Marx argued that our character as human beings was embodied in an ensemble of relations such that tension and uncertainty were endemic to human nature. In this chapter, I argue that this renders the need to "make" sense of that pain an equally essential feature of our nature. For Marx, this explained the functionality of "religious beliefs". They were, as Feuerbach argued, a "flight" from mortality and limitation, which were so painful that these beliefs were not readily overturned. It was only in the extremity of corporeal pain that these rationalisations could be overcome. On this point, Marx agreed with Epicurus, Lucretius, Feuerbach, and Hegel. This, I argue, was the foundation for Marx's interest in Hegel's Phenomenology, especially the "master-servant" dialectic and the "unhappy consciousness". That is, he located the possibility of surrendering one's prior sense of self and recognising one's dependence on the "external" in the face of extreme corporeal pain. I argue that the centrality of the idea of corporeality for Marx, together with his dialectical account of objective and 'species being", provided the foundations for his confidence that a more "human language" would be adopted.