how conservatives and radicals alike
might, (as a matter of fact they did), each derive support from his
teachings, according to the amount of stress laid respectively upon the
great divisions of his work, the "System" and the "Dialectic."

The Extreme Left developed through the application of the dialectic,
and applied the philosophic doctrine thus derived to the criticism of
existing political and religious institutions. This resulted in the
gradual throwing away of the abstract part of the Hegelian philosophy,
and in the study of facts and phenomena to an ever-increasing degree.

Marx had, in his youth, allied himself with the "Young Hegelians," as
this school was called, and this fact had no slight influence upon his
subsequent career. His critics lay the blame for much of the obscurity
of language from which "Capital" in particular suffers, at the door of
this training. His painful elaboration of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis, his insistence upon the dialectic, and his continual use of
the Hegelian philosophical expressions are due to his earlier
controversial experiences. Still, on the other hand, his patient
investigation of actual facts, his insistence on the value of positive
knowledge as compared with abstract theory, and his diligent and
persistent use of blue-books and statistics, were in a great measure
results of the same training.

Now and again, we find Engels in this work displaying remarkable
controversial acumen, as in his discussion of the phrase, "All that is
real is reasonable, and all that is reasonable is real" (Alles was
wirklich ist, ist vernuenftig, und alles was vernuenftig ist, ist
wirklich). From this expression, by the development of the Hegelian
argument, he arrives at the conclusion involved in the statement that
the value of a social or political phenomenon is its transitoriness, the
necessity of its disappearance. Hence the abolition of dogmatic
statement and mere subjective reasoning in the realm of philosophy, the
destruction of the old school of which Kant was the chief exponent, and
the creation of a new school the most advanced teachers of which were,
as they still are, the materialistic socialists, of whom Engels and Marx
are the chief.

The object of this historical sketch is to show the origin of
Feuerbach's philosophy as well as of that of Marx and Engels. As the
fight between the Young Hegelians and the conservatives grew hotter,
the radicals were driven back upon th