The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume X Part 36

Now, whereby, according to this pa.s.sage, have I accomplished my alleged incitement to hatred and contempt? "By these expositions,"

says the doc.u.ment. 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 princ.i.p.ality as a "revolutionary" phenomenon.

And so again, on the other hand, I expressly declare that the peasant wars, which, a.s.suredly, 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 Sch.e.l.ling says (_Untersuchungen uber 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 Sch.e.l.ling, 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 trans.m.u.tation, and a revolution is, accordingly, accomplished whenever, by whatever means, with or without shock or violence, an entirely new principle is subst.i.tuted 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 const.i.tution 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 cla.s.ses, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sured outcome of the growth of labor organizations."

Here we have a prediction of a thoroughgoing social trans.m.u.tation spoken of as the a.s.sured 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, const.i.tute 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage in the indictment which I have been a.n.a.lyzing 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 cla.s.ses over the other cla.s.ses of society the end of their endeavors, to be pursued with the most ardent and consuming pa.s.sion."

Suppose that such were the case; an exhortation addressed to a given cla.s.s of society to pursue the vain ambition of a mastery over the other cla.s.ses would be worthy of all reprobation, but it would still be legally permissible unless it urged to criminal acts. Every cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses to resort to criminal means for gaining control over the other cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses to make themselves masters of the other cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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 inst.i.tutions with it." Or again

(page 32): "Whoever, therefore, appeals to the principle of the working cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s as the dominant principle of society." And (page 33): "Perhaps the idea of making the principle of the lowest cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s," etc.

And because I present an exalted ethical principle, the n.o.blest ethical principle which my intelligence is capable of grasping, the n.o.blest 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 cla.s.ses, is properly to be designated as the principle of the working cla.s.ses,--this is what the public prosecutor has construed into an atrocious crime, and has accused me of urging the working cla.s.ses to aim at making their own cla.s.s the masters of the other cla.s.ses of society.

The public prosecutor appears to believe that I aspire to see the propertied cla.s.ses reduced to servitude under the working cla.s.ses, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses of society," etc. And while I, with all my heart and soul, am making an appeal for the termination of all cla.s.s rule and all cla.s.s antagonism, the public prosecutor charges me with inciting the laborers to establish cla.s.s rule over the propertied cla.s.ses. 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 Sch.e.l.ling (Vol. I, p. 243, _Abhandlungen zur Erlauterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre_)--"The medium whereby intellects understand one another is not the circ.u.mambient 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 G.o.d and man."

So says Sch.e.l.ling, 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 circ.u.mstances a prosecution for incitement of the unpropertied cla.s.ses to hatred and contempt of the propertied cla.s.ses 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 const.i.tution 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 inst.i.tutional 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 role 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 G.o.ds." 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 G.o.ds is among the German peoples fairly matched by John Huss and thousands of other victims of religious persecution.

La.s.salle'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 circ.u.mstances 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 const.i.tuted--were (by the fiat of G.o.d at the creation of the world) bound in a preordained sequence, in such a manner that all these motions const.i.tute a comprehensive, harmonious series. Wherefore, all events whatever that may take place, take place as the necessary outcome of the const.i.tution 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.]