ABSTRACT
Newton's closed systems of physical determinism served as the nineteenth-century basic prototype of successful scholarship. In the biological and social sciences it was linked with evolutionary theories in which change was explained monistically, i.e. by tracing its various aspects to one major factor – a prime mover. Eclecticism was seen as the only alternative to monism and was rejected by the major minds of those times. Marxian dialectical materialism represented a highly sophisticated form of monistic thought, in which the feedback of the ‘resultants’ on the ‘determinant’ was acknowledged and discussed.
