ABSTRACT
In claiming at Marx’s graveside that “Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature”, Engels did much to set the terms of future comparisons between Marx and Darwin. But how does Engels’s claim about Darwin square with what Darwin accomplished and thought he had accomplished? Marx had applauded Darwin for having undercut teleological argument in the natural sciences, and Engels had too. This being so, we need to ask questions about the “law of development” Engels in 1883 credited Darwin with having “discovered”. Darwin himself propounded no such discovery. Engels’s “law of development” cannot refer to evolution at large, which Darwin never claimed to have discovered. If Engels had in mind the principle of natural selection, which Darwin did claim to have discovered as a means of refiguring and refining the concept of evolution, we are no better off: Darwin certainly uses the term “law”, but he does not use it to refer to his principle of natural selection.
