“The philosophy of nature offered us a cosmogony whose starting-point is a “self-identical state of matter” — a state which can only be conceived by means of the most hopeless confusion over the relation between matter and motion; and which, moreover, can only be conceived on the assumption of an extramundane personal God who alone can get it into motion. ” (p 183)
So, just as Duhring's attempt to establish basic, absolute truths turns out to be nothing but a confused Idealism, in which these eternal truths exist out in the ether waiting to be discovered, so too his treatment of the material world, also, requires the intervention of some supernatural force to provide the external impulse to set it in motion.
Duhring rejected the Darwinian explanation of biological evolution, but, unable to provide any other alternative theory, is forced to reintroduce it by the back door, whilst claiming it, then, only played a secondary role. Secondary to what Duhring doe not specify. And, Engels sets out that Duhring could not present any primary alternative, precisely because his ignorance of the science was manifest. Rather as with Marx's critique of the economic theories of Rodbertus, it was a reflection of the limited scope of Prussian ideas that took the reality within its borders as the foundation upon which it based its world view. But, the reality was that the world, as it existed in Prussia, still dominated by the Junker landlords, was itself out of time, compared to the rest of Europe.
That was manifest in Duhring's limited knowledge in the one sphere where he should have had some expertise, that of jurisprudence.
“The philosophy “which cannot allow the validity of any merely apparent horizon” is content with a real horizon in legal matters which is coextensive with the territory in which Prussian Landrecht holds sway.” (p 183)
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