The M ediation o f Nature through Sa, tety

8y

made o f the concept o f metabolism by Jacob Moleschott,

the spokesman o f the materialist movement. Moleschott,
who is today almost entirely forgotten, was first influenced
by Schellings philosophy o f nature and Hegelianism, but
later (partly through his acquaintanceship with Feuerbach)
became an investigator into nature and a physiological
materialist with social leanings. In his later .years, having
him self come more and more under the influence o f
natural-scientific materialism, Feuerbach regarded M oleschotts work as the fulfilment o f his own earlier programme
o f a philosophy o f the future. 1**
L et us take, for example, such popular writings o f
M oleschotts as the Physiologic des Stoffwechsels m PJlanzen
rnd Tieren (1851), Der, Kreislauf des Lebens (1857),
Die
Emheit des Lebens .{ 1 % $ . T he materialism put forward
in these books, and supported with a mass o f empirical
material, portrays nature, on the model o f human physi
ology, as a vast process o f transformation and metabolism.
T his materialism is still imbued with speculative elements.
Since in his view all the being o f things was presented
through properties, M oleschott did not accept that a thing
could have a property which did not sim ply manifest itself
through the fact that this thing was in 3 relation with
another thing .1*4
W e shall only quote certain statements from Der Kreislauf
des Lebens, from which it may be concluded with some
certainty that M arx made use o f M oleschotts theory o f
metabolism, not, o f course, without altering it:
W hat mao excretes nourishes the plant. T h e p h o t changes the air into
solids and nourishes the animal. Carnivorous animals live on herbiverous animals, to fall victim to death them selves and so spread abroad
new ly germinating life in the plant world. T h e name metabolism has
been given to this exchange o f m aterial. W e are right not to mention
this word without a feeling o f reverence. F or just as trade is d ie soul o f
commerce, the eternal circulation o f m aterial is the soul o f the world.1**
. . . T h e quintessence o f all activity on earth the movement o f the
basic materials, com bination and division, asam ihtinn and ex
cretion.1**
. . .T h e wonder lies in the eternal existence o f the material through
out its changes o f form , in the change o f the m aterial from form to
form , in metabolism as the fundamental b aas o f earthly life.1*1