列宁说：“就本来的意义讲，辩证法是研究对象的本质自身中的矛盾。”
# Lenin said, "Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects."
列宁常称这个法则为辩证法的本质，又称之为辩证法的核心。
#Lenin often called this law the essence of dialectics; he also called it the kernel of dialectics.
因此，我们在研究这个法则时，不得不涉及广泛的方面，不得不涉及许多的哲学问题。
#In studying this law, therefore, we cannot but touch upon a variety of questions, upon a number of philosophical problems.
如果我们将这些问题都弄清楚了，我们就在根本上懂得了唯物辩证法。
# If we can become clear on all these problems, we shall arrive at a fundamental understanding of materialist dialectics.
这些问题是：两种宇宙观；矛盾的普遍性；矛盾的特殊性；主要的矛盾和主要的矛盾方面；矛盾诸方面的同一性和斗争性；对抗在矛盾中的地位。
# The problems are: the two world outlooks, the universality of contradiction, the particularity of contradiction, the principal contradiction and the principal aspect of a contradiction, the identity and struggle of the aspects of a contradiction, and the place of antagonism in contradiction.
§苏联哲学界在最近数年中批判了德波林学派的唯心论，这件事引起了我们的极大的兴趣。
#§The criticism to which the idealism of the Deborin school has been subjected in Soviet philosophical circles in recent years has aroused great interest among us.
德波林的唯心论在中国共产党内发生了极坏的影响，我们党内的教条主义思想不能说和这个学派的作风没有关系。
# Deborin's idealism has exerted a very bad influence in the Chinese Communist Party, and it cannot be said that the dogmatist thinking in our Party is unrelated to the approach of that school.
因此，我们现在的哲学研究工作，应当以扫除教条主义思想为主要的目标。
# Our present study of philosophy should therefore have the eradication of dogmatist thinking as its main objective.
§一 两种宇宙观
#§I.
THE TWO WORLD OUTLOOKS
§在人类的认识史中，从来就有关于宇宙发展法则的两种见解，一种是形而上学的见解，一种是辩证法的见解，形成了互相对立的两种宇宙观。
#§Throughout the history of human knowledge, there have been two conceptions concerning the law of development of the universe, the metaphysical conception and the dialectical conception, which form two opposing world outlooks.
列宁说：“对于发展（进化）所持的两种基本的（或两种可能的？
或两种在历史上常见的？）观点是：（一）认为发展是减少和增加，是重复；（二）认为发展是对立的统一（统一物分成为两个互相排斥的对立，而两个对立又互相关联着）。
”
# Lenin said: The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable? conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).
列宁说的就是这两种不同的宇宙观。
#§Here Lenin was referring to these two different world outlooks.
§形而上学，亦称玄学。
#§In China another name for metaphysics is hsuan-hsueh.
这种思想，无论在中国，在欧洲，在一个很长的历史时间内，是属于唯心论的宇宙观，并在人们的思想中占了统治的地位。
# For a long period in history whether in China or in Europe, this way of thinking, which is part and parcel of the idealist world outlook, occupied a dominant position in human thought.
在欧洲，资产阶级初期的唯物论，也是形而上学的。
# In Europe, the materialism of the bourgeoisie in its early days was also metaphysical.
由于欧洲许多国家的社会经济情况进到了资本主义高度发展的阶段，生产力、阶级斗争和科学均发展到了历史上未有过的水平，工业无产阶级成为历史发展的最伟大的动力，因而产生了马克思主义的唯物辩证法的宇宙观。
# As the social economy of many European countries advanced to the stage of highly developed capitalism, as the forces of production, the class struggle and the sciences developed to a level unprecedented in history, and as the industrial proletariat became the greatest motive force in historical development, there arose the Marxist world outlook of materialist dialectics.
于是，在资产阶级那里，除了公开的极端露骨的反动的唯心论之外，还出现了庸俗的进化论，出来对抗唯物辩证法。
# Then, in addition to open and barefaced reactionary idealism, vulgar evolutionism emerged among the bourgeoisie to oppose materialist dialectics.
§所谓形而上学的或庸俗进化论的宇宙观，就是用孤立的、静止的和片面的观点去看世界。
#§The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees things as isolated, static and one-sided.
这种宇宙观把世界一切事物，一切事物的形态和种类，都看成是永远彼此孤立和永远不变化的。
# It regards all things in the universe, their forms and their species, as eternally isolated from one another and immutable.
如果说有变化，也只是数量的增减和场所的变更。
# Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in quantity or a change of place.
而这种增减和变更的原因，不在事物的内部而在事物的外部，即是由于外力的推动。
# Moreover, the cause of such an increase or decrease or change of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motive force is external.
形而上学家认为，世界上各种不同事物和事物的特性，从它们一开始存在的时候就是如此。
# Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of things in the universe and all their characteristics have been the same ever since they first came into being.