not set up any concept that has not already previously been the real
motor principle in the State. On the contrary, it is plain from what
has already been said, that this, in an unconscious way, has been the
essential nature of the State from the beginning. This essential
character of the State has always in some measure asserted itself
through the logical constraint of the course of events, even when such
an aim has been absent from the conscious purposes of the State, even
when opposed to the will of those in whose hands the power of control
had rested.
In setting up this conception of the working classes as the dominant
concept of the State, therefore, we do nothing more than articularly
formulate what has all along, but obscurely, been the organic nature
of the State, and bring it into the foreground as the consciously
avowed end of society.
Herein lies the comprehensive unity and continuity of all human
development, that nothing drops into the course of development from
the outside. It is only that that is brought clearly into
consciousness, and worked out on the ground of free choice, which has
in substance all along constituted the obscurely and unconsciously
effective organic nature of things.
With the French Revolution of 1848 this clearer consciousness has made
its entry upon the scene and has been proclaimed. In the first place,
this outcome was symbolically represented in that a workman was made a
member of the provisional government; and, further, there was
proclaimed universal, equal and direct suffrage, which is in point of
method the means whereby this conception of the State is to be
realized. February, 1848, therefore, marks the dawning of the
historical period in which the ethical principle of the working
classes is consciously accepted as the guiding principle of society.
We have reason to congratulate ourselves upon living in an epoch
consecrated to the achievement of this exalted end. But, above all, it
is to be said, since it is the destined course of this historical
period to make their conception the guiding principle of society, it
behooves the working classes to conduct themselves with all moral
earnestness, sobriety and studious deliberation.
Such, expressed in the briefest terms, is the content and the course
of argument of the disquisition in question.
What I have sought to accomplish in that argument is nothing else than
to explain to my auditors the intrinsic philosophical content of the
historical development, to initiate them into this most difficult of
all the sciences, to bring home to them the fact that history is a
logical whole which unfolds step by step under the guidance of
inexorable laws.
One who gives himself up to work of this kind is entitled to address
your public prosecutor in the words of Archimedes, when, at the
sacking of Syracuse, he was set upon, sword in hand, by the savage
soldiery while drawing and studying his mathematical figures in the
sand: "_Noli turbare circulos meos_."[53]
To enable me to write this pamphlet, five different sciences, and more
than that, have had to be brought into coöperation and had to be
mastered: History in the narrower sense of the term, Jurisprudence and
the History of Law, Political Economy, Statistics, Finance, and, last
and most difficult of the sciences, the science of thought, or
Philosophy.
What a paragon of scientific erudition must the public prosecutor be,
in whose eyes all this is not sufficient to lend a publication the
attribute of scientific quality.
But the indictment itself, when it is more closely examined, is seen
to assign the ground on which this work is held to lack the requisite
scientific character. The indictment says: "While the defendant,
Lassalle, has been at pains to give himself the appearance of
scientific method in this address, still the address is after all of a
thoroughly practical bearing."
So it appears, then, that, according to the public prosecutor, the
address is not scientific because it is claimed to have a practical
bearing. The test of scientific adequacy, according to the public
prosecutor, is the absence of practical bearing. I may fairly be
permitted to ask the public prosecutor--and it is a Schelling whose
signature this indictment bears--where he has learned all this. From
his father? Assuredly not. Schelling the elder assigns philosophy no
less serious a task than that of transforming the entire cultural
epoch. "It is conceived to be too much," says he in formulating an
anticipated objection, "to expect that philosophy shall rehabilitate
the times." To this his answer is: "But when _I_ claim to see in
philosophy a means whereby to remedy the confusion of the times, I
have, of course, in mind not an impotent philosophy, not simply a
product of workman-like dexterity, but a forceful philosophy which can
face the facts of life, philosophy which, far from feeling itself
impotent before the stupendous realities of life, far from confining
itself to the dreary business of simple negation and destruction,
draws its force from reality and, therefore, reaches effective and
enduring results."
The public prosecutor, with his brand-new and highly extraordinary
discovery, will scarcely find much comfort with the other men of the
science.
In his Address to the German People, Fichte tells us: "What, then, is
the bearing of our endeavors even in the most recondite of the
sciences? Grant that the proximate end of these endeavors is that of
propagating these sciences from generation to generation, and so
conserving them; but why are they to be conserved? Manifestly only in
order that they in the fulness of time shall serve to shape human life
and the entire scheme of human institutions. This is the ulterior end.
Remotely, therefore, even though it may be in distant ages, every
endeavor of science serves to advance the ends of the State."
Now, Your Honor and Gentlemen of the Court, if I were to spend further
speech in the refutation of this discovery of the public
prosecutor--that impracticability is the test of science--I should be
insulting your intelligence.
In the pamphlet in question my aim was the thoroughly practical one of
bringing my readers to a comprehension of the times in which they
live, and thereby permanently to affect their conduct throughout the
course of their life and in whatever direction their activity may lie.
Now, then, what characteristic of scientific work is it which the
public prosecutor finds wanting in all this? Is it, perhaps, that it
falls short in respect of bulk? Is it the circumstance that this work
is only a pamphlet of less than fifty pages, instead of comprising
three folio volumes? But when was it decided that the bulk of a work,
instead of its contents, is to be accepted as a test of its scientific
character? Is the public prosecutor prepared, for instance, to deny
that the papers presented by the members of the Royal Academy at their
sessions are scientific productions? But nearly all of these are
shorter than this of mine.
During the past year, as speaker for the Philosophical Society at the
celebration of Fichte's birthday, it was my fortune to present an
address in which I dealt intimately with the history of German
metaphysics. That address fills only thirty-five pages as against the
forty-four pages of the present pamphlet. Is the public prosecutor
prepared to deny the character of science to that address because of
its brevity?
Who will not, on the contrary, appreciate that the very brevity
imposed by circumstances makes the scientific inquiry contained in
this work all the more difficult and the more considerable? I was
compelled to condense my exposition within the compass of a two-hours'
address, a pamphlet of forty-four pages, at the same time that I was
obliged to conform my presentation of the matter to an audience on
whose part I could assume no acquaintance with scientific methods and
results. To overcome obstacles of this kind and, at the same time, not
to fall short in point of profound scientific analysis, as was the
case in the present instance, requires a degree of precision, close
application and clarity of thought far in excess of what is demanded
in these respects in the common run of more voluminous scientific
works.
I return, therefore, again to the question: What is the requirement of
science with respect to which this address falls short? Is it,
perhaps, that it offends the canons of science in respect of the place
in which it was held?
This, in fact, touches the substantial core of this indictment, and,
at the same time, the sorest spot of the whole. This address might
well--so runs the prosecutor's reflection--have been delivered
wherever you like--from the professor's chair or from the rostrum of
the singing school, before the so-called élite of the educated people;
but that it was actually delivered before the actual people, that it
was held before workingmen and addressed to workingmen, that fact
deprives it of all standing as a scientific work and makes it a
criminal offense,--_crimen novum atque inauditum_.[54]
I might, of course, content myself with the answer that the substance
of an address, and therefore its scientific character, is in no way
affected by the place in which it happens to have been delivered,
whether it is in the Academy of Science, before the cream of the
learned world, or in a hall in the suburbs before an audience of
machinists.
But I owe you, Gentlemen, a somewhat fuller answer. To begin with, let
me express my amazement at the fact that here in Berlin, in the city
where Fichte delivered his immortal popular lectures on philosophy, his
speeches on the fundamental features of the modern epoch and his
speeches on the German nation before the general public, that in this
place and day it should occur to any one to fancy that the place in
which an address is delivered has anything whatever to do with its
scientific character.
The great destiny of our age is precisely this--which the dark ages
had been unable to conceive, much less to achieve--the dissemination
of scientific knowledge among the body of the people. The difficulties
of this task may be serious enough, and we may magnify them as we
like,--still, our endeavors are ready to wrestle with them and our
nightly vigils will be given to overcoming them.
In the general decay which, as all those who know the profounder
realities of history appreciate, has overtaken European history in all
its bearings, there are but two things that have retained their vigor
and their propagating force in the midst of all that shriveling blight
of self-seeking that pervades European life. These two things are
science and the people, science and the workingman. And the union of
these two is alone capable of invigorating European culture with a new
life.
The union of these two polar opposites of modern society, science and
the workingman,--when these two join forces they will crush all
obstacles to cultural advance with an iron hand, and it is to this
union that I have resolved to devote my life so long as there is
breath in my body.
But, Gentlemen, is this view something new and entirely unheard-of in
the realm of science? Let us see what Fichte himself, in his Addresses
to the German People, has to say to the cultured classes, to whom he
addresses these words: "It is particularly to the cultured classes of
Germany that I wish to direct my remarks in the present address, for
it is to these classes I hope in the first place to make myself
intelligible. And I implore these classes, then, as the first step to
be taken, to take the initiative in the work of reconstruction, and
so, on the one hand, atone for their past deeds, and, on the other
hand, earn the right to continued life in the future.
[Illustration: FLAX BARN IN LAREN _From the Painting by Max
Liebermann_]
It will appear in the course of this address that hitherto all the
advance in the German nation has originated with the common
people, and that hitherto all the great national interests have, in
the first instance, been the affair of the people, have been taken in
hand and pushed forward by the body of the people; so that today for
the first time does it happen that the initiative in the cultural
advance of the nation is committed to the hands of the cultured
classes, and if they will but accept the commission it will be the
first time when such has been the case. It will presently appear that
it is quite impossible for these classes to determine how long the
matter will yet rest in their discretion, how long the choice will yet
be open to them whether to take the initiative in this matter or not,
for the whole matter is nearly ripe to be taken in hand by the people,
and it will be carried out by men sprung from the body of the people,
who will presently be able to help themselves without assistance from
us."
Fichte, then, knew and proclaimed this fact, that the realization of
all the great national interests in the past has been the work of the
common people and has never been carried out at the hands of the
cultured classes. That, in spite of this knowledge, he turned to the
cultured classes is due, as he himself says, to the hope he had of
first and most readily making himself understood by them. It is
because, in his apprehension, for the presentment of the matter to the
people, the whole was, so he says, "only approaching readiness and
maturity," but not yet ready and mature.
That it is possible today to do what in Fichte's time was recognized
as the only fruitful thing to do, but, at the same time, as not then
ready to be done, and therefore too serious to be undertaken,--this
expresses the whole short step in advance that has been accomplished
in Germany during the past fifty years; for you will seek in vain for
the slightest progress on the part of the German government.
Fichte himself, in the passage cited, says that this advance is coming
in the near future. This "near future" proves to have been fifty years
removed, and I trust, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, that
you will all consider a fifty-years' interval long enough to satisfy
the requirements of the "near future."
But the men who, undeterred by all the difficulties of the task, put
all their energies into this stupendous undertaking of carrying
scientific knowledge and scientific habits of thought among the body
of the people,--are they fairly open to the accusation of having
sought to incite the indigent classes to hatred of the well-to-do? Do
they not thereby really deserve the thanks and the affection of the
propertied classes, and of the bourgeoisie above all?
Whence arises the bourgeoisie's dread of the people in political
matters?
Look back, in memory, to the months of March, April, and May, 1848.
Have you forgotten how things looked here at that time? The power of
the police was broken; the people filled all the streets and public
places. And all streets, all public places and all the people in the
hands of Karbe, Lindenmüller, and other reckless agitators like
them,--men without knowledge, without intelligence, without culture,
thrown into prominence by the storm which stirred our political life
to its depths. The _bourgeoisie_, scared and faint hearted, hiding in
their cellars, trembling every instant for fear of their property and
their lives, which lay in the hands of these coarse agitators, and
saved only by the fact that these agitators were too good-natured to
make such use of their power as the bourgeoisie feared they would. The
_bourgeoisie_, secretly praying for the reëstablishment of the police
power and quaking with a fright which they have not yet forgotten, the
recollection of which still leaves them incapable of taking up the
political struggle.
How came it that in a city which proudly calls itself the metropolis
of intelligence, in so great a city, in the home of the most brilliant
intellects,--how came it that the people here for months together
could be at the disposal of Karbe and Lindenmüller and could tremble
before them in fear for their life and property. Where was the
intelligence of Berlin? Where were the men of science and of insight?
Where were you, Gentlemen?
A whole city is never cowardly.
But these men reflected and told one another: The people do not
understand our ways of thinking; they do not even understand our
speech. There is a great gulf between our scientific views and the
ways of the multitude, between the speech of scientific discussion and
the habits of thought of the people. They would not understand us.
Therefore the floor belongs to the coarsest.
So they reflected and held their peace. Now, Gentlemen, are you quite
sure that a political upheaval will never recur? Are you ready to
swear that you have reached the end of historical development? Or are
you willing to see your lives and property again at the mercy of a
Karbe and a Lindenmüller?
If not, then your thanks are due to the men who have devoted
themselves to the work of filling up that gulf which separates
scientific thought and scientific speech from the people, and so to
raze the barriers that divide the bourgeoisie and the people. Your
thanks are due these men, who, at the expense of their utmost
intellectual efforts, have undertaken a work whose results will
redound to the profit of each and all of you. These men you should
entertain at the prytaneum, not put under indictment.
The place in which this address was held, therefore, can also not
afford ground for exception as to its scientific character.
I have now shown you conclusively that the production is a scientific
work.
But if, contrary to all expectation, this should still be questioned,
although I do not for a moment consider it possible that it should be
questioned by men as enlightened as you are, Mr. President and
Gentlemen of the Court; now, in such a case, I seek refuge in the
privilege which is accorded every cobbler and which you can all the
less deny me, viz., to submit a question of workmanship in my trade to
the award of men expert in the trade.
In the last resort, the question as to the scientific character of a
given work is a question for the men of the trade, and therefore a
question which may not be decided on a basis of common education and
common culture alone, and therefore also not by a court of law. The
question at issue does not concern jurisprudence, with which you are
necessarily familiar, but it concerns other sciences with which you
may well be unfamiliar, although, as a matter of chance, you may, in
your private capacity, not your capacity as jurists, also be
acquainted with these matters.
It is true, you may answer this question in the affirmative, your
competence extends that far. For in very many cases is the scientific
character of a given work manifest, even to the commonly instructed
intelligence.
But to pass a negative opinion in the face of the expert testimony to
which I provisionally appeal as a subsidiary recourse;[55] to that
your competence does not extend, for the nicer question, whether in a
given case the most profound researches of science may not, with a
view to their readier apprehension, be presented in a facile and
popular form, whether this fact of a facile presentation may not
itself mark a peculiarly high achievement of scientific endeavor, in
which all traces of the struggle, all difficulties and all the
refractoriness of the materials handled have been successfully
eliminated and the whole has in the outcome been reduced to the
simplest and clearest terms; where the result presented is a
scientific work of art, which, in the words of Schiller, has risen
above the limitations of human infirmity and moves with such ease and
freedom as to give the impression that it offers but the free play of
the auditor's own unfolding thought; to decide with confidence whether
you have to deal with a scientific work of this class, and to decide
it with that certainty and security that is required in order to pass
a sentence, that is something of which none but men trained in the
science are capable.
This question, therefore, I beg that the following gentlemen: Privy
Councillor August Böckh, Efficient Privy Councillor Johannes Schultze,
formerly Director of the Ministry of Public Worship, Professor Adolf
Trendelenburg, Privy Councillor and Chief Librarian Dr. Pertz, Professor
Leopold Ranke, Professor Theodor Mommsen, Privy Councillor Professor
Hanssen, all members of the Royal Academy of Science, and as specialists
capable of judging in the matter, be constituted a subsidiary tribunal
to pass on the question, whether the address in question is not in the
strict sense a scientific production.
But, if such is found to be the case, then, as I have already
explained, it has nothing to do with the penal code.
I have permitted myself to go exhaustively into an exposition of this,
my first ground of defense, because, for the sake of the country
itself and the dignity and liberty of science, and for the sake of
establishing once for all a precedent which shall bar out all similar
endeavors of the public prosecutor in the future, it is incumbent on
me to adjure you to acquit me under Article 20 of the Constitution.
But it is not that recourse to this article is necessary to protect my
person from the penalty of the law.
For, even were it held that the present case comes within the
competence of the penal code, the law appealed to has in no wise been
violated, and the paragraph cited by the public prosecutor has no
application.
Even this one exception, alone would suffice to set the indictment
aside; viz., that no objection is taken to any given passage in which
the specified offense is alleged to occur; so that the prosecution
proceeds wholely on an allegation of bias, and in the baldest manner.
The indictment runs against a bias; that is all. But a bias is not
actionable.
But I am not to be permitted to dispose of my defense in so easy a
manner. The accusation of having endeavored to incite the poor to
hatred of the rich is an accusation of such a kind that, apart from
all question of punishment, it is likely to injure any citizen's name
and fame. This accusation is of such character that, even if it is
formally disproven on legal ground, it may still leave the accused an
object of suspicion. You will, accordingly, Mr. President and
Gentlemen of the Court, take it simply as evidence of the respect I
bear you when I now go on to clear my honor in your sight, with the
same solicitude as that with which I have defended my freedom. To this
end it is necessary for me to present the grounds of fact, as
painstakingly as I have presented the grounds of law, on which this
accusation is to be quashed, and you will, therefore, I am sure, hear
me with the same forbearance if this second part of my defense turns
out to be but little briefer than the first.
I am accused of having violated Section 100 of the penal code. This
section reads as follows: "Any person who endangers or jeopardizes the
public peace by publicly inciting the subjects of the State to hatred
or to contempt of one another, is liable to punishment by a fine of
not less than 20 and not more than 200 thalers, or by imprisonment of
not less than one month and not more than two years."
This section of the law specifies three different conditions, which
must be found to concur if it is to be applicable.
I. There must be incitement to hatred or to contempt;
II. This incitement must be directed to the detriment of given classes
of the subjects of the State, and I am accordingly accused by the
public prosecutor of having incited the class of the unpropertied
against the class of the propertied;
III. This incitement must be of such a nature as to endanger the
public peace.
These three conditions must concur, must combine, if the section of
the law is to apply,--and not one of these conditions occurs.
As to I. There must be incitement to hatred and contempt; there can in
the case before you be no question of this point, and for several
reasons.