12. Quantity and Quality¶
Core Argument¶
In his polemic against Dühring, Engels defends the dialectical law of the transformation of quantity into quality, demonstrating that it is not a mere abstraction but a law operative in nature, history, and thought. Dühring, in his Cursus der Philosophie, had declared contradiction to be an absurdity confined to thought, impossible in reality; yet in his Kritische Geschichte, he attacked Hegel for holding that contradiction is objectively present in things themselves. Engels counters that motion itself is a contradiction: a moving body is at once in one place and not in it. Life, too, is a contradiction, as a living being is simultaneously itself and something else. Even higher mathematics operates with contradictions—straight lines equalling curves, the square root of minus one—and obtains correct results unattainable by lower mathematics.
Engels then turns to Marx’s Capital, where a definite minimum sum of exchange-values is required for its transformation into capital. Dühring misrepresents Marx as claiming that an advance becomes capital because quantity changes into quality, whereas Marx actually argues that the quantitative change proves the law. This is confirmed by numerous examples. In the homologous series of carbon compounds, the addition of CH₂ in fixed proportions produces qualitatively different bodies: methane is a gas, hexadecane a solid; formic, acetic, and propionic acids each have distinct boiling and melting points. The same pattern recurs across nitrogen oxides and oxygen acids of phosphorus and sulphur. Water changes state at 0°C and 100°C. Co-operation among workers creates a new power distinct from the sum of individual forces. Napoleon’s cavalry combat provides historical evidence: two Mamelukes could beat three Frenchmen; 100 were equal to 100; but 300 Frenchmen could beat 300 Mamelukes, and 1,000 Frenchmen invariably defeated 1,500. A minimum number was required for discipline in closed order to overcome superior individual horsemanship. Dühring’s “historical depiction in the grand style” consists of neglecting facts, making assertions, and quoting incorrectly. The law of the transformation of quantity into quality, far from being a Hegelian mystification, appears corporeally in things and processes, confirming that contradiction is not merely subjective but objective and real.