B. Engels, sociolog-výzkumník

Engels's book "The Conditions of the Working Class in England" rightly ranks among the basic works of Marxist sociology. In explaining its significance, however, it is necessary to keep to the principle of historical approach. Engels's main contribution does not lie in the application of the particular technologies of collecting the facte, but in the working out of the method of historical materialism that he uses for the first time in the analysis of extensive empirical material. His monographic-historical study appeals to sociology thanks to the combination of the theoretical and empirical factors in the process of cognition and thanks to the construction of the social function of the work with respect to the future. Engels does not surpass the standards of compiling and treating the empiric material usual at his time. But he greatly surpasses his predecessors in deep explanation, from the description of the phenomena he comes to the revealing of their substance. We take his work for heuristic research aiming a social analysis the movement, at the revealing of the sources of the expected social movement. The relationship of theory and empiric is not realised in the form of empiric verification of the theoretical theses or by the inductive method of investigation, but in justified choice of the subject and object of the investigation and in its goals. Thus significant theoretical incentives for individual branches of science (sociology of the working class, of family, urban sociology, social pathology) are formulated. F. Engels shows the way towards interdisciplinary research. At the same time he creates the basis for professional ethics of a sociologist giving an example of biased scientific cognition and he himself systematically fulfils the pledge of critical thinking. His legacy thus puts the contemporary sociology before a difficult but principle task: to combine the revolutionary character of science with the revolutionary character of practice.