MInd and Practice

If, as Marx proposes, the distinguishing characteristic of the human organism is the capacity to make and use tools as a means to subsistence, then the biological fact, if not evolutionary development, that grounds that capacity is opposing thumbs.  Likewise, if there is a distinctive characteristic of human Mind, it is the capacity to operate the opposing thumbs., not a mere awareness of them.  Thus, the occasional synonymity of  'understand' and 'grasp' is more than merely metaphorical.  More generally, a concept of Mind as Practical is one of it as fundamentally volitional and not cognitive, as Kant and Spinoza advocate, but from which Marx-Engels occasionally lapse, e. g.  when they conceive it as Consciousness, i. e. as a data-recording medium.