Henry Sturt

“ Dühring’s philosophy claims to be emphatically the philosophy of reality. He is passionate in his denunciation of everything which, like mysticism, tries to veil reality. He is almost Lucretian in his anger against religion which would withdraw the secret of the universe from our direct gaze. ”

“ It is to matter that we must look for the explanation both of conscious and of physical states. But matter is not, in his system, to be understood with the common meaning, but with a deeper sense as the substratum of all conscious and physical existence ”

“ In this materialistic or quasi-materialistic system Dühring finds room for teleology; the end of Nature, he holds, is the production of a race of conscious beings. From his belief in teleology he is not deterred by the enigma of pain; he is a determined optimist. Pain exists to throw pleasure into conscious relief. In ethics Dühring follows Comte in making sympathy the foundation of morality. In political philosophy he teaches an ethical communism, and attacks the Darwinian principle of struggle for existence. ”