On the question of time and space, dialectical materialism not only struggles against these idealist theories listed above, it also struggles against mechanical materialism. Of particular note[2-226] (p. 290) is Newtonian mechanics, which treats space and time as unrelated and static insubstantial entities, and which situates matter within this insubstantial context. Dialectical materialism, in opposition to this theory of mechanics, points out that our conception of time and space[2-227] is a developmental one. “There is nothing in the world but matter in motion, and matter in motion cannot move otherwise than in space and time. Human conceptions of space and time are relative, but these relative conceptions go to compound absolute truth. These relative conceptions, in their development, move towards absolute truth and approach nearer and nearer to it. The mutability of human conceptions of space and time no more refutes the objective reality of space and time than the mutability of scientific knowledge of the structure and forms of matter in motion refutes the objective reality of the external world”. (Lenin)[2-228]
This is the conception of time and space held by dialectical materialism.
Dialectical materialism considers consciousness to be a product of matter, that it is one form of the development of matter, and a specific characteristic of a definite form of matter. The theory of consciousness of materialism and the historical approach[2-229] is in fundamental opposition to the viewpoint of all idealisms and mechanical materialisms on this question.
According to the Marxist viewpoint, consciousness originated in the development from the inorganic world without consciousness to the animal world possessing rudimentary forms of consciousness; there then developed humankind which possessed high-level forms of consciousness. Such high-level forms of consciousness not only cannot be separated from the advanced nervous systems which came with physiological development, they cannot be separated from the labour and production which comes with the development of society. Marx and Engels have emphatically pointed out the dependent relationship which consciousness has to the development of material production, and the relationship between consciousness and the development[2-230] of human language.
So-called consciousness is a particular characteristic of a definite form[2-231] of matter; this form of matter is composed of a complex nervous system, and this type of nervous system can only occur (p. 291) at a high stage in the evolution of the natural world. The entire inorganic world, plant kingdom, and rudimentary animal kingdom – none of these has the ability to comprehend those processes which occur either within or without them; they are without consciousness.[2-232] It is only the animal being that possesses an advanced nervous system that has the ability to comprehend processes;[2-233] that is, which has the ability to reflect internally or comprehend these processes. The objective physiological processes of the nervous system of human beings function in line with the subjective manifestation of the forms of consciousness that they adopt internally; these are themselves all[2-234] objective things, are certain types of material process; however, these simultaneously also constitute subjective psychological functions in the substance of the brain.
There is no mind comprised of thought which is in essence distinct, there is only ideational matter – the brain. This ideational matter is matter of a particular quality [p. 213], matter which has developed to a high degree following the development of language in human social life. This matter possesses the particular characteristic of thought, something possessed by no other type of matter.
However, vulgar materialists consider thought to be matter secreted from within the brain; this viewpoint misrepresents our conception of this problem. It must be understood that the behaviour of thought, emotion, and will is weightless, neither does it possess the capacity to expand; and yet consciousness, together with weight, and the capacity to expand