Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Notes on Books

Written: 1912-1916 (See each Note for publishing information)
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976, Volume 38, pp. 392-400
Publisher: Progress Publishers
First Published: 1933-1938 (See each Note for publishing information)
Translated: Clemence Dutt
Edited: Stewart Smith
Transcription & Markup: K. Goins (2008)
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.

NOTES ON BOOKS

F. Raab, Die Philosophie von R. Avenarius. Systematische
Darstellung und immanente Kritik, Leipzig, 1912 (164 p.).
5 Mk.
Perrin, Les atomes, Paris (Alcan).[1]
Written not earlier than 1912
First Published in 1938 in Lenin Miscellany XXXI
Published according to the manuscript
From books on philosophy in the Zürich
Cantonal Library[2]
Gideon Spicker, Über das Verhältnis der Naturwissenschaft
zur Philosophie (especially versus Kant and Lange’s His-
tory of Materialism). Octavo. Berlin, 1874. IV. W. 57 K.
Hegel, Phänomenologie (hrs. Bolland, 1907). IV. W. 165 g.
Written in 1915
First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXII
Published according to the manuscript
(Cantonal Library in Zürich[3]
(Signatur: K. b i.)
Flugschriften des deutschen Monistenbundes. Heft 3:
Albrecht Rau. “Fr. Paulsen über E. Haeckel.”
2-te Aufl. Brackwede, 1907, (48 SS.)
A very sharp criticism of Paulsen from the stand-
point of Feuerbach. A “Mohican” of the bourgeois
enlightenment!
NB
Written in 1915
First published in 1933 In Lenin Miscellany XXII
Published according to the manuscript
Section III. (“Works of informative and scientific
content”)[4]:
Theories of Origin... 1914.
(Present-day Culture III, IV).
F. Haeckel, Gott-Natur, Leipzig, 1914... Sch. 480 N 24.
Uhde, Feuerbach, Leipzig, 1914 ... XVI. 906.
A. Zart, Bausteine des Weltalls: Atome, Moleküle..
Stuttgart, 1913.
Written in 1916
First published in 1934 in Lenin Miscellany XXVII
Published according to the manuscript
Ruttmann, Die Hauptergebnisse der modernen Psycholo-
gie, Pe. VII. 3551.
Suter, Die Philosophie von Richard Avenarius, 1910 (Diss).
St. Bro. 11.341
Written in 1916
First published in 1936 in Lenin Miscellany XXIX
Published according to the manuscript

ON THE REVIEW OF JOH. PLENGE’S BOOK
MARX AND HEGEL[5]

Joh. Plenge, Marx and Hegel, Tübingen, 1911.
(184 SS.) (Mk. 4).
An unfavourable review by 0. Bauer in Vol. 111, 3rd
number of Archiv für Geschichte des Sozialismus.
Written in 1913
First published in 1938 in Lenin Miscellany XXXI
Published according to the manuscript

ON THE REVIEW OF R. B. PERRY’S BOOK
PRESENT PHILOSOPHICAL
TENDENCIES[6]

Mind. 1913. April. Review by F. C. S. Sculler of Ralph
Barton Perry’s Present Philosophical Tendencies: a Critical
Survey of Naturalism, Idealism, Pragmatism and Realism,
together with a Synopsis of the Philosophy of William
James, London and New York. (Longmans & Co.). 1912.
383 pages.
Schiller is against Perry’s “realism” and makes the charge
that “his mind is so preoccupied with the metaphysical
antithesis between realism and idealism that he is always
trying to reduce all other issues to this.”
It is to be noted that Schiller quotes the following pas-
sage from Perry: “The organism is correlated with an en-
vironment, from which it evolved and on which it acts.
Consciousness is a selective response to a pre-existing and
independently existing environment. There must be some-
thing to be responded to, if there is to be any response”
(p. 323 in Perry’s book). And Schiller raises the objection:
“Unless the question is begged in the ‘independently exist-
ing environment’” (Schiller’s italics), “nothing is here
proved except the correlation of the mind and its ‘environ-
ment’”... (p. 284).
[illegible]
Written later than April 1913
First published in 1938 in Lenin Miscellany XXXI
Published according to the manuscript

ON THE REVIEW OF A. ALIOTTA’S BOOK
THE IDEALIST REACTION AGAINST
SCIENCE[7]

Antonio Aliotta: La reazione idealistica contro la sciensa.
1 vol. 8°. XVI + 526 pages. Palerme. Casa editrice Optima,
1912.
Review in Revue Philosophique (Ribot). Paris, 1912,
No. 12, pp. 644--646, by J. Segond, who states:
“He” (Aliotta) “shows us in agnosticism all the latest
sources of contemporary reaction; he shows how it de-
velops through German (Riehi) and French (Renouvier)
neo-criticism, the empirio-criticism of Mach and Avenarius,
and English neo-Hegelianism; he describes and exposes the
intuitionism of Bergson and Schmitt, the Anglo-American
pragmatism of W. James, Dewey and Schiller, the philos-
ophy of values and the historicism of Rickert, Croce, Mün-
sterberg and Royce,” etc. (645), and so on up to Schuppe,
Cohen and others.
In the second part the author examines the energetics
of Ostwald and “the new physics des qualités”[8] of Duhem
and the “theory of models” of Hertz, Maxwell and Pastore.
The author particularly dislikes, he says, mysticism (includ-
ing that of Bergson), etc.
The point of view of the author is stated to be “the spir-
it of the happy mean of truly rational intellectualism,
that of M. Aliotta and of M. Chiapelli.” (645)
Written in 1913
First published in 1938 in Lenin Miscellany XXXI
Published according to the manuscript

REMARKS ON HILFERDING’S VIEWS ON MACH
(IN FINANCE CAPITAL)[9]

Hilferding: Finance Capital. (“The Latest
Phase in the Development of Capitalism”). Moscow, 1912
Published in German in 1910 (III Band Marx-Studien)
muddle... p. 13—“According to E. Mach” “the ‘ego’
is only the focus in which the infinite

incorrect
not “in the
same way”

incorrect 		threads of sensation meet most closely....
In exactly the same way money is the focal
point in the network of social connec-
tions....”
p. 71, note. “Only our perception gives
things the form of space” (a Kantian).
Written not later than June 1916
First published in 1934
in Lenin Miscellany XXVII
Published according to the manuscript

Footnotes

[1] The entry on the books by Raab and Perrin was made in a notebook entitled “Austrian Agricultural Statistics, etc.” not earlier than 1912.

[2] The entry on the books under the heading From Books on Philosophy in the Zürich Cantonal Library was made in the first notebook (notebook “α”) on imperialism in 1915.

[3] The entry under the heading Cantonal Library in Zürich was made in the first notebook on imperialism (notebook “α”) in 1915.

[4] The entry under the general heading Section III. (Works of informative and scientific content), containing reference to the books by Haeckel, Uhde and Zart, was made in a notebook on imperialism (notebook “ε”) in 1916.

[5] Note on the Review of Johann Plenge’s book “Marx and Hegel” was written in 1913, amidst bibliographical excerpts on various questions, in the notebook “Austrian Agricultural Statistics, etc.”

[6] Remarks on the Review of R. B. Perry’s book “Present Philosophical Tendencies”—written after April 1913 in the notebook “Austrian Agricultural Statistics, etc.”

[7] Remarks on the Review of A. Aliotta’s book “The Idealist Reaction Against Science”—written in 1913 at the end of the notebook “Austrian Agricultural Statistics, etc.”

[8] of qualities—Ed.

[9] Remarks on Hilferding’s Views on Mach (in “Finance Capital”)—contained in notebook “θ” on imperialism.

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