marx stood on the shoulder’s of giants, as his method was scientific. Engels acknowledges this:
“Marx, to be sure, discovered the materialistic conception of history – but the examples of Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, the whole school of English historians up to 1850 show they were working towards it; and the discovery of the same conception by Morgan serves as proof that the time was ripe for it, and that it had to be discovered.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25a.htm
we need a :bbc-cool: