e, many of whose poems he suggested, Arnold Ruge, the poet,
P. J. Proudhon, and Michael Bakunin, the Anarchist philosopher, and,
above all, the man destined to be his very _alter ego_, Friedrich
Engels, with whom he had already had some correspondence.[51]

The attainments of Engels have been somewhat overshadowed by those of
his friend. Born at Barmen, in the province of the Rhine, November 28,
1820, he was educated in the gymnasium of that city, and after serving
his period of military service, from 1837 to 1841, was sent, in the
early part of 1842, to Manchester, England, to look after a
cotton-spinning business of which his father was principal owner. Here
he seems to have at once begun a thorough investigation of social and
industrial conditions, the results of which are contained in a book,
"The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844," which remains
to this day a classic presentation of the social and industrial life of
the period. From the very first, already predisposed, as we know, he
sympathized with the views of the Chartists and the Owenite Socialists.
He became friendly with the Chartist leaders, notably with Feargus
O'Connor, to whose paper, the _Northern Star_, he became a contributor.
He also became friendly with Robert Owen, and wrote for his _New Moral
World_.[52] His linguistic abilities were very great; it is said that he
had thoroughly mastered no less than ten languages--a gift which helped
him immensely in his literary and political associations with Marx.

When the two men met for the first time, in 1844, they were drawn
together by an irresistible impulse. They were kindred spirits. Marx had
gone to Paris mainly for the purpose of studying the Socialist movement
of the time. During his editorship of the _Rhenish Gazette_ several
articles had appeared on the subject, and he had refused to attack the
Socialists in any manner. He had gone to Paris with a considerable
reputation already established as a leader of radical thought, and at
once sought out the Saint-Simonians, under whose influence he was led to
declare himself definitely a Socialist. At first this seems difficult to
explain, so wide is the chasm which yawns between the "New Christianity"
of Saint-Simon and the materialism of Marx. There seems to be no bond of
sympathy between the religious mysticism of the French dreamer and the
scientific thought of the German economist and philosopher.

Marx has been described as being "r