Chapter II: Student

In Berlin, Marx threw himself into the study of Philosophy, Jurisprudence, History, Geography, Literature, the History of Art, etc. He had a Faust-like thirst for truth, and his appetite for work was insatiable; in these matters only superlatives can be used to describe, Marx. In one of his poems dating, from this period, he says of himself:

"Ne'er can I perform in calmness
What has seized my soul with might,
But must strive and struggle onward
In a ceaseless, restless flight.

All divine, enhancing graces
Would I make of life a part;
Penetrate the realms of science,
Grasp the joys of Song and Art."

Giving up all social intercourse, he worked night and day, making abstracts of what he read, translating from Greek and Latin, working at philosophical systems, setting down a considerable number of his own thoughts, and drafting outlines of philosophy or jurisprudence, as well as writing three volumes of poems. The year 1837 marks one of the critical periods of Marx's intellectual development; it was a time of vacillation and ferment and of internal struggle, at the end of which he found refuge in the Hegelian dialectics. In so doing he turned his back on the abstract idealism of Kant and Fichte, and made the first step towards reality; and indeed at that time Marx firmly believed that Hegel actually stood for reality. In a somewhat lengthy letter dated November 10, 1837, a truly human document, Marx gives his father an account of his intense activity during that remarkable period, comprising his first two terms at the University of Berlin, when he was still so very young:

"DEAR FATHER,

"There are times which are landmarks in our lives; and they not
only mark off a phase that has passed, but, at the same time,
point out clearly our new direction. At such turning points we
feel impelled to make a critical survey of the past and the
present, so as to attain to a clear knowledge of our actual
position. Nay, mankind itself, as all history shows, loves to
indulge in this retrospection and contemplation, and thereby
often appears to be going backward or standing still, when after
all it has only thrown itself back in its armchair, the better
to apprehend itself, to grasp its own doings, and to penetrate
into the workings of the spirit.

"The individual, however, becomes lyrical at such times; for
every metamorphosis is in part an elegy on the past and in part
the prologue of a great new poem that is striving for permanent
expression in a chaos of resplendent but fleeting colours. Be
that as it may, we would fain set up a monument to our past
experiences that they may regain in memory the significance
which they have lost in the active affairs of life: and what
more fitting way can we find of doing that than by bringing them
and laying them before the hearts of our parents!

"And so now, when I take stock of the year which I have just
spent here, and in so doing answer your very welcome letter from
Ems, let me consider my position, in the same way as I look on
life altogether, as the embodiment of a spiritual force that
seeks expression in every direction: in science, in art, and in
one's own personality.... On my arrival in Berlin I broke off
all my former connections, paid visits rarely and unwillingly,
and sought to bury myself in science and art.... In accordance
with my ideas at the time, poetry must of necessity be my first
concern, or at least the most agreeable of my pursuits, and the
one for which I most cared; but, as might be expected from my
disposition and the whole trend of my development, it was purely
idealistic. Next I had to study jurisprudence, and above all I
felt a strong impulse to grapple with philosophy. Both studies,
however, were so interwoven that on the one hand I worked
through the Jurist's Heineccius and Thibaut and the Sources
docilely and quite uncritically, translating, for instance, the
first two books of the Pandects of Justinian, while on the other
hand I attempted to evolve a philosophy of law in the sphere of
jurisprudence. By way of introduction I laid down a few
metaphysical principles, and carried this unfortunate work as
far as Public Rights, in all about 300 sheets.

"In this, however, more than in anything else, the conflict
between what is and what ought to be, which is peculiar to
Idealism, made itself disagreeably prominent. In the first place
there was what I had so graciously christened the Metaphysics of
Law, i.e., first principles, reflections, definitions, standing
aloof from all established jurisprudence and from every actual
form of legal practice. Then the unscientific form of
mathematical dogmatism in which there is so much beating about
the bush, so much diffuse argumentation without any fruitful
development or vital creation, hindered me from the outset from
arriving at the Truth. A triangle may be constructed and
reasoned about by the mathematician; it is a mere spatial
concept and does not of itself undergo any further evolution; it
must be brought in conjunction with something else, when it
requires other properties, and thus by placing the same thing in
various relationships we are enabled to deduce new relationships
and new truths. Whereas in the concrete expression of the mental
life as we have it in Law, in the State, in Nature, and in the
whole of philosophy, the object of our study must be considered
in its development.... The individual's reason must proceed with
its self-contradiction until it discovers its own unity."

In this we perceive the first trace of the Hegelian dialectic in Marx. We see rigid geometrical forms contrasted with the continually evolving organism, with social forms and human institutions. Marx had put up a stout resistance against the influence of the Hegelian philosophy; nay, he had even hated it and had made mighty efforts to cling faithfully to his idealism, but in the end he, too, must fall under the spell of the idea of evolution, in the form which it then assumed in Hegelian speculation in Germany.

Marx then goes on to speak of his legal studies as well as of his poems, and thus continues:

"As a result of these various activities I passed many sleepless
nights during my first term, engaged in many battles, and had to
endure much mental and physical excitement; and at the end of it
all I found myself not very much better off, having in the
meanwhile neglected nature, art and society, and spurned
pleasure: such, indeed, was the comment which my body seemed to
make. My doctor advised me to try the country, and so, having
for the first time passed through the whole length of the city,
I found myself before the gate on the Stralau Road.... From the
idealism which I had cherished so long I fell to seeking the
ideal in reality itself. Whereas before the gods had dwelt above
the earth, they had now become its very centre.

"I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy, the strange, rugged
melody of which had not pleased me. Once again I wished to dive
into the depths of the sea, this time with the resolute
intention of finding a spiritual nature just as essential,
concrete, and perfect as the physical, and instead of indulging
in intellectual gymnastics, bringing up pure pearls into the
sunlight.

"I wrote about 24 sheets of a dialogue entitled 'Cleantes or on
the Source and Inevitable Development of Philosophy.' In this,
art and science, which had hitherto been kept asunder, were to
some extent blended, and bold adventurer that I was, I even set
about the task of evolving a philosophical, dialectical
exposition of the nature of the Deity as it is manifested in a
pure concept, in religion, in nature, and in history. My last
thesis was the beginning of the Hegelian system; and this work,
in course of which I had to make some acquaintance with science,
Schelling and history, and which had occasioned me an infinite
amount of hard thinking, delivers me like a faithless siren into
the hands of the enemy....

"Upset by Jenny's illness and by the fruitlessness and utter
failure of my intellectual labours, and torn with vexation at
having to make into my idol a view which I had hated, I fell
ill, as I have already told you in a previous letter. On my
recovery I burnt all my poems and material for projected short
stories in the vain belief that I could give all that up; and,
to be sure, so far I have not given cause to gainsay it.

"During my illness I had made acquaintance with Hegel from
beginning to end, as also with most of his disciples. Through
frequent meetings with friends in Stralau I got an introduction
into a Graduates' Club, in which were a number of professors and
Dr. Rutenberg, the closest of my Berlin friends. In the
discussions that took place many conflicting views were put
forward, and more and more securely did I get involved in the
meshes of the new philosophy which I had sought to escape; but
everything articulate in me was put to silence, a veritable
ironical rage fell upon me, as well it might after so much
negation."--("Neue Zeit," 16th year, Vol. I., No. 1.)

His father was anything but pleased with this letter. He reproached Karl with the aimless and discursive way in which he worked. He had expected that these Berlin studies would lead to something more than breeding monstrosities and destroying them again. He believed that Karl would, before everything else, have considered his future career, that he would have devoted all his attention to the lectures in his course, that he would have cultivated the acquaintance of people in authority, that he would have been economical, and that he would have avoided all philosophical extravagances. He refers him to the example of his fellow students who attend their lectures regularly and have an eye to their future:

"Indeed these young men sleep quite peacefully except when they
now and then devote the whole or part of a night to pleasure,
whereas my clever and gifted son Karl passes wretched sleepless
nights, wearying body and mind with cheerless study, forbearing
all pleasures with the sole object of applying himself to
abstruse studies: but what he builds to-day he destroys again
to-morrow, and in the end he finds that he has destroyed what he
already had, without having gained anything from other people.
At last the body begins to ail and the mind gets confused,
whilst these ordinary folks steal along in easy marches, and
attain their goal if not better at least more comfortably than
those who contemn youthful pleasures and undermine their health
in order to snatch at the ghost of erudition, which they could
probably have exorcised more successfully in an hour spent in
the society of competent men--with social enjoyment into the
bargain!"

In spite of his unbounded love for his father, Marx could not deviate from the path which he had chosen. Those deeper natures who, after having lost their religious beliefs, have the good fortune to attain to a philosophical or scientific conception of the universe, do not easily shrink from a conflict between filial affection and loyalty to new convictions. Nor was Marx allured by the prospects of a distinguished official career. Indeed his fighting temperament would never have admitted of that. He wrote the lines:

Therefore let us, all things daring,
Never from our task recede;
Never sink in sullen silence,
Paralysed in will and deed.

Let us not in base subjection
Brood away our fearful life,
When with deed and aspiration
We might enter in the strife.

His stay in Stralau had the most beneficial effects on his health. He worked strenuously at his newly-acquired philosophical convictions, and for this his relations with the members of the Graduates' Club stood him in good stead, more especially his acquaintance with Bruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology, and Friedrich Koeppen, a master in a grammar school, who in spite of difference of age and position treated him as an equal. Marx gave up all thought of an official career, and looked forward to obtaining a lectureship in some university or other. His father reconciled himself to the new studies and strivings of his son; he was, however, not destined to rejoice at Karl's subsequent achievements. After a short illness he died in May, 1838, at the age of fifty-six.

Marx then gave up altogether the study of jurisprudence, and worked all the more assiduously at the perfecting of his philosophical knowledge, preparing himself for his degree examination in order--at the instigation of Bruno Bauer--to get himself admitted as quickly as possible as lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bonn. Bauer himself expected to be made Professor of Theology in Bonn after having served as lecturer in Berlin from 1834 to 1839 and in Bonn during the year 1840. Marx wrote a thesis on the Natural Philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus, and in 1841 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred on him at Jena. He then went over to his friend Bauer in Bonn, where he thought to begin his career as lecturer. Meanwhile his hopes had disappeared. Prussian universities were at that time no places for free inquirers. It was not even possible for Bauer to obtain a professorship; still less could Marx, who was much more violent in the expression of his opinions, reckon on an academic career. His only way out of this blind alley was free-lance journalism, and for this an opportunity soon presented itself.