Chapter XIX: Part 19

The fundamental idea of my address is that the dominance of the bourgeoisie has in no wise been produced, consciously and by their own motion, intentionally and in a responsible manner, by the propertied class as persons or individuals. On the contrary, the bourgeois are but the unconscious, choiceless, and therefore irresponsible products, not the producers of the situation as it stands and as it has developed under the guidance of quite other laws than the direction of personal choice. Even their reluctance to surrender this their mastery I refer back to the laws of human nature, whose character it is to hold fast to whatever is and to account it necessary. But a doctrine which goes the length of denying the propertied class all responsibility for the existing state of things, which makes them a product instead of the producers of this state of things--this doctrine the public prosecutor construes to have incited to hatred and contempt of these persons.

For, be it noted, we have here to do with persons and classes of persons, under section 100, not with institutions established by the State, as under section 101.

No workingman has got so faulty an understanding of my address as the public prosecutor, and I leave it to him to say whether this is due to his lack of understanding or to his lack of will to understand.

But, more than all this, I go on to show that the dominance of the idea of the bourgeoisie is a great historic move in the liberation of humanity; that it was a most potent moral cultural advance; that in fact it was the historically indispensable prerequisite and transitional stage through development out of which the idea of the working class was to emerge.

I therefore must be said to reconcile the working class to the dominance of the bourgeoisie as an historical fact by showing the logical necessity of this dominance. I reconcile them to it, for a comprehension of the rationality of what restricts us is the fullest possible reconciliation to it.

And if I proceed, further, to show that the idea of the bourgeoisie is not the highest stage of the historical development, not the perfect flower of advancing improvement, but that beyond it lies yet a higher manifestation of the human spirit, and that this ulterior phase rests on the former as its base--does this mean that I incite to hatred and contempt of the former?

The working class might as well hate and despise themselves and all human nature, whether in their own or in their neighbors' persons, because it is the law of human nature to unfold step by step and to proceed to each succeeding stage of development from the indispensable vantage ground of the phase preceding.

If I had any predilection for homiletical discourse, Gentlemen, I should be quite justified in saying that I have exhorted the working classes to a filial piety toward the bourgeoisie, in that I have shown that the dominance of the bourgeoisie was the indispensable prerequisite and condition by transition out of which alone the idea of the working class could come forth. For even if the son, by grace of a freer and fuller education and a larger endowment of personal force, strives to place himself above the level on which his father stood, still he never forgets the source of his own blood and the author of his own being. How deep in the mud is it the intention to thrust the noblest of all the sciences in bringing this charge of criminal instigation against the doctrine that history is an unfolding evolution of reason and human liberty?

It was for long incomprehensible to me how the public prosecutor could use such words as instigation to hatred and contempt in this connection. In the end I have been able to explain this fact to myself only on this one supposition. The public prosecutor must have endeavored in reading this address, to put himself in the place of a working man and has then come to feel that he would in such a case be moved to hatred.

The public prosecutor, then, is sensible that he would hate.

Now, Gentlemen, I might say that this would be attributable to the peculiarity of his temperament, and that he had no call to generalize and go beyond that. But I will lend a hand to the public prosecutor in this perplexity. I will bring the charge against myself in a more telling form than he has been able to do. I will formulate it as the facts of the case require that it must be formulated if it is to be preferred at all. And in so doing, the more pointedly I may be able to bring to light the essential nature of the charge, the more utterly shall I annihilate it.

This is what the public prosecutor should have said:

It is true this address held by Lassalle appeals to the intellect of the auditors, not to their practical impulses or their emotions. It is accordingly true also that this address does not come within the sphere of competence of the penal code.

But in a person endowed with the normal complement of human sensibility, cognition, will and emotion are not so many insulated pigeonholes which stand in no relation to one another. Whenever the one compartment is full it flows over into the next. Will and emotion are servants of the intellect and are controlled by it.

Lassalle, it is true, has not a word to say of hatred and contempt; he is simply occupied with a theoretical exposition of how certain arrangements, for instance, the three-class suffrage, is pernicious. I am unable to confute this teaching. But I have this to say with respect to the organic unity of human nature, that if the doctrine is true then it follows that every normally constituted working man must come to hate and distrust not only these arrangements and institutions but also those who profit by them.

Such is the logical framework on which this indictment must proceed. This is the line of argument which avowedly or not, by logical necessity comes to expression in this indictment.

It is not I, but the public prosecutor speaking from the eminence of his curule chair, who proclaims to the working classes the awful doctrine: You must hate and distrust.

It is not for me, it is for the public prosecutor to square himself with the bourgeoisie.

But what is my answer to the public prosecutor and his indictment which charges me with his own offense?

My answer is a four-fold one:

In the first place a full recognition of the inadequacy or the viciousness of a given institution must arouse in any person of normal sensibility an enduring purpose to change such an institution, if possible, and the arousing of such an undying purpose in my hearers has necessarily been the aim of my scientific investigation, as it necessarily is the end of all scientific work. But such a purpose, so long as it does not utter itself in an illegal manner, is absolutely unconstrained by law. The like is true of all effort to arouse such a purpose, so long as it does not resort to illegal means. But such a purpose to amend the shortcomings of any established arrangement, is by no means the same thing as hatred and contempt of the arrangement in question; since these shortcomings are a matter of historical growth, of historical necessity; since, indeed, they may even be, in effect, a factor in the work of liberation, and a factor of the gravest consequence and of the most beneficial effect for cultural growth. Further reasons to the like effect have already been recited and I will not take up your time with their repetition and further development. Here, then, is the first hiatus in the public prosecutor's argument.

In the second place, if it actually follows in any given case that hatred and contempt is, for a normally constituted human being, the necessary consequence of a scientific knowledge of the facts, such hatred and contempt could by no means be laid under penalties by the legislator.

Whatever institution is so vicious that knowledge of it necessarily excites hatred and contempt, that institution should be hated and despised.

The legislator lays penalties upon such hatred and contempt as are but the effects produced by blind emotions and passions. But he has not imposed penalties upon human reason and the moral constitution of man. He consequently does not impose penalties upon hatred and contempt which are the necessary outcome of these two features of human nature. The public prosecutor construes section 100 to the effect that the legislator has therein intended to prohibit the use of reason and proscribe the moral nature of man. But such a purpose has not entered the thoughts of the law-giver. No court will put such a construction upon the law as to make the legislator the avowed enemy of intelligence and science,--and here come into bearing again all the arguments of my defense directed to Article 20 of the Constitution. The only meaning of these arguments in this connection is that even if science and its teaching were not by Article 20 of the Constitution exempt from the application of the criminal code, still section 100, except it be construed to intend the utter destruction of human nature, cannot be leveled against such hatred and contempt as is the necessary outcome of scientific knowledge.

In the third place, hatred and contempt of a given institutional arrangement or expedient is by no means the same thing as hatred and contempt of those persons who profit by the arrangement in question; whereas section 100 deals only with hatred of persons,--so that we have here the third break in the public prosecutor's argument, and it is a veritable _saltomortale_.

In the fourth place I have to present an argument of fact. The prosecutor's argument presents the most remarkable _quid pro quo_[56] that has ever come to light in a legal discussion. The point which I here touch upon constitutes the transition to the second part of my argument, showing that all proof touching the second condition to be fulfilled by the indictment is wanting; viz.: that even if there were ground for speaking of hatred and contempt in this connection, it is still quite plain that there has been no instigation to hatred or contempt of those against whom I am charged with having incited to hatred and contempt.

As to this second part of the indictment: I am accused of instigating the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied classes.

"By this presentation," says the indictment, "working men will plainly be incited to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, the unpropertied classes will be inflamed against the propertied classes." And after having in this way, quietly and by subreption, introduced this its definition of the term "_bourgeoisie_," the indictment goes on to formulate its final charge as follows:

"It is accordingly charged that the above named citizen, F.L., (1),
by his lecture etc., and (2) by publishing the pamphlet containing
this same lecture, has publicly instigated the unpropertied classes
of the State's subjects to hatred and contempt of the propertied
classes."

It is true, in my address I speak of the "_bourgeoisie_." But what is my definition of this term? It will be sufficient to cite a single passage which contains the definition of "_bourgeoisie_" as used by me in this pamphlet. This will show what an incomprehensible, unheard-of, uncharacterisable _quid pro quo_ the public prosecutor has attempted to impute to me in charging me with instigating the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied classes.

On page 20 of this pamphlet is the following passage, quoted literally:

"I have now reached the point, Gentlemen, where it becomes necessary
that, in order to avoid a possible gross misapprehension of what I
have to say, I explain what I mean by the term 'bourgeoisie' or 'great
bourgeoisie,' as the designation of a political party--that I define
what the word 'bourgeoisie' means in my use of it.

"The word 'bourgeoisie' might be translated into German by the term
_Bürgertum_ (citizenship, or the body of citizens). But that is not the
meaning actually attached to the word. We are all citizens--workingmen,
petty burghers, commercial aristocracy and all the rest alike. On the
other hand the word 'bourgeoisie' has, in the course of historical
development, come to designate a particular political bias and
movement which I will now go on to characterize.

"At the time of the French Revolution, and, indeed, even yet, that entire
body of subjects which is not of noble birth, was roughly divided into
two sub-classes: First the class comprising those persons who, wholly or
chiefly, get their income from their own labor and are without capital,
or are, at the most, possessed of but a moderate capital which affords
them the means of carrying on some employment from which they and their
families derive their subsistence. This class comprises the
workingmen, the lower middle classes (_Kleinbürger_), the citizen
class and also the body of the peasants. The second class is made up
of those persons who have the disposal of a large property, of a large
capital, and who are producers or receivers of income on the basis of
their possession of capital. These latter might be called the great
burghers or commoners, or the capitalist gentry. But such a great
burgher or capitalist gentleman, is not by reason of that fact a
bourgeois. No commoner has any objection to raise because a nobleman
in the bosom of his family finds comfort in his pedigree and in his
lands. But when, on the other hand, this nobleman insists on making
such pedigree or such landed property the basis of a peculiar
importance and prerogative in the State, when he insists on making
them a ground for controlling public policy, then the commoner takes
offense at the nobleman and calls him a feudalist.

"The case is entirely similar as regards the distinctions in respect
of property within the body of commoners.

"That the capitalist gentleman in his chamber takes pleasure in the high
degree of comfort and the great advantage which large wealth confers
upon its possessor,--nothing can be more natural, simpler or more
legitimate than that he should do so."

Incidentally, then, Gentlemen, so far am I in this pamphlet from instigating the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the wealthy, that, on the contrary, I expressly declare myself for the legitimacy of such property. I explicitly declare that the satisfaction taken in the advantages and amenities which flow from such wealth are the most natural and legitimate things in the world.

Let me now go on with the definition referred to:

"The workingmen and the lower middle class, that is to say the class
without capital, may be wholly justified in demanding that those by whose
hands all that wealth which is the pride of our civilization is produced,
whose hands have brought forth all these products without which society
could not live for a single day--it may well be demanded that these should
be secured an ample and unfailing income, and thereby be given an
opportunity for some intellectual development, and that they be by this
means put in the way of a truly human manner of life. But, while I
am free to say that the working classes are fairly within their rights in
making these demands of the State, and to stand out stiffly for their
demands as being the essential purpose for which the State exists, yet
the workingman must never allow himself to forget that all property
that has once been acquired and is legally held must be considered lawful
and inviolable."

Such, then, is the manner and degree of my instigation of the unpropertied class to hatred and distrust that I incontinently preach to them the inviolability and sacredness of all property acquired by the wealthy classes, and exhort them to respect it.

But I go on to say:

"In case the man of means is not content with the material amenities
of large wealth, but insists that possession of wealth, of capital, be
made the basis of a control to be exercised over the State, a condition
of participation in the direction of public policy and of the direction
of public affairs, then and only then does the man of means become a
bourgeois; then does he make the fact of property a legal ground of
political power; then does he stand forth as representative of a
privileged class aiming to put the imprint of its prerogative upon all
social features and institutions, just as truly as the nobility of the
Middle Ages did with respect to the basis of their privilege, landed
property."

Accordingly, in my use of the term, as I have explicitly and painstakingly defined it, the man of means, the man of the upper-middle class, is a _bourgeois_ in case he proceeds to set up the essentially harmless and inoffensive fact of his large property as a legal condition of participation in the direction of public affairs; in short, when he proceeds to set up the ownership of capital as a legal and political prerogative, and so abolishes the equality of the propertied and the unpropertied classes before the law, and thereby infringes upon the liberty and further growth of the people, in the interest of accumulated wealth and continued upper-class mastery. Only under these circumstances, as I particularly point out, does the _bourgeoisie_ become a privileged class, which it otherwise, in spite of all inequality of wealth, is not.

In my pamphlet I point out how all this has its effect through the census rating whereby admission to a share in the direction of public policy, through eligibility to any legislative body, is so limited by property qualifications as to make the possession of capital a prerequisite. I point out further that this effect follows equally whether the property qualification is open and above-board or under-hand, and finally that the existing three-class system of elections, dating back to 1849, amounts to such an under-hand, disguised property rating.

The point at which the pamphlet strikes, therefore, albeit in a purely theoretical way, is the three-class system of elections. It makes no attack upon the propertied classes, whose accumulated wealth, on the contrary, I am repeatedly at pains to define as wholly incontestable, inoffensive, inviolable and perfectly lawful.

This three-class system of elections is one of our political institutions.

Now, this being the case, why has not the public prosecutor indicted me under section 101 of the criminal code, "for having exposed the measures of the State to hatred and to contempt?" To be sure, if the prosecutor had chosen to make this charge, I should have known how to answer him. To go into this matter today would be superfluous, for I am not accused of this offense, and my defense would be drawn out endlessly if I were to defend myself against charges that have never been brought against me.

But why, among all impossible charges, does the public prosecutor choose to bring precisely the most impossible? Why does he make this substitution as to the point of my attack? I point out that the three-class system of elections is an injustice because it makes an essentially innocent difference in wealth a legal qualification for participation in the direction of public affairs; whereupon this envenomed accusation is brought against me that I have instigated the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied.

Is there, then, no remedy, Gentlemen, against such a public defamation of one's name and fame?

Can we say that among us the introduction, of the three-class system of elections is to be laid at the door of the propertied classes or the commonalty? Something of that kind might be said of the French _bourgeoisie_. In France the property qualification and rating was introduced as long ago as the revolutionary _Assemblée Constituante_. But the like has not been done by the German.

When the Prussian bourgeoisie came into power through the March revolution of 1848 it introduced universal and equal suffrage by the law of the 8th of April, 1848. The German bourgeoisie at St. Paul's Church, Frankfort, enacted universal equal suffrage.

The three-class system of elections which we now have, was arbitrarily imposed, imposed by the government.

Now, why does the public prosecutor shelter the government behind the backs of the Prussian _bourgeoisie? A tout seigneur tout honneur_![57]

It is the Prussian government, not the propertied classes, that must for all time and in the eyes of all people bear the responsibility of this arbitrarily imposed three-class system of elections.

But, whatever may have been the reasons which decided the public prosecutor to make this very singular substitution of grievances in his indictment--and we may perhaps presently come to find out what his reasons were--at any rate, this second ground of the indictment also fails. There has been no incitement against the propertied classes of the community; there has been no instigation against those against whom I am accused of instigating to hatred and contempt.

The third ground on which the indictment is brought, the charge of having endangered the public peace, fails likewise.

As to this third count:

Section 100 says: "Any person who endangers the public peace by
publicly inciting the subjects of the State to hatred or to contempt
of one another is to be punished."

Now, when the State speaks of the public peace it cannot be taken to mean peace of mind, for the State is not a pietistic overseer concerned about the subjects' peace of mind and the general sphere of spiritual edification. What it looks to is the peace of the streets. This is made quite plain by the phrase, "public peace."

The like is plain from all principles of law. Subjective states of mind do not concern the State; it is concerned with overt actions alone. It has, accordingly, no concern with hatred and contempt or with instigation thereto in so far as they are a matter of subjective sensibility only; but such instigation is subject to penalties only in case it is of such a nature as to lead to overt action. This is very patently indicated by the legislator in making use of the expression, "Any person who endangers public peace." The legislator says not any one who "disturbs," but any one who "endangers." If, in the contemplation of the law, any incitement whatever to hatred and contempt were punishable; if, in the contemplation of the law, the public peace were to be "endangered" through the mere incitement to such subjective sentiments; then the law would necessarily have said: any person who disturbs the public peace by inciting. If such had been the phrasing of the law, then it might perhaps be held that such disturbance always follows when instigation to hatred and contempt is made.

"Endanger" means to bring about the possibility of a disturbance, and by his choice of this term, therefore, the legislator has shown us that in speaking of the public peace he has not in mind a harmony of sentiments--which in the case contemplated must already have been disturbed, not simply endangered--but the peace of the streets. He has shown that he does not consider that a disturbance of the public peace necessarily has arisen in case of incitement to subjective sentiments of hatred and contempt. Consequently not every case of such incitement is held to be punishable, but only those cases in which the peace of the streets is in danger of being disturbed. In other words the penalty follows only when the incitement to hatred and contempt attains such a pitch as to become dangerous, that is to say, liable to result in overt unlawful acts. Section 100 is accordingly not to be taken to say that any person who incites to hatred and contempt endangers the public peace and is therefore subject to punishment. Such an interpretation would be wholly fallacious, on juridical as well as on grammatical grounds. Its meaning is that any person who puts the public peace in jeopardy through inciting to hatred and contempt--that is to say in case the incitement is of such a nature that it necessarily carries danger to the public peace--such a person is subject to the penalties of this law. In making use of the term "endanger," therefore, the law defines the crime of incitement to this effect, that it must be incitement of such a kind that it at least may lead to overt action--to the endangering of the peace of the streets--otherwise it is not punishable.

To show how far my action falls short of this third criterion, how little the alleged instigation is of the kind which might, even conceivably, lead to tangible action in the way of endangering the political peace, the peace of the public highways--to this end let me simply point out that in this address I am occupied with a discussion of periods of historical development of secular duration, and at the close I make the explicit statement that in the advance of a historical dawning one or two decades count but as a single hour in the revolution of a natural day.

So that we have here to do with an indictment which meets the requirements of the law at not a single point; whereas in order to an adequate charge, the several counts should concur, should combine and bear one another out.

It has frequently happened that indictments have been made in which some one count has not been well taken. But an indictment of which not even a single count proves to come within the contemplation of the law,--such an indictment deserves a special, and in every sense of the word a peculiar, place on honor in the temple of jurisprudence.

However, _audiatur et altera pars_.[58] Let us take one last look at the motivation which the indictment offers. In so doing it is possible that we shall find that in what I have been saying I have, by some highly ingenious artifice of exposition, succeeded in concealing the legally offensive features of my action; or on the other hand it may turn out that the totally nugatory character of this indictment will by this means be brought out in even more startling fashion than has yet appeared.

There is one sentence in this indictment which serves as underpinning to the whole structure. This sentence may, therefore, be expected to be of selected timber. The preamble of the document says: "The leading ideas of this address are as follows:--" and then, having given an ostensible _resumé_ of these ideas, it goes on to the following effect: "By these expositions, and by the frequently recurring allusions to an imminent social revolution, the workingmen will manifestly be provoked to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie; that is to say, the unpropertied classes will be stirred up against the propertied, whereby the public peace will be endangered, particularly since the address contains a direct appeal to make the mastery of the working class over the other classes of society the end of their endeavors, to be pursued with the most ardent and consuming passion."

This is the only passage in the document that is of the nature of a legal motivation. Let us look more closely into this sentence. This is a sentence which might give the asthma to a person with weak lungs, and it is so constructed as to hide its total lack of substance from any superficial view under a shimmering verbiage and a confusion of ideas. If you will look more closely into this passage, Gentlemen, you will be astonished at the quantity of juristic monstrosities, absurdities, misstatements and misconstructions of fact which it contains.

Now, whereby, according to this passage, have I accomplished my alleged incitement to hatred and contempt? "By these expositions," says the document. That is to say by a purely theoretical, purely objective exposition of historical events; by what the indictment itself designates as the exposition of my leading ideas; by nothing else, therefore, than the scientific doctrine simply. It is by this means that I am alleged to have incited to hatred and contempt. The indictment may shift and turn as it likes; it cannot escape the avowal that its accusation runs against nothing else than purely scientific arguments,--against science and its teaching.

But the passage goes on to add an "and." By these expositions _and_ by the frequently recurring allusions to an imminent social revolution is the instigation alleged to have been effected.

What are these allusions to an imminent social revolution? Where are they to be found? Why does not the public prosecutor cite them? I call upon him to do so. But he cannot cite them. There is no passage in this pamphlet which will bear out his insinuations on this point.

It is true, throughout this pamphlet I make frequent use of the words "revolutionary" and "revolution;" although I do not speak of an "imminent social revolution," as the public prosecutor alleges. What I speak of is a social revolution which supervened in February, 1848. But with this word, "revolution," the public prosecutor hopes to crush me. For he, taking the word in its narrower legal sense alone, cannot read this word, "revolution," without conjuring up before his fancy the brandishing of pitchforks. But such is not the meaning of the word in its scientific use, and the consistent use of the term in my pamphlet might have apprised the public prosecutor of the fact that the term is there employed in its alternative, scientific signification. So, for instance, I speak of the development of the territorial principality as a "revolutionary" phenomenon.

And so again, on the other hand, I expressly declare that the peasant wars, which, assuredly, were sufficiently garnished with violence and bloodshed,--I declare these wars to have been a movement which was revolutionary only in the imagination of those who participated in them, whereas they were in reality not a revolutionary, but a reactionary movement.

The progress of industry which took place in the sixteenth century, on the contrary, I repeatedly and constantly characterize as a "really and veritably revolutionary fact" (page 7), although no sword was drawn on its account. Likewise I characterize (page 7) the invention of the spinning jenny in 1775 as a radical and effectual revolution.

Is this an abuse of language, or am I hereby introducing a novel use of words in making use of the term "revolution" in this sense,--in that I apply it to peaceful developments and deny it to sanguinary disturbances!

The elder Schelling says (_Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit_, Vol. VII, p. 351): "The happy thought of making freedom the all in all of Philosophy has not only made the human intellect free as regards its own motives and effected a greater change in this science in all directions than any earlier revolution," etc. The elder Schelling, at least, does not, like the public prosecutor's fancy, see pitchforks flashing before his eyes at the sound of the word "revolution." Applying the word, as he does, to the effects wrought by a philosophical principle, he takes it, as I do, in a sense which has no relation whatever to physical violence.

What, then, is the scientific meaning of this word "revolution," and how does revolution differ from reform? Revolution means transmutation, and a revolution is, accordingly, accomplished whenever, by whatever means, with or without shock or violence, an entirely new principle is substituted for what is already in effect. A reform, on the other hand, is effected in case the existing situation is maintained in point of principle, but with a more humane, more consequent or juster working out of this principle. Here, again, it is not a question of the means. A reform may be effected by means of insurrection and bloodshed, and a revolution may be carried out in piping times of peace. The peasant wars were an attempt at compelling a reform by force of arms. The development of industry was a full-blown revolution, accomplished in the most peaceable manner; for in this latter case an entirely new and novel principle was put in the place of the previously existing state of affairs. Both these ideas are developed at length and with great pains in the pamphlet under consideration.

How comes it that the public prosecutor alone has failed to understand me? Why is all this unintelligible to him alone, when every workingman understands it?

Now, even suppose that I had spoken of an "imminent social revolution," as in point of fact I did not; would I, therefore, necessarily have been talking of pitchforks and bayonets?

Professor Huber is a thoroughly conservative man, a strenuous royalist, a man who, on the adoption of the constitution of 1850, voluntarily resigned the professor's chair which he held in the University of Berlin, because, if I am rightly informed, he had scruples about subscribing to it; but at the same time he is a man who is with the deepest affection devoted to the welfare of the working classes, who has given the most painstaking study to their development and has written most excellent works upon that subject, particularly upon the history of industrial corporations or labor organizations. After having shown that the labor organizations of England, France, and Germany already have in hand a capital of fifty million thalers, Professor Huber says in this latest work (_Concordia_, p. 24):

"Under these circumstances and under the influences herein at work,
and in view of the historical facts above indicated in outline, it is
to be hoped that I need enter no disclaimer against Utopian daydreams
of a universal millenium when I say that not only is a very substantial
reform of the existing political conditions of the factory population
practicable in such a measure as to bring about an elevation of their
entire social and economic situation, but such a reform is to be looked
for as in the natural course of things the assured outcome of the
growth of labor organizations."

Here we have a prediction of a thoroughgoing social transmutation spoken of as the assured outcome of the labor-organization movement working out its effects simply within the lines of the peaceable and conventional course of things. But how if I, with all the stronger reason, had spoken of a prospective social change that might be expected to result from the combined force of the two factors, organized labor and universal suffrage?

But how can I be held accountable for the public prosecutor's literary limitations? for his lack of acquaintance with what is going on all around us in modern times and what science has already accepted and made a matter of record? Am I the scientific whipping-boy of the public prosecutor? If that were the case, the punishment which it would be for you, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, to mete out to me would be something stupendous. But all that apart, how can an allusion to an imminent social revolution, even to a pitchfork revolution, constitute an instigation to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie? And this is, after all, what the public prosecutor must be held to allege in the passage cited, and this in fact is what he does allege. Hatred and contempt can be aroused against any man only by his own acts and their publicity. But how can anything done by Peter excite the hatred and contempt of Paul? If any one were to tell us: "The workingmen are going to get up a social revolution," how could that remark arouse hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie? The passage in question, then, shows itself to have been one that makes no sense, either in point of grammar or in point of logic. It is not only untrue with a threefold untruth, but it is contradictory and meaningless. At least it is quite unintelligible to me.

I have as great difficulty in understanding the public prosecutor's language as he has in understanding mine. The Greeks were in the habit of calling any one _barbaros_ (a barbarian) who did not understand the current speech. So the public prosecutor and I are both barbarians, the one to the other.

But this passage in the indictment which I have been analyzing brings up a third point at which I am alleged to have been guilty of inciting to hatred and contempt of the bourgeoisie. This is introduced with the word "particularly." The exposition and the allusions above spoken of are alleged to have incited to hatred and contempt, "particularly because the address contains a direct appeal to make the mastery of the working classes over the other classes of society the end of their endeavors, to be pursued with the most ardent and consuming passion." Suppose that such were the case; an exhortation addressed to a given class of society to pursue the vain ambition of a mastery over the other classes would be worthy of all reprobation, but it would still be legally permissible unless it urged to criminal acts. Every class in society is at liberty to strive for the control of the State, so long as it does not seek to realize its end by unlawful means. No political purpose is punishable, the means employed alone are. Now, the character of this prosecution, as a prosecution directed against a political bias, appears plainly and should be manifest to every one in every line of the indictment, in that it constantly charges incitement to the seeking of certain ends; it never attempts to show that criminal means have been employed, or that I have, in my address, urged the employment of such means. But even if I had been guilty of urging the working classes to resort to criminal means for gaining control over the other classes of society, then I could only have been indicted under Article 61,[59] or some other article of the criminal code, but never under Article 100, or as having offended against that article by an instigation of the workingmen to hatred and contempt; for such an exhortation addressed to the working classes to make themselves masters of the other classes of society must have incited the workingmen to political ambition, but by no means to hatred and contempt of any third party. This ambition on the part of the workingmen could, of course, not have been fathered upon the bourgeoisie; and since responsibility for it could not have been put upon them, hatred and contempt of them could not have been aroused by the fact of such an ambition. It therefore appears again that this passage is quite devoid of grammatical and logical content. But upon what ground has the public prosecutor read into my address an exhortation urging to the pursuit of "mastery on the part of the workingmen over the other classes of society?"

All that I have to say in my pamphlet bearing on this head is that it is the destiny of the historical epoch beginning with February, 1848, to install the ethical principle of the working classes as the dominant principle of society, to make it the guiding principle of the State; the nature of this principle is expounded in my pamphlet, and I have already restated it in outline in the introductory part of my speech.

I repeatedly and explicitly express myself to the same effect. So I say (page 31) that, as in 1789 the revolution was a revolution of the third estate, so in this later case it was a revolution of the fourth estate, "which now seeks to erect its principle into the dominant principle of society and to permeate all institutions with it." Or again

(page 32): "Whoever, therefore, appeals to the principle of the working class as the dominant principle of society;" and, further, on the same page: "We have now to examine, in three several hearings, this principle of the working class as the dominant principle of society." And (page 33): "Perhaps the idea of making the principle of the lowest class of society the dominant principle of the State and of society may seem to be a dangerous idea." I, then, proceed to develop, from page 39 onward, the difference between the ethical and political principle of the bourgeoisie and the ethical and political principle of the working class, and conclude on page 42 with the words: "This, then, is it, Gentlemen, that is to be characterized as the political principle of the working class," etc.

And because I present an exalted ethical principle, the noblest ethical principle which my intelligence is capable of grasping, the noblest ethical principle yet achieved by political philosophy, because I proclaim this as destined to become the guiding principle of the present period of history; because of this and because I bring evidence to show that this principle, as being the expression of the natural instinct due to the economic situation of the working classes, is properly to be designated as the principle of the working classes,--this is what the public prosecutor has construed into an atrocious crime, and has accused me of urging the working classes to aim at making their own class the masters of the other classes of society.

The public prosecutor appears to believe that I aspire to see the propertied classes reduced to servitude under the working classes, that I would invert history and make the landed gentry and the manufacturers the servants of the workingmen.

But however widely we may differ in the use of language, however much we may mutually be barbarians to one another, could such a misapprehension, or anything approaching it, be at all possible?

I develop (page 32) my view, explicitly and in detail, to the effect that this is precisely the characteristic mark of the fourth estate, that its principle contains no ground of discrimination, whether in point of fact or in point of law, such as could be erected into a domineering prerogative and applied to reconstruct the institutions of society to that end. The words I use are as follows (page 32): "Laborers we all are, in so far as we are willing to make ourselves useful to human society in any way whatever. This fourth estate, in the recesses of whose heart there lies no germ of a new and further development of privilege, is therefore a term coincident with the human race. Its concerns are, therefore, in truth the concerns of mankind as a whole; its freedom is the freedom of mankind itself; its sovereignty is the sovereignty of all men." And I thereupon go on to say: "Therefore, whoever appeals to the principle of the working class as the dominant principle of society, in the sense in which I have presented this idea,--his cry is not a cry designed to divide the classes of society," etc. And while I, with all my heart and soul, am making an appeal for the termination of all class rule and all class antagonism, the public prosecutor charges me with inciting the laborers to establish class rule over the propertied classes. I ask again: How is such an astonishing misunderstanding to be explained? Permit me once again, to quote the father against the son:

"The medium," says Schelling (Vol. I, p. 243, _Abhandlungen zur
Erläuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre_)--"The medium
whereby intellects understand one another is not the circumambient
atmosphere, but the joint and common freedom whose movements penetrate
to the innermost recesses of the soul. A human spirit not consciously
replete with freedom is excluded from all spiritual communion, not only
with others but even with himself. No wonder, therefore, that he
remains incomprehensible to himself as well as to others, and wearies
himself in his pitiable solitude with empty words which stir no friendly
response whether in his own or in another's breast. To be unintelligible
to such an unfortunate is a credit and an honor before God and man."

So says Schelling, the father.

Gentlemen, I have now reached the close of my argument. It were bootless to ask whether this charge could possibly have any weight with you, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court. But there was probably another design at the root of the prosecution. The political struggle between the bourgeoisie and the government has lately shown some slight signs of life. It has, not improbably, been thought that under these circumstances a prosecution for incitement of the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied classes would create an effective diversion; it was probably hoped that even if such an accusation were dismissed by you, still--you remember the ancient adage: _calumniare audacter, semper aliquit haeret_[60]--it would serve as a wet towel to bind about the slightly-inflamed countenance of our bourgeoisie,--and so, with this in view, Gentlemen, I was selected as the scapegoat to be driven out into the wilderness. But even this design, Gentlemen, will fail.

It will fail shamefully through the mere reading of my pamphlet, which I most particularly commend to the bourgeoisie. It will fail before the force of my own voice; and precisely with this in view I felt called on to go so extensively into the facts of the case in my defense. We are all, bourgeoisie and laborers, members of one people, and we stand firmly together against our oppressors.

Let me now close. Upon a man who, as I have presented the matter to you, has devoted his life under the motto, "Science and the Workingmen," even a sentence which may meet him on the way will make no other impression beyond that made upon a chemist by the breaking of a retort used by him in his scientific experiments. With a momentary knitting of the brow and a reflection on the physical properties of matter, as soon as the accident is remedied he goes on with his experiments and his investigation as before.

But I appeal to you that for the sake of the nation and its honor, for the sake of science and its dignity, for the sake of the country and its liberty under the law, for the sake of your own memory as history shall preserve it, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, acquit me.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: The criteria which are here appealed to as working the differences of spiritual constitution between the so-called Germanic peoples and the peoples of antiquity are today questioned at more than one point. And quite legitimately so. Considered as peoples simply, the Greeks or Romans were scarcely less capable of development than the Germanic peoples. That their States, their political organizations, collapsed because of the decay of certain institutional arrangements peculiar to the social life of the times, that is a fortune in which the states of antiquity quite impartially have shared with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious or new ethical notions, but, in a general way, it is to be said that, except in the theocratic States, the rôle played by religion is only of secondary importance even in antiquity.

Socrates was not the first nor the only one in Greece who had taught "new gods." That he in particular was called on to drink the hemlock was due to reasons of State policy, which had but a very slight and unessential relation to the acts of sacrilege of which he was accused. It may be added that this Greek promulgator of new gods is among the German peoples fairly matched by John Huss and thousands of other victims of religious persecution.

Lassalle's mistake lies in this, that he seeks the motor force of development in the "spirit" of the nations, instead of looking for an explanation of their spiritual life in the peculiar circumstances which condition their development. But, in spite of this, it must be said that his conclusions as bearing upon the modern situation are for the most part substantially sound.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 50: According to this doctrine, the motions of the "Monads"--animistically conceived units of which the entire universe, organic or inorganic, was held to be constituted--were (by the fiat of God at the creation of the world) bound in a preordained sequence, in such a manner that all these motions constitute a comprehensive, harmonious series. Wherefore, all events whatever that may take place, take place as the necessary outcome of the constitution of these monads moving independently of one another.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 51: Permission to teach.]

[Footnote 52: I have fought not without glory.]

[Footnote 53: Don't disturb my circles.]

[Footnote 54: A new and unheard-of-crime.]

[Footnote 55: In case it becomes necessary.]

[Footnote 56: Confusion of one thing with another.]

[Footnote 57: Honor to whom honor belongs!]

[Footnote 58: Hear also the other side.]

[Footnote 59: That is, for high treason.]

[Footnote 60: Calumniate boldly, some of it will always stick.]

* * * * *

OPEN LETTER TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE (1863)

FOR THE SUMMONING OF A GENERAL GERMAN WORKINGMEN'S CONGRESS AT LEIPZIG

BY FERDINAND LASSALLE

TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B.

Assistant Professor of German, Tufts College

Gentlemen:--You have asked me in your letter to express my opinion, in any way that seems suitable to me, on the workingmen's movement and the means which it should use to attain an improvement of the condition of the working class in political, material, and intellectual matters--especially on the value of associations for the class of people who have no property.

I have no hesitation in following your wishes, and I choose the form which is simplest and most suitable to the nature of the matter--the form of a public letter of reply to your communication.

Last October in Berlin, at a time when I was absent from here, during your first preliminary discussion concerning the German Workingmen's Congress--a discussion which I followed in the newspapers with interest--two opposing views were brought forward in the meeting.

One was to the effect that you have no concern whatever with political agitation and that it has no interest for you.

The other, in distinction from this, was that you were to consider yourselves an appendix to the Prussian Progressive party, and to furnish a sort of characterless chorus or sounding-board for it.

If I had attended that meeting, I should have expressed myself against both views. It is utterly narrow-minded to believe that political agitation and political progress do not concern the workingman. On the contrary, the workingman can expect the realization of his legitimate ambitions only from political liberty.

Even the question to what extent you are allowed to meet, discuss your interests, form general and local unions for their consideration, etc., is a question which depends upon the political situation and upon political legislation, and therefore it is not worth the trouble even to refute such a narrow view by further consideration.

No less false and misleading was the other view which was placed before you, namely, to consider yourselves politically a mere annex of the Progressive party.

It would certainly be unjust not to recognize that the Progressive party, in its struggle with the Prussian Government, performed at that time a certain service, though a moderate one, in behalf of political liberty, by its insistence upon the right of granting appropriations and its opposition to the reorganization of the army in Prussia.

Nevertheless the realization of that suggestion is completely out of the question, for the following reasons:

In the first place, such a position was in no way fitting for a powerful independent party with much more important political purposes, such as the German Workingmen's party should be, with reference to a party which, like the Prussian Progressive party, has set up as its standard, in the matter of principle, only the maintenance of the Prussian constitution, and, as the basis of its activity, only the prevention of the one-sided organization of the army--which is not even attempted in other German countries; or the insistence upon the right of granting appropriations--which is not even disputed in other German countries.

In the second place, it was in no way certain that the Prussian Progressive party would carry on its conflict with the Prussian Government with that dignity and energy which alone are appropriate for the working class, and which alone can count upon its warm sympathy.

In the third place, it was also not certain that the Prussian Progressive party, even if it had won a victory over the Prussian administration, would use this victory in the interest of the whole people, or merely for the maintenance of the privileged position of the _bourgeoisie_; in other words, that it would apply this victory toward the establishment of the universal equal and direct franchise, which is demanded by democratic principles and by the legitimate interests of the working class. In the latter case it evidently could not make the slightest claim to any interest on the part of the German working class.

That is what I should have said to you at that time with reference to that suggestion.