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[X.2.]
popular consciousness. The fact that nature and man exist on their own account is incomprehensible to it, because it contradicts everything tangible in practical life.

The creation of the earth has received a mighty blow from geognosy - i.e., from the science which presents the formation of the earth, the development of the earth, as a process, as a self-generation. Generatio aequivoca is the only practical refutation of the theory of creation.

Now it is certainly easy to say to the single individual what Aristotle has already said: You have been begotten by your father and your mother; therefore in you the mating of two human being--a species-act of human being--has produced the human being. You see, therefore, that even physically man owes his existence to man. Therefore you must not only keep sight of the one aspect--the infinite progression which carries you further to inquire: Who begot my father? Who his grandfather? etc. You must also grasp the circular movement sensually perceptible in that progress by which man repeats himself in procreation, man thus always remaining the subject. You will reply, however: I grant you this circular movement; now grant me the progress which drives me ever further until I ask: Who begot the first man, and nature as a whole? I can only answer you: Your question is itself a product of abstraction. Ask yourself how you arrived at that question. Ask yourself whether your question is not posed from a standpoint to which I cannot reply, because it is wrongly put. Ask yourself whether that progress as such exists for a reasonable mind. When you ask about the creation of nature and man, you are abstracting, in so doing, from man and nature. You postulate them as non-existent and yet you want me to prove them to you as existing. Now I say to you: Give up your abstraction and you will also give up your question. Or if you want to hold on to your abstraction, then be consistent, and if you think of man and nature as non-existent,
[XI.2.]

[X.1.]
Man is the immediate object of natural science; for immediate sensual nature for man is, immediately, human sensuality (the expressions are identical) presented immediately in the form of the other man sensually present for him. Indeed, his own sense-perception first exists as human sensuality for himself through the other man. But, nature is the immediate object of the science of man: the first object of man - man - is nature, sensuality; and the particular human sensual, essential powers can only find the self-understanding in the science of the natural world in general, just as they can find their objective realisation only in natural objects. The element of thought itself--the element of thought's living expression-- language--is of a sensual nature. The social reality of nature, and human natural science, or the natural science of man, are identical terms.

< It will be seen how in place of the wealth and poverty of political economy come the rich human being and the rich human need. The rich human being is simultaneously the human being in need of a totality of human manifestations of life - the man in whom his own realisation exists as an inner necessity, as need. Not only wealth, but likewise the poverty of man--under the assumption of socialism--receives in equal measure a human and therefore social significance. Poverty is the passive bond which causes the human being to experience the need of the greatest wealth - the other human being. The dominion of the objective being in me; the sensual outburst of my life activity, is passion, which thus becomes here the activity of my being.>

(5) A being only considers himself independent when he stands on his own feet; and he only stands on his own feet when he owes his existence to himself. A person who lives by the grace of another regards himself as a dependent being. But I live completely by the grace of another if I owe him not only the maintenance of my life, but if he has, moreover created my life - if he is the source of my life. When it is not of my own creation, my life has necessarily a source of this kind outside of it. The Creation is therefore an idea very difficult to dislodge from
[XI.1.]


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