The relationship of Giovanni Gentile to Marxism dates back to 1897 when, at the age of twenty-two, he published his essay “Una crítica del materialismo storico" in the collection Studi storici. While it establishes the fact that Gentile had early concerned himself with Marxism, the essay is in itself rather pedestrian and does not particularly recommend itself to the reader. It is a competent but somewhat narrow discussion of the materialist conception of history. Much more important is Gentile's essay, "La filosofia di Marx," published by Spoerri in 1899, when Gentile was twenty-four. The essay, written some sixty-odd years ago, before the substantial parts of the early Marx manuscripts were published in 1932, reflects Gentile's keen insight, or at least the insight afforded by his rich Hegelian background, into the philosophical speculations of the young Karl Marx.
Gentile's essay lends weight to a considerable body of opinion which holds that the young Marx was not a materialist in the ordinary sense of the word and that, as such, he was something quite other than Engels or Lenin, whose materialist "metaphysics'' have caused professional epistemologists no little puzzlement for half a century. Gentile's essay made a considerable impact in Italy and philosophic tracts devoted to analyses of Marx have, in the past, made ready and constant reference to it.' Although Lenin himself made the existence of the essay known to a wide audience, it has unfortunately passed all but unnoticed outside of Italy. This is unfortunate because the essay seems to shed considerable light on a particularly obscure period of Marx's intellectual development. As such it constitutes an original and important contribution to Marx's scholarship.
We can give some indication of its general importance in the course of our rather careful inquiry. Of specific importance for our special concern is the fact that Gentile's discussion turns essentially on the first gloss of the "Theses on Feuerbach," which Marx had written in 1845 (when he was twenty-seven) and which Engels published in 1888 as an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach.
That gloss, with which Gentile is primarily concerned, is a consideration of "sensuous activity" (sinnliche Tätigkeit). Although the "Theses" are now generally recognized as marking a transition from liberalism and idealism to socialism and materialism, Marxist orthodoxy insists on interpreting them in a strict materialist fashion, as though there had been no development at all in the thought of Karl Marx.
Gentile's contention is primarily that the "Theses" reveal a metaphysics, which develops out of an analysis of sensation, anything but materialist in any formal sense. The “Theses,” particularly the first, give evidence of a curious philosophical position, never clearly defined, but which is of fundamental importance in any attempt to reconstruct the development of Marx's thought. The first thesis reads in its entirety:
“The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that the object, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or datum of contemplation but not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively. Thus it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism-but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really differentiated from thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as activity through objects. Consequently, in the Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance. Hence he does not grasp the significance of "revolutionary," or “practical-critical.”
Marx's choice of words here is singular, to say the least. Gentile contends that the point of Marx's objection to "all hitherto existing materialism" is essentially that advanced by Idealism, i.e., that materialism conceives the object, the external world as a datum, something "given" to sensation, something simply contemplated.
One of the principal contentions of Idealism, in general, had been that if the object was conceived as extrinsic to the subject, something simply contemplated, there would be no credible way to certify truth. That is to say, if we entertain only "images'' in the mind, "impressions" received from an external world, there could be no way to certify the accuracy, the truth, of such an impression, for we can never stand outside the presumed relationship and compare the "image," the "impression" with the "thing-in-itself" conceived to be its cause.
Idealism had long contended that knowledge could only arise out of an intrinsic relationship between subject and object. As Fichte expressed it: "In vain shall we look for a link of connection between subject and object, if they are not first and simply apprehended as a unity." This "unity" in which subject and object are connected is "consciousness" or "mind."
According to the general orientation of German Idealism, the object first comes before us as an abstract object, the mere empty immediacy of the not-self. Opposed to the abstract object is the abstract subject. The synthesis of both in consciousness constitutes knowledge. "Consciousness," Marx states, outlining the Idealist position, "knows the . . . object . . . because it knows the object as its self-alienation (Selbstentäußerung). Knowledge consists of the realization that every object is no more than an "externalization" of ourselves (as Mind or Ego) and a consequent re-absorption of such "otherness" into our concrete subjective life.'
In accordance with the more specific principles of Hegelian Idealism the concrete subject goes out of itself into its opposite, the object, and then returns to itself in the cognitive synthesis. The object, in order to be known, must somehow be conceived as intrinsic to the knowing subject, i.e., subjectively. The "object" is to be understood not as something simply sensed, but must rather be conceived as a "self-alienation," or, as Marx explains the thesis: "knowing knows that in relating itself to an object it is only outside itself that it only externalizes itself; that it itself appears to itself only as an object or that that which appears to it as an object is only it itself."
As Gentile interprets the first thesis, Marx remains faithful to this Hegelian conception of the nature of knowledge, in a qualified sense, emptying it of its idealistic content. Gentile contends that what Marx is suggesting is that "nature" does not become known through that which is simply "given," that which is "contemplated," as materialism had long pretended; it becomes known through a dialectical process. It is a "product" having a history. But in place of the dialectic of the abstract Spirit of Hegel, Marx substitutes the dialectic of sensuous practice.' The "object" is to be understood not as something which comes to be known through simple sensation conceived as a kind of contemplation, but rather as the consequence of somehow having been "made" by the concrete subject, as the "product" of human sensuous activity.' Gentile contends that the expression "gegenständliche Tätigkeit," "activity through objects," is to be understood as implying a “sensuous activity" which somehow "fashions, posits, creates the object.” 'This, of course, constitutes a radical re-interpretation of the philosophic position of the young Marx. It arises out of Gentile's familiarity with German Idealism; Gentile understands Marx to mean that human sensuous activity somehow "constitutes" objects in much the same way as Hegel understood Spirit to be the creator of the "objective world." The critical difference, of course, is the fact that Marx understood the motive energy of this creative activity to emanate not from the "abstract" needs of the Spirit, but from the essential natural needs of the human agent.' Needs arise in the agent; in meeting those needs the agent embarks upon sensuous activity.‘In that activity, the agent defines himself as subject against the objects meeting his needs. Sensuous activity is the process through which subject and object are distinguished. The subject does not passively reflect the object in sensation; it develops a consciousness of its intrinsic relationship with it. For what is the subject without the object? And the object without the subject? Subject and object are correlative terms, the one inevitably carries the other in its train. The one is intrinsic to the other, in which it finds its necessary complement, an essential relationship outside of which each component is but an abstraction. They must be conceived in their mutual relationship. The object which arises out of human sensuous activity can be said to have been "created" by that activity; the "object" is the "product" of that activity, and since there can be no object without a corresponding subject it is necessary to add that in "creating" the object the subject "creates'' itself. The moments of the progressive development of the subject correspond to the diverse moments of the progressive formation of the object. This development articulates itself in sensuous activity and practice; its ultimate ground is the unity of Being.
Gentile understands Marx's account as an attempt to analyze the conditions which make knowledge possible. The unity of subject and object, defined in sensuous activity, affords the real and theoretical possibility of knowledge. Knowledge is the consequence of sensuous practice undertaken to meet the exigencies of felt needs. Only in meeting needs are "objects" defined. Being defined as a consequence of meeting human needs, "objects" succeed in telling us something about the essence of man. Each object, then, tells us something about the subject. The object is a "self-projection" of the subject, a Selbstenfremdung, an alienation of self in others.
We have reconstructed here, in summary form, Gentile's interpretation of the metaphysics of the young Marx, a metaphysics in which the subject and object articulate themselves in the dialectic of sensuous practice. Gentile's account recommends itself primarily because it relates, intelligibly, the philosophy of the young Marx to his Hegelian and Left-Hegelian heritage. As such his account is to be preferred to that of Sidney Hook who attempts to read into the first theses on Feuerbach a sophisticated foreshadowing of scientific pragmatism, an elaborate methodological program that would make of the twenty-seven-year-old Marx not only a philosophical genius but something of a prophet. Professor Hook's interpretation finds little support in the manuscripts of 1844 written in the months immediately preceding the writing of the "Theses on Feuerbach." It is interesting to note, in this relation, that Professor Hook makes but one casual reference to these documents in his most detailed study of Marx's early philosophy, for nowhere in the early documents do we find support for the notion that Marx was concerned with a "philosophy of science" in any formal sense. Furthermore, even though the manuscripts of 1844 were available to Professor Hook, the entire concept of "alienation" is completely neglected, although that concept, as Gentile indicated, is the critical link between Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx.
That Gentile's account has not been appreciated in our own country seems to be the consequence of the general neglect of Hegelian philosophy as well as of its "revision" at the hands of Ludwig Feuerbach. Professor Marcuse's account, for example, seems to suffer from a general misinterpretation of Feuerbach's basic position, or at any rate, the position held by Feuerbach during the period in which he exercised an influence on the young Karl Marx. Professor Marcuse contends that Feuerbach, was essentially a "materialist" in the "tradition of materialist philosophers …," that he held the subject to be essentially passive, "primarily receptive . . . determined ... the passive subject of perception." As we shall attempt to indicate, Professor Marcuse's account is incorrect on both counts. He misses the importance of Feuerbach's interpretation of sensory experience. He subsequently fails to appreciate Marx's analysis in its entirety, overlooking the rule of alienation in Marx's account of the cognitive process. He restricts his discussion to what Calvez calls "profane alienation," i.e., the Entfremdung of man in economics and politics. What is necessary for a correct interpretation of the philosophy of the young Marx, particularly his understanding of the nature of sensuous activity, is a rather detailed account of the philosophy of Feuerbach as Karl Marx knew it in 1844. This, coupled with the material in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, establish the essential correctness of Gentile's interpretation and supply the missing links in the chain of Marxism's philosophical development from Hegelian Idealism to Dialectical Materialism.
Only when the philosophy of Feuerbach is understood (to the extent to which it lends itself to understanding) does Marx's position in the manuscripts of 1844 become comprehensible. Such an appreciation, in turn, makes possible an interpretation of the first thesis on Feuerbach which is historically credible. This interpretation reveals itself to be, substantially, the interpretation offered by Gentile in his analysis of "La filosofia della prassi."
Feuerbach had begun his philosophic labors as a student of Hegel. But by 1839 Feuerbach drew together the restive criticism, traces of which can be found in his earlier work, and announced his definitive break with Hegelianism with the writing of "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Philosophie." ``Anfang der Philosophie"' followed (in 1841), in which he defined his revolutionary position. Hegel, according to Feuerbach, was to be turned "right side up." Feuerbach conceived Hegel as having been content to commence with an abstract or ideal "Being." Feuerbach contended that he would commence with real or natural beings. "Being" signified for him concrete, limited being in a world of human sensuous experience. Philosophy was to begin, in the first instance, with that which was not philosophical at all. Philosophy was to find its commencement in its antithesis, in simple sense perception out of which were to arise the ever-changing distinctions between subject and object.
In this fashion Feuerbach fancied himself instituting a profound revision of German Idealism. He contended that one must begin with the reality of human sensory experience rather than abstract "Being." Such a beginning, he held, obviates the necessity of deriving "otherness" out of "oneself." For the natural concept of self arises out of something other than self. Without such a beginning one is condemned to remain forever within the confines of the ego. For the relationship, Feuerbach held, between the ego and its “objects” is not, as Idealism conceived it, asymmetrical; it is reciprocal. The ego is limited, determined by the object, just as the object is determined by the ego. Both arise out of the primary sensory experience.
Since Kant, according to Feuerbach, Idealism had persistently concerned itself with the ego as active in the cognitive process, as the agent, real or virtual, prescribing intelligible Forms or Categories which make knowledge possible. Feuerbach imagined himself restoring, somehow, a "natural equilibrium" between the "objective" and "subjective" elements of experience. Feuerbach held that Idealist epistemology advanced the ego as an active agent (at the cost of a considerable amount of plausibility) even when its passivity was plain. Hegel, for example, played with the concept "here" in a typically Idealist fashion. "Here," for example, is a tree, an object of sensory experience. The subject turns himself about and this "truth" has vanished! The tree is no longer "here." But it has vanished only for Hegel in his Phenomenology where its dispatch costs but a word. In reality, the tree continues to stand behind one; to assure oneself of the fact one needs but step back! The tree limits my free activity. It acts as a kind of active agent against which I am, in at least one sense, passive. In sensuous activity, one can no more deny the reality of the tree than one can deny the reality of oneself. Sense experience, which does not follow the dictates of our caprice, cannot be denied. We cannot deny the fact that we find ourselves cast in a world wherein we are constrained to labor with the materials at hand.
Professor Hook nowhere relates this insight to the position assumed by Marx in the manuscripts of 1844.) Hence, it is practice, real sensuous experience, which restores philosophy to health. The perplexities which abstract speculation creates are only resolved by practice in the real world. To restore vitality to philosophy one must make it "unphilosophical." One must carry it down into the arena of everyday affairs, into practical life. Philosophy must no longer be simply "theory," but must also be "practice." Philosophy must become the intimate concern of mankind. For it is mankind's suffering that is eloquent testimony to his participation in a world of real being. That man suffers, recognizes the "objective world" as a limit to be overcome, indicates that real and necessary relations can be established between the "subjective" and "objective" elements of experience. That such relations can exist indicates a substantial community in anterior "being." Man can operate in nature because he is essentially a natural being. This is the extent of Feuer bach's "realism," his carefully defined "materialism." Out of the world of sensory experience, thought distinguishes itself; thought is a predicate of being. One might, however, with equal warrant say that matter too, is a predicate of being. For the abstract concept "matter" (like the concept "thought") arises only as distinct from that which is other than itself. For Feuerbach was equally far removed from materialism as from subjective idealism. Truth lies in neither materialism nor subjective idealism, but in Man, in whom all contraries are resolved and contained. For man is the secret of philosophy-not Man as individual-but Man as species, as universal. For the criterion for all things lies in the essential nature of the species. Man, for Feuerbach, is the measure. In avoiding the extreme of subjective idealism one must be equally chary of the extreme of uncritical "objectivism," conceiving sensory experience as a simple "contemplation" of a material world. Man provides the measure of the natural world; the measure of natural philosophy is the human essence.
In order to act in nature man must share with it a common essence. From this, it follows that "objects" cannot manifest themselves to the "subject" unless both are conceived as somehow sharing common unity. Thus every experience with the real world, first conceived as a coming together of mutually independent subject and object in sensation, reveals itself as a process of correlative differentiation through which object and subject distinguish themselves. The "objective world" is "nothing else but the subject's own, but objective nature." Thus every sensory experience with the natural world is an essential expression of self, a "self-alienation.'?
In the object which he contemplates, therefore, man becomes acquainted with himself; consciousness of the objective is the self-consciousness of man. We know man by the object, by his conception of what is external to himself; in it his nature becomes evident; this object is his manifested nature, his true objective ego; and this is true not merely of spiritual but also of sensuous objects.
All the predicates one assigns to nature are ultimately determinations of qualities drawn from one's own nature-qualities in which one, in truth, only images and projects oneself." Thus the proposition may be applied, "without any limitation ... the object of any subject is nothing else than the subject's own nature taken objectively." Each species is for itself a standard, criterion. The lifespan of an ephemera is, to us, brief; to the ephemera it is as long as a life of years to others. The leaf on which the caterpillar lives is for it a universe, an infinity. We are conscious of the limitations of the lower order of beings because we are beings of a higher order. We cannot be similarly aware of our limitations since such an awareness would require that we transcend experience. To speculate upon a "reality" outside, or behind, experience is a vain preoccupation; it is a scholastic residual. For the "world-in-itself," the world "independent of sensory experience" is a nonsense world, without substance and meaning. The world is as it is for man. Man is the measure of its truth and substance. In the history of the species, this truth and this substance will alter as the complexity of real sensory relations fosters a more complex and intricate world. For an object reveals itself only when one enters into a real relationship with it; it is a distinction which arises in being as a consequence of the real sensuous activity of the subject.
A felt need generates a passion which motivates activity in the search for satisfaction. Objects are defined in the course of this sensory activity. They are "real" because they answer an essential need. Objects confirm the essence (Wesen) and characteristics of the subject; man establishes a real connection with the real world when he satisfies a need through his activity. The object world, then, is a "product" of that activity; nature is provided with determinate qualities. Reality becomes human reality, Selbstenfremdung, for only that is real which is the "product" of man's sensory activity. That activity is the consequence of his need and interest. As man becomes more cultivated his needs and interests increase and as a consequence, the “real world" becomes correspondingly more involved and intricate. To men of limited needs, hence limited sensibilities, the world is correspondingly limited. The entire process of coming to know the world is a "self-alienation," a "self-projection" (Selfstentdusserung), a process with which German Idealism had familiarized philosophy. But for Feuerbach it is not the Spirit which objectifies itself as nature; it is the essence (Wesen) of man as a sensuous being. Problems are posed by the essential needs of man, solutions are sought in passion and resolved in activity. Objects which satisfy those essential needs are real objects. Clearly discernible in the early philosophy of Feuerbach are all the elements, not of materialism or idealism, but of a radical humanism; Man is the secret of the world; his essence is its truth and its reality.
His essence, objectified, is science and religion. Man projects himself upon the world and then comes upon his traces everywhere. This was the philosophy, the "revision" of German Idealism, which Feuerbach gave to the young Karl Marx. In it are discernible the humanism, the immanence of science and religion in Man, and the emphasis on sensory practice in the dialectical process of human self-realization, which make of it a naturalism infused with much of the essence of idealism itself.
Our purpose here is not to make this philosophy creditable or to search out implications and dissect metaphors. It is to outline a philosophical position, held by Feuerbach at a specific period of his development, in order to understand the philosophical postures of the young Karl Marx in 1844 and 1845. What should be noted here is the critical role of the analysis of sensation; sensuous activity establishes a real connection between subject and object, a relationship in which both subject and object mutually define themselves. That such a connection is possible indicates, for Feuerbach, that subject and object share a common essence: nature. Both are limited, concrete entities. Universals, like Mind and Matter, are functions of an abstract summing up of real particulars. In this way, he sought to avoid the egocentric predicament which he felt forever haunted idealism. Where Feuerbach has not been systematically neglected he has been systematically misrepresented. But without a tolerably accurate account of Feuerbach's position, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand the position of the young Marx. Gentile, although he failed to appreciate the full importance of Feuerbach in the intellectual development of Marx, correctly interpreted the first of the "Theses on Feuerbach '' by virtue of his special familiarity with the philosophy of Hegel.
We have given a summary account of Feuerbach's "humanism"- it remains for us to trace its influence in the philosophical labors of Karl Marx during the years 1843 to 1845. The young Karl Marx enthusiastically made the philosophy of Feuerbach his own. He was to defend it during the most critical formative period of his life. For Marx, it was Feuerbach who had given Germany the promise of liberation, the only thinker who had advanced a serious criticism of Hegelian Idealism. Echoing Feuerbach, Marx maintained that philosophy must cease its preoccupation with the idea, the abstract, and the spirit, and must restore the concrete as its interest. For by virtue of its embroilment in the abstract by reason of its imaginary differences from the world, philosophy had left real human beings in real situations out of its ken. It had been Feuerbach, Marx contended, who had rendered it impossible for philosophy any longer to remain in the heaven of speculation and compelled it to step down to the depth of human misery. For it is only in the real practice which arises out of need and passion 90 that the problems born of speculation find their resolution.
What is important to note is the fact that Marx is concerned essentially with the content of philosophy and not with its method. The entire discussion in the "Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic and Philosophy as a Whole," in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, concerns itself with the content of the Hegelian dialectic, not with a critique of the method itself. Marx's objection is that the Hegelian dialectic is concerned with abstract self-consciousness and not with real men. Man is a limited, concrete, natural entity, subject to needs and to real activity directly to the fulfillment of those needs. That man suffers testimony to his real needs; that his needs can be met is evidence of a community of essence between needful man and nature as a source of satisfaction. His needs compel man to real, sensuous activity and in that activity, man creates (erzeugt) an objective world. But since man is goaded into establishing real relations in the world of nature by need, the object which fulfills that need manifests some element of the essence of man. Man finds himself "objectified" in things. Once understood, this thesis reveals nature to us as something sharing a common essence with man. Knowledge of the character of the real connections established in nature protects us from betraying ourselves to materialist or idealist postures. "Nature, conceived abstractly, in itself, fixed in its separation from man, is nothing for man." "Reality," is rather, for the young Marx, a "product" of human activity, a product not of Spirit but of sensuous activity. For neither objective nature nor subjective nature are simply given; they become distinguished only in practice. Practice is provoked by essential needs-the objects of his needs exist outside of him, as objects independent of him but with which he can establish real relations, for they answer his needs 102- needs which inform us of the essential characteristics of man. To know "reality" one must know man. Man, therefore, is the "secret" of Marx's early epistemology. "Nature, in the process of becoming, is the real nature of man ... nature, as it has become, is true anthropological nature."
This humanistic naturalism resolves, according to Marx, the perplexities of materialism and idealism. Subject and object are ever-changing distinctions made in sensuous practice. The object does not stand as an independent, substantial entity against consciousness; the actuality of the one limits, conditions and defines the other. Nature and reality will be just as complex as are the essential, sensuous activities of man. The implications of such a philosophical position are relatively clear. There is no "reality" independent of man as a species being (Gattungswesen). "Reality" can only be a reality for man. Man-in-himself and nature-in-itself are abstract, negative moments of concrete nature.' An object without the subject is as inconceivable as the subject without the object.' To speculate upon such "being-in-itself" is to speculate meaninglessly." Thought and being, subject and object, are a “unity,” wedded in sensuous practice, separated only in abstraction. An "ultimate'' reality, an "objective" reality is unattainable. An "objective" world would be a meaningless world, for nothing of man would be reflected there. To be known, a world must be a human world, a humanized world, man's "self-projection."
Within the compass of such a system, truths are relative, determined by the needs and social circumstances of men, they are historical and dialectical. As society increases in complexity, and practical experiences multiply, reality becomes more intricate and varied. In place of the passive contemplation of the object which constitutes, for materialism, the commencement of the epistemological enterprise, the young Marx, following Feuerbach's revisionist program, substituted the dialectic of human sensuous activity. The object, reality, can only be understood subjectively, through a comprehensive understanding of the active role of the sensing subject in its determination. Marx proposed to retain the Hegelian dialectic, substituting for its abstract content "real sensuous activity as such." With that discarded abstract content went the universal and infinite Spirit. Man was conceived as a limited, determinate sensuous entity among equally limited and determinate natural entities.
Man dialectically "objectifies" himself in nature, whose essence he shares. He comes to understand the "objective world" because that world is essentially his own creation. "In the working up of the objective world ... nature appears as his work and his reality. The object of labor is, therefore, the objectification of man's species life: for he duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but also actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a world that he has created."
The first thesis of Feuerbach is clearly a condensed statement of this position. As such several things can be established with some finality:
Such a philosophic position cannot, in any meaningful sense, be called materialist: the principle “Verum et factum convertuntur” is the keystone of idealism.
At the time of the writing of the "Theses on Feuerbach '' Marx's "break" with Feuerbach was more verbal than philosophical.
Gentile's interpretation of the philosophy of the young Marx, based upon the thesis of Feuerbach, was substantially correct and, thus, provides an important insight into the intellectual development of the great socialist.
Marx never seemed to have developed the implications of his "Humanism" and he gradually lost interest in the strictly epistemological problem. His development has been characterized as one from philosophical speculation to political activism. It was left to Engels to elaborate the philosophic implications of Marxism, a task toward which he was, at best, ill-disposed. He was averse to "theorizing," and he was academically unprepared for such an enterprise. The principal products of his philosophic lucubrations appeared in the Anti-Duhring (published some thirty-odd years after Marx's completion of the Deutsche Ideologie in 1846) and in Ludwig Feuerbach (which Engels wrote only after the death of Marx in 1883). The notebooks which have been published under the title Dialectics of Nature are the fruit of work conducted during the decade 1872-82, that is, a quarter of a century after the Deutsche Ideologie.
Until the publication of Marx's Paris manuscripts of 1844, the Marxists could with some plausibility maintain that Engels was a faithful interpreter of Marx, neglecting Gentile's analysis. But once these manuscripts became available there could be no doubt that Gentile had been correct and that one could not accept both the philosophy of the youthful Marx and that of the mature Engels without compromise, so pronounced are the divergences. Gentile credited Engels with an imperfect acquaintance with Hegelianism. As a consequence he contended that the latter-day Marxism, the product largely of Engels' efforts, has but little affinity to the essentially Hegelian (more properly neo-Hegelian) philosophy of the young Marx.
The philosophy which reveals itself in the works of Engels is indeed a strange bedfellow to the "positive Humanism" of the youthful Marx. And it would be odd if Marx ever more than tolerated it. Engels tells us that Marx read the text of the Anti-Duhring and "approved" it. But we do know that Marx did not confide all his opinions to Engels and what the judgment on the epistemology of his compatriot might have been we shall probably never know, since Marx's daughter took it upon herself to destroy her father's correspondence with his wife; vandalism undertaken in order to avoid "embarrassment" to Engels.'
Gentile held that Marx had not made a substantial innovation in the fundamental Hegelian conception of the world. Marx had attempted, with Feuerbach, to substitute one content for another in dealing with the Hegelian dialectic. But even this substitution, Gentile held, was really only apparent. A more substantial understanding of idealism would have revealed that the sensuous activity with which the revisionists were preoccupied was but the most primitive moment of the spiritual life, the prius out of which arises the objective and subjective moment. It was in precisely this fashion that Gentile was to interpret sensation in his mature writings.
Gentile conceived his own Actualism as a reform of Hegelianism. He conceived the philosophy of the young Marx in a similar light. As such he viewed Marx sympathetically as a thorough Hegelian, an heir to the whole tradition of German Idealism, and a precursor of Actualism itself. The two systems, one to provide the rationale for Fascism, the other to become an article of faith for international Communism, both find their source in Hegelianism, and they seem to have first taken leave of each other with their respective analyses of sensation.