The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume X Part 33

From this difference between the two cla.s.ses, in point of ethical principle, follows, as a matter of course, the difference in political ideals.

The _bourgeoisie_ has elaborated the principle that the end of the State is to protect the personal liberty of the individual and his property. This is the doctrine put forth by the scientific spokesmen of the _bourgeoisie_. This is the doctrine of its political leaders, of liberalism. But this theory is in a high degree inadequate, unscientific, and at variance with the essential nature of the State.

The course of history is a struggle against nature, against need, ignorance and impotence, and, therefore, against bondage of every kind in which we were held under the state of nature at the beginning of history. The progressive overcoming of this impotence,--this is the evolution of liberty, whereof history is an account. In this struggle we should never have made one step in advance, and we should never take a further step, if we had gone into the struggle singly, each for himself.

Now the State is precisely this contemplated unity and cooperation of individuals in a moral whole, whose function it is to carry on this struggle, a combination which multiplies a million fold the force of all the individuals comprised in it, which heightens a million fold the powers which each individual singly would be able to exert.

The end of the State, therefore, is not simply to secure to each individual that personal freedom and that property with which the bourgeois principle a.s.sumes that the individual enters the state organization at the outset, but which in point of fact are first afforded him in and by the State. On the contrary, the end of the State can be no other than to accomplish that which, in the nature of things, is and always has been the function of the State,--in set terms: by combining individuals into a state organization to enable them to achieve such ends and to attain such a level of existence as they could not achieve as isolated individuals.

The ultimate and intrinsic end of the State, therefore, is to further the positive unfolding, the progressive development of human life. In other words, its function is to work out in actual achievement the true end of man; that is to say, the full degree of culture of which human nature is capable. It is the education and evolution of mankind into freedom.

As a matter of fact, even the older culture, which has become the inestimable foundation of the Germanic genius, makes for such a conception of the State. I may cite the words of the great leader of our science, August Bockh: "The concept of the State must," according to him, "necessarily be so broadened as to make the State the contrivance whereby all human virtue is to be realized to the full."

But this fully developed conception of the State is, above all and essentially, a conception that is in a peculiar sense to be ascribed to the working cla.s.ses. Others may conceive this conception of the State by force of insight and education, but to the working cla.s.ses it is, by virtue of the helpless condition of their numbers, given as a matter of instinct; it is forced home upon them by material and economic facts.

Their economic situation necessarily breeds in these cla.s.ses an instinctive sense that the function of the State is and must be that of helping the individual, through the combined efforts of all, to reach a development such as the individual in isolation is incapable of attaining.

In point of fact, however, this ethical conception of the State does 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 a.s.serted 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 cla.s.ses 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 const.i.tuted 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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 ent.i.tled 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 cooperation 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 a.s.sign the ground on which this work is held to lack the requisite scientific character. The indictment says: "While the defendant, La.s.salle, 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 Sch.e.l.ling whose signature this indictment bears--where he has learned all this. From his father? a.s.suredly not. Sch.e.l.ling the elder a.s.signs 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 inst.i.tutions. 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 circ.u.mstance 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 circ.u.mstances 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 compa.s.s 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 a.s.sume 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 elite 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 cla.s.ses, to whom he addresses these words: "It is particularly to the cultured cla.s.ses of Germany that I wish to direct my remarks in the present address, for it is to these cla.s.ses I hope in the first place to make myself intelligible. And I implore these cla.s.ses, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sistance 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 cla.s.ses. That, in spite of this knowledge, he turned to the cultured cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.ses to hatred of the well-to-do? Do they not thereby really deserve the thanks and the affection of the propertied cla.s.ses, 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, Lindenmuller, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 reestablishment 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 Lindenmuller 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 mult.i.tude, 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 coa.r.s.est.