In his account in vol. 1 of Capital of the universal characteristics of the labour process, Marx makes a claim very similar to this claim of Engels: a worker "makes use of the mechanical, physical and chemical properties of some substances in order to set them to work on other substances as instruments of his power, and in accordance with his purposes." p. 285 In a footnote he explicitly associates this idea with Hegel's idea of the "cunning of reason."
By the way, other aspects of Marx's account of the universal characteristics of the labour process are also taken directly from idealism. For instance, the feature of "labour" that makes it an "exclusively human characteristic" and distinguishes the "worst architect" from the best of bees and spiders is pointed to by Kant in the _Critique of Judgement_ in #43 "Of Art in General".
"By right we ought only to describe as art, production through freedom, i.e. through a will that places reason at the basis of its actions. For although we like to call the product of bees (regularly built cells of wax) a work of art, this is only by way of analogy; as soon as we feel that this work of theirs is based on no proper rational deliberation, we say that it is a product of nature (of instinct)."
Kant also distinguises production through freedom from wage labour. "We regard the first as if it could only prove purposive as play, i.e. as occupation which is pleasant in itself. But the second is regarded as if it could only be compulsorily imposed upon one as work, i.e. as occupation which is unpleasant (a trouble) in itself and which is only attractive on account of its effect (e.g. the wage)."
"Chance and blind variation" are not the same as self-determination, i.e. as "freedom" in the sense of Kant, Hegel and Marx. Many modern Darwinists explicitly reject even chance and blind variation as ultimate aspects of reality; see, for example, E.O. Wilson's account of "freedom" in _On Human Nature_.
I haven't read very much by Peirce so I can't comment directly on him. The one modern non-Marxian writer whose critical reconstruction of scientific materialism and of the scientific materialist foundations of Darwinism I am familiar with is A.N. Whitehead. I would strongly recommend books of his such as _Science and the Modern World_, _The Function of Reason_, _Modes of Thought_, and _Adventures of Ideas_ to anyone interested in further exploration of this topic. I have heard it said that Whitehead's arguments and ideas resemble Peirce's in important ways.
Whitehead is very good on the distinction between "dialectical" conceptions of interdependence and other conceptions. The former understand interdependence as "internal relations." The materialism underpinning conventional Darwinism is not dialectical in this sense; it treats the ultimate material entities making up reality, including the material entities making up "organisms," as externally rather than internally related.
Ted Winslow York University
Ted Winslow E-MAIL: WINSLOW at YORKU.CA Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York University FAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. North York, Ont. CANADA M3J 1P3