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24 for truth, began to question the laws of social evolution, the sun of classical philosophy and art was already setting in Germany. Her splendour and warmth, however, still permeated the intellectual atmosphere of this period. The grand philosophy of Hegel particularly continued to affect, influence and live on in the progressive minds. This philosophy conceived everything existing or in a state of creation, whether in nature or in society, as the outcome of a harmonious, well regulated process of evolution: an evolution which in its continuous flow destroys and creates, and whose final cause can be conceived in the self-assertion or movement of the absolute idea. According to this conception, evolution is stimulated or whipped on through the struggle of contradictions or antitheses: a struggle which usually or finally is bound to end with the coming together or amalgamation of the conflicting elements into a higher unit. Governed by the idea of evolution, Hegel's philosophy did not approach the objects of its investigation as completed and fixed creations, which are the same in life as in death, but in their rich diversity of growth and decline, i.e., in their various expressions or manifestations of life. This system of research was known as the dialectic method. Young Marx felt in Hegel a congenial intellect, whose teachings attracted him with an irresistible power. These teachings have been a determining factor in his development and work. Marx, more so than any other man, accepted the legacy of Hegel: a legacy which he found in the concept of evolution. However, as Engels so pointedly remarks: he placed this conception, standing on its head, upon the feet. He sought for the driving forces of historic life not outside of nature or society, not in the mystical absolute idea of Hegel, but as far as history is concerned, in society itself: in the conditions of production and exchange. In what manner, however, and with the aid of what forces these conditions manifest themselves and compel recognition, i.e., by what forces economic and social development is impelled, also the laws underlying these movements, upon these questions Marx threw light with the aid of the dialectic mode of investigation: a