[Xmca-l] Re: Laws of evolution and laws of history

[Andy Blunden]

There can only be two sources of this idea: Engels' "Part Played by 
Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man" (1876)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm
and the Introduction to "Dialectics of Nature" (1883)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch01.htm

In the latter work, after explaining how freeing the hands by adopting 
an erect gait, led to the use of tools, meaning labour, and this led to 
the expansion of the brain, language and sundry other changes, and thus 
eventualy the emergence of human beings as a species. Then he says:

    "With men we enter /history/."

In the earlier document, he says: "Labour begins with the making of 
tools" which Engels claims happened before the formation of modern homo 
sapiens, contributing to that formation rather than being a product of 
the formation of modern humans, and he narrates a story which continues 
from this point up to socialist revolution as if it were one continuous 
story, blurring over the distinction between evolution of the species 
and historical development of culture.
The nerest we come to your quote is: "the more that human beings become 
removed from animals in the narrower sense of the word, the more they 
make their own history consciously." The "narrower sense" I presume 
means biological differentiation. So this could count for what you are 
looking for, Mike.

Andy


------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


mike cole wrote:
> Dear Colleagues--
>
> I seem to recall reading an idea, that I recall being attributed to Engels,
> that (rooughly) "more and more the laws of evolution are being replaced by
> the laws of history."
>
> Can anyone enlighten me either as to the source of this "quotation" or as
> to the source of my own confusion in this regard?
>
> mike
>
>