Dialectics of Nature, by Friedrich Engels (1883), applying Marxist ideas to science.

This unfinished work follows on from what Engels had said about science in Anti-Dühring. It includes the famous The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, which has also been published separately as a pamphlet. Engels argues that the hand and brain grew together - an idea supported by later fossil discoveries, though it seems the foot came first. (See Australopithecus afarensis: Bipedalism.)

Most of the work is fragmentary, but has points of interests. In biology, he says:

Vertebrates. Their essential character: the grouping of the whole body about the nervous system. Thereby the development of self-consciousness, etc. becomes possible. In all other animals the nervous system is a secondari affair, here it is the basis of the whole organisation. (p 309, Progress Publishers edition of 1972)

External links

• Full text on-line
• Also as pdf

Диалектика природы (Энгельс) | 自然辩证法