Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/118



We refrain from offering examples of the hodge podge of stupidity and sham solemnity with which Herr Duehring regales his readers for fifty full pages as fundamental knowledge on the elements of consciousness. We merely quote the following: "He who merely conceives of thought through the medium of speech has never understood what is signified by abstract and true thought." Hence, animals are the most abstract and true thinkers, for their thought is never obscured by the importunate interference of speech. With regard to Herr Duehring's thought in particular, it may be perceived that they are but little suited to speech and that the German language in particular is quite inadequate to express them.

The fourth part of his book, however, possesses some redeeming features, for here and there it offers us some comprehensible notions on the subject of morals and law in spite of the tedious and involved rhetoric. Right at the beginning we are invited to take a journey to the other heavenly bodies. Thus, the elements of morality are to be found among superhuman beings among whom exist an understanding of things and a regular system of the harmonious conduct of life. Our share in such conclusions must then be small, but there always remains a beneficent and enlarging idea in picturing that even in other spheres individual and social life follows one