SOURCE: “Friedrich Engels and Science,” in New Masses, Vol. LVII, No. 10, December 4, 1945, pp. 10, 12-13.

In the following essay, Struik assesses and praises Engels' contributions and achievements in the philosophy of science. Struik's assessment focuses on Engels' Dialectics of Nature which, the critic explains, examines the “fundamental dialectical laws which govern the universe as well as the inquiring mind.”

Outstanding among the thinkers of past generations are a few whose thought was so penetrating, whose vision so clear, that study of their works gives guidance to those who try to understand the principles underlying contemporary science. Leibnitz was one of them, and Hegel, despite all his vagaries, was another. Friedrich Engels belongs to this group of brilliant men.

Engels is always remembered, in the first instance, as the collaborator of Marx, and it is true that he had the advantage of constant stimulation by the greatest thinker of the...