"The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man" (German: "Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen") is an unfinished essay written by
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Dialectics of Nature
''Dialectics of Nature'' (german: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to nature.
History and contents
Engels wrote most ...
'', which proposes a unitary materialist paradigm of natural and human history.
Description
Though incomplete, the essay elucidates two aspects of
materialist theory which had underpinned Marx and Engels’s thinking since the mid-1840s. First, it argues that humanity’s separation from nature is not inherent to the human condition, but rather that humanity is a part of nature; furthermore, human agency in physically reorganizing nature is part of a long historical process, whereby the physical material of nature is incorporated into human systems of value through
labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
. Engels uses this framework to suggest that humanity must transcend the ecologically destructive patterns of capitalism, and progress to a mode of production that operates in harmony with nature.
Secondly, the essay confronts the question of
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
and
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
, suggesting that the human brain is not inherently distinct from the brains of other mammals, but that human intellectual capabilities developed through a dialectical relationship with the human body. Specifically, Engels emphasizes the importance of humans’ opposable thumbs and phonetically dynamic mouths, which enabled them to articulate complex forms of language over time. In that respect, the essay challenged the prevailing philosophy of
Cartesian dualism Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to:
Mathematics
*Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory
* Cartesian coordinate system, moder ...
, which drew a stark division between mind and body.
Marx and Engels had both alluded to this notion in previous writings, for instance in their first collaborative work, ''
The Holy Family'', in which they wrote, "Body, being, substance are but different terms for the same reality. It is impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks." However, in describing this dynamic as a function of the historical process of evolution, the essay is among the most explicit and comprehensive documents on the ontology of Marx and Engels.
Summary
Engels begins by stating that labour is not only the fundamental source of wealth and value, but that it represents the “basic condition for all human existence,” in the sense that the human mind and body have been produced by the historical process of labour.
He suggests that “labour begins with the making of tools,” and therefore the first essential moment in this history was the development of bipedalism, which freed the hominids’ hands to become more dexterous and capable of crafting rudimentary implements. Thus he emphasizes that “the hand is not only the organ of labour, ''it is also the product of labour''.” Because of the evolution of the hand, the whole body benefited.
As subsistence moved beyond basic foraging, so too did hominids' methods of collaboration and need for mutual support. “In short,” wrote Engels, “men in the making arrived at a point where they had something to say to each other. … The undeveloped larynx of the ape was slowly but surely transformed…and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to produce one articulate sound after another.”
Concomitantly, the hominids underwent a process of adaptation encompassing a change in their diets that allowed them to inhabit new environments. Fishing and hunting with the assistance of crafted tools were an essential part of this process, because, although often time-consuming, they provided a rich source of protein that helped nourish their bodies and their physical brains.
Engels suggests that the subsequent major developments following from the development of the meat diet were the control of fire, and the domestication of animals. Then, finally, they reach a point at which they are capable of developing the institutions associated with human civilization: “Agriculture was added to hunting and cattle raising; then came spinning, weaving, metalworking, pottery, and navigation. Along with trade and industry, art and science finally appeared. Tribes developed into nations and states.”
Engels asserts that humans have thus become distinguished from animals by their ability to manipulate nature in manifold and dynamic ways, as opposed to fitting into a singular ecological niche. He notes that “whole continents” have been reconfigured through human industry, and that even plants and animals themselves have been transformed by
selective breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant mal ...
to the extent “that they become unrecognizable.”
However, he cautions against the conceptualization of nature as standing in opposition to humanity in any sense, writing, “Let us not flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.” He notes the desertification provoked by deforestation in Asia Minor and Greece, and that in many places in Europe the
monocrop cultivation of the potato may have led to the proliferation of
scrofula, as well as the
Great Famine of Ireland. “Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”
Relevance to Marxist thought
The conceptual unity of humanity and nature had been a central theme in Marx and Engels’s thought from the early stages of their careers, and was especially prevalent in their discourses on
species-being
Some Marxists posit what they deem to be Karl Marx's theory of human nature, which they accord an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his 'materialist conception of history'. Marx, however, does not re ...
. For instance, in the ''
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
The ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' (german: Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844), also referred to as the ''Paris Manuscripts'' (') or as the ''1844 Manuscripts'', are a series of notes written between Apri ...
'', Marx had written, “Man lives from nature, i.e., nature is his ''body'', and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.”
However, prior to the publication of Darwin’s ''
Origin of Species
''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...
'' in 1859 Marx and Engels still lacked a biological grounding for their theory of
dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world con ...
. Writing in the ''
Grundrisse
The ''Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie'' (''Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy'') is an unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks was rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for ...
'' in 1858 or shortly before, Marx alluded to the need for a coherent conceptualization of humanity’s relationship with the earth: “It is not the ''unity'' of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the ''separation'' between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labour and capital.”
In his attempt to furnish such an explanation, Engels implies that it was the complex thought engendered by manual labour and verbal language that spurred the development of our brains. In a biological sense, humans are not fundamentally different from other mammals, in that most mammals are only physically – and not cognitively – incapable of speech: “The dog and the horse, by association with man, have developed such a good ear for articulate speech that they easily learn to understand any language within their range of concept. Moreover they have acquired the capacity for feelings such as affection for man, gratitude, etc., which were previously foreign to them. Anyone who has had much to do with such animals will hardly be able to escape the conviction that in many cases they now feel their inability to speak as a defect, although, unfortunately, it is one that can no longer be remedied because their vocal organs are too specialized in a definite direction.” He goes on to suggest that parrots can, to a limited extent, comprehend human language – a hypothesis that has been substantiated by scientific studies.
The process of cognitive development described by Engels is today known as gene-culture coevolution or the
dual inheritance theory, and is widely accepted among biologists.
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...
has argued that this is the only scientifically sound theory of the evolution of the human brain, and stated that Engels’ essay made “the best nineteenth-century case for gene-culture coevolution.”
[Foster, Marx's Ecology, 203]
See also
*''
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
''The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan'' (german: Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats) is an 1884 philosophical treatise by Friedrich Engels. It is p ...
''
*''
Dialectics of Nature
''Dialectics of Nature'' (german: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to nature.
History and contents
Engels wrote most ...
''
*
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world con ...
*
Metabolic rift
*
Inheritance of acquired characteristics
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
References
External links
Full text onlineA Soviet study pamphlet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, The
1876 non-fiction books
1876 essays
Marxist books
Human evolution books