# dialectic materialism in logic, "dialectic" is the action and reaction between opposites, out of which a new synthesis (harmony of the two opposites) emerges. This was an idea originated by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831). "Materialism" is a philosophy which maintains that there is nothing in the universe but matter, that mind is a phenomenon of matter and that there is no ground for assuming a spiritual first cause. "Dialectical materialism" was an adaption of these ideas by German revolutionary leader and founder of modern socialism, Karl Marx (1818-1883), into his own "general laws of motion which govern the evolution of nature and society." He held that a conflict of opposites in human society is the evolutionary process by which a classless society would eventually be reached.