they came to the conclusion that this idea of the absolute immutability of the universe was wrong and that things were in motion and in change. Perhaps the first great shot in this regard was fired by Immanuel Kant, who wrote the book "The General Nature of History and Theory of the Heavens."

What did he say in this? He says the first impulse is totally wrong. This idea that there was a first impulse and then the world was created like this, etc., is incorrect. In fact, the whole solar system was explained as something that came into being. The solar system has its own history and evolution.

It doesn't just come into being in one instant by God's command; it evolves over time, says Immanuel Kant. If the Earth was something that had come into being, then its present geological, geographical, and climatic state, as well as its plants and animals, must also have a history. This history involves not only coexistence in space but also succession in time. Laplace and Herschel expounded Kant's philosophy.

In science, he initially proposed the idea that everything has evolved; it did not come into being in an instant. It has a history of creation. However, he did not know scientifically how to prove that.

Other scientists came later—much later—and began to prove it repeatedly. However, philosophically, he had already reached that conclusion. The first significant breakthrough was made by geology. This work was not carried out by people who were opposed to religion or anything of that sort. In fact, many of them were priests and similar figures.

Geology reveals not only the terrestrial strata that were formed and deposited one after another, but also the shells and skeletons of extinct animals, as well as the trunks, leaves, and fruits of plants that no longer exist, contained within these strata. This discovery was a shock, as they realized that the animals found in the layers of the Earth were no longer extant; they were extinct species. They reflected on their long-held belief that nature was immutable, and that all species created by God would endure forever.

But now, suddenly, they discovered that there are a whole bunch of these species that no longer exist. We don't find them in nature anymore. Secondly, they began to think about how these layers of the Earth are formed, and they started to date them and try to understand them. At that time, the Church believed that the world was maybe 4,000 to 6,000 years old. However, Lyell was the first one to argue that the Earth must be much, much older than that.

Much, much older than that. How did he come to that conclusion? He began to really look at these things, and he started to say, "Look, what's happening is that the Earth's layers, the whole soil of the Earth in a certain sense, are in slow movement. It's almost like we are living upon this volcano, the crust of which is constantly cooling off."

We're sitting on the cool part of this volcano, but it's constantly in motion. That's how you get all these volcanic eruptions and new things emerging from beneath the earth. They come to the surface while older materials sink down. This results in layers upon layers. You can not only date these layers but also the plants and fossils of the plants and animals that you discover there.

And you can create a chart of them. This was all done before Darwin's time, okay? So Cuvier proposed, instead of a single divine creation, the idea of a whole series of repeated acts of creation. He suggested that God doesn’t just create once.

Tuck! All the animals and plants are created. No, maybe God creates, and then He creates again, and then He creates again. Why? Because we're seeing new things coming out in the fossil record that don't exist over here but exist over there.

And we see things that are dying out, that exist over there but don't exist here. What's going on? Clearly, life is changing. We're witnessing that. Perhaps God is recreating these things.

And Lyle first brought sense into geology by substituting the sudden revolutions due to the mood of the Creator with the gradual effects of a slow transformation of the Earth. So, the Earth itself is changing and transforming. Then the next big change came in the 19th century, and this came in physics. The change was that people began to demonstrate, led by Mayer and Joule, that heat can be converted into mechanical energy, and mechanical energy can be converted into heat. All of this we study in fifth grade.

Back in the 19th century, this was not fifth-grade physics; this was cutting-edge physics. It was groundbreaking proof that physical energy, mechanical energy, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical energy can all be transformed into each other without any loss of energy. Hence, he proved Descartes' principle that the quantity of motion present in the world is constant.

Descartes had already come to this conclusion: he couldn't prove it scientifically. Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. You read this again in fifth-level physics, but here it is. Physical energies could be transformed into each other under definite laws. This proved that the idea of the universe and the immutability of physical energies was also wrong.

So, the immutability of the stars and planets has been challenged, and now our understanding of energies is also being reexamined. In chemistry, similar changes began to occur. Lavoisier and Dalton created organic substances from inorganic compounds, and now we can even create proteins, among other things.

In a lab, it's not hard. In a beaker, we have bridged the gulf between inorganic compounds. Now, you can create proteins, etc., in a lab.

It's not hard, in a beaker. It bridges the gap between inorganic and organic nature; the immutability of organic and inorganic substances was also challenged. You can turn one into the other. Okay? It's not hard to do at all.

And now in biology, the same change began to happen. New research started to show that separate species of plants and animals became increasingly intermingled. You can see that they are intermingled, etc. You began to see commonalities between them.

Animals turned up, such as amphioxus and lepidopterans, which I can't pronounce correctly. This has made a mockery of all previous classifications. New kinds of animals are being discovered. Organisms were encountered for which it was impossible to determine whether they belong to the plant or the animal kingdom. You just don’t know whether it’s a plant or an animal.

What do you say about it? It’s kind of in between both of these things. Then, c.f. Wolfe, in 1759, began to challenge the idea of the immutability and fixity of species—an idea held during medieval times, thanks to Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others.

But now, being challenged, no, no, no, these things are not fixed. In fact, they always transform; they change. Then come Oken, Lamarck, Baer, and finally Darwin in 1859, who talks about the origin of species. He's not talking about the origin of life. He's not talking about the origin of life.

He's not even talking about the origin of man—about apes turning into man, etc. He's just attacking one particular, very important thesis: the immutability of species. He's saying they are mutable; they change, they mutate, and they're doing it constantly.

Nature is now seen as being in a cycle, in a state of flux, and in constant change. In this sense, science has returned to Greek philosophy. We have returned once again to ancient Greek philosophy, but there is a difference. The Greeks did not have all this knowledge about how energies can be transformed into other energies. They also did not understand that species are not immutable.

The Greeks didn't have knowledge about the stars, planets, and their orbits. They lacked understanding of the fact that the Earth itself has layers upon layers that are continuously emerging from the seas and oceans. We possess that knowledge now, and we've returned to the idea of the Greeks that everything is in flux; everything is changing. There is nothing immutable in this world or in nature. Everything in nature, given time, is constantly changing.

And so we come to the idea of the evolution of life, the evolution of matter, and the evolution of the history of humanity itself—how humanity has undergone change. Animals, he says, have a history, but history is done to animals; they are not conscious of what they do. Human beings, as they move away from animals, become conscious.

How can they change their own history? We make our own history; in other words, if we apply this measure to human history, we find that there still exists a colossal disproportion between the proposed aims and the results. The proposed aims are: we want to create a society of liberty, equality, and fraternity. However, when we attempt to create that society, something else often happens. Take, for example, the proposed aim of creating Pakistan with the idea that everyone would be equal because we are all Muslims. Yet, after creating Pakistan, we discover that Muslims are killing Muslims. Why does this happen to us repeatedly in politics and history? In economics? It feels as though, despite our efforts to determine human history, it is not truly being dictated by us.

It feels as though it's being determined by some other force because whatever we want to do with it doesn't end up happening. Something else ends up happening, etc. Why is this the case? He suggests taking an example. In advanced industrial countries, we have multiplied production so that a child now produces more than 100 adults could in the past.

What is the result? Increased overwork. Every ten years, a great collapse. Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote when he talked about the competition of the species and the survival of the fittest. We see that every day in the stock market.

He states that only the conscious organization of social production—where production and distribution are carried out in a planned manner—can elevate humanity above the rest of the animal world in terms of the social aspect. Just as production has allowed humans to rise above other species in terms of individual capabilities, we have surpassed the animal level in the realm of production. However, in terms of social production, we have not yet achieved this distinction.

In terms of the social effects of our production, no, there's no plan there. That's chaotic. That's capitalism for you. Historical evolution makes such an organization increasingly indispensable, and it will come about—that is what he wants.

So, in summary, all that comes into being deserves to perish. Everything that exists will come to an end. From this, he logically comes to the conclusion that millions of years may elapse, and hundreds of thousands of generations may be born and die, but inexorably, the time will come when the declining warmth of the sun will no longer suffice to melt the ice thrusting itself forward from the poles.

When the human race, crowding more and more about the equator, will finally no longer find even there enough heat for life. When gradually even the last trace of organic life will vanish. And the Earth, an extinct, frozen globe like the Moon, will circle in deepest darkness in an ever-narrower orbit about the equally extinct Sun, and at last fall into it. He says, "I don’t have the scientific proof to show that this is going to happen, but logic, dialectical logic, is saying this is also inevitable. Everything that has life also has a death."

The Earth has a life; it will also have a death. However, it leaves a note of optimism. In one sentence, it expresses that the eternally repeated succession of worlds in infinite time is only the logical complement to the coexistence of innumerable worlds in infinite space. Just as the Earth is destroyed today in the eternal cycle, tomorrow another Earth and another kind of life will inevitably emerge. I conclude with this beautiful paragraph. It states that it is an eternal cycle in which matter moves.

A cycle that certainly only completes its orbit in periods of time for which our terrestrial year is no adequate measure. A cycle in which the time of highest development, the time of organic life, and still more that of the life of beings conscious of nature and of themselves, is just as narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self-consciousness come into operation. A cycle in which every finite mode of existence of matter—whether it be the sun or nebula, vapor or single animals, or genus of animals, chemical combinations or disassociations—is equally transient and wearing. Nothing is eternal but eternally changing, eternally moving matter and the laws according to which it moves and changes. However often and however relentlessly the cycle is completed in time and space, however many millions of suns and Earths may arise and pass away, however long it may last before the conditions for organic life develop, however innumerable the organic beings that have to arise and pass away before animals with a brain capable of thought are developed from their midst, and for a short span of time find conditions suitable for life only to be exterminated later without mercy, we have the certainty that matter remains eternally the same in all its transformations, that none of its attributes can ever be lost, and therefore, also that with the same iron necessity that it will exterminate on Earth its highest creation, the thinking mind, it must somewhere else and at another time again produce it. So, life will come about again in the future, even if it is destroyed, which it inevitably will be on this Earth.