The Poverty of Philosophy/Author's Introductory Note

by Karl Marx

The work of M. Proudhon is not simply a treatise on political economy, an ordinary book, it is a Bible: "Mysteries," "Secrets dragged from the bosom of God," "Revelations," nothing is wanting. But as, in our days, the prophets are discussed more conscientiously than the profane authors, the reader must resign himself to pass with us by the arid and gloomy erudition of "Genesis" in order to rise later with M. Proudhon into the ethereal and fruitful regions of supra-Socialism. (See Proudhon's "Philosophie de la Misère," Prologue, page iii, line 20.)