SCIENCE AND THE WORKING CLASS 



ship, has been a history of class struggles, con- 

 tests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and 

 oppressed classes ; that the history of these class- 

 struggles forms a series of evolution in which, 

 nowadays, a stage has been reached, where the 

 exploited and oppressed class, the proletariat, can- 

 not attain its emancipation from the sway of the 

 exploiting and ruling class, the bourgeoisie, with- 

 out at the same time, and once for all, emancipat- 

 ing society at large from all exploitation, 

 oppression, class distinctions and class struggles." 

 The great problem of philosophy, the relation 

 of thinking and being, was thus stated with re- 

 gard to the human race in a dialectic and monistic 

 way on a materialist basis. For the first time man 

 understood clearly whence ideal forces come and 

 whither they are tending. Human emancipation 

 appeared no longer as the work of some future 

 inspired savior, but as a historical process, whose 

 trend was known and could be controlled by the 

 conscious action of a historically generated class. 

 As Engels stated later in his " Feuerbach " : 

 " The realities of the outer world impress them- 

 selves upon the brain of man, reflect themselves 

 there, as feelings, thoughts, impulses, volitions, 

 in short as ideal tendencies, and in this form 

 become ideal forces." 



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