Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume 1

Works of Karl Marx, 1835-1843

Preface

The first volume of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels contains works and letters written by Marx between August 1835 and March 1843. The volume is divided into four sections - works, letters, preparatory material and youthful literary experiments in prose and verse, the material in each section being arranged chronologically. Relevant biographical documents are supplied in the appendices.

These writings reflect Marx’s early, formative period, the path of intellectual development that led an inquiring young man, inspired while still at the gymnasium by the idea of serving the common good, to the forefront of the philosophical and political thought of his day. This was the time when Marx, as a student first at Bonn and then at Berlin University, was deeply engaged in the study of law, history and philosophy, which he combined with trying his strength in the sphere of creative writing. In these years Marx evolved his atheistic and revolutionary-democratic beliefs and began his activities as a contributor to and, later, editor of the Rheinische Zeitung. His work on this newspaper initiated a new stage in the formation of his ideas which was to result in his final and complete adoption of materialist and communist positions.

The first section of the volume opens with the school essay “ Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession”, which Marx wrote in 1835, and which may be regarded as the starting point of his intellectual development. Unlike his other school essays (they appear in the appendices), which as a whole do not reach beyond the usual framework of ideas current among gymnasium students and in gymnasium textbooks of those days

this composition reveals his resolve not to withdraw into the narrow circle of personal interests but to devote his activities to the interests of humanity. At the same time the young Marx, swayed by the ideas of the French Enlightenment concerning the influence of the social environment on man, had begun to think also about the objective conditions determining human activity. “Our relations in society have to some extent already begun to be established before we are in a position to determine them,” he wrote in this essay (see p. 4).

The “ Letter from Marx to His Father”, written in 1837, vividly illustrates Marx’s hard thinking as a student and shows the versatility of his intellectual interests and the variety of problems that stirred his imagination. The letter records an important stage in the evolution of his ideas — his recognition of Hegelian philosophy as a key to the understanding of reality, in contrast to the subjective idealism of Fichte and other subjectivist philosophical systems. In his intensive search for a truly scientific conception of the world Marx did not confine himself to becoming an advocate of Hegel’s teaching and joining the Young Hegelian movement, whose representatives were attempting to draw atheistic and radical political conclusions from Hegel’s philosophy. Armed with Hegelian dialectics, he set about blazing his own trail in philosophy.

An important feature of the intellectual development of the young Marx was his study of ancient classical philosophy, which resulted in the Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy (1839) (published in the third section) and, based on this preparatory material, the Doctoral dissertation on the Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1840-41). This work of investigation into the major trends in classical philosophy testifies to the young Marx’s erudition and the revolutionary nature, the radicalism, of his views. The very choice of subject, his recourse to the great materialist philosophers of classical times, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius, whom Hegel had treated with a certain degree of scorn, indicates Marx’s considerable power of independent thought, his desire to gain his own understanding of the salient problems of philosophy and to determine his own attitude to the philosophical legacy of the past.

While studying the ancients, Marx kept constantly in view the issues that stirred the minds of his contemporaries and formed the hub of the current ideological struggle. In his comments on excerpts from works of the classical philosophers contained in his notebooks he is already voicing a protest against agnosticism,

against attempts to belittle the cognitive power of philosophy. He is full of faith in the power of human reason, in the power of progressive philosophy to influence life. His high estimation of Epicurus’ struggle against superstition reads as a passionate defence of freedom of thought, an appeal for resolute protest against the shackling authority of religion.

In his dissertation, Marx went even further in pursuing his atheist views. He declared his profound conviction that it is necessary to know the origin and nature of religion in order to overcome it. This work also contains, in embryo, the idea of the dialectical unity of philosophy and life. “... as the world becomes philosophical, philosophy also becomes worldly” (see p. 85). Demonstrating the fertility of the dialectical method in philosophy, Marx strove to discover the elements of dialectics that were already implicit in the beliefs of the ardent philosophers. He did, in fact, reveal the dialectical nature of Epicurus’ teaching on the declination of the atoms as the embodiment of the principle of self-movement.

Thus, in his Doctoral dissertation Marx faced up squarely to problems that were to play a major part in the subsequent formation of his view of the world. He became clearly aware of the need to solve the problem of the relationship between philosophy and reality. The strong atheist views that he had already adopted facilitated his subsequent transition to materialism.

Collected in this volume are all the known journalistic writings of the young Marx in the early forties. They illustrate his development as a political tribune, a revolutionary democrat and a resolute critic of the existing social and political system. It was in active journalistic work, in political struggle against the whole conservative and obsolete Establishment that the young Marx saw the way to integrating advanced philosophy with life. In the very first article “ Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction”, exposing Prussian legislation on the press, Marx launched what amounted to a militant campaign against feudal monarchist reaction in Germany. Here for the first time he passed from the discussion of general philosophical problems to an analysis of specific political phenomena. By linking his criticism of existing conditions of censorship to an exposure of the Prussian political system he not only demonstrated its irrationality from the standpoint of advanced philosophy but also came near to understanding the essential hostility of the Prussian state to the people.

Marx’s political convictions became even more clearly defined while he was with the Rheinische Zeitung (May 1842 to March 1843). Journalistic work on this paper provided him with an outlet for his enormous revolutionary energy, for publicising his revolutionary-democratic views. As its editor, Marx displayed great skill and flexibility in overcoming censorship difficulties and the opposition of the moderates on the editorial board and among the shareholders, and set about converting the paper from an organ of the liberal opposition into a tribune of revolutionary-democratic ideas. He set the tone in his own articles, which hit out against the social, political and spiritual oppression that reigned in Prussia and other German states. The revolutionary-democratic direction that Marx had given the paper led to attacks upon it from almost the whole monarchist press and also persecution by the authorities, who succeeded in having the paper closed. In the history not only of the German but also of the whole European press and social thought the Rheinische Zeitung occupies a distinguished place for having several years before the revolution of 1848 heralded the approaching revolutionary storm in Germany.

Marx’s work on the newspaper represents an important phase in the development of his world outlook. In his articles one can trace what Lenin called “Marx’s transition from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democracy to communism” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 80). The forming of his political views had a considerable reciprocal effect on his philosophical position, leading him further and further beyond the bounds of Hegelian idealism. Newspaper work revealed to Marx his lack of knowledge of political economy and prompted him to undertake a serious study of economic problems, of man’s material interests.

Marx’s articles — some of them were never published because of the censorship and have not been preserved — ranged widely over the social problems of the Germany of his day.

In his article “ Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Estates” Marx, though he had not yet abandoned the abstract-idealist view of freedom as the “essence” of human nature, nevertheless linked his presentation of the problem with the attitudes adopted by various sections of society towards freedom of the press. His conclusion strikes a revolutionary note; only a people’s press can be truly free and its main purpose is to rouse the people to defend freedom with arms in hand.

In this and a number of other articles (“The Supplement to Nos. 335 and 336 of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung on the Commissions of the Estates in Prussia”, “The Local Election of Deputies to the Provincial Assembly”, “The Divorce Bill”, etc.) Marx strongly criticises the hierarchical principle on which Prussian political institutions were based and which led to the political domination of the nobility. He exposed the wretched inadequacy of the Provincial Assemblies, which were mere caricatures of representative institutions, the retrograde ideas permeating Prussian legislation, and the absolutist political system of the Prussian monarchy.

The group of articles that includes “ The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law”, “The Leading Article in No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung”, “Communal Reform and the Rheinische Zeitung”, “The Polemical Tactics of the Augsburg Newspaper”, and “The Rhein- und Mosel-Zeitung as Grand Inquisitor”, was aimed against various aspects of ideological reaction in Germany. Marx spoke in defence of opposition newspapers that were being persecuted by the government and exposed the stand of the anti-democratic and reactionary press on the country’s domestic affairs. He angrily exposed the preachers of religious obscurantism. He branded the representatives of the historical school of law and reactionary romanticism for attempting to justify feudal aristocratic institutions on the grounds of historical tradition. He also condemned the half-heartedness and inconsistency of the liberal opposition towards the existing regimes of the German states. Characteristic in this respect is his editorial note “In Connection with the Article ‘Failures of the Liberal Opposition in Hanover’”.

Marx defended the representatives of progressive philosophy of the time, particularly the Left Hegelians, from the attacks of the reactionaries in other papers as well. This can be seen from his article in the Deutsche Jahrbücher against Doctor Gruppe’s criticism of the views of Bruno Bauer, the leader of the Young Hegelians. At the same time he took a sharply critical attitude towards anarchistic individualism, superficial and loud-mouthed criticism, addiction to the ultra-radical phrase without any clearly defined positive programme, all of which were distinctive features of the Berlin Young Hegelian circle of “The Free”. In a short article on “The Attitude of Herwegh and Ruge to ‘The Free’” Marx hinted that such behaviour would compromise the freedom party’s cause. These disagreements with “The Free” marked the beginning of the rift that was to develop between Marx and the Young Hegelians.

Some of the material and documents published in this volume (“Renard’s Letter to Oberpräsident von Schaper”, “Marginal Notes to the Accusations of the Ministerial Rescript”, etc.) reflect Marx’s struggle to keep up publication of the Rheinische Zeitung, his attempts to deflect the onslaught of the ruling circles, which in the end succeeded in having it banned.

In his articles in the Rheinische Zeitung Marx generally maintained idealist positions in his understanding of the state and the interrelation between material and spiritual activity, treating the Prussian state merely as a deviation from the state’s essential nature. At the same time the urge to achieve a critical understanding of reality, to put the ideal of freedom into practice, the desire to comprehend and express the true interests of the people, drove Marx to probe more deeply into the life around him. He began to understand the role of social contradictions in the development of society, took the first steps towards defining the class structure of German society, and the role of the nobility as the social mainstay of the Prussian state. Outstanding in this respect are the “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood” and “Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel”, in which Marx came out openly in defence of the “poor, politically and socially propertyless many” (see p. 230).

Work on these articles with their analysis of the destitute condition of the working masses and its causes was of great significance in shaping Marx’s beliefs. As Engels wrote, Marx told him on more than one occasion later that it was his study of the law on thefts of wood and of the condition of the Mosel peasants that prompted him to turn from pure politics to the study of economic relations and, thus, to socialism (see F. Engels to R. Fischer, April 15, 1895).

In his article “Communism and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung” Marx touched for the first time on communism, which he regarded as a contemporary issue raised by life itself, by the struggle of a section of society “that today owns nothing” (see p. 216). Though critical in his attitude to the various utopian theories of the time and also to the practical experiments in setting up communist communities, Marx felt that his knowledge was not yet sufficient for him to express a definite opinion on these subjects. Even then, however, he saw in communism a subject worthy of profound theoretical analysis.

The second section contains letters written by Marx between 1841 and 1843, most of which are addressed to the German radical Arnold Ruge, editor of the Young Hegelian Deutsche Jahrbücher. The letters provide a supplement to Marx’s published works of the time. Here he often expresses his views in a much sharper form, since in private correspondence he was able to write with a frankness impossible under press censorship of his critical attitude towards Prussian life and towards various trends in philosophy and literature. This part of the young Marx’s literary legacy is also permeated with revolutionary-democratic ideas. The letters vividly reproduce the political atmosphere in which Marx, as a revolutionary journalist and editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, had to work, his struggle with the censorship and the obstacles which beset publication of the paper at every turn.

The position Marx adopted in the fierce political and philosophical arguments that had flared up in Germany can be clearly traced in his correspondence. Marx did not share the illusions of the German liberals concerning the prospects of introducing a constitutional monarchy by peaceful means and stood for revolutionary methods of struggle against absolutism. More fully than his articles in the Rheinische Zeitung the letters reveal Marx’s conflict with the Berlin Young Hegelian circle of “The Free”. Marx’s letter to Ruge of November 30, 1842 (see pp. 393-95) is particularly important in this respect. Marx hailed The Essence of Christianity and other works of Ludwig Feuerbach as a major event in philosophical life. Indeed, this is shown not only by Marx’s letters but by a number of articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, particularly “The Leading Article in No. 179 of the Rheinische Zeitung” where he ranks Feuerbach among the representatives of true philosophy, which was “the intellectual quintessence of its time” (see p. 195). Feuerbach’s materialist views exercised a considerable influence on Marx. Though he had a high opinion of them, Marx nevertheless perceived some of the deficiencies in Feuerbach’s contemplative materialism. He pointed out that Feuerbach “refers too much to nature and too little to politics. That, however, is the only alliance by which present-day philosophy can become truth” (see p. 400). This remark on the inseparable connection between philosophy and political struggle anticipates his thoughts in later works on the unity of revolutionary theory and practice.

The third section, “From the Preparatory Materials”, includes the above-mentioned Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy. These notebooks consist of lengthy excerpts from Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, Lucretius, Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, Clement of Alexandria and Stobaeus, accompanied by Marx’s own comments on the problems of both ardent philosophical thought and the social significance of philosophy. The section also includes the Plan of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, which Marx devised in his undergraduate years under the influence of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.

The fourth section offers the reader a considerable portion of the verse and prose which Marx wrote as a young man. It does not embrace all the poems that have been preserved, but what has been included gives a clear idea of the nature of Marx’s youthful contribution to belles-lettres, sufficient to judge the part played by these endeavours in his intellectual development.

The section includes some of the poems from the three albums that Marx wrote for his fiancée — Jenny von Westphalen. The poetical works that Marx himself selected in 1837 for a book of verse dedicated to his father are given in full. It contained ballads, romances, sonnets, epigrams, humorous verse and scenes from the unfinished tragedy Oulanem. A supplement to this book consisted of chapters from a humoristic novel Scorpion and Felix, which are also reproduced in the present volume. Marx himself evidently regarded this collection as the best of what he had written in this field and later actually decided to publish two of the poems from it. These poems, combined under the title Wild Songs, were published in the magazine Athenäum in 1841 (they appear in the first section of the present volume).

Many of these literary endeavours are, of course, somewhat imitative in character. Marx himself did not place much value on their artistic merits and later treated them with a great deal of scepticism, though he found that there was genuine warmth and sincerity of feeling in his youthful poems, particularly the ones dedicated to Jenny. But the main value of these youthful writings is that they reflect — particularly the sonnets, epigrams and jests — certain aspects of the view that the young Marx had of the world in general, his attitude to the life around him, the traits that were forming in his character. The themes of high endeavour, of dedicated effort, of contempt for philistine sluggishness, of readiness to throw oneself into battle for lofty aims stand out clearly. Regarded from this angle, the poems included here offer an important insight into the mind of the young Marx.

The appendices supply biographical documents concerning the major landmarks in Marx’s life, his gymnasium essays on set subjects, papers concerned with his undergraduate years, and so on. Of great biographical interest are the letters of Heinrich Marx to his son. These letters are full of parental anxiety over a beloved child’s irresistible craving for knowledge, tempestuous character and fearless free-thinking, particularly in matters of religion.

They convey a picture of the intense intellectual life Marx led as a student. The few extant letters from Jenny von Westphalen to Marx reveal the strength of the feelings that bound them together.

A special group is formed by the documents concerning the banning of the Rheinische Zeitung by the Prussian Government — a petition from the citizens of Cologne requesting withdrawal of the ban, and the minutes of the general meeting of the shareholders held on February 12, 1843.

---

Most of the items included in this volume had not previously been translated into English. Many of the articles from the Rheinische Zeitung, including the “Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly” (articles 1 and 3), “Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel”, all the letters given in the volume, the bulk of the youthful literary endeavours, and also the Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy and the Plan of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, appear in English for the first time. The appendices also consist entirely of material and documents not previously published in English.

The article “Luther as Arbiter Between Strauss and Feuerbach” published in previous editions of Marx’s early works is not included in the present edition, for recent research has proved that it was not written by Marx.

The works that have previously appeared in English are given here in new, carefully checked translations.

The author’s underlining is reproduced by italics; marks of emphasis in the margins are shown by vertical lines. Headings supplied by the editors where none existed in the original are given in square brackets. The asterisks indicate footnotes by the author; the editors’ footnotes are indicated by index letters, and reference notes by superior numbers.

The compiling of the volume, the writing of the preface and notes, and the making of the subject index were the work of Tatyana Vasilyeva. The name index and the indexes of quoted literature and periodicals were prepared by Dmitry Belyaev, Tatyana Chikileva and Galina Kostryukova (CCCPSU Institute of Marxism-Leninism).

All the articles, letters, etc., in this volume have been translated from the German unless otherwise stated.

The prose translations were made by Richard Dixon, Clemens Dutt, Dirk J. and Sally R. Struik and Alick West, and edited by

Robert Browning, Maurice Cornforth, Richard Dixon, Catherine Judelson, David McLellan and Margaret Mynatt.

The poems were translated by Alex Miller in consultation with Diana Miller and Victor Schnittke except for the verse tragedy Oulanem translated by Jack Lindsay and Alick West and edited by Alex Miller.

The English translations of the excerpts from Cicero, Athenaeus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Seneca, Sextus Empiricus and Clement of Alexandria in Marx’s Doctoral Dissertation and Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy are based on the translations published in the Loeb Classics; those from Epicurus on The Extant Remains, translated by Cyril Bailey; those from Lucretius on Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe, translated by R. E. Latham and published by Penguin Books, London; and those from Aristotle on The Works of Aristotle translated into English, published by Oxford University Press. The publishers express their gratitude to Harvard University Press and the Loeb Classical Library, Penguin Books, and the Clarendon Press, Oxford, for their kind permission to use these translations.

The volume was prepared for the press by the editors Natalia Karmanova, Margarita Lopukhina, Victor Schnittke, Lyudgarda Zubrilova, and the assistant-editor Natina Perova, for Progress Publishers, and Vladimir Mosolov, scientific editor, for the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Moscow.

 

---

Index to Volume 1 |
Preface to Volume 2

Index to MECW |
Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Works of Karl Marx 1842

Comments on The Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction ^[39]

---

Written: between January 15 and February 10, 1842;

First published: in Anekdota zur neuesten deutschen Philosophie und Publicistik, Bd. I, 1843;

Transcribed: in 1998 for marx.org by Sally Ryan.

---

We are not one of those malcontents who, even before the appearance of the new Prussian censorship decree, exclaim: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. On the contrary, since an examination of already promulgated laws is approved in the new instruction, even if it should prove not to agree with the government's views, we are making a start with this at once. Censorship is official criticism; its standards are critical standards, hence they least of all can be exempted from criticism, being on the same plane as the latter.

Certainly everyone can only approve of the general trend expressed in the introduction to the instruction:

"In order already now to free the press from improper restrictions, which are against the intentions of the All-Highest, His Majesty the King, by a supreme order issued to the royal state ministry on the 10th of this month, has been pleased to disapprove expressly of any undue constraint on the activity of writers and, recognising the value and need of frank and decent publicity, has empowered us to direct the censors anew to due observance of Article II of the censorship decree of October 18, 1819."

Certainly! If censorship is a necessity, frank liberal censorship is still more necessary.

What might immediately arouse some surprise is the date of the law cited; it is dated October 18, 1819. What? Is it perhaps a law which conditions of time made it necessary to repeal? Apparently not; for the censors are only directed "anew" to ensure observance of it. Hence the law has existed until 1842, but it has not been observed, for it has been called to mind "in order already now" to free the press from improper restrictions, which are against the intentions of the All-Highest.

The press, in spite of the law, has until now been subjected to improper restrictions - that is the immediate conclusion to be drawn from this introduction.

Is this then an argument against the law or against the censors? We can hardly assert the latter. For twenty-two years illegal actions have been committed by an authority which has in its charge the highest interest of the citizens, their minds, by an authority which regulates, even more than the Roman censors did, not only the behaviour of individual citizens, but even the behaviour of the public mind. Can such unscrupulous behaviour of the highest servants of the state, such a thoroughgoing lack of loyalty, be possible in the well-organised Prussian state, which is proud of its administration? Or has the state, in continual delusion, selected the most incapable persons for the most difficult posts? Or, finally, has the subject of the Prussian state no possibility of complaining against illegal actions? Are all Prussian writers so ignorant and foolish as to be unacquainted with the laws which concern their existence, or are they too cowardly to demand their observance?

If we put the blame on the censors, not only their own honour, but the honour of the Prussian state, and of the Prussian writers, is compromised.

Moreover, the more than twenty years of illegal behaviour of the censors in defiance of the law would provide argumentum ad hominem that the press needs other guarantees than such general instructions for such irresponsible persons; it would provide the proof that there is a basic defect in the nature of the censorship which no law can remedy.

If, however, the censors were capable, and the law was no good, why appeal to it afresh for removal of the evil it has caused?

Or should, perhaps, the objective defects of an institution be ascribed to individuals, in order fraudulently to give the impression of an improvement without making any essential improvement? It is the habit of pseudo-liberalism, when compelled to make concessions, to sacrifice persons, the instruments, and to preserve the thing itself, the institution. In this way the attention of a superficial public is diverted.

Resentment against the thing itself becomes resentment against persons. It is believed that by a change of persons the thing itself has been changed. Attention is deflected from the censorship to individual censors, and those petty writers of progress by command allow themselves petty audacities against those who have fallen out of favour and perform just as many acts of homage towards the government.

Yet another difficulty confronts us.

Some newspaper correspondents take the censorship instruction for the new censorship decree itself. They are mistaken, but their mistake is pardonable. The censorship decree of October 18, 1819, was to continue only provisionally until 1824, and it would have remained a provisional law to the present day if we had not learnt from the instruction now before us that it has never been implemented.

The 1819 decree was also an interim measure, with the difference that in its case a definite period of expectation of five years was indicated, whereas in the new instruction it is of unlimited duration, and that at that time laws on the freedom of the press were the object of expectation whereas now it is laws on censorship.

Other newspaper correspondents regard the censorship instruction as a refurbishing of the old censorship decree. Their error will be refuted by the instruction itself.

We regard the censorship instruction as the anticipated spirit of the presumable censorship law. In so doing we adhere strictly to the spirit of the 1819 censorship decree, according to which laws and ordinances are of equal significance for the press. (See the above-mentioned decree, Article XVI, No. 2.)

Let us return to the instruction.

"According to this law," namely, Article II, "the censorship should not prevent serious and modest investigation of truth, nor impose undue constraint on writers, or hinder the book trade from operating freely."

The investigation of truth which should not be prevented by the censorship is more particularly defined as one which is serious and modest. Both these definitions concern not the content of the investigation, but rather something which lies outside its content. From the outset they draw the investigation away from truth and make it pay attention to an unknown third thing. An investigation which continually has its eyes fixed on this third element, to which the law gives a legitimate capriciousness, will it not lose sight of the truth? Is it not the first duty of the seeker after truth to aim directly at the truth, without looking to the right or left? Will I not forget the essence of the matter, if I am obliged not to forget to state it in the prescribed form?

Truth is as little modest as light, and towards whom should it be so? Towards itself? Verum index sui et falsi. Therefore, towards falsehood?.

If modesty is the characteristic feature of the investigation, then it is a sign that truth is feared rather than falsehood. It is a means of discouragement at every step forward I take. It is the imposition on the investigation of a fear of reaching a result, a means of guarding against the truth.

Further, truth is general, it does not belong to me alone, it belongs to all, it owns me, I do not own it. My property is the form, which is my spiritual individuality. Le style c'est l'homme. Yes, indeed! The law permits me to write, only I must write in a style that is not mine! I may show my spiritual countenance, but I must first set it in the prescribed folds! What man of honour will not blush at this presumption and not prefer to hide his head under the toga? Under the toga at least one has an inkling of a Jupiter's head. The prescribed folds mean nothing but bonne mine a mauvais jeu.

You admire the delightful variety, the inexhaustible riches of nature. You do not demand that the rose should smell like the violet, but must the greatest riches of all, the spirit, exist in only one variety? I am humorous, but the law bids me write seriously. I am audacious, but the law commands that my style be modest. Grey, all grey, is the sole, the rightful colour of freedom. Every drop of dew on which the sun shines glistens with an inexhaustible play of colours, but the spiritual sun, however many the persons and whatever the objects in which it is refracted, must produce only the official colour! The most essential form of the spirit is cheerfulness, light, but you make shadow the sole manifestation of the spirit; it must be clothed only in black, yet among flowers there are no black ones. The essence of the spirit is always truth itself but what do you make its essence? Modesty. Only the mean wretch is modest, says Goethe, and you want to turn the spirit into such a mean wretch? Or if modesty is to be the modesty of genius of which Schiller speaks, then first of all turn all your citizens and above all your censors into geniuses. But then the modesty of genius does not consist in what educated speech consists in, the absence of accent and dialect, but rather in speaking with the accent of the matter and in the dialect of its essence. It consists in forgetting modesty and immodesty and getting to the heart of the matter. The universal modesty of the mind is reason, that universal liberality of thought which reacts to each thing according to the latter's essential nature.

Further, if seriousness is not to come under Tristram Shandy's definition according to which it is a hypocritical behaviour of the body in order to conceal defects of the soul, but signifies seriousness in substance, then the entire prescription falls to the ground. For I treat the ludicrous seriously when I treat it ludicrously, and the most serious immodesty of the mind is to be modest in the face of immodesty.

Serious and modest! What fluctuating, relative concepts! Where does seriousness cease and jocularity begin? Where does modesty cease and immodesty begin? We are dependent on the temperament of the censor. It would be as wrong to prescribe temperament for the censor as to prescribe style for the writer. If you want to be consistent in your aesthetic criticism, then forbid also a too serious and too modest investigation of the truth, for too great seriousness is the most ludicrous thing of all, and too great modesty is the bitterest irony.

Finally, the starting point is a completely perverted and abstract view of truth itself. All objects of the writer's activity are comprehended in the one general concept "truth". Even if we leave the, subjective side out of account, viz., that one and the same object is refracted differently as seen by different persons and its different aspects converted into as many different spiritual characters, ought the character of the object to have no influence, not even the slightest, on the investigation? Truth includes not only the result but also the path to it. The investigation of truth must itself be true; true investigation is developed truth, the dispersed elements of which are brought together in the result. And should not the manner of investigation alter according to the object? If the object is a matter for laughter, the manner has to seem serious, if the object is disagreeable, it has to be modest. Thus you violate the right of the object as you do that of the subject. You conceive truth abstractly and turn the spirit into an examining magistrate, who draws up a dry protocol of it.

Or is there no need of this metaphysical twisting? Is truth to be understood as being simply what the government decrees, so that investigation is added as a superfluous, intrusive element, but which for etiquette's sake is not to be entirely rejected? It almost seems so. For investigation is understood in advance as in contradiction to truth and therefore appears with the suspicious official accompaniment of seriousness and modesty, which of course is fitting for the layman in relation to the priest. The government's understanding is the only state reason. True, in certain circumstances of time, concessions have to be made to a different understanding and its chatter, but this understanding comes on the scene conscious of the concession and of its own lack of right, modest and submissive, serious and tedious. If Voltaire says: "Tous les genres sont bons, excepte le genre ennuyeux", in the present case the genre ennuyant becomes the exclusive one, as is already sufficiently proved by the reference to the "proceedings of the Rhine Province Assembly". Why not rather the good old German curialistic style? You may write freely, but at the same time every word must be a curtsey to the liberal censorship, which allows you to express your equally serious and modest opinions. Indeed, do not lose your feeling of reverence!

The legal emphasis is not on truth but on modesty and seriousness. Hence everything here arouses suspicion: seriousness, modesty and, above all, truth, the indefinite scope of which seems to conceal a very definite but very doubtful kind of truth.

"The censorship," the instruction states further, "should therefore by no means be implemented in a narrow-minded interpretation going beyond this law."

By this law is meant in the first place Article II of the 1819 decree, but later the instruction refers to the "spirit" of the censorship decree as a whole. The two provisions are easily combined. Article II is the concentrated spirit of the censorship decree, the further subdivision and more detailed specification of this spirit being found in the other articles. We believe the above-mentioned spirit cannot be better characterised than by the following expressions of it:

Article VII. "The freedom from censorship hitherto accorded the Academy of Sciences and the universities is hereby suspended for five years."

*10. "The present temporary decision shall remain in force for five years from today. Before the expiry of this term there shall be a thorough investigation in the Bundestag of how the kind of provisions regarding freedom of the press proposed in Article 18 of the Bundesakte could be put into effect, and thereby a definite decision reached on the legitimate limits of freedom of the press in Germany."

A law which suspends freedom of the press where it has hitherto existed, and makes it superfluous through censorship where it was to be brought into existence, can hardly be called one favourable to the press. Moreover, §10 directly admits that provisionally a censorship law will be introduced instead of the freedom of the press proposed in Article 18 of the Bundesakte and perhaps intended to be put into effect at some time. This quid pro quo at least reveals that the circumstances of the time called for restrictions on the press, and that the decree owes its origin to distrust of the press. This annoyance is even excused by being termed provisional, valid for only five years - unfortunately it has lasted for 22 years.

The very next line of the instruction shows how it becomes involved in a contradiction. On the one hand, it will not have the censorship implemented in any interpretation that goes beyond the decree, and at the same time it prescribes such excess:

"The censor can very well permit a frank discussion also of internal affairs."

The censor can, but he does not have to, there is no necessity. Even this cautious liberalism very definitely goes not only beyond the spirit but beyond the definite demands of the censorship decree. The old censorship decree, to be exact, Article II cited in the instruction, not only does not permit any frank discussion of Prussian affairs, but not even of Chinese affairs.

"Here," namely, among violations of the security of the Prussian state and the German Federated States, the instruction comments, "are included all attempts to present in a favourable light parties existing in any country which work for the overthrow of the state system."

Is this the way a frank discussion of Chinese or Turkish national affairs is permitted? And if even such remote relations endanger the precarious security of the German Federation, how can any word of disapproval about internal affairs fail to do so?

Thus, on the one hand, the instruction goes beyond the spirit of Article II of the censorship decree in the direction of liberalism - an excess whose content will become clear later, but which is already formally suspicious inasmuch as it claims to be the consequence of Article II, of which wisely only the first half is quoted, the censor however being referred at the same time to the article itself. On the other hand, the instruction just as much goes beyond the censorship decree in an illiberal direction and adds new press restrictions to the old ones.

In the above-quoted Article II of the censorship decree it is stated:

"Its aim" (that of the censorship) "is to check all that is contrary to the general principles of religion, irrespective of the opinions and doctrines of individual religious parties and sects permitted in the state."

In 1819, rationalism still prevailed, which understood by religion in general the so-called religion of reason. This rationalist point of view is also that of the censorship decree, which at any rate is so inconsistent as to adopt the irreligious point of view while its aim is to protect religion. For it is already contrary to the general principles of religion to separate them from the positive content and particular features of religion, since each religion believes itself distinguished from the various other would-be religions by its special nature, and that precisely its particular features make it the true religion. In quoting Article II, the new censorship instruction omits the restrictive additional clause by which individual religious parties and sects are excluded from inviolability, but it does not stop at this and makes the following comment:

"Anything aimed in a frivolous, hostile way against the Christian religion in general, or against a particular article of faith, must not be tolerated."

The old censorship decree does not mention the Christian religion at all; on the contrary, it distinguishes between religion and all individual religious parties and sects. The new censorship instruction does not only convert religion in general into the Christian religion, but adds further a particular article of faith. A delightful product of our Christianised science! Who will still deny that it has forged new fetters for the press? Religion, it is said, must not be attacked, whether in general or in particular. Or do you perhaps believe that the words frivolous and hostile have made the new fetters into chains of roses? How adroitly it is written: frivolous, hostile! The adjective frivolous appeals to the citizen's sense of decorum, it is the exoteric word for the world at large, but the adjective hostile is whispered into the censor's ear, it is the legal interpretation of frivolity. We shall find in this instruction more examples of this subtle tact, which offers the public a subjective word that makes it blush and offers the censor an objective word that makes the author grow pale. In this way even lettres de cachet could be set to music.

And in what a remarkable contradiction the censorship instruction has entangled itself! It is only a half-hearted attack that is frivolous, one which keeps to individual aspects of a phenomenon, without being sufficiently profound and serious to touch the essence of the matter; it is precisely an attack on a merely particular feature as such that is frivolous. If, therefore, an attack on the Christian religion in general is forbidden, it follows that only a frivolous attack on it is permitted. On the other hand, an attack on the general principles of religion, on its essence, on a particular feature insofar as it is a manifestation of the essence, is a hostile attack. Religion can only be attacked in a hostile or a frivolous way, there is no third way. This inconsistency in which the instruction entangles itself is, of course, only a seeming one, for it depends on the semblance that in general some kind of attack on religion is still permitted. But an unbiassed glance suffices to realise that this semblance is only a semblance. Religion must not be attacked, whether in a hostile or a frivolous way, whether in general or in particular, therefore not at all.

But if the instruction, in open contradiction to the 1819 censorship decree, imposes new fetters on the philosophical press, it should at least be sufficiently consistent as to free the religious press from the old fetters imposed on it by the former rationalist decree. For it declares that the aim of the censorship is also

"to oppose fanatical transference of religious articles of faith into politics and the confusion of ideas resulting therefrom".

The new instruction, it is true, is clever enough not to mention this provision in its commentary, nevertheless it accepts it in citing Article II. What does fanatical transference of religious articles of faith into politics mean? It means making religious articles of faith, by their specific nature, a determining factor of the state; it means making the particular nature of a religion the measuring-rod of the state. The old censorship decree could rightly oppose this confusion of ideas, for it left a particular religion, its definite content, open to criticism. The old decree, however, was based on the shallow, superficial rationalism which you yourselves despised. But you, who base the state even in details on faith and Christianity, who want to have a Christian state, how can you still recommend the censorship to prevent this confusion of ideas?

The confusion of the political with the Christian-religious principle has indeed become official doctrine. We want to make this confusion clear in a few words. Speaking only of Christianity as the recognised religion, you have in your state Catholics and Protestants. Both make equal claims on the state, just as they have equal duties to it. They both leave their religious differences out of account and demand equally that the state should be the realisation of political and juridical reason. But you want a Christian state. If your state is only Lutheran-Christian, then for the Catholic it becomes a church to which he does not belong, which he must reject as heretical, and whose innermost essence is contrary to him. It is just the same the other way round. If, however, you make the general spirit of Christianity the particular spirit of your state, you nevertheless decide on the basis of your Protestant views what the general spirit of Christianity is. You define what a Christian state is, although the recent period has taught you that some government officials are unable to draw the line between the religious and the secular, between state and church. In regard to this confusion of ideas, it was not censors but diplomats who had, not to decide, but to negotiate. Finally, you are adopting a heretical point of view when you reject definite dogma as non-essential. If you call your state a general Christian state, you are admitting with a diplomatic turn of phrase that it is un-Christian. Hence either forbid religion to be introduced at all into politics - but you don't want that, for you want to base the state not on free reason, but on faith, religion being for you the general sanction for what exists - or allow also the fanatical introduction of religion into politics. Let religion concern itself with politics in its own way, but you don't want that either. Religion has to support the secular authority, without the latter subordinating itself to religion. Once you introduce religion into politics, it is intolerable, indeed irreligious, arrogance to want to determine secularly how religion has to act in political matters. He who wants to ally himself with religion owing to religious feelings must concede it the decisive voice in all questions, or do you perhaps understand by religion the cult of your own unlimited authority and governmental wisdom?

There is yet another way in which the orthodox spirit of the new censorship instruction comes into conflict with the rationalism of the old censorship decree. The latter includes under the aim of the censorship also suppression of "what offends against morality and good manners". The instruction reproduces this passage as a quotation from Article II. Its commentary, however, while making additions as regards religion, contains omissions as regards morality. Offending against morality and good manners becomes violation of "propriety and manners and external decorum". One sees: morality as such, as the principle of a world that obeys its own laws, disappears, and in place of the essence external manifestations make their appearance, police respectability, conventional decorum. Honour to whom honour is due, we recognise true consistency here. The specifically Christian legislator cannot recognise morality as an independent sphere that is sacrosanct in itself, for he claims that its inner general essence belongs to religion. Independent morality offends against the general principles of religion, but the particular concepts of religion conflict with morality. Morality recognises only its own universal and rational religion, and religion recognises only its particular positive morality. Hence, according to this instruction, the censorship must reject the intellectual heroes of morality, such as Kant, Fichte and Spinoza, as irreligious, as violating propriety, manners, and external decorum. All these moralists start out from a contradiction in principle between morality and religion, for morality is based on the autonomy of the human mind, religion on its heteronomy. Let us turn from these undesirable innovations of the censorship - on the one hand, the weakening of its moral conscience, on the other hand, the rigorous heightening of its religious conscience - to what is more welcome, the concessions.

It "follows in particular that writings in which the state administration is assessed as a whole or in its individual branches, laws that have been or are still to be promulgated are examined for their inner value, mistakes and misconceptions revealed, improvements indicated or suggested, are not to be rejected because they are written in a spirit that does not agree with the government's views, as long as their formulation is decent and their tendency well-meaning".

Modesty and seriousness of investigation - both the new instruction and the censorship decree make this demand, but for the former decorous formulation is as little sufficient as truth of content. For it the tendency is the main criterion, indeed it is its all-pervading thought, whereas in the decree itself not even the word tendency is to be found. Nor does the new instruction say what constitutes tendency, but how important it is for it may be seen from the following extract:

"In this connection it is an indispensable premise that the tendency of remonstrances expressed against measures of the government should not be spiteful or malevolent, but well-intentioned, and goodwill and insight are required of the censor so that he knows how to distinguish between the one case and the other. Considering this, the censors must also pay special attention to the form and tone of writings for the press and insofar as, owing to passion, vehemence and arrogance, their tendency is found to be pernicious, must not allow them to be printed."

The writer, therefore, has fallen victim to the most frightful terrorism, and is subjected to the jurisdiction of suspicion. Laws against tendency, laws giving no objective standards, are laws of terrorism, such as were invented owing to the emergency needs of the state under Robespierre and the corruption of the state under the Roman emperors. Laws which make their main criterion not actions as such, but the frame of mind of the doer, are nothing but positive sanctions for lawlessness. Better like that Russian Tsar to have everyone's beard cut off by Cossacks in his service than to make the state of mind due to which I wear a beard the criterion for the cutting.

Only insofar as I manifest myself externally, enter the sphere of the actual, do I enter the sphere of the legislator. Apart from my actions, I have no existence for the law, am no object for it. My actions are the sole thing by which the law has a hold on me; for they are the sole thing for which I demand a right of existence, a right of actuality, owing to which therefore I come within the sphere of actual law. The law which punishes tendency, however, punishes me not only for what I do, but for what I think, apart from my actions. It is therefore an insult to the honour of the citizen, a vexatious law which threatens my existence.

I can turn and twist as I will, it is not a question of the facts. My existence is under suspicion, my innermost being, my individuality, is considered bad, and it is for this opinion of me that I am punished. The law punishes me not for any wrong I commit, but for the wrong I do not commit. I am really being punished because my action is not against the law, for only because of that do I compel the lenient, well-meaning judge to seize on my bad frame of mind, which is clever enough not to come out in the open.

The law against a frame of mind is not a law of the state promulgated for its citizens, but the law of one party against another party. The law which punishes tendency abolishes the equality of the citizens before the law. It is a law which divides, not one which unites, and all laws which divide are reactionary. It is not a law, but a privilege. One may do what another may not do, not because the latter lacks some objective quality, like a minor in regard to concluding contracts; no, because his good intentions and his frame of mind are under suspicion. The moral state assumes its members to have the frame of mind of the state, even if they act in opposition to an organ of the state, against the government. But in a society in which one organ imagines itself the sole, exclusive possessor of state reason and state morality, in a government which opposes the people in principle and hence regards its anti-state frame of mind as the general, normal frame of mind, the bad conscience of a faction invents laws against tendency, laws of revenge, laws against a frame of mind which has its seat only in the government members themselves. Laws against frame of mind are based on an unprincipled frame of mind on an immoral, material view of the state.

They are the involuntary cry of a bad conscience. And how is a law of this kind to be implemented? By a means more revolting than the law itself: by spies, or by previous agreement to regard entire literary trends as suspicious, in which case, of course, the trend to which an individual belongs must also be inquired into. Just as in the law against tendency the legal form contradicts the content, just as the government which issues it lashes out against what it is itself, against the anti-state frame of mind, so also in each particular case it forms as it were the reverse world to its laws, for it applies a double measuring-rod. What for one side is right, for the other side is wrong. The very laws issued by the government are the opposite of what they make into law.

The new censorship instruction, too, becomes entangled in this dialectic. It contains the contradiction of itself doing, and making it the censor's duty to do, everything that it condemns as anti-state in the case of the press.

Thus the instruction forbids writers to cast suspicion on the frame of mind of individuals or whole classes, and in the same breath it bids the censor divide all citizens into suspicious and unsuspicious, into well-intentioned and evil-intentioned. The press is deprived of the right to criticise, but criticism becomes the daily duty of the governmental critic. This reversal, however, does not end the matter. Within the press what was anti-state as regards content appeared as something particular, but from the aspect of its form it was something universal, that is to say, subject to universal appraisal.

However, now the thing is turned upside-down: the particular now appears justified in regard to its content, what is anti-state appears as the view of the state, as state law; in regard to its form, however, what is anti-state appears as something particular, that cannot be brought to the general light of day, that is relegated from the open air of publicity to the office files of the governmental critic. Thus the instruction wants to protect religion, but it violates the most general principle of all religions, the sanctity and inviolability of the subjective frame of mind. It makes the censor instead of God the judge of the heart. Thus it prohibits offensive utterances and defamatory judgments on individuals, but it exposes you every day to the defamatory and offensive judgment of the censor. Thus the instruction wants the gossip of evil-minded or ill-informed persons suppressed, but it compels the censor to rely on such gossip, on spying by ill-informed and evil-minded persons, degrading judgment from the sphere of objective content to that of subjective opinion or arbitrary action. Thus suspicion must not be cast on the intention of the state, but the instruction starts out from suspicion in respect of the state. Thus no bad frame of mind must be concealed under a good appearance, but the instruction itself is based on a false appearance. Thus the instruction wants to enhance national feeling, but it is based on a view that humiliates the nation. Lawful behaviour and respect for the law are demanded of us, but at the same time we have to honour institutions which put us outside the law and introduce arbitrariness in place of law. We are required to recognise the principle of personality to such an extent that we trust the censor despite the defects of the institution of censorship, and you violate the principle of personality to such an extent that you cause personality to be judged not according to its actions but according to an opinion of the opinion of its actions. You demand modesty and your starting point is the monstrous immodesty of appointing individual servants of the state to spy on people's hearts, to be omniscient, philosophers, theologians, politicians, Delphic Apollos. On the one hand, you make it our duty to respect immodesty and, on the other hand, you forbid us to be immodest. The real immodesty consists in ascribing perfection of the genus to particular individuals. The censor is a particular individual, but the press becomes the embodiment of the whole genus. You order us to have trust, and you give distrust the force of law. You repose so much trust in your state institutions that you think they will convert a weak mortal, an official, into a saint, and make the impossible possible for him. But you distrust your state or organism so much that you are afraid of the isolated opinion of a private person; for you treat the press as a private person. You assume that the officials will act quite impersonally, without animosity, passion, narrow-mindedness or human weakness. But what is impersonal, ideas, you suspect of being full of personal intrigue and subjective vileness. The instruction demands unlimited trust in the estate of officials, and it proceeds from unlimited distrust in the estate of non-officials. Why should we not pay tit for tat? Why should we not look with suspicion on precisely this estate of officials? Equally as regards character. From the outset one who is impartial should have more respect for the character of the critic who acts publicly than for the character of the critic who acts in secret.

What is at all bad remains bad, whoever personifies this badness, whether a private critic or one appointed by the government, but in the latter case the badness is authorised and regarded from above as a necessity to realise goodness from below.

The censorship of tendency and the tendency of censorship are a gift of the new liberal instruction. No one will blame us if we turn to the further provisions of the instruction with a certain misgiving.

"Offensive utterances and defamatory judgments on individuals are not suitable for publication.

"Not suitable for publication! Instead of this mildness we could wish that an objective definition of offensive and defamatory judgments had been given.

"The same holds good for suspicion of the frame of mind of individuals or" (a significant or) "whole classes, for the use of party names and other such personal attacks."

Inadmissible, therefore, also are classification by categories, attacks on whole classes, use of party names - and man, like Adam, has to give everything a name for it to exist for him; party names are essential categories for the political press,

"Because, as Dr. Sassafras supposes,

Every illness for its cure

Must first receive a name."

All this is included in personal attacks. How then is one to make a start? One must not attack an individual, and just as little the class, the general, the juridical person. The state will - and here it is right - tolerate no insults, no personal attacks; but by a simple "or" the general is also included in the personal. By "or" the general comes into it, and by means of a little "and" we learn finally that the whole question has been only of personal attacks. But as a perfectly simple consequence it follows that the press is forbidden all control over officials as over such institutions that exist as a class of individuals.

"If censorship is exercised in accordance with these directives in the spirit of the censorship decree of October 18, 1819, adequate scope will be afforded for decorous and candid publicity, and it is to be expected that thereby greater sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland will be aroused and thus national feeling enhanced."

We are ready to admit that in accordance with these directives for decorous publicity, decorous in the sense understood by the censorship, a more than adequate field of play is afforded - the term field of play is happily chosen, for the field is calculated for a sportive press that is satisfied with leaps in the air. Whether it is adequate for a candid publicity, and where its candidness lies, we leave to the readers' perspicacity. As for expectations held out by the instruction, national feeling may, of course, be enhanced just as the sending of a bow-string enhances the feeling of Turkish nationality: but whether the press, as modest as it is serious, will arouse sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland we shall leave it to decide for itself; a meagre press cannot be fattened with quinine. Perhaps, however, we have taken too serious a view of the passage quoted. We shall, perhaps, get at the meaning better if we regard it as merely a thorn in the wreath of roses. Perhaps this liberal thorn holds a pearl of very ambiguous value. Let us see. It all depends on the context. The enhancement of national feeling and the arousing of sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland, which in the above-cited passage are spoken of as an expectation, secretly turn into an order, which imposes a new constraint on our poor, consumptive daily press.

"In this way it may be hoped that both political literature and the daily press will realise their function better, that with the acquirement of richer material they will also adopt a more dignified tone, and in future will scorn to speculate on the curiosity of their readers through communication of baseless reports taken from foreign newspapers and originating from evil-minded or badly informed correspondents, by gossip and personal attacks - a trend against which it is the undoubted duty of the censorship to take measures."

In the way indicated it is hoped that political literature and the daily press will realise their function better, etc. However, better realisation cannot be ordered, moreover it is a fruit still to he awaited, and hope remains hope. But the instruction is much too practical to be satisfied with hopes and pious wishes. While the press is granted the hope of its future improvement as a new consolation, the kindly instruction at the same time deprives it of a right it has at present. In the hope of its improvement it loses what it still has. It fares like poor Sancho Panza, from whom all the food was snatched away under his eyes by the court doctor in order that his stomach should not be upset and make him incapable of performing the duties imposed on him by the duke.

At the same time we ought not to miss the opportunity of inviting the Prussian writer to adopt this kind of decorous style. In the first part of the sentence it is stated: "In this way it may be hoped that". This that governs a whole series of provisions, namely, that political literature and the daily press will realise their function better, that they will adopt a more dignified tone, etc., etc., that they will scorn communication of baseless reports, etc., taken from foreign newspapers. All these provisions are still matters for hope; but the conclusion, which is joined to the foregoing by a dash: "a trend against which it is the undoubted duty of the censorship to take measures", absolves the censor from the boring task of awaiting the hoped-for improvement of the daily press, and instead empowers him to delete what he finds undesirable without more ado. Internal treatment has been replaced by amputation.

"To approach this aim more closely, however, requires that great care be taken in agreeing to new publications and new editors, so that the daily press will be entrusted only to completely irreproachable persons whose scientific ability, position and character guarantee the seriousness of their efforts and the loyalty of their mode of thought."

Before we go into details, let us make one general observation. The approval of new editors, hence of future editors in general, is entrusted wholly to the "great care", naturally of the state officials, of the censorship, whereas at least the old censorship decree left the choice of editors, with certain guarantees, to the discretion of the publisher:

"Article IX. The supreme censorship authority is entitled to inform the publisher of a newspaper that a proposed editor is not such as to inspire the requisite trust, in which case the publisher is bound either to take another editor or, if he wants to retain the one designated, to furnish for him a security to be determined by our above-mentioned state ministries on the proposal of the above-mentioned supreme censorship authority."

The new censorship instruction expresses a quite different profundity, one could call it a romanticism of the spirit. Whereas the old censorship decree demands an external, prosaic, hence legally definable, security, on the guarantee of which even the objectionable editor is to be allowed, the instruction on the other hand takes away all independent will from the publisher of a newspaper. Moreover, it draws the attention of the preventive wisdom of the government, the great care and intellectual profundity of the authorities, to internal, subjective, externally indefinable, qualities. If, however, the indefiniteness, delicate sensitivity, and subjective extravagance of romanticism become purely external, merely in the sense that external chance no longer appears in its prosaic definiteness and limitation, but in a fantastic glory, in an imaginary profundity and splendour - then the instruction, too, can hardly avoid this romantic fate.

The editors of the daily press, a category which includes all journalistic activity, must be completely irreproachable men. "Scientific qualification" is put forward in the first place as a guarantee of this complete irreproachability. Not the slightest doubt arises as to whether the censor can have the scientific qualification to pass judgment on scientific qualification of every kind. If such a crowd of universal geniuses known to the government are to be found in Prussia - every town has at least one censor - why do not these encyclopaedic minds come forward as writers? If these officials, overwhelming in their numbers and mighty owing to their scientific knowledge and genius, were all at once to rise up and smother by their weight those miserable writers, each of whom can write in only one genre, and even in that without officially attested ability, an end could be put to the irregularities of the press much better than through the censorship. Why do these experts who, like the Roman geese, could save the Capitol by their cackling remain silent? Their modesty is too great. The scientific public does not know them, but the government does.

And if these men are indeed such as no state has succeeded in discovering, for never has a state known whole classes composed solely of universal geniuses and encyclopaedic minds - how much greater must be the genius of the selectors of these men! What secret science must be theirs for them to be able to issue a certificate of universal scientific qualification to officials unknown in the republic of science! The higher we rise in this bureaucracy of intelligence, the more remarkable are the minds we encounter. For a state which possesses such pillars of a perfect press, is it worth the trouble, is it expedient to make these men the guardians of a defective press, to degrade the perfect into a means for dealing with the imperfect?

The more of these censors you appoint, the mare you deprive the realm of the press of chances of improvement. You take away the healthy from your army in order to make them physicians of the unhealthy.

Merely stamp on the ground like Pompey and a Pallas Athena in complete armour will spring from every government building. Confronted by the official press, the shallow daily press will disintegrate into nothing. The existence of light suffices to expel darkness. Let your light shine, and hide it not under a bushel. Instead of a defective censorship whose full effectiveness you yourselves regard as problematic, give us a perfect press to whom you have only to give an order and a model of which has been in existence for centuries in the Chinese state.

But to make scientific qualification the sole, necessary condition for writers of the daily press, is that not a provision concerning the mind, no favouring of privilege, no conventional demand? Is it not a stipulation as regards the matter, not a stipulation as regards the person?

Unfortunately the censorship instruction interrupts our panegyric. Alongside the guarantee of scientific qualification is the demand for that of position and character. Position and character!

Character, which follows so immediately after position, seems almost to be a mere outcome of the latter. Let us, therefore, take a look at position in the first place. It is so squeezed in between scientific qualification and character that one is almost tempted to doubt the good conscience that called for it.

The general demand for scientific qualification, how liberal! The special demand for position, how illiberal! Scientific qualification and position together, how pseudo-liberal! Since scientific qualification and character are very indefinite things, whereas position, on the other hand, is very definite, why should we not conclude that by a necessary law of logic the indefinite will be supported by the definite and obtain stability and content from it? Would it then be a great mistake on the part of the censor if he interpreted the instruction as meaning that position is the external form in which scientific qualification and character manifest themselves socially, the more so since his own position as censor is a guarantee for him that this view is the state's view? Without this interpretation it remains at least quite incomprehensible why scientific qualification and character are not adequate guarantees for a writer, why position is a necessary third. Now if the censor were to find himself in a quandary, if these guarantees were seldom or never present together, where should his choice fall? A choice has to be made, for someone has to edit newspapers and periodicals. Scientific qualification and character without position could present a problem for the censor on account of their indefiniteness, just as in general it must rightly be a surprise to him that such qualities could exist separately from position. On the other hand, ought the censor to have any doubts about character and science where position is present? In that case he would have less confidence in the judgment of the state than in his own, whereas in the opposite case he would have more confidence in the writer than in the state. Ought a censor to be so tactless, so ill-disposed? It is not to be expected and will certainly not be expected. Position, because it is the decisive criterion in case of doubt, is in general the absolutely decisive criterion.

Hence, just as earlier the instruction was in conflict with the censorship decree owing to its orthodoxy, now it is so owing to its romanticism, which at the same time is always the poetry of tendency. The cash security, which is a prosaic, real guarantee, becomes an imaginary one, and this imaginary guarantee turns into the wholly real and individual position, which acquires a magical fictitious significance. In the same way the significance of the guarantee becomes transformed. The publisher no longer chooses an editor, for whom he gives a guarantee to the authorities, instead the authorities choose an editor for him, one for whom they give a guarantee to themselves. The old decree looked for the work of the editor, for which the publisher's cash security served as guarantee. The instruction, however, is not concerned with the work of the editor, but with his person. It demands a definite personal individuality, which the publisher's money should provide. The new instruction is just as superficial as the old decree. But whereas the latter by its nature expressed and delimited prosaically defined provisions, the instruction gives an imaginary significance to the purest chance and expresses what is merely individual with the fervour of generality.

Whereas, however, as regards the editor, the romantic instruction expresses the extremely superficial definiteness in a tone of the most easy-going indefiniteness, as regards the censor it expresses the vaguest indefiniteness in a tone of legal definiteness.

"The same caution must be exercised in the appointment of censors, so that the post of censor shall be entrusted only to men of tested frame of mind and ability, who fully correspond to the honourable trust which that office presupposes; to men who are both right-thinking and keen-sighted, who are able to separate the form from the essence of the matter and with sure tact know how to set aside doubt where the meaning and tendency of a writing do not in themselves justify this doubt."

Instead of position and character as required of the writer, we have here the tested frame of mind, since position is already there. More significant is that whereas scientific qualification is demanded of the writer, what is demanded of the censor is ability without further definition. The old decree, which is drawn up in a rational spirit except in respect of politics, calls in Article III for "scientifically-trained" and even "enlightened" censors. In the instruction both attributes have been dropped, and instead of the qualification of the writer, which signifies a definite, well-developed ability that has become a reality, there appears in the case of the censor the aptitude for qualification, ability in general. Hence the aptitude for ability has to act as censor of actual qualification, however much in the nature of things the relationship should obviously be the reverse. Finally, merely in passing, we note that the ability of the censor is not more closely defined as regards its objective content, and this, of course, makes its character ambiguous.

Further, the post of censor is to be entrusted to men "who fully correspond to the honourable trust which that office presupposes". This pleonastic pseudo-definition, to select for an office men in whom one has trust that they (will?) fully correspond to the honourable trust, certainly a very full trust, reposed in them, is not worth further discussion.

Finally, the censors must be men

"who are both right-thinking and keen-sighted, who are able to separate the form from the essence of the matter and with sure tact know how to set aside doubt where the meaning and tendency of a writing do not in themselves justify this doubt".

Earlier, on the other hand, the instruction prescribes:

"Considering this" (namely, the investigation of tendency), "the censors must also pay special attention to the form and tone of writings for the press and insofar as, owing to passion, vehemence and arrogance, their tendency is found to be pernicious, must not allow them to be printed."

On one occasion, therefore, the censor has to judge of the tendency from the form, on another occasion, of the form from the tendency. If previously content had already disappeared as a criterion for censorship, now form also disappears. As long as the tendency is good, faults of form do not matter. Even if the work cannot be regarded exactly as very serious and modest, even if it may appear to be vehement, passionate, arrogant, who would let himself be frightened by the rough exterior? One has to know how to distinguish between form and essence. All semblance of definitions had to be abandoned, the instruction had to end in a complete contradiction with itself; for everything by which tendency is supposed to be recognised is, on the contrary, determined by the tendency and must be recognised from the tendency. The vehemence of the patriot is holy zeal, his passionateness is the sensitiveness of the lover, his arrogance a devoted sympathy which is too immeasurable to be moderate.

All objective standards are abandoned, everything is finally reduced to the personal relation, and the censor's tact has to be called a guarantee. What then can the censor violate? Tact. But tactlessness is no crime. What is threatened as far as the writer is concerned? His existence. What state has ever made the existence of whole classes depend on the tact of individual officials?

I repeat, all objective standards are abandoned. As regards the writer, tendency is the ultimate content that is demanded from him and prescribed to him. Tendency as formless opinion appears as object. Tendency as subject, as opinion of opinion, is the censor's tact and his sole criterion.

But whereas the arbitrariness of the censor - and to sanction the authority of mere opinion is to sanction arbitrariness - is alogical consequence which was concealed under a semblance of objective definitions, the instruction on the other hand quite consciously expresses the arbitrariness of the Oberprasidium; trust is reposed in the latter without reserve, and this trust reposed in the Oberprasident is the ultimate guarantee of the press. Thus the essence of the censorship in general is based on the arrogant imaginary idea that the police state has of its officials. There is no confidence in the intelligence and goodwill of the general public even in the simplest matter; but even the impossible is considered possible for the officials.

This fundamental defect is inherent in all our institutions. Thus,for example, in criminal proceedings judge, accuser and defender are combined in a single person. This combination contradicts all the laws of psychology. But the official is raised above the laws of psychology, while the general public remains under them. Nevertheless, one could excuse a defective principle of state; it becomes unpardonable, however, if it is not honest enough to be consistent. The responsibility of the officials ought to be as immeasurably above that of the general public as the officials are above the latter, and it is precisely here, where consistency alone could justify the principle and make it legitimate within its sphere, it is precisely here that it is abandoned and the opposite principle applied.

The censor, too, is accuser, defender and judge in a single person; control of the mind is entrusted to the censor; he is irresponsible.

The censorship could have only a provisionally loyal character if it was subordinated to the regular courts, which of course is impossible so long as there are no objective laws governing censorship. But the worst method of all is to subject the censorship to censorship again, as by an Oberprasident or supreme college of censors.

Everything that holds good Of the relation Of the press to the censorship holds good also of the relation of the censorship to the supreme censorship and that of the writer to the supreme censor, although an intermediate link is interposed. It is the same relation placed on a higher plane, the remarkable error of leaving matters alone and wanting to give them another nature through other persons. If the coercive state wanted to be loyal, it would abolish itself. Every point would require the same coercion and the same counter-pressure. The supreme censorship would have to be subjected to censorship in its turn. In order to escape from this vicious circle, it is decided to be disloyal; lawlessness now begins in the third or ninety-ninth stage. Because the bureaucratic state is vaguely conscious of this, it tries at least to place the sphere of lawlessness so high that it escapes the eye, and then believes that lawlessness has disappeared.

The real, radical cure for the censorship would be its abolition; for the institution itself is a bad one, and institutions are more powerful than people. Our view may be right or not, but in any case the Prussian writers stand to gain through the new instruction, either in real freedom, or in freedom of ideas, in consciousness.

Rara temporum feticitas, ubi quae velis sentire et quae sentias direre licet.

Signed; By a Rhinelander

---

 

Early Works of Karl Marx

Letter from Karl to his Father

In Trier (1837)

---

First published: in Die Neue Zeit No. 1, 1897 [2];

Source: MECW, Volume 1;

Transcribed: in 1998 for MEIA by [email protected]

---

Berlin, November 10

Dear Father,

There are moments in one's life which are like frontier posts marking the completion of a period but at the same time clearly indicating a new direction.

At such a moment of transition we feel compelled to view the past and the present with the eagle eye of thought in order to become conscious of our real position. Indeed, world history itself likes to look back in this way and take stock, which often gives it the appearance of retrogression or stagnation, whereas it is merely, as it were, sitting back in an armchair in order to understand itself and mentally grasp its own activity, that of the mind.

At such moments, however, a person becomes lyrical, for every metamorphosis is partly a swan song, partly the overture to a great new poem, which endeavours to achieve a stable form in brilliant colours that still merge into one another. Nevertheless, we should like to erect a memorial to what we have once lived through in order that this experience may regain in our emotions the place it has lost in our actions. And where could a more sacred dwelling place be found for it than in the heart of a parent, the most merciful judge, the most intimate sympathiser, the sun of love whose warming fire is felt at the innermost centre of our endeavours! What better amends and forgiveness could there be for much that is objectionable and blameworthy than to be seen as the manifestation of an essentially necessary state of things? How, at least, could the often ill-fated play of chance and intellectual error better escape the reproach of being due to a perverse heart?

When, therefore, now at the end of a year spent here I cast a glance back on the course of events during that time, in order, my dear father, to answer your infinitely dear letter from Ems, allow me to review my affairs in the way I regard life in general, as the expression of an intellectual activity which develops in all directions, in science, art and private matters.

When I left you, a new world had come into existence for me, that of love, which in fact at the beginning was a passionately yearning and hopeless love. Even the journey to Berlin, which otherwise would have delighted me in the highest degree, would have inspired me to contemplate nature and fired my zest for life, left me cold. Indeed, it put me strikingly out of humour, for the rocks which I saw were not more rugged, more indomitable, than the emotions of my soul, the big towns not more lively than my blood, the inn meals not more extravagant, more indigestible, than the store of fantasies I carried with me, and, finally, no work of art was as beautiful as Jenny.

After my arrival in Berlin, I broke off all hitherto existing connections, made visits rarely and unwillingly, and tried to immerse myself in science and art.

In accordance with my state of mind at the time, lyrical poetry was bound to be my first subject, at least the most pleasant and immediate one. But owing to my attitude and whole previous development it was purely idealistic. My heaven, my art, became a world beyond, as remote as my love. Everything real became hazy and what is hazy has no definite outlines. All the poems of the first three volumes I sent to Jenny are marked by attacks on our times, diffuse and inchoate expressions of feeling, nothing natural, everything built out of moonshine, complete opposition between what is and what ought to be, rhetorical reflections instead of poetic thoughts, but perhaps also a certain warmth of feeling and striving for poetic fire. The whole extent of a longing that has no bounds finds expression there in many different forms and makes the poetic "composition" into "diffusion".

Poetry, however, could be and had to be only an accompaniment; I had to study law and above all felt the urge to wrestle with philosophy. The two were so closely linked that, on the one hand, I read through Heineccius, Thibaut and the sources quite uncritically, in a mere schoolboy fashion; thus, for instance, I translated the first two books of the Pandect [3] into German, and, on the other hand, tried to elaborate a philosophy of law covering the whole field of law. I prefaced this with some metaphysical propositions by way of introduction and continued this unhappy opus as far as public law, a work of almost 300 pages. [4]

Here, above all, the same opposition between what is and what ought to be, which is characteristic of idealism, stood out as a serious defect and was the source of the hopelessly incorrect division of the subject-matter. First of all came what I was pleased to call the metaphysics of law, i. e., basic principles, reflections, definitions of concepts, divorced from all actual law and every actual form of law, as occurs in Fichte, only in my case it was more modern and shallower. From the outset an obstacle to grasping the truth here was the unscientific form of mathematical dogmatism, in which the author argues hither and thither, going round and round the subject dealt with, without the latter taking shape as something living and developing in a many-sided way. A triangle gives the mathematician scope for construction and proof, it remains a mere abstract conception in space and does not develop into anything further. It has to be put alongside something else, then it assumes other positions, and this diversity added to it gives it different relationships and truths. On the other hand, in the concrete expression of a living world of ideas, as exemplified by law, the state, nature, and philosophy as a whole, the object itself must be studied in its development; arbitrary divisions must not be introduced, the rational character of the object itself must develop as something imbued with contradictions in itself and find its unity in itself.

Next, as the second part, came the philosophy of law, that is to say, according to my views at the time, an examination of the development of ideas in positive Roman law, as if positive law in its conceptual development (I do not mean in its purely finite provisions) could ever be something different from the formation of the concept of law, which the first part, however, should have dealt with.

Moreover, I had further divided this part into the theory of formal law and the theory of material law, the first being the pure form of the system in its sequence and interconnections, its subdivisions and scope, whereas the second, on the other hand, was intended to describe the content, showing how the form becomes embodied in its content. This was an error I shared with Herr v. Savigny, as I discovered later in his learned work on ownership, the only difference being that he applies the term formal definition of the concept to "finding the place which this or that theory occupies in the (fictitious) Roman system", the material definition being "the theory of positive content which the Romans attributed to a concept defined in this way", [5] whereas I understood by form the necessary architectonics of conceptual formulations, and by matter the necessary quality of these formulations. The mistake lay in my belief that matter and form can and must develop separately from each other, and so I obtained not a real form, but something like a desk with drawers into which I then poured sand.

The concept is indeed the mediating link between form and content. In a philosophical treatment of law, therefore, the one must arise in the other; indeed, the form should only be the continuation of the content. Thus I arrived at a division of the material such as could be devised by its author for at most an easy and shallow classification, but in which the spirit and truth of law disappeared. All law was divided into contractual and non-contractual. In order to make this clearer, I take the liberty to set out the plan up to the division of jus publicum, which is also treated in the formal part.

I

jus privatum

II

jus publicum

I. jus privatum

a) Conditional contractual private law.

b) Unconditional non-contractual private law.

A. Conditional contractual private law

a) Law of persons; b) Law of things; c) Law of persons in relation to property.

a) Law of persons

I. Commercial contracts; II. Warranties; III. Contracts of bailment.

I. Commercial contracts

2. Contracts of legal entities (societas). 3. Contracts of casements (locatio conductio).

3. Locatio conductio

l. Insofar as it relates to operae.

   a) locatio conductio proper (excluding Roman letting or leasing);

   b) mandatum.

2. Insofar as it relates to usus rei.

   a) On land: usus fructus (also not in the purely Roman sense);

   b) On houses: habitatio.

II. Warranties

l. Arbitration or conciliation contract; 2. Insurance contract.

III. Contracts of bailment

2. Promissory contract

1. fide jussio; 2. negotiorum gestio.

3. Contract of gift

1. donatio; 2. gratiae promissum

b) Law of things

I. Commercial contracts

2. permutatio stricte sic dicta.

1. permutatio proper; 2. mutuum (usurae), 3. emptio venditio.

II. Warranties

pignus.

III. Contracts of bailment

2. commodatum; 3. depositum.

But why should I go on filling up pages with things I myself have rejected? The whole thing is replete with tripartite divisions, it is written with tedious prolixity, and the Roman concepts are misused in the most barbaric fashion in order to force them into my system. On the other hand, in this way I did gain a general view of the material and a liking for it, at least along certain lines.

At the end of the section on material private law, I saw the falsity of the whole thing, the basic plan of which borders on that of Kant [6], but deviates wholly from it in the execution, and again it became clear to me that there could be no headway without philosophy. So with a good conscience I was able once more to throw myself into her embrace, and I drafted a new system of metaphysical principles, but at the conclusion of it I was once more compelled to recognise that it was wrong, like all my previous efforts.

In the course of this work I adopted the habit of making extracts from all the books I read, for instance from Lessing's Laokoon, Solger's Erwin, Winckelmann's history of art, Luden's German history, and incidentally scribbled down my reflections. At the same time I translated Tacitus' Germania, and Ovid's Tristia, and began to learn English and Italian by myself, i. e., out of grammars, but I have not yet got anywhere with this. I also read Klein's criminal law and his annals, and all the most recent literature, but this last only by the way.

At the end of the term, I again sought the dances of the Muses and the music of the Satyrs. Already in the last exercise book that I sent you idealism pervades forced humour (Scorpion and Felix) and an unsuccessful, fantastic drama (Oulanem), until it finally undergoes a complete transformation and becomes mere formal art, mostly without objects that inspire it and without any impassioned train of thought.

And yet these last poems are the only ones in which suddenly, as if by a magic touch - oh, the touch was at first a shattering blow - I caught sight of the glittering realm of true poetry like a distant fairy palace, and all my creations crumbled into nothing.

Busy with these various occupations, during my first term I spent many a sleepless night, fought many a battle, and endured much internal and external excitement. Yet at the end I emerged not much enriched, and moreover I had neglected nature, art and the world, and shut the door on my friends. The above observations seem to have been made by my body. I was advised by a doctor to go to the country, and so it was that for the first time I traversed the whole length of the city to the gate and went to Stralow. I had no inkling that I would mature there from an anaemic weakling into a man of robust bodily strength.

A curtain had fallen, my holy of holies was rent asunder, and new gods had to be installed.

From the idealism which, by the way, I had compared and nourished with the idealism of Kant and Fichte, I arrived at the point of seeking the idea in reality itself. If previously the gods had dwelt above the earth, now they became its centre.

I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy, the grotesque craggy melody of which did not appeal to me. Once more I wanted to dive into the sea, but with the definite intention of establishing that the nature of the mind is just as necessary, concrete and firmly based as the nature of the body. My aim was no longer to practise tricks of swordsmanship, but to bring genuine pearls into the light of day.

I wrote a dialogue of about 24 pages: "Cleanthes, or the Starting Point and Necessary Continuation of Philosophy" [7]. Here art and science, which had become completely divorced from each other, were to some extent united, and like a vigorous traveller I set about the task itself, a philosophical-dialectical account of divinity, as it manifests itself as the idea-in-itself, as religion, as nature, and as history. My last proposition was the beginning of the Hegelian system. And this work, for which I had acquainted myself to some extent with natural science, Schelling, and history, which had caused me to rack my brains endlessly, and which is so written (since it was actually intended to be a new logic) that now even I myself can hardly recapture my thinking about it, this work, my dearest child, reared by moonlight, like a false siren delivers me into the arms of the enemy.

For some days my vexation made me quite incapable of thinking; I ran about madly in the garden by the dirty water of the Spree, which "washes souls and dilutes the tea". I even joined my landlord in a hunting excursion, rushed off to Berlin and wanted to embrace every street-corner loafer.

Shortly after that I pursued only positive studies: the study of Savigny's Ownership, Feuerbach's and Grolmann's criminal law, Cramer's de verborum significatione, Wenning-Ingenheim's Pandect system, and Mühlenbruch's Doctrina pandectarum, which I am still working through, and finally a few titles from Lauterbach, on civil procedure and above all canon law, the first part of which, Gratian's Concordia discordantium canonum, I have almost entirely read through in the corpus and made extracts from, as also the supplement, Lancelotti's Institutiones. Then I translated in part Aristotle's Rhetoric, read de augmentis scientiarum of the famous Bacon of Verulam, spent a good deal of time on Reimarus, to whose book on the artistic instincts of animals I applied my mind with delight, and also tackled German law, but chiefly only to the extent of going through the capitularies of the Franconian kings and the letters of the Popes to them.

Owing to being upset over Jenny's illness and my vain, fruitless intellectual labours, and as the result of nagging annoyance at having had to make an idol of a view that I hated, I became ill, as I have already written to you, dear Father. When I got better I burnt all the poems and outlines of stories, etc., imagining that I could give them up completely, of which so far at any rate I have not given any proofs to the contrary.

While I was ill I got to know Hegel from beginning to end, together with most of his disciples. Through a number of meetings with friends in Stralow I came across a Doctors' Club [8], which includes some university lecturers and my most intimate Berlin friend, Dr. Rutenberg. In controversy here, many conflicting views were expressed, and I became ever more firmly bound to the modern world philosophy from which I had thought to escape, but all rich chords were silenced and I was seized with a veritable fury of irony, as could easily happen after so much had been negated. In addition, there was Jenny's silence, and I could not rest until I had acquired modernity and the outlook of contemporary science through a few bad productions such as The Visit [9], etc.

If perhaps I have here neither clearly described the whole of this last term nor gone into all details, and slurred over all the nuances, excuse me, dear Father, because of my desire to speak of the present time.

Herr v. Chamisso sent me a very insignificant note in which he informed me "he regrets that the Almanac cannot use my contributions because it has already been printed a long time ago" [10]. I swallowed this with vexation. The bookseller Wigand has sent my plan to Dr. Schmidt, publisher of Wunder's firm that trades in good cheese and bad literature. I enclose his letter; Dr. Schmidt has not yet replied. However, I am by no means abandoning this plan, especially since all the aesthetic celebrities of the Hegelian school have promised their collaboration through the help of university lecturer Bauer, who plays a big role among them, and of my colleague Dr. Rutenberg.[11]

Now, as regards the question of a career in cameralistics, my dear father, I recently made the acquaintance of an assessor, Schmidthanner, who advised me after the third law examination to transfer to it as a justiciary, which would be the more to my taste, since I really prefer jurisprudence to all administrative science. This gentleman told me that in three years he himself and many others from the Münster high provincial court in Westphalia had succeeded in reaching the position of assessor, which was not difficult, with hard work of course, since the stages there are not rigidly fixed as they are in Berlin and elsewhere. If later, as an assessor, one is awarded a doctor's degree, there are also much better prospects of obtaining a post as professor extraordinary, as happened in the case of Herr Gärtner in Bonn, who wrote a mediocre work on provincial legislation and is otherwise only known as belonging to the Hegelian school of jurists. But, my dear, very good father, would it not be possible to discuss all this with you personally? Eduard's condition, dear Mama's illness, your own ill health, although I hope it is not serious, all this makes me want to hurry to you, indeed it makes it almost a necessity. I would be there already if I was not definitely in doubt about your permission and consent.

Believe me, my dear, dear father, I am actuated by no selfish intention (although it would be bliss for me to see Jenny again), but there is a thought which moves me, and it is one I have no right to express. In many respects it would even be a hard step for me to take but, as my only sweet Jenny writes, these considerations are all of no account when faced with the fulfilment of duties that are sacred.

I beg you, dear Father, however you may decide, not to show this letter, at least not this page, to my angel of a mother. My sudden arrival could perhaps help this grand and wonderful woman to recover.

My letter to Mama was written long before the arrival of Jenny's dear letter, so perhaps I unwittingly wrote too much about matters which are not quite or even very little suitable. [12]

In the hope that gradually the clouds that have gathered about our family will pass away, that it will be granted to me to suffer and weep with you and, perhaps, when with you to give proof of my profound, heartfelt sympathy and immeasurable love, which often I can only express very badly; in the hope that you also, dear, ever beloved Father, taking into account my much agitated state of mind, will forgive me where often my heart seems to have erred, overwhelmed by my militant spirit, and that you will soon be wholly restored to health so that I can clasp you to my heart and tell you all my thoughts,

Your ever loving son,

Karl

Please, dear Father, excuse my illegible handwriting and bad style; it is almost 4 o'clock, the candle has burnt itself out, and my eyes are dim; a real unrest has taken possession of me, I shall not be able to calm the turbulent spectres until I am with you who are dear to me.

Please give greetings from me to my sweet, wonderful Jenny. I have read her letter twelve times already, and always discover new delights in it. It is in every respect, including that of style, the most beautiful letter I can imagine being written by a woman.

Marx/Engels Internet Archive

---

On Freedom of the Press

Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine
Province Assembly [43]

Debates on Freedom of the Press
and Publication of the Proceedings
of the Assembly of the Estates [45]

---

Written: May 1842;
First Published: May, 1842, in the Rheinische Zeitung;
Source: MECW, Volume 1, pp. 132-181;
Translated: from the German;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac, Brian Baggins and Sally Ryan;
Online Version: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org)

1996,

2000.

---

 

Contents:

May 5: [Prussian Censorship]

May 8: [Opponents of a Free Press]

May 10: [On the Assembly of the Estates]

May 12: [As a privilege of particular individuals or a privilege of the human mind?]

May 15: [Censorship]

May 19: [Freedom in General]

---

General Introduction

Post-Napoleonic Germany had been promised a constitutionally-established
string of provincial parliaments.

In 1823, Prussia formed eight such parliaments (Assemblies of
the estates). They
embraced the heads of princely families, representatives of the knightly
estate, i.e., the nobility, of towns and rural communities. The election
system based on the principle of landownership provided for a majority of
the nobility in the assemblies. The competency of the assemblies was
restricted to questions of local economy and administration. They also had
the right to express their desires on government bills submitted for
discussion. They were largely powerless ("advisory") however, could only summoned
by the Prussian government, and then they were held in secret. Furthermore,
a two-thirds majority was required to pass resolutions. Since the knightly
(aristocratic) estate held 278 of the 584 parliamentary votes (the towns
estate had 182 and the rural estate 124), nothing could be done against
its wishes.

In the 17 years of Frederick William III's rule, parliaments met
five times. In 1841, Frederick William IV came to power and decreed parliaments
would meet every two years and the secrecy surrounding them would be lifted.
And so the first parliament under his reign (and Sixth since the Assemblies
were created) was held in Düsseldorf between May 23 and July 25 1841.

That same year, a Konigsberg doctor named Johann Jacoby issued
the pamphlet "Four Questions Answered by an East Prussian," calling for
the constitution promised after Napoleon's final defeat in 1815. For this,
Jacoby was charged with treason. Among other things it opened a debate on censorship.

In March 1842, in the official government paper Preussische
Allgemeine Staats-Zeitung (Prussian General State Gazette) ran
a series of articles supporting censorship "in order to enlighten
the public concerning the true intentions of the Government."

The Sixth Rhine Province Assembly held debates, dealt with by Marx which took place
during the discussion on publication of the proceedings of the assemblies
(this right had been granted by the Royal edict of April 30, 1841) and in
connection with petitions of a number of towns on freedom of the press.

Citations in the text are given according to the
Sitzungs-Provinzial-Landtags des sechsten Rheinischen
Provinzial-Landtags, Koblenz, 1841.

Publishing Notes:
Marx devoted three articles to the debates of the Sixth Rhine Province
Assembly, only two of which, the first and the third, were published. In
the first series of articles Marx
proceeded with his criticism of the Prussian censorship which he had begun
in his as yet unpublished article Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction. The second series of articles, devoted to the conflict
between the Prussian Government and the Catholic Church, was banned by the
censors. The manuscript of this article has not survived, but the general
outline of it is given by Marx in his letter to Ruge of July 9, 1842. The
third series of articles is devoted to the debates of the Rhine Province Assembly on the law on wood thefts.

These articles constitute Marx's first contribution to the
Rheinsche Zeitung für Politik. Handel und Gewerbe. Marx began
his work as a contributor and in October 1842 became one of the editors of
the newspaper. By its content and approach to vital political problems, the
article helped the newspaper, founded by the oppositional Rhenish
bourgeoisie as a liberal organ, to begin a transition to the
revolutionary-democratic positions.

The appearance of Marx's article in the press raised a favourable
response in progressive circles. Georg Jung, manager of the Rheinische
Zeitung, wrote to Marx: "Your articles on freedom of the press are
extremely good.... Meyen wrote that the Rheinsche Zeitung had
eclipsed the Deutsche Jahrbücher ... that in Berlin everybody
was overjoyed with it" (MEGA, Abt. 1, Ed. 1, Hb. 2, S. 275). In his
comments on the article published in the Rheinische Zeitung Arnold
Ruge wrote: "Nothing more profound and more substantial has been said or
could have been said on freedom of the press and in defence of it"
(Deutsche Jahrbücher, 1842, S. 535-36).

In the early 1850s Marx included this article in his collected works
then being prepared for publication by Hermann Becker. However only the
beginning of the article was included in the first issue. The major part of
the text which had been published in the Rheinische Zeitung No.
139 was left unprinted. The end of the article was intended for the
following issue, which was never published.

A copy of the Rheinische Zeitung which Marx sent from London to
Becker in Cologne in February 1851 with the author's notes on the text of
articles (mostly in the form of abbreviations) intended for the edition
Becker was preparing has recently been found in the archives of Cologne
University library. This copy of the newspaper proves that Marx thought of
publishing--partly in an abridged form-- many of his articles written for
the Rheinische Zeitung. However, his plan was not realised.
Marginal notes show that the articles "Communal Reform and the
Kölnische Zeitung" and "A Correspondent of the
Kölnische Zeitung vs, the Rheinische Zeitung" belong
to Marx. These articles have never been published in any collection of
Marx's works.

In English an excerpt from the Proceedings was published
in Karl Marx, Early Texts, Oxford, 1971, pp. 35-36.

This online publication: Chapter titles have been introduced in brackets.

---

Karl Marx

Reflections of a Young Man
on The Choice of a Profession^[1]

---

Source: MECW Volume 1

Written: between August 10 and 16, 1835

First published: in Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, 1925

Translated from the Latin.

Transcribed: by Sally Ryan.

---

Nature herself has determined the sphere of activity in which the animal should move, and it peacefully moves within that sphere, without attempting to go beyond it, without even an inkling of any other. To man, too, the Deity gave a general aim, that of ennobling mankind and himself, but he left it to man to seek the means by which this aim can be achieved; he left it to him to choose the position in society most suited to him, from which he can best uplift himself and society.

This choice is a great privilege of man over the rest of creation, but at the same time it is an act which can destroy his whole life, frustrate all his plans, and make him unhappy. Serious consideration of this choice, therefore, is certainly the first duty of a young man who is beginning his career and does not want to leave his most important affairs to chance.

Everyone has an aim in view, which to him at least seems great, and actually is so if the deepest conviction, the innermost voice of the heart declares it so, for the Deity never leaves mortal man wholly without a guide; he speaks softly but with certainty.

But this voice can easily be drowned, and what we took for inspiration can be the product of the moment, which another moment can perhaps also destroy. Our imagination, perhaps, is set on fire, our emotions excited, phantoms flit before our eyes, and we plunge headlong into what impetuous instinct suggests, which we imagine the Deity himself has pointed out to us. But what we ardently embrace soon repels us and we see our whole existence in ruins.

We must therefore seriously examine whether we have really been inspired in our choice of a profession, whether an inner voice approves it, or whether this inspiration is a delusion, and what we took to be a call from the Deity was self-deception. But how can we recognise this except by tracing the source of the inspiration itself?

What is great glitters, its glitter arouses ambition, and ambition can easily have produced the inspiration, or what we took for inspiration; but reason can no longer restrain the man who is tempted by the demon of ambition, and he plunges headlong into what impetuous instinct suggests: he no longer chooses his position in life, instead it is determined by chance and illusion.

Nor are we called upon to adopt the position which offers us the most brilliant opportunities; that is not the one which, in the long series of years in which we may perhaps hold it, will never tire us, never dampen our zeal, never let our enthusiasm grow cold, but one in which we shall soon see our wishes unfulfilled, our ideas unsatisfied, and we shall inveigh against the Deity and curse mankind.

But it is not only ambition which can arouse sudden enthusiasm for a particular profession; we may perhaps have embellished it in our imagination, and embellished it so that it appears the highest that life can offer. We have not analysed it, not considered the whole burden, the great responsibility it imposes on us; we have seen it only from a distance, and distance is deceptive.

Our own reason cannot be counsellor here; for it is supported neither by experience nor by profound observation, being deceived by emotion and blinded by fantasy. To whom then should we turn our eyes? Who should support us where our reason forsakes us?

Our parents, who have already travelled life's road and experienced the severity of fate - our heart tells us.

And if then our enthusiasm still persists, if we still continue to love a profession and believe ourselves called to it after we have examined it in cold blood, after we have perceived its burdens and become acquainted with its difficulties, then we ought to adopt it, then neither does our enthusiasm deceive us nor does overhastiness carry us away.

But we cannot always attain the position to which we believe we are called; our relations in society have to some extent already begun to be established before we are in a position to determine them.

Our physical constitution itself is often a threatening obstacle, and let no one scoff at its rights.

It is true that we can rise above it; but then our downfall is all the more rapid, for then we are venturing to build on crumbling ruins, then our whole life is an unhappy struggle between the mental and the bodily principle. But he who is unable to reconcile the warring elements within himself, how can he resist life's tempestuous stress, how can he act calmly? And it is from calm alone that great and fine deeds can arise; it is the only soil in which ripe fruits successfully develop.

Although we cannot work for long and seldom happily with a physical constitution which is not suited to our profession, the thought nevertheless continually arises of sacrificing our well-being to duty, of acting vigorously although we are weak. But if we have chosen a profession for which we do not possess the talent, we can never exercise it worthily, we shall soon realise with shame our own incapacity and tell ourselves that we are useless created beings, members of society who are incapable of fulfilling their vocation. Then the most natural consequence is self-contempt, and what feeling is more painful and less capable of being made up for by all that the outside world has to offer? Self-contempt is a serpent that ever gnaws at one's breast, sucking the life-blood from one's heart and mixing it with the poison of misanthropy and despair.

An illusion about our talents for a profession which we have closely examined is a fault which takes its revenge on us ourselves, and even if it does not meet with the censure of the outside world it gives rise to more terrible pain in our hearts than such censure could inflict.

If we have considered all this, and if the conditions of our life permit us to choose any profession we like, we may adopt the one that assures us the greatest worth, one which is based on ideas of whose truth we are thoroughly convinced, which offers us the widest scope to work for mankind, and for ourselves to approach closer to the general aim for which every profession is but a means - perfection.

Worth is that which most of all uplifts a man, which imparts a higher nobility to his actions and all his endeavours, which makes him invulnerable, admired by the crowd and raised above it.

But worth can be assured only by a profession in which we are not servile tools, but in which we act independently in our own sphere. It can be assured only by a profession that does not demand reprehensible acts, even if reprehensible only in outward appearance, a profession which the best can follow with noble pride. A profession which assures this in the greatest degree is not always the highest, but is always the most to be preferred.

But just as a profession which gives us no assurance of worth degrades us, we shall as surely succumb under the burdens of one which is based on ideas that we later recognise to be false.

There we have no recourse but to self-deception, and what a desperate salvation is that which is obtained by self-betrayal!

Those professions which are not so much involved in life itself as concerned with abstract truths are the most dangerous for the young man whose principles are not yet firm and whose convictions are not yet strong and unshakeable. At the same time these professions may seem to be the most exalted if they have taken deep root in our hearts and if we are capable of sacrificing our lives and all endeavours for the ideas which prevail in them.

They can bestow happiness on the man who has a vocation for them, but they destroy him who adopts them rashly, without reflection, yielding to the impulse of the moment.

On the other hand, the high regard we have for the ideas on which our profession is based gives us a higher standing in society, enhances our own worth, and makes our actions un-challengeable.

One who chooses a profession he values highly will shudder at the idea of being unworthy of it; he will act nobly if only because his position in society is a noble one.

But the chief guide which must direct us in the choice of a profession is the welfare of mankind and our own perfection. It should not be thought that these two interests could be in conflict, that one would have to destroy the other; on the contrary, man's nature is so constituted that he can attain his own perfection only by working for the perfection, for the good, of his fellow men.

If he works only for himself, he may perhaps become a famous man of learning, a great sage, an excellent poet, but he can never be a perfect, truly great man.

History calls those men the greatest who have ennobled themselves by working for the common good; experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy; religion itself teaches us that the ideal being whom all strive to copy sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, and who would dare to set at nought such judgments?

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

Marx

Articles by Karl Marx in Rheinische Zeitung, 1842

Communism and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung ^[77]

October 16, 1842

Cologne, October 13 -- Issue No.284 of the Augsburg paper is so
inept as to find the Rheinische Zeitung to be a Prussian communist
-- not a communist, to be sure, but still one that fanatically flirts with
and platonically ogles communism.

Whether this ill-mannered fantasy of the Augsburger is unselfish or
whether this idle trick of its excited imagination is connected with speculation
and diplomatic affairs, the reader may decide -- after we have presented
the alleged corpus delicti.

The Rheinische Zeitung, they say, has printed a communistic essay
on Berlin family dwellings, accompanied by the following comment: This
report "might not be without interest for the history of this important
issue". From this it follows, according to the Augsburger's logic, that
the Rheinische Zeitung "served up such dirty linen with approval".
Thus, for example, if I say: "The following report from [Leipzig journal]
Mefistofeles about the household affairs of the Augsburg paper might
not be without interest for the history of this pretentious lady," do I
thereby recommend dirty "material" from which the Augsburg lady could tailor
a colorful wardrobe? Or should we not consider communism an important current
issue because it's not a current issue privileged to appear at court, since
it wears dirty linen and does not smell of rosewater?

But the Augsburg paper has reason to be angry at our misunderstanding.
The importance of communism does not lie in its being a current issue of
highest moment for France and England. Communism has "European significance",
to repeat the phrase used by the Augsburg paper. One of its Paris correspondents,
a convert who treats history the way a pastry cook treats botony, has recently
had the notion that monarchy, in its own fashion, must seek to appropriate
socialist-communist ideas. Now you will understand the displeasure of the
Augsburg paper, which will never forgive us for revealing communism to
the public in its unwashed nakedness; now you understand the sullen irony
that tells us: So you recommend communism, which once had the fortunate
elegance of being a phrase in the Augsburg paper!

The second reproach to the Rheinische Zeitung deals with the
conclusion of a report on the communist speeches given at the congress
in Strasbourg, because the two stepsister papers had so divided the booty
that the Rhineland sister took the proceedings and the Bavarian one the
fruits of the Strasbourg scholars. The exact wording of the incriminating
passage is:

"It is with the middle class today as it was with the nobility in 1789.
At that time, the middle class claimed the privileges of the nobility and
got them; today, the class which possesses nothing demands to share in
the wealth of the middle classes that are now in control. Today, however,
the middle class is better prepared for a surprise attack than the nobility
was in 1789, and it is to be expected that the problem will be solved peacefully."

That Sieyes' prophecy has come true and that the tiers etat ["Third
Estate"] has become everything and wants to be everything -- all this is
recognized with the most sorrowful indignation by Bulow-Cummerow, by the
former Berliner Politische Wochenblatt [Berlin Political Weekly],
by Dr. Kosegarten, and by all the feudalistic writers. That the class that
today possesses nothing demands to share in the wealth of the middle class
is a fact that, without the Strasbourg speeches and the silence of the
Augsburg paper, is clearly recognized in the streets of Manchester, Paris,
and Lyon. Does the Augsburger really believe that indignation and silence
refute the facts of the time? The Augsburger is impertinent in fleeing.
The Augsburg paper runs away from captious issues and believes that the
dust it stirs up, and the nervous invectives it mutters in its flight,
will blind and confuse the uncomfortable issue as well as the comfortable
reader.

Or is the Augsburger angry at our correspondent's expectation that the
undeniable collision will be solved in a "peaceful way"? Or does the Augsburger
reproach us for not having given immediately a good prescription and not
having put into the surprised reader's pocket a report as clear as daylight
on the solution of the enormous problem? We do not possess the art of mastering
problems which two nations are working on with one phrase.

But, my dear, best Augsburger! In connection with communism, you give
us to understand that Germany is now poor in independent people, that nine-tenths
of the better educated youth are begging the state for their future bread,
that our rivers are neglected, that shipping has declined, that our once-flourishing
commercial cities have faded, that in Prussia very slow progress is made
toward free institutions, that the surplus of our population helplessly
wanders away and ceases to be German among foreign nations -- and for all
these problem there is not a single prescription, no attempt to become
"clearer about the means of achieving the great act that is to redeem us
from all these sins! Or don't you expect a peaceful solution? It almost
seems that another article in the same issue, date-lined from Karlsruhe,
points in that direction when you pose for Prussia the insidious question
of the Customs Union: "Does anyone believe that such a crisis would pass
like a brawl over smoking in the Tiergarten?" The reason you off your disbelief
is communistic: "Let a crisis break out in industry; let millions
in capital be lost; let thousands of workers go hungry." How inopportune
our "peaceful expectation", after you had decided to let a bloody revolution
break out! Perhaps, for this reason, your article on Great Britain by your
own logic points approvingly to the demagogic physician, Dr. M'Douall,
who emigrated to America because "nothing can be done with this royal family
after all."

Before we part from you, we would, in passing, like to call your
attention to your own wisdom -- your method which, with no shortage of
phrases but without even a harmless idea here and there, makes you nevertheless
speak up. You find that the polemic of Mr. Hennequin in Paris against
the parceling out of the land puts him in surprising harmony with the Autonomes
[aristocratic landowners]! Surprise, says Aristotle, is the beginning of
philosophizing. You have ended at the beginning. Otherwise, would the surprising
fact have escaped you that in Germany communistic principles are spread,
not by the liberals, but by your reactionary friends?

Who speaks of handicraft corporations? The reactionaries. the
artisan class is to form a state within a state. Do you find it extraordinary
that such ideas, couched in modern terms, thus read: "The state should
transform itself into an artisan class"? If the state is to be a state
for the artisan, but if the modern artisan, like any modern man, understands
and can understand the state only as a sphere shared by all his fellow
citizens -- how can you synthesize both of these ideas in any other way
except in an artisan state?

Who polemicizes about parceling out the land? The reactionaries.
A recently published feudalistic writing (Kosegarten on land parceling)
went so far as to call private property a privilege. This is Fourier's
principle. Once there is agreement on principles, may not there then be
disagreement over consequences and implications?

The Rheinische Zeitung, which cannot concede the theoretical
reality of communist ideas even in their present form, and can even less
wish or consider possible their practical realization, will submit these
ideas to a thorough criticism. If the Augsburg paper demanded and wanted
more than slick phrases, it would see that writings such as those of Leroux,
Considerant, and above all Proudhon's penetrating work, can be criticized,
not through superficial notions of the moment, but only after long and
deep study. We consider such "theoretical" works the more seriously as
we do not agree with the Augsburg paper, which finds the "reality" of communist
ideas not in Plato but in some obscure acquaintance who, not without some
merit in some branches of scientific research, gave up the entire fortune
that was at his disposal at the time and polished his confederates' dishes
and boots, according to the will of Father Enfantin. We are firmly convinced
that it is not the practical Attempt, but rather the theoretical
application of communist ideas, that constitutes the real danger;
for practical attempts, even those on a large scale, can be answered with
cannon as soon as they become dangerous, but ideas, which conquer our intelligence,
which overcome the outlook that reason has riveted to our conscience, are
chains from which we cannot tear ourselves away without tearing our hearts;
they are demons that man can overcome only by submitting to them. But the
Augsburg paper has never come to know the troubled conscience that is evoked
by a rebellion of man's subjective wishes against the objective insights
of his own reason, because it possesses neither reason nor insight nor
conscience.

 

---

Articles for the Rheinische Zeitung

1842 Index |
Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Karl Marx

Communism and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung Editorial Note

---

Written: October 22, 1842

Source: MECW p. 222

First published: Rheinische Zeitung No. 296, October 23, 1842

---

 

Cologne, October 22. Following the reprint by the Rheinische Zeitung No. 292 of an article from the Mannheimer Abendzeitung from Pfalz, October 12", which begins with the words:

“I was really surprised when I found yesterday that the Augsburg Allgmeine Zeitung had printed an article (on communism), taken from Aachen news-sheets, which truly did not deserve to be accepted by a newspaper which otherwise has such good material”, the Aachener Zeitung No. 293 has published a reply, extracts from which we certainly do not want to withhold from our- readers, in view of a special wish expressed by the editorial board of this newspaper, and all the more since it affords us the opportunity we desire for a subsequent correction. The Aachener Zeitung rightly believes that the Rheinische

“could have known that the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung had torn out only a few passages from its article on the Communists (in No. 277 of the Aachener Zeitung) and added comments of its own, which of course gave a different complexion to the article”.

As stated, the Rheinische Zeitung was not only aware of this, but knew also that the Aachener Zeitung was quite innocent in regard to those fragments, insipidly and cunningly put together by the Augsburg newspaper No. 284, which were aimed solely at the Rheinische Zeitung. Therefore, in settling accounts with the Augsburg newspaper in No. 289, the Rheinische Zeitung very properly did not draw the Aachener Zeitung into the debate. But if someone from Pfalz could be misled into a false assumption by the heading in spaced type of that Augsburg newspaper's article: “We Read Aachen News-sheets”, that is at any rate an indication that the Aachener Zeitung could have anticipated earlier such a misunderstanding in respect of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung. Having once undertaken to deal wholly on its own account with the Augsburg article, the Rheinische Zeitung could very well allow the incidental reprint of the -note in the Mannheimer Abendzeitung to pass without any guide-mark since, of course, its readers already knew where that came from. The following passage from today's article in the Aachener Zeitung requires no further comment:

“It knows that we are not against any free research, that we shall not weaken the efforts of those who are concerned for the welfare of any class of people. We are liberal towards all, which is more than the majority of liberals of many varieties can so far say about themselves. What we said, however, is that communism cannot find any soil among us, but that, on the other hand, it is a natural phenomenon in France and England. We added, lastly, that we were not ourselves opposed to communist efforts in Germany, but were very definitely against any club-like brotherhoods of the kind that are said to have sprung up in Silesia. Liberal ideas are not yet so firmly rooted among us, and have not yet made such progress among us, that every endeavour does not need to be carefully fostered. As a rule, however, we see in our country far too little harmony between newspapers of the same colour. They do not bear in mind that an isolated undertaking cannot cover the whole field, and that a total effect can be produced only by each in turn becoming the bearer and disseminator of the ideas of the other. ”

The editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung

 

---

1842 Index
Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Articles by Karl Marx in The Rheinische Zeitung

The Leading Article in No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung ^[58]

---

Source: MECW, Volume 2, p. 184.

Written: between June 29 and July 4, 1842

First Published: Supplement to Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 191, 193 + 195, July 10, 12 + 14, 1842;.

---

 

Rheinische Zeitung No. 191, July 10, 1842, Supplement

Up to now we have respected the Kölnische Zeitung, if not as the “organ of the Rhenish intelligentsia” at any rate as the Rhenish “information sheet” [Intelligenz]. We regarded above all its, “leading political articles” as a means, both wise and select, for making politics repugnant to the reader, so that he will the more eagerly turn to the vitally refreshing realm of the advertisements which reflects the pulsating life of industry and is often wittily piquant, so that here too the motto would be: per aspera ad astra, through politics to the oysters. However, the finely even balance which the Kölnische Zeitung had hitherto succeeded in maintaining between politics and advertisements has recently been upset by a kind of advertisements which can be called “advertisements of political industry”. In the initial uncertainty as to where this new genus should be placed, it happened that an advertisement was transformed into a leading article, and the leading article into an advertisement, and indeed into one which in the language of the political world is called a “denunciation”, [Anzeige] but if paid for is called simply an “advertisement”.

It is a custom in the North that before the meagre meals, the guests are given a drink of exquisitely fine spirits. In following this custom, we are the more pleased to offer some spirits to our Northern guest because in the meal itself, in the very “ailing” [leitender] article in No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung, we find no trace of spirit. Therefore we present first of all a scene from Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods, which we give here in a “generally comprehensible” translation,” because among our readers there is bound to be at least one who is no Hellene.

Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods
XXIV. HERMES' COMPLAINTS

Hermes. Maia

Hermes. Is there, dear Mother, in all heaven a god who is more tormented than I am?

Maia. Don't say such things, my son!

Hermes. Why shouldn't I? I, who have such a lot of things to attend to, who have to do everything myself, and have to submit to so many servile duties? In the morning I have to he among the very first to get up, sweep out the dining-room, and put the cushions straight in the council chamber. When everything is in order I have to wait on Jupiter and spend the whole day as his messenger, going to and fro on his errands. Hardly have I returned, and while still covered with dust, I have to serve ambrosia. Worst of all, I am the only one who is allowed no rest even at night, for I have to lead the souls of the dead to Pluto and perform the duties of attendant while the dead are being judged. For it is not enough that in my daytime labours I have to he present at gymnastic exercises, act as herald at meetings of the people, and help the people's orators to memorise their speeches. Nay, torn between so many duties, I must also look after all matter concerning the dead.

Since his expulsion from Olympus, Hermes, by force of habit, still performs “servile duties” and. looks after all matters concerning the dead.

Whether Hermes himself, or his son, the goat-god Pan, wrote the ailing article of No. 179, let the reader decide, bearing in mind that the Greek Hermes was the god of eloquence and logic.

“To spread philosophical and religious views by means of the newspapers, or to combat them in the newspapers, we consider equally impermissible."

While the old man chattered on in this way, I became well aware that he intended to deliver a tedious litany of oracular pronouncements. However, I curbed my impatience, for ought I not to believe this discerning man who is so ingenuous as to express his opinion with the utmost candour in his own house, and I went on reading. But — lo and behold! — this article, which, it is true, cannot be reproached for any philosophical views, at least has the tendency to combat philosophical views and spread religious views.

What are we to make of an article which disputes the right to its own existence, which prefaces itself with a declaration of its own incompetence? The loquacious author will reply to us. He explains how his pretentious articles are to be read. He confines himself to giving some fragments, the “arrangement and connection” of which he leaves to the “perspicacity of the reader” — the most convenient method for the kind of advertisements which he makes it his business to deal with. We should like to “arrange and connect” these fragments, and it is not our fault if the rosary does not become a string of pearls.

The author declares:

“A party which employs these means” (i. e., spreads philosophical and religious views in newspapers and combats such views) “shows thereby, in our opinion, that its intentions are not honest, and that it is less concerned with instructing and enlightening the people than with achieving other external aims."

This being his opinion, the article can have no other intention than the achievement of external aims. These “external aims” will not fail to show themselves.

The state, he says, has not only the right but the duty to “put a stop to the activities of unbidden charterers”. The writer is obviously referring to opponents of his view, for he has long ago convinced himself that he is a bidden charterer.

It is a question, therefore, of a new intensification of the censorship in religious matters, of new police measures against the press, which has hardly been able to draw breath as yet.

“In our opinion, the state is to be reproached, not for excessive severity, but for indulgence carried too far."

The leader writer, however, has second thoughts. It is dangerous to reproach the state. Therefore he addresses himself to the authorities, his accusation against freedom of the press turns into an accusation against the censors. He accuses them of exercising ',too little censorship”.

“Reprehensible indulgence has hitherto been shown also, not by the state, it is true, but by 'individual authorities', in that the new philosophical school has been allowed to make most disgraceful attacks on Christianity in public papers and other publications intended for a readership that is not purely scientific."

Once again, however, the author comes to a halt; again he has second thoughts. Less than eight days ago he found that the freedom of the censorship allowed too little freedom of the press; now he finds that the compulsion of the censors results in too little compulsion of the censorship.

That again has to be remedied.

“As long as the censorship exists it is its most urgent duty to excise such abhorrent offshoots of a childish presumption as have repeatedly offended our eyes in recent days."

Weak eyes! Weak eyes! And

“the weakest eye will be offended by an expression which can he intended only for the level of understanding of the broad masses”.

If the relaxed censorship already allows abhorrent offshoots to appear, what would happen with freedom of the press? If our eyes are too weak to bear the “presumption” of the censored press, how would they he strong enough to bear the “audacity” [Übermut] of a free press?

“As long as the censorship exists it is its most urgent duty.” And when it ceases to exist? The phrase must be interpreted as meaning: it is the most urgent duty of the censorship to remain in existence as long as possible.

But again the author has second thoughts.

“It is not our function to act as public prosecutor, and therefore we refrain from any more detailed designation."

What heavenly goodness there is in this man! He refrains from any more detailed “designation”, and yet it is only by quite detailed, quite definite signs that he could prove and show what his view aims at. He lets fall only vague, half audible words intended to arouse suspicions; it is not his function to be a public prosecutor, his function is to be a hidden prosecutor.

For the last time the unfortunate man has second thoughts, remembering that his function is to write liberal leading articles, and that he has to present himself as a “loyal friend of freedom of the press”. Hence he quickly takes up his final position:

“We could not fail to protest against a course which, if it is not the consequence of accidental negligence, can have no other purpose than to discredit the freer movement of the press in the eyes of the public, to play into the hands of opponents who are afraid of failing to achieve their aim in an open way."

The censorship — we are told by this defender of freedom of the press, who is as bold as he is sharp-witted — if it is not the English leopard with the inscription: “I sleep, wake me not!,, a, has adopted this “disastrous” course in order to discredit the freer movement of the press in the eyes of the public.

'Is there any further need to discredit a movement of the press which calls the attention of the censorship to “accidental negligences”, and which expects to obtain its renown in public opinion through the “penknife of the censor"?

This movement can he called “free” insofar as the licence of shamelessness is also sometimes called “free”, and is it not the shamelessness of stupidity and hypocrisy to claim to be a defender of the freer movement of the press while at the same time teaching that the press will at once fall into the gutter unless it is supported under the arms by two policemen?

And what need is there of censorship, what need is there of this leading article, if the philosophical press discredits itself in the eyes of the public? Of course, the author does not want to restrict in any way “the freedom of scientific research”.

“In our day, scientific research is rightly allowed the widest, most unrestricted scope. “

But how our author conceives scientific research can he seen from the following utterance:

“In this connection a sharp distinction must he drawn between the requirements of freedom of scientific research, through which Christianity can only gain, and what lies outside the limits of scientific research."

Who is to decide on the limits of scientific research if not scientific research itself? According to the leading article, limits should be prescribed to science. The leading article, therefore, knows of an "official reason” which does not learn from scientific research, but teaches it, which is a learned providence that establishes the length every hair should have to convert a scientist's beard into a beard of world importance. The leading article believes in the scientific inspiration of the censorship.

Before going further into these “silly” explanations of the leading article on the subject of “scientific research”, let us sample for a moment the "philosophy of religion” of Herr H., [Hermes] his “own science"!

“Religion is the basis of the state and the most necessary condition for every social association which does not aim merely at achieving some external aim."

The proof. "In its crudest form as childish fetishism it nevertheless to some extent raises man above his sensuous desires which, if he allowed himself to he ruled exclusively by them, could degrade him to the level of an animal and make him incapable of fulfilling any higher aim."

The author of the leading article calls fetishism the "crudest form” of religion. He concedes, therefore, what all “men of science” regard as established even without his agreement, that “animal worship” is a higher form of religion than fetishism. But does not animal worship degrade man below the animal, does it not make the animal man's god?

And now, indeed, “fetishism"! Truly, the erudition of a penny magazine! Fetishism is so far from raising man above his sensuous desires that, on the contrary, it is “the religion of sensuous desire”. Fantasy arising from desire deceives the fetish-worshipper into believing that an “inanimate object” will give up its natural character in order to comply with his desires. Hence the crude desire of the fetish-worshipper smashes the fetish when it ceases to be its most obedient servant.

“In those nations which attained higher historical significance, the flowering of their national life coincides with the highest development of their religious consciousness, and the decline of their greatness and their power coincides with the decline of their religious culture."

To arrive at the truth, the author's assertion must be directly reversed; he has stood history on its head. Among the peoples of the ancient world, Greece and Rome are certainly countries of the highest “historical culture”. Greece flourished at its best internally in the time of Pericles, externally in the time of Alexander. In the age of Pericles the Sophists, and Socrates, who could be called the embodiment of philosophy, art and rhetoric supplanted religion. The age of Alexander was the age of Aristotle, who rejected the eternity of the “individual” spirit and the God of positive religions. And as for Rome! Read Cicero! The Epicurean, Stoic or Sceptic philosophies were the religions of cultured Romans when Rome had reached the zenith of its development. That with the downfall of the ancient states their religions also disappeared requires no further explanation, for the “true religion” of the ancients was the cult of “their nationality”, of their “state”. It was not the downfall of the old religions that caused the downfall of the ancient states, but the downfall of the ancient states that caused the downfall of the old religions. And such ignorance as is found in this leading article proclaims itself the “legislator of scientific research” and writes “decrees” for philosophy.

“The entire ancient world had to collapse because the progress achieved by the peoples in their scientific development was necessarily bound up with a revelation of the errors on which their religious views were based."

According to the leading article, therefore, the entire ancient world collapsed because scientific research revealed the errors of the old religions. Would the ancient world not have perished if scientific research had kept silent about the errors of religion, if the Roman authorities had been recommended by the author of the leading article to excise the writings of Lucretius and Lucian?

For the rest, we shall permit ourselves to enlarge Herr H.'s erudition in another communication.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 193, July 12, 1842, Supplement

At the very time when the downfall of the ancient world was approaching, there arose the Alexandrine school, which strove to prove by force the “eternal truth” of Greek mythology and its complete agreement “with the results of scientific research”. The Emperor Julian, too, belonged to this trend, which believed that it could make the newly developing spirit of the times disappear by keeping its eyes closed so as not to see it. However, let us continue with the conclusion arrived at by H.! In the old religions, “the feeble notion of the divine was shrouded in the blackest night of error”, and therefore could not stand up to scientific research. Under Christianity, the opposite is the case, as any thinking machine will conclude. At all events, H. says:

"The greatest results of scientific research have so far only served to confirm the truths of the Christian religion."

We leave aside the fact that all the philosophies of the past without exception have been accused by the theologians of abandoning the Christian religion, even those of the pious Malebranche and the divinely inspired Jakob Böhme, and that Leibniz was accused of being a “Löwenix” (a believer in nothing) by the Brunswick peasants, and of being an atheist by the Englishman Clarke and other supporters of Newton. We leave aside, too, the fact that, as the most capable and consistent section of Protestant theologians has maintained, Christianity cannot he reconciled with reason because “secular” and “spiritual” reason contradict each other, which Tertullian classically expressed by saying: “verum est, quia absurdum est”. [It is true because it is absurd] Leaving aside all this, we ask: how is the agreement of scientific research with religion to be proved, except by allowing it to take its own course and so compelling it to resolve itself into religion? Any other compulsion is at least no proof.

Of course, if from the outset you recognise as the result of scientific research only that which agrees with your own view, it is easy to pose as a prophet. But in that case how are your assertions superior to those of the Indian Brahmin who proves the holiness of the Vedas” by reserving to himself alone the right to read them?

Yes, says H., it is a question of “scientific research”. But every research that contradicts Christianity “stops halfway” or “takes a wrong road”. Could there be a more convenient way of arguing?

Scientific research, once it has “made clear' to itself the content of its results, will never conflict with the truths of Christianity”. At the same time, however, the state must ensure that this “clarification” is impossible, for research must never adapt itself to the level of understanding of the broad mass, i. e., it must never become popular and clear to itself. Even when it is attacked by unscientific investigators in all newspapers of the monarchy, it must be modest and remain silent.

Christianity precludes the possibility of “any new decline”, but the police must be on their guard to see that philosophising newspaper writers do not bring about such a decline; they must guard against this with the utmost strictness. In the struggle with truth, error will of itself be recognised as such, without the need of any suppression by external force; but the state must facilitate this struggle of the truth, not, indeed, by depriving the champions of “error” of inner freedom, which it cannot take away from them, but by depriving them of the possibility of this freedom, the possibility of existence.

Christianity is sure of its victory, but according to H. it is not so sure of it as to spurn the aid of the police.

If from the outset everything that contradicts your faith is error, and has to be treated as error, what distinguishes your claims from those of the Mohammedan or of any other religion? Should philosophy, in order not to contradict the basic tenets of dogma, adopt different principles in each country, in accordance with the saying “every country has its own customs"? Should it believe in one country that 3 x 1 = 1, in another that women have no souls, and in a third that beer is drunk in heaven? Is there no universal human nature, as there is a universal nature of plants and stars? Philosophy asks what is true, not what is held to be true. It asks what is true for all mankind, not what is true for some people. Its

metaphysical truths do not recognise the boundaries of political geography; its political truths know too well where the “bounds” begin for it to confuse the illusory horizon of a particular world or national outlook with the true horizon of the human mind. Of all the defenders of Christianity, H. is the weakest.

The long existence of Christianity is his sole proof in its favour. But has not philosophy also existed from Thales down to the present day, and indeed does not H. himself assert that it now puts forward greater claims and has a higher opinion of its importance than ever before?

Finally, how does H. prove that the state is a “Christian” state, that its aim is not a free association of moral human beings, but an association of believers, not the realisation of freedom, but the realisation of dogma?

“All our European states have Christianity as their basis."

The French state too? The Charter, Article 3, does not say: “every Chfistian” or “only a Christian”, but:

"tous la Français sont également admissibles aux emplois civiles et militaires”. [All Frenchmen are equally eligible for civil and military posts.]

Prussian Law, too, Part II, Section XIII, says:

“The primary duty of the head of state is to maintain tranquillity and security, both internally and externally, and to protect everyone from violence and interference in regard to what belongs to him."

According to § 1, the head of state combines in his person all the “duties and rights of the state”. It does not say that the primary duty of the state is to suppress heretical errors and to ensure citizens the bliss of the other world.

But if some European states are in fact based on Christianity, do these states correspond to their concept and is the “pure existence” of a condition the right of that condition to exist?

According to the view of our H., of course, this is the case, for he reminds adherents of Young Hegelianism

“that, according to the laws which are in force in the greater part of the state, a marriage without consecration by the church is regarded as concubinage and as such is punishable under police regulations”.

Therefore, if “marriage without consecration by the church” is regarded on the Rhine as “marriage” according to the Napoleonic Code, but on the Spree as “concubinage” according to Prussian Law, then punishment “under police regulations” ought to be an argument for philosophers that what is right in one place is wrong in another, that it is not the Napoleonic Code, but Prussian law which has the scientific, moral and rational conception of marriage. This “philosophy of punishment under police regulations” may be convincing in some places, but it is not convincing in Prussia. Furthermore, how little the standpoint of “holy” marriage coincides with that of Prussian Law can be seen from § 12, Part II, Section I, which states:

“Nevertheless, a marriage which is permitted by the laws of the land loses none of its civil validity because the dispensation of the spiritual authorities has not been sought or has been refused."

Hence in Prussia, too, marriage is partially emancipated from the “spiritual authorities” and its “civil” validity is distinguished from its “ecclesiastical” validity.

That our great Christian philosopher of the state has no “high” opinion of the state goes without saying.

“Since our states are not merely legal associations, but at the same time true educational institutions, with the only difference that they extend their care to a wider circle than the institutions devoted to the education of youth”, etc., “the whole of public education” rests “on the basis of Christianity”.

The education of our school youth is based just as much on the ancient classics and the sciences in general as on the catechism.

According to H., the state differs from an institution for young children not in content, but in magnitude, its “care” is wider.

The true “public” education carried out by the state lies in the rational and public existence of the state; the state itself educates its members by making them its members, by converting the aims of the individual into general aims, crude instinct into moral inclination, natural independence into spiritual freedom, by the individual finding his good in the life of the whole, and the whole in the frame of mind of the individual.

The leading article, on the other hand, makes the state not an association of free human beings who educate one another, but a crowd of adults who are destined to be educated from above and to pass from a “narrow” schoolroom into a “wider” one.

This theory of education and tutelage is put forward here by a friend of freedom of the press, who, out of love for this beauty, points out the “negligences of the censorship”, who knows how to describe in the appropriate place the “level of understanding of the broad masses” (perhaps the “level of understanding of the broad masses” has recently begun to appear so doubtful to the Kölnische Zeitung because this mass has ceased to appreciate the superiority of the “unphilosophical newspaper"?) and who advises the learned to keep one view for the stage and another for the backstage!

In the same way that the leading article gives documentary evidence of its “inferior” opinion of the state, so it does now of its low opinion of “Christianity."

“All the newspaper articles in the world will never be able to convince a people which on the whole feels well and happy that it is in an unfortunate condition."

We should think so! The Material feeling of well-being and happiness is a more reliable bulwark against newspaper articles then the blissful and all-conquering trust in faith! H. does not sing: “A reliable fortress is our God.” [Martin Luther's choral, Ein Feste Burg] According to him, the truly believing disposition of the “broad masses” is more exposed to the rust of doubt than the refined worldly culture of the “few"!

“Even incitements to revolt” are less feared by H. “in a well-ordered state” than in a “well-ordered church”, which, moreover, is guided in all truth by the “spirit of God”. A fine believer he is! And now for the reason for it! Namely, the masses can understand political articles but they find philosophical articles incomprehensible!

Finally, if the hint in the leading article that “the half measures adopted recently against Young Hegelianism have had the usual consequences of half measures” is put alongside the ingenuous wish that the latest efforts of the Hegelings may pass “without altogether harmful consequences”, one can understand the words of Cornwall in King Lear.

He cannot flatter, he, —
An honest mind and plain, — he must speak truth:
And they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duties nicely [Act II, Scene 2]

We believe we would be insulting the readers of the Rheinische Zeitung if we imagined that they would be satisfied with the spectacle, more comic than serious, of a ci-devant liberal, a “young man of days gone by”, cut down to his proper size. We should like to say a few words on “the heart of the matter”. As long as we were occupied with the polemic against the ailing article, it would have been wrong to interrupt him in his work of self-destruction.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 195, July 14, 1842, Supplement

First of all, the question is raised: “Ought philosophy to discuss religious matters also in newspaper articles?"

This question can be answered only by criticising it.

Philosophy, especially German philosophy, has an urge for isolation, for systematic seclusion, for dispassionate self-examination which from the start places it in estranged contrast to the quick-witted and alive-to-events newspapers, whose only delight is in information. Philosophy, taken in its systematic development, is unpopular; its secret life within itself seems to the layman a pursuit as extravagant as it is unpractical, it is regarded as a professor of magic arts, whose incantations sound awe-inspiring because no one understands them.

True to its nature, philosophy has never taken the first step towards exchanging the ascetic frock of the priest for the light, conventional garb of the newspapers. However, philosophers do not spring up like mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of their time, of their nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible juices flow in the ideas of philosophy. The same spirit that constructs railways with the hands of workers, constructs philosophical systems in the brains of philosophers. Philosophy does not exist outside the world, any more than the brain exists outside man because it is not situated in the stomach. But philosophy, of course, exists in the world through the brain before it stands with its feet on the ground, whereas many other spheres of human activity have long had their feet rooted in the ground and pluck with their hands the fruits of the world before they have any inkling that the “head” also belongs to this world, or that this world is the world of the head.

Since every true philosophy is the intellectual quintessence of its time, the time must come when philosophy not only internally by its content, but also externally through its form, comes into contact and interaction with the real world of its day. Philosophy then ceases to be a particular system in relation to other particular systems, it becomes philosophy in general in relation to the world, it becomes the philosophy of the contemporary world. The external forms which confirm that philosophy has attained this significance, that it is the living soul of culture, that philosophy has become worldly and the world has become philosophical, have been the same in all ages. One can consult any history book and find repeated with stereotyped fidelity the simplest rituals which unmistakably mark the penetration of philosophy into salons, priests' studies, editorial offices of newspapers and court antechambers, into the love and the hate of contemporaries. Philosophy comes into the world amid the loud cries of its enemies, who betray their inner infection by wild shouts for help against the fiery ardour of ideas. This cry of its enemies has the same significance for philosophy as the first cry of the new-born babe has for the anxiously listening ear of the mother: it is the cry testifying to the life of its ideas, which have burst the orderly hieroglyphic husk of the system and become citizens of the world. The Corybantes and Cabiri, whose loud fanfares announce to the world the birth of the infant Zeus, attack first of all the religious section of the philosophers, partly because the inquisitorial instinct is more certain to have an appeal for the sentimental side of the public, partly because the public, which includes also the opponents of philosophy, can feel the sphere of philosophical ideas only by means of its ideal antennae, and the only circle of ideas in the value of which the public believes almost as much as in the system of material needs is the circle of religious ideas; and finally because religion polemises not against a particular system of philosophy, but against the philosophy of all particular systems.

The true philosophy of the present day does not differ from the true philosophies of the past by this destiny. On the contrary, this destiny is a proof which history owed to its truth.

For six years German newspapers have been drumming against, calumniating, distorting and bowdlerising the religious trend in philosophy. The Augsburg Allgemeine sang bravura arias, almost every overture played the leitmotif, to the effect that philosophy did not deserve to be discussed by this wise lady, that it was a rodomontade of youth, a fashion of blase coteries. But, in spite of all this, it was impossible to get away from philosophy, and the drumming was continually renewed, for the Augsburg paper plays only one instrument in its anti-philosophical cat's concert, the monotonous kettle-drum. All German newspapers, from the Berliner politisches Wochenblatt and the Hamburger Correspondent down to the obscure local newspapers, down to the Kölnische Zeitung, reverberated with the names of Hegel and Schelling, Feuerbach and Bauer, the Deutsche fahrbücher, etc. Finally, the public became eager to see the Leviathan itself, the more so because semi-official articles threatened to have a legal syllabus officially prescribed for philosophy, and it was precisely then that philosophy made its appearance in the newspapers. For a long time philosophy had remained silent in the face of the self-satisfied superficiality which boasted that by means of a few hackneyed newspaper phrases it would blow away like soap-bubbles the long years of study by genius, the hard-won fruits of self-sacrificing solitude, the results of the unseen but slowly exhausting struggles of contemplative thought. Philosophy had even protested against the newspapers as an unsuitable arena, but finally it had to break its silence; it became a newspaper correspondent, and then-unheard-of diversion! — it suddenly occurred to the loquacious purveyors of newspapers that philosophy was not a fitting pabulum for their readers. They could not fail to bring to the notice of the governments that it was dishonest to introduce philosophical and, religious questions into the sphere of the newspapers not for the enlightenment of the public but to achieve external aims.

What could philosophy say about religion or about itself that would be worse than your newspaper hullabaloo had already long ago attributed to it in a worse and more frivolous form? It only has to repeat what you unphilosophical Capuchins preach about it in thousands and thousands of controversial speeches — and the worst will have been said.

But philosophy speaks about religious and philosophical matters in a different way than you have spoken about them. You speak without having studied them, philosophy speaks after studying them; you appeal to the emotions, it appeals to reason; you anathematise, it teaches; you promise heaven and earth, it promises nothing but the truth; you demand belief in your beliefs, it .demands not belief in its results but the testing of doubts; you frighten, it calms. And, in truth, philosophy has enough knowledge of the world to realise that its results do not flatter the pleasure-seeking and egoism of either the heavenly or the earthly world. But the public, which loves truth and knowledge for their own sakes, will be well able to measure its judgment and morality against the judgment and morality of ignorant, servile, inconsistent and venal scribblers.

Of course, there may be some persons who misinterpret philosophy owing to the wretchedness of their understanding and attitude. But do not you Protestants believe that Catholics misinterpret Christianity, do you not reproach the Christian religion on account of the shameful times of the eighth and ninth centuries, or St. Bartholomew's night, or the Inquisition? There is clear proof that Protestant theology's hatred of philosophers arises largely from the tolerance shown by philosophy towards each particular creed as such. Feuerbach and Strauss have been more reproached for regarding Catholic dogmas as Christian than for declaring that the dogmas of Christianity are not dogmas o reason.

But if some individuals cannot digest modern philosophy and die of philosophical indigestion, that is no more evidence against philosophy than the occasional bursting of an engine boiler, with consequent injury to passengers, is evidence against the science of mechanics.

The question whether philosophical and religious matters ought to be discussed in the newspapers dissolves in its own lack of ideas.

When such questions begin to interest the public as questions for newspapers, they have become questions of the time. Then the problem is not whether they should be discussed, but where and how they should be discussed, whether in inner circles of the families and the salons, in schools and churches, but not by the press; by opponents of philosophy, but not by philosophers; in the obscure language of private opinion, but not in the clarifying language of public reason. Then the question is whether the sphere of the press should include what exists as a reality; it is no longer a matter of a particular content of the press, but of the general question whether the press ought to be a genuine press, i.e., a free press.

The second question we separate entirely from the first: “Should the newspapers treat politics philosophically in a so-called Christian state?"

When religion becomes a political factor, a subject-matter of politics, it hardly needs to be said that the newspapers not only may, but must discuss political questions. It seems obvious that philosophy, the wisdom of the world, has a greater right to concern itself with the realm of this world, with the state, than has the wisdom of the other world, religion. The question here is not whether there should be any philosophising about the state, but whether this should be done well or badly, philosophically or unphilosophically, with or without prejudice, with or without consciousness, consistently or inconsistency, quite rationally or semi-rationally. If you make religion into a theory of constitutional law, then you are making religion itself into a kind of philosophy.

Was it not Christianity above all that separated church and state?

Read St. Augustine's De civitate Dei, study the Fathers of the Church and the spirit of Christianity, and then come back and tell us whether the state or the church is the “Christian state"! Or does not every moment of your practical life brand your theory as a lie? Do you consider it wrong to appeal to the courts if you have been cheated? But the apostle writes that it is wrong. If you have been struck on one cheek, do you turn the other also, or do you not rather start an action for assault? But the gospel forbids it. Do you not demand rational right in this world, do you not grumble at the slightest raising of taxes, are you not beside yourself at the least infringement of your personal liberty? But you have been told that suffering in this life is not to be compared with the bliss of the future, that passive sufferance and blissful hope are the cardinal virtues.

Are not most of your court cases and most of your civil laws concerned with property? But you have been told that your treasure is not of this world. Or if you plead that you render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's, then you should regard not only golden Mammon, but at least as much free reason, as the ruler of this world, and the “action of free reason” is what we call philosophising.

When it was proposed to form a quasi-religious union of states in the shape of the Holy Alliance and to make religion the state emblem of Europe, the Pope, with profound intelligence and perfect consistency, refused to join it, on the grounds that the universal Christian link between peoples is the church and not diplomacy, not a secular union of states.

The truly religious state is the theocratic state; the head of such states must he either the God of religion, Jehovah himself, as in the Jewish state, or God's representative, the Dalai Lama, as in Tibet, or finally, as Görres rightly demands in his recent book, all the Christian states must subordinate themselves to a church which is an “infallible church”. For where, as under Protestantism, there is no supreme head of the church, the rule of religion is nothing but the religion of rule, the cult of the government's will.

Once a state includes several creeds having equal rights, it can no longer be a religious state without being a violation of the rights of the particular creeds, a church which condemns all adherents of a different creed as heretics, which makes every morsel of bread depend on one's faith, and which makes dogma the link between individuals and their existence as citizens of the state. Ask the Catholic inhabitants of “poor green Erin”,' ask the Huguenots before the French revolution; they did not appeal to religion, for their religion was not the state religion; they appealed to the “Rights of Humanity”, and philosophy interprets the rights of humanity and demands that the state should he a state of human nature.

But, according to the assertions of half-hearted, narrow-minded rationalism, which is in equal measure unbelieving and theological, the general spirit of Christianity, irrespective of differences of creed, should be the spirit of the state! It is the greatest irreligion, it is the arrogance of secular reason, to divorce the general spirit of religion from actually existing religion. This separation of religion from its dogmas and institutions is tantamount to asserting that the general spirit of the law ought to prevail in the state irrespective of particular laws and positive legal institutions.

If you presume yourself raised so high above religion that you are entitled to separate its general spirit from its positive provisions, how can you reproach the philosophers if they carry out this separation completely and not halfway, if they call the general spirit of religion the human spirit, and not the Christian spirit?

Christians live in states with different political constitutions, some in a republic, others in an absolute monarchy, and others again in a constitutional monarchy. Christianity does not decide whether the constitutions are good, for it knows no distinction between them. It teaches, as religion is bound to teach: submit to authority, for all authority is from God. Therefore, you must judge the rightfulness of state constitutions not on the basis of Christianity, but on the basis of the state's own nature and essence, not on the basis of the nature of Christian society, but on the basis of the nature of human society.

The Byzantine state was the real religious state, for in it dogmas were questions of state, but the Byzantine state was the worst of states. The states of the ancien régime were the most Christian states of all; nevertheless, they were states dependent on the “will of the court”.

There exists a dilemma in the face of which “common” sense is powerless.

Either the Christian state corresponds to the concept of the state as the realisation of rational freedom, and then the state only needs to be a rational state in order to he a Christian state and it suffices to derive the state from the rational character of human relations, a task which philosophy accomplishes; or the state of rational freedom cannot be derived from Christianity, and then you yourself will admit that this derivation is not intended by Christianity, since it does not want a bad state, and a state that is not the realisation of rational freedom is a bad state.

You may solve this dilemma in whatever way you like, you will have to admit that the state must be built on the basis of free reason, and not of religion. Only the crassest ignorance could assert that this theory, the. conversion of the concept of the state into an independent concept, is a passing whim of recent philosophers.

In the political sphere, philosophy has done nothing that physics, mathematics, medicine, and every science, have not done in their respective spheres. Bacon of Verulam said that theological physics was a virgin dedicated to God and barren, he emancipated physics from theology and it became fertile. just as you do not ask the physician whether he is a believer, you have no reason to ask the politician either. Immediately before and after the time of Copernicus' great discovery of the true solar system, the law of gravitation of the state was discovered, its own gravity was found in the state itself. The various European governments tried, in the superficial way of first practical attempts, to apply this result in order to establish a system of equilibrium of states. Earlier, however, Machiavelli and Campanella, and later Hobbes, Spinoza, Hugo Grotius, right down to Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel, began to regard the state through human eyes and to deduce its natural laws from reason and experience, and not from theology. In so doing, they were as little deterred as Copernicus was by the fact that Joshua bade the sun stand still over Gideon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. Recent philosophy has only continued the work begun by Heraclitus and Aristotle. You wage a polemic, therefore, not against the rational'character of recent philosophy, but against the ever new philosophy of reason. Of course, the ignorance. which perhaps only yesterday or the day before yesterday discovered for the first time age-old ideas about the state in the Rheinische or the Königsberger Zeitung, regards these ideas of history as having suddenly occurred to certain individuals overnight, because they are new to it and reached it only overnight; it forgets that it itself is assuming the old role of the doctor of the Sorbonne who considered it his duty to accuse Montesquieu publicly of being so frivolous as to declare that the supreme merit of the state was political, not ecclesiastical, virtue. It forgets that it is assuming the role of Joachim Lange, who denounced Wolff on the ground that his doctrine of predestination would lead to desertion by the soldiers and thus the weakening of military discipline, and in the long run the collapse of the state. Finally, it forgets that Prussian Law was derived from the philosophical school of precisely “this Wolff”, and that the French Napoleonic Code was derived not from the Old Testament, but from the school of ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, Mirabeau, and Montesquieu, and from the French revolution. Ignorance is a demon, we fear that it will yet be the cause of many a tragedy; the greatest Greek poets rightly depicted it as tragic fate in the soul-shattering dramas of the royal houses of Mycenae and Thebes.

Whereas the earlier philosophers of constitutional law proceeded in their account of the formation of the state from the instincts, either of ambition or gregariousness, or even from reason, though not social reason, but the reason of the individual, the more ideal and profound view of recent philosophy proceeds from the idea of the whole. It looks on the state as the great organism, in which legal, moral, and political freedom must be realised, and in which the individual citizen in obeying the laws of the state only obeys the natural laws of his own reason, of human reason. Sapienti sat.

In conclusion, we turn once more to the Kölnische Zeitung with a few philosophical words of farewell. It was very sensible of it to take a liberal “of a former day” into its service. One can very conveniently be both liberal and reactionary if only one is always adroit enough to address oneself to the liberals of the recent past who know no other dilemma than that of Vidocq: either “prisoner or gaoler”. It was still more sensible for the liberals of the recent past to join issue with the liberals of the present time. Without parties there is no development, without demarcation there is no progress. We hope that the leading article in No. 179 has opened a new era for the Kölnische Zeitung, the era of character.

 

Articles in Rheinische Zeitung 1842

Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly.

Third Article.

Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood

---

Written: October 1842 [88];

First published: in the Supplement to the Rheinische
Zeitung, Nos. 298, 300, 303, 305 and 307, October 25, 27 and 30, November 1 and 3, 1842;

Translated: by Clemens Dutt.

Signed: a Rhinelander;

Transcribed: by [email protected], November 1996.

---

Rheinische Zeitung, No. 298, Supplement, October 25 1842

RZ editorial note:

"We regret that we have not been able to publish the second article for our readers.

Editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung."

So far we have described two most important state
acts of the Provincial Assembly, namely, its confusion over freedom of
the press and its unfreedom in regard to the confusion. [2]
We have now come down to ground level. Before we proceed to the really
earthly question in all its life-size, the question of the parcellation
of landed property, we shall give our readers some genre pictures which
reflect in manifold ways the spirit and, we might say, even the actual
physical nature of the Assembly.

It is true that the law on thefts of wood, like the law on offences
in regard to hunting, forests and fields, deserves to be discussed not
only in relation to the Assembly but equally on its own account. However,
we do not have the draft of the law before us. Our material is limited
to some vaguely indicated additions made by the Assembly and its commission
to laws that figure only as paragraph numbers. The Assembly proceedings
themselves are reported so extremely meagerly, incoherently and apocryphally
that the report looks like an attempt at mystification. To judge from the
truncated torso available to us, the Assembly wanted by this passive quietude
to pay an act of respect to our province.

One is immediately struck by a fact which is characteristic of
these debates. The Assembly acts as a supplementary legislator alongside
the state legislator. It will prove most interesting to examine the legislative
qualities of the Assembly by means of an example. In view of this, the
reader will forgive us for demanding from him patience and endurance, two
virtues which had to be constantly exercised in analysing our barren subject-matter.
In our account of the Assembly debates on the law on thefts we are directly
describing the Assembly's debates on its legislative function.

At the very beginning of the debate, one of the urban deputies
objected to the title of the law, which extends the category of
"theft" to include simple offences against forest regulations.

A deputy of the knightly estate replied:

"It is precisely because the pilfering of wood is not regarded as theft
that it occurs so often."

By analogy with this, the legislator would have to draw the conclusion:
It is because a box on the ear is not regarded as murder that it has become
so frequent. It should be decreed therefore that a box on the ear is murder.

Another deputy of the knightly estate finds it

"still more risky not to pronounce the word 'theft', because people
who become acquainted with the discussion over this word could easily be
led to believe that the Assembly does not regard the pilfering of wood
also as theft".

The Assembly has to decide whether it considers pilfering of wood as theft;
but if the Assembly does not declare it to be theft, people could believe
that the Assembly really does not regard the pilfering of wood as theft.
Hence it is best to leave this ticklish controversial question alone. It
is a matter of a euphemism and euphemisms should be avoided. The forest
owner prevents the legislator from speaking, for walls have ears.

The same deputy goes even further. He regards this whole examination
of the expression "theft" as

"a dangerous preoccupation with correcting formulations on the
part of the plenary assembly".

After these illuminating demonstrations, the Assembly voted the title of
the law.

From the point of view recommended above, which mistakes the conversion
of a citizen into a thief for a mere negligence in formulation and rejects
all opposition to it as grammatical purism, it is obvious that even the
pilfering of fallen wood or the gathering of dry wood is included
under the heading of theft and punished as severely as the stealing of
live growing timber.

It is true that the above-mentioned urban deputy remarks:

"Since the punishment could run to a long term of imprisonment, such
severity would lead people who otherwise followed an honest path on to
the path of crime. That would happen also because in prison they would
be in the company of inveterate thieves; therefore he considered that the
gathering or pilfering of dry fallen wood should be punished by a simple
police penalty."

Another urban deputy, however, refuted him with the profound argument

"that in the forest areas of his region, at first only gashes were
made in young trees, and later, when they were dead, they were treated
as fallen wood".

It would be impossible to find a more elegant and at the same time more
simple method of making the right of human beings give way to that of young
trees. On the one hand, after the adoption of the paragraph, it is inevitable
that many people not of a criminal disposition are cut off from the green
tree of morality and cast like fallen wood into the hell of crime, infamy
and misery. On the other hand, after rejection of the paragraph, there
is the possibility that some young trees may be damaged, and it needs hardly
be said that the wooden idols triumph and human beings are sacrificed!

The supreme penal code [3] includes under theft
of wood only the pilfering of hewn wood and the cutting of wood for the
purpose of theft. Indeed -- our Provincial Assembly will not believe it
-- it states:

"If, however, in daytime someone takes fruit for eating and by its
removal does no great damage, then, taking into account his personal position
and the circumstances, he is to be punished by civil" (therefore, not criminal!)
"proceedings."

The supreme penal code of the sixteenth century requests us to defend it
against the charge of excessive humanity made by a Rhine Province Assembly
of the nineteenth century, and we comply with this request.

The gathering of fallen wood and the most composite wood theft!
They both have a common definition. The appropriation of wood from someone
else. Therefore both are theft. That is the sum and substance of the far-sighted
logic which has just issued laws.

First of all, therefore, we call attention to the difference
between them, and if it must be admitted that the two actions are essentially
different, it can hardly be maintained that they are identical from the
legal standpoint.

In order to appropriate growing timber, it has to be forcibly
separated from its organic association. Since this is an obvious outrage
against the tree, it is therefore an obvious outrage against the owner
of the tree.

Further, if felled wood is stolen from a third person, this felled
wood is material that has been produced by the owner. Felled wood is wood
that has been worked on. The natural connection with property has been
replaced by an artificial one. Therefore anyone who takes away felled wood
takes away property

In the case of fallen wood, on the contrary, nothing has been
separated from property. It is only what has already been separated from
property that is being separated from it. The wood thief pronounces on
his own authority a sentence on property. The gatherer of fallen wood only
carries out a sentence already pronounced by the very nature of the property,
for the owner possesses only the tree, but the tree no longer possesses
the branches that have fallen from it.

The gathering of fallen wood and the theft of wood are therefore
essentially different things. The objects concerned are different, the
actions in regard to them are no less different hence the frame of mind
must also be different, for what objective standard can be applied to the
frame of mind other than the content of the action and its form? But, in
spite of this essential difference, you call both of them theft and punish
both of them as theft. Indeed, you punish the gathering of fallen wood
more severely than the theft of wood, for you punish it already by declaring
it to be theft, a punishment which you obviously do not pronounce on the
actual theft of wood. You should have called it murder of wood and punished
it as murder. The law is not exempt from the general obligation to tell
the truth. It is doubly obliged to do so, for it is the universal and authentic
exponent of the legal nature of things. Hence the legal nature of things
cannot be regulated according to the law; on the contrary, the law must
be regulated according to the legal nature of things. But if the law applies
the term theft to an action that is scarcely even a violation of forest
regulations, then the law lies, and the poor are sacrificed to a
legal lie.

"Il y a deux genres de corruption," says Montesquieu, "l'un lorsque
le peuple n'observe point les lois; l'autre lorsqu'il est corrompu par
les lois; mal incurable parce qu'il est dans le remède même."
[a]

You will never succeed in making us believe that there is a crime where
there is no crime, you will only succeed in converting crime itself into
a legal act. You have wiped out the boundary between them, but you err
if you believe that you have done so only to your advantage. The people
sees the punishment, but it does not see the crime, and because it sees
punishment where there is no crime, it will see no crime where there is
punishment. By applying the category of theft where it ought not to be
applied, you have also exonerated it where this category ought to be applied.

And does not this crude view, which lays down a common definition
for different kinds of action and leaves the difference out of account,
itself bring about its own destruction ? If every violation of property
without distinction, without a more exact definition, is termed theft,
will not all private property be theft? By my private ownership do I not
exclude every other person from this ownership? Do I not thereby violate
his right of ownership? If you deny the difference between essentially
different kinds of the same crime, you are denying that crime itself is
different from right, you are abolishing right itself, for every
crime has an aspect in common with right. Hence it is a fact, attested
equally by history and reason, that undifferentiated severity makes punishment
wholly unsuccessful, for it does away with punishment as a success for
right.

But what are we arguing about? The Assembly, it is true, repudiates
the difference between gathering fallen wood, infringement of forest regulations,
and theft of wood. It repudiates the difference between these actions,
refusing to regard it as determining the character of the action, when
it is a question of the interests of the infringers of forest regulations,
but it recognises this difference when it is a question of the interests
of the forest owners.

Thus the commission proposes the following addition:

"to regard it as an aggravating circumstance if growing timber is hewn
or cut off with edged tools and if a saw is used instead of an axe".

The Assembly approves this distinction. The same keen-sightedness which
so conscientiously distinguishes between an axe and a saw when it is a
matter of its own interests, is so lacking in conscience as to refuse to
distinguish between fallen wood and growing wood when it is a question
of other people's interests. The difference was found to be important as
an aggravating circumstance but without any significance as a mitigating
circumstance, although the former cannot exist if the latter is impossible.

The same logic occurred repeatedly during the debate.

In regard to §65, an urban deputy desired

"that the value of the stolen wood also should be used as a
measure for fixing the punishment", "which was opposed by the commission's
spokesman as unpractical."

The same urban deputy remarked in connection with §66:

"in general there is missing from the whole law any statement of value,
in accordance with which the punishment would be increased or diminished".

The importance of value in determining punishment for violations of property
is self-evident.

If the concept of crime involves that of punishment, the actual
crime calls for a measure of punishment. An actual crime has its limit.
The punishment will therefore have to be limited in order to be actual,
it must be limited in accordance with a principle of law in order to be
just. The problem is to make the punishment the actual consequence of the
crime. It must be seen by the criminal as the necessary result of his act,
and therefore as his own act. Hence the limit of his punishment
must be the limit of his act. The definite content of a violation
of the law is the limit of a definite crime. The measure of this
content is therefore the measure of the crime. In the case of property
this measure is its value Whereas personality, whatever its limits,
is always a whole, property always exists only within a definite limit
that is not only determinable but determined, not only measurable but measured.
Value is the civil mode of existence of property, the logical expression
through which it first becomes socially comprehensible and communicable.
It is clear that this objective defining element provided by the nature
of the object itself must likewise be the objective and essential defining
element for the punishment. Even if legislation here, where it is a matter
of figures, can only be guided by external features so as not to be lost
in an infinitude of definitions, it must at least regulate. It is not a
question of an exhaustive definition of differences, but of establishing
differences. But the Assembly was not at all disposed to devote its distinguished
attention to such trifles.

But do you consider then that you can conclude that the Assembly
completely excluded value in determining punishment? That would be an ill-considered,
unpractical conclusion! The forest owner -- we shall deal with this later
in more detail -- does not merely demand to be compensated by the thief
for the simple general value. He even gives this value an individual character
and bases his demand for special compensation on this poetic individuality.
We can now understand what the commission's spokesman understands by practical.
The practical forest owner argues as follows: This legal definition is
good insofar as it is useful to me, for what is useful to me is good. But
this legal definition is superfluous, it is harmful, it is unpractical,
insofar as it is intended to be applied to the accused on the basis of
a purely theoretical legal whim. Since the accused is harmful to me, it
stands to reason that everything is harmful to me that lessens the harm
coming to him. That is practical wisdom.

We unpractical people, however, demand for the poor, politically
and socially propertyless many what the learned and would-be learned servility
of so-called historians has discovered to be the true philosopher's stone
for turning every sordid claim into the pure gold of right. We demand for
the poor a customary right, and indeed one which is not of a local
character but is a customary right of the poor in all countries. We go
still further and maintain that a customary right by its very nature can
only be a right of this lowest, propertyless and elemental mass.

The so-called customs of the privileged classes are understood
to mean customs contrary to the law. Their origin dates to the period
in which human history was part of natural history, and in which,
according to Egyptian legend, all gods concealed themselves in the shape
of animals. Mankind appeared to fall into definite species of animals which
were connected not by equality, but by inequality, an inequality fixed
by laws. The world condition of unfreedom required laws expressing this
unfreedom, for whereas human law is the mode of existence of freedom, this
animal law is the mode of existence of unfreedom. Feudalism in the
broadest sense is the spiritual animal kingdom, the world of divided
mankind, in contrast to the human world that creates its own distinctions
and whose inequality is nothing but a refracted form of equality. In the
countries of naive feudalism, in the countries of the caste system, where
in the literal sense of the word people are put in separate boxes [b],
and the noble, freely interchanging members of the great sacred body, the
holy Humanus, are sawn and cleft asunder, forcibly torn apart, we find
therefore also the worship of animals, animal religion in its primitive
form, for man always regards as his highest being that which is his true
being. The sole equality to be found in the actual life of animals is the
equality between one animal and other animals of the same species; it is
the equality of the given species with itself, but not the equality of
the genus. The animal genus itself is seen only in the hostile behaviour
of the different animal species, which assert their particular distinctive
characteristics one against another. In the stomach of the beast of
prey, nature has provided the battlefield of union, the crucible of
closest fusion, the organ connecting the various animal species.

Similarly, under feudalism one species feeds at the expense of
another, right down to the species which, like the polyp, grows on the
ground and has only numerous arms with which to pluck the fruits of the
earth for higher races while it itself eats dust for whereas in the natural
animal kingdom the worker bees kill the drones, in the spiritual animal
kingdom the drones kill the worker bees, and precisely by labour. When
the privileged classes appeal from legal right to their customary
rights, they are demanding instead of the human content of right, its
animal form, which has now lost its reality and become a mere animal mask.

---

Rheinische Zeitung, No. 300, Supplement, October 27 1842

The customary rights of the aristocracy conflict
by their content with the form of universal law. They cannot be
given the form of law because they are formations of lawlessness. The fact
that their content is contrary to the form of law -- universality and necessity
-- proves that they are customary wrongs and cannot be asserted
in opposition to the law, but as such opposition they must be abolished
and even punished if the occasion arises, for no one's action ceases to
be wrongful because it is his custom, just as the bandit son of a robber
is not exonerated because banditry is a family idiosyncrasy. If someone
intentionally acts contrary to law he is punished for his intention; if
he acts by custom, this custom of his is punished as being a bad custom.
At a time when universal laws prevail, rational customary right is nothing
but the custom of legal right, for right has not ceased to be custom
because it has been embodied in law, although it has ceased to be merely
custom. For one who acts in accordance with right, right becomes his own
custom, but it is enforced against one who violates it, although it is
not his custom. Right no longer depends on chance, on whether custom is
rational or not, but custom becomes rational because right is legal, because
custom has become the custom of the state.

Customary right as a separate domain alongside legal right
is therefore rational only where it exists alongside and in addition
to law, where custom is the anticipation of a legal right. Hence
one cannot speak of the customary rights of the privileged estates. The
law recognises not only their rational right but often even their irrational
pretensions. The privileged estates have no right of anticipation in regard
to law, for law has anticipated all possible consequences of their right.
Hence, too, the customary rights are demanded only as a domain for menus
plaisirs [c], in order that the same content which
is dealt with in the law inside its rational limits should find in custom
scope for whims and pretensions outside these rational limits.

But whereas these customary rights of the aristocracy are customs
which are contrary to the conception of rational right, the customary rights
of the poor are rights which are contrary to the customs of positive law.
Their content does not conflict with legal form, but rather with its own
lack of form. The form of law is not in contradiction to this content,
on the contrary, the latter has not yet reached this form. Little thought
is needed to perceive how one-sidedly enlightened legislation has
treated and been compelled to treat the customary rights of the poor,
of which the various Germanic rights [4] can be
considered the most prolific source.

In regard to civil law, the most liberal legislations have
been confined to formulating and raising to a universal level those rights
which they found already in existence. Where they did not find any such
rights, neither did they create any. They abolished particular customs,
but in so doing forgot that whereas the wrong of the estates took the form
of arbitrary pretensions, the right of those without social estate appeared
in the form of accidental concessions. This course of action was correct
in regard to those who, besides right, enjoyed custom, but it was incorrect
in regard to those who had only customs without rights. Just as these legislations
converted arbitrary pretensions into legal claims, insofar as some rational
content of right was to be found in those pretensions, they ought also
to have converted accidental concessions into necessary ones. We can make
this clear by taking the monasteries as an example. The monasteries were
abolished, their property was secularised, and it was right to do so. But
the accidental support which the poor found in the monasteries was not
replaced by any other positive source of income. When the property of the
monasteries was converted into private property and the monasteries received
some compensation, the poor who lived by the monasteries were not compensated.
On the contrary, a new restriction was imposed on them, while they were
deprived of an ancient right. This occurred in all transformations of privileges
into rights. A positive aspect of these abuses -- which was also an abuse
because it turned a right of one side into something accidental -- was
abolished not by the accidental being converted into a necessity, but by
its being left out of consideration.

These legislations were necessarily one-sided, for all customary
rights of the poor were based on the fact that certain forms of property
were indeterminate in character, for they were not definitely private property,
but neither were they definitely common property, being a mixture of private
and public right, such as we find in all the institutions of the Middle
Ages. For the purpose of legislation, such ambiguous forms could be grasped
only by understanding, and understanding is not only one-sided, but has
the essential function of making the world one-sided, a great and remarkable
work, for only one-sidedness can extract the particular from the unorganised
mass of the whole and give it shape. The character of a thing is a product
of understanding. Each thing must isolate itself and become isolated in
order to be something. By confining each of the contents of the world in
a stable definiteness and as it were solidifying the fluid essence of this
content, understanding brings out the manifold diversity of the world,
for the world would not be many-sided without the many one-sidednesses.

Understanding therefore abolished the hybrid, indeterminate forms
of property by applying to them the existing categories of abstract civil
law, the model for which was available in Roman law. The legislative mind
considered it was the more justified in abolishing the obligations of this
indeterminate property towards the class of the very poor, because it also
abolished the state privileges of property. It forgot, however, that even
from the standpoint of civil law a twofold private right was present here:
a private right of the owner and a private right of the non-owner and this
apart from the fact that no legislation abolishes the privileges of property
under constitutional law, but merely divests them of their strange character
and gives them a civil character. If, however, every medieval form of right,
and therefore of property also, was in every respect hybrid, dualistic,
split into two, and understanding rightly asserted its principle of unity
in respect of this contradictory determination, it nevertheless overlooked
the fact that there exist objects of property which, by their very nature,
can never acquire the character of predetermined private property, objects
which, by their elemental nature and their accidental mode of existence,
belong to the sphere of occupation rights, and therefore of the occupation
right of that class which precisely because of these occupation rights,
is excluded from all other property and which has the same position in
civil society as these objects have in nature.

It will be found that the customs which are customs of the entire
poor class are based with a sure instinct on the indeterminate aspect
of property; it will be found not only that this class feels an urge to
satisfy a natural need, but equally that it feels the need to satisfy a
rightful urge. Fallen wood provides an example of this. Such wood has as
little organic connection with the growing tree as the cast-off skin has
with the snake. Nature itself presents as it were a model of the antithesis
between poverty and wealth in the shape of the dry, snapped twigs and branches
separated from organic life in contrast to the trees and stems which are
firmly rooted and full of sap, organically assimilating air, light, water
and soil to develop their own proper form and individual life. It is a
physical representation of poverty and wealth. Human poverty senses this
kinship and deduces its right to property from this feeling of kinship.
If, therefore, it claims physical organic wealth for the predetermined
property owners, it claims physical poverty for need and its fortuity.
In this play of elemental forces, poverty senses a beneficent power more
humane than human power. The fortuitous arbitrary action of privileged
individuals is replaced by the fortuitous operation of elemental forces,
which take away from private property what the latter no longer voluntarily
foregoes. Just as it is not fitting for the rich to lay claim to alms distributed
in the street, so also in regard to these alms of nature. But it
is by its activity, too, that poverty acquires its right. By its
act of gathering, the elemental class of human society appoints
itself to introduce order among the products of the elemental power of
nature. The position is similar in regard to those products which, because
of their wild growth, are a wholly accidental appendage of property and,
if only because of their unimportance, are not an object for the activity
of the actual owner. The same thing holds good also in regard to gleaning
after the harvest and similar customary rights.

In these customs of the poor class, therefore, there is an instinctive
sense of right; their roots are positive and legitimate, and the form of
customary right here conforms all the more to nature because up
to now the existence of the poor class itself has been a mere
custom of civil society, a custom which has not found an appropriate
place in the conscious organisation of the state.

The debate in question affords an example of the way in which
these customary rights are treated, an example which exhaustively illustrates
the method and spirit of the whole procedure.

An urban deputy opposed the provision by which the gathering of
bilberries and cranberries is also treated as theft. He spoke primarily
on behalf of the children of the poor, who pick these fruits to earn a
trifling sum for their parents; an activity which has been permitted by
the owners since time immemorial and has given rise to a customary
right of the children. This fact was countered by another deputy, who
remarked that

"in his area these berries have already become articles of commerce
and are dispatched to Holland by the barrel".

In one locality, therefore, things have actually gone so far that
a customary right of the poor has been turned into a monopoly of
the rich. That is exhaustive proof that common property can be monopolised,
from which it naturally follows that it must be monopolised. The nature
of the object calls for monopoly because private property interests here
have invented this monopoly. The modern idea conceived by some money-grabbing
petty traders becomes irrefutable when it provides profit for the age-old
Teutonic landed interest.

The wise legislator will prevent crime in order not to have to
punish it, but he will do so not by obstructing the sphere of right, but
by doing away with the negative aspect of every instinct of right, giving
the latter a positive sphere of action. He will not confine himself to
removing the impossibility for members of one class to belong to
a higher sphere of right, but will raise their class itself to the real
possibility of enjoying its rights. But if the state is not humane,
rich and high-minded enough for this, it is at least the legislator's absolute
duty not to convert into a crime what circumstances alone have caused
to be an offence. He must exercise the utmost leniency in correcting
as a social irregularity what it would be the height of injustice
for him to punish as an anti-social crime. Otherwise he will be combating
the social instinct while supposing that he is combating its anti-social
form. In short, if popular customary rights are suppressed, the attempt
to exercise them can only be treated as the simple contravention of
a police regulation, but never punished as a crime. Punishment by police
penalties is an expedient to be used against an act which circumstances
characterise as a superficial irregularity not constituting any violation
of the eternal rule of law. The punishment must not inspire more repugnance
than the offence, the ignominy of crime must not be turned into the ignominy
of law, the basis of the state is undermined if misfortune becomes a crime
or crime becomes a misfortune. Far from upholding this point of view, the
Provincial Assembly does not observe even the elementary rules of legislation.

The petty, wooden, mean and selfish soul of interest sees only
one point, the point in which it is wounded, like a coarse person who regards
a passer-by as the most infamous, vilest creature under the sun because
this unfortunate creature has trodden on his corns. He makes his corns
the basis for his views and judgment, he makes the one point where the
passer-by comes into contact with him into the only point where the very
nature of this man comes into contact with the world. But a man may very
well happen to tread on my corns without on that account ceasing to be
an honest, indeed an excellent, man. Just as you must not judge people
by your corns, you must not see them through the eyes of your private interest.
[d] Private interest makes the one sphere in which a
person comes into conflict with this interest into this person's whole
sphere of life. It makes the law a rat-catcher, who wants only to
destroy vermin, for he is not a naturalist and therefore regards rats only
as vermin. But the state must regard the infringer of forest regulations
as something more than a wood-pilferer, more than an enemy to wood.
Is not the state linked with each of its citizens by a thousand vital nerves,
and has it the right to sever all these nerves because this citizen has
himself arbitrarily severed one of them? Therefore the state will
regard even an infringer of forest regulations as a human being, a living
member of the state, one in whom its heart's blood flows, a soldier who
has to defend his Fatherland, a witness whose voice must be heard by the
court, a member of the community with public duties to perform, the father
of a family, whose existence is sacred, and, above all, a citizen of the
state. The state will not light-heartedly exclude one of its members from
all these functions, for the state amputates itself whenever it turns a
citizen into a criminal. Above all, the moral legislator will consider
it a most serious, most painful, and most dangerous matter if an action
which previously was not regarded as blameworthy is classed among criminal
acts.

Interest, however, is practical, and nothing in the world is more
practical than to strike down one's enemy. "Hates any man the thing he
would not kill?" we are already told by Shylock. [e]
The true legislator should fear nothing but wrong, but the legislative
interest knows only fear of the consequences of rights, fear of the evil-doers
against whom the laws are made. Cruelty is a characteristic feature of
laws dictated by cowardice, for cowardice can be energetic only by being
cruel. Private interest, however, is always cowardly, for its heart, its
soul, is an external object which can always be wrenched away and injured,
and who has not trembled at the danger of losing heart and soul? How could
the selfish legislator be human when something inhuman, an alien material
essence, is his supreme essence? "Quand il a peur, il est terrible,"
[f] says the National about Guizot. These words
could be inscribed as a motto over all legislation inspired by self-interest,
and therefore by cowardice.

When the Samoyeds kill an animal, before skinning it they assure
it in the most serious tones that only Russians have done it this injury,
that it is being dismembered with a Russian knife, and therefore it should
revenge itself only on Russians. Even without any claim to be a Samoyed,
it is possible to turn the law into Russian knife. Let us see how
this is done.

In connection with §4, the commission proposed:

"At distances greater than two miles, the warden who makes the charge
determines the value according to the existing local price."

An urban deputy protested against this as follows:

"The proposal to allow the valuation of the stolen wood to be made
by the forester who brings the charge evokes serious doubt. Of course,
this official has our full confidence, but only as regards the fact, by
no means as regards the value. The latter should be determined according
to a valuation made by the local authorities and confirmed by the district
president. It is true that it has been proposed that §14, according
to which the penalty imposed should accrue to the forest owner, should
not be adopted", etc. "If §14 were to be retained. the proposed provision
would be doubly dangerous. For, in the nature of things, the forester who
is employed by the forest owner and paid by him would certainly have to
put the value of the stolen wood as high as possible."

The Provincial Assembly approved the proposal of the commission.

We see here the enactment of patrimonial jurisdiction. The patrimonial
warden is at the same time in part a judge. The valuation is part of the
sentence. Hence the sentence is already partly anticipated in the record
of the charge. The warden who made the charge sits in the collegium of
judges; he is the expert whose decision is binding for the court, he performs
a function from which the other judges are excluded by him. It is foolish
to oppose inquisitorial methods when there exist even patrimonial gendarmes
and denouncers who at the same time act as judges.

Apart from this fundamental violation of our institutions, it
is obvious from an examination of the qualifications of the warden who
makes the charge how little he is objectively able to be at the same time
the valuer of the stolen wood.

As warden, he personifies the protecting genius of the forest.
Protection, especially personal, physical protection, calls for an effective,
energetic and loving attitude to the object of his care, an attitude in
which he as it were coalesces with the growing forest. The forest must
be everything to him, its value for him must be absolute. The valuer's
attitude to the stolen wood, on the other hand, is one of sceptical distrust.
He measures it with a keen prosaic eye by an ordinary standard and reckons
how much it is worth in hellers and pfennigs. A warden and a valuer are
as different as a mineralogist and a trader in minerals. The forest warden
cannot estimate the value of the stolen wood, for in any record for the
court giving his estimate of the value of the stolen material he is estimating
his own value, because it is the value of his own activity, and
do you believe that he would not protect the value of the object
under his care as much as the substance of it?

The functions entrusted to one man, for whom severity is an official
duty, are contradictory not only in relation to the object under protection,
but also in relation to the persons concerned.

As guardian of the wood, the warden has to protect the interests
of the private owner, but as valuer he has just as much to protect the
interests of the infringer of forest regulations against the extravagant
demands of the private owner. While he has, perhaps, to use his fists on
behalf of the forest, he has immediately thereafter to use his brains on
behalf of the forest's enemy. While embodying the interests of the forest
owner, he has at the same time to be a guarantee against these same interests.

The warden, furthermore, is the denouncer. The charge he draws
up is a denunciation. The value of the object, therefore becomes the subject-matter
of the denunciation. The warden loses his dignity as a judge, and the function
of judge is most profoundly debased, because at that moment it is indistinguishable
from the function of denouncer.

Finally, this denouncing warden, who cannot rank as an expert,
whether in his capacity of denouncer or in that of warden, is in the pay
and service of the forest owner. One might just as well leave the valuation,
under oath, to the forest owner himself, since in the person of his warden
he has actually only assumed the shape of a third person.

Instead, however, of finding this position of the denouncing warden
even somewhat dubious, the Provincial Assembly, on the contrary, regarded
as dubious the sole provision which constitutes the last semblance of the
state's power in the realm of forest glory, namely, life appointment
of the denouncing wardens. This proposal evoked the most vehement protest,
and the storm seems hardly to have been allayed by the explanation of the
spokesman

"that already previous Provincial Assemblies had called for life appointment
of wardens to be abandoned, but that the government had not agreed to this
and regarded life appointment as a protection for the state's subjects."

At an earlier date, therefore, the Provincial Assembly had already tried
to bargain with the government so as to make it abandon protection for
its subjects, but the Assembly did not go beyond bargaining. Let us examine
the arguments, as generous as they are irrefutable, advanced against
life appointment.

A deputy from the rural communities

"finds that life appointment of wardens as a condition for confidence
in them is greatly to the detriment of the small forest owners; and another
deputy insists that protection must be equally effective for small and
big forest owners."

A member of the princely estate remarked

"that life appointment with private persons is very inadvisable, and
in France it has not been found at all necessary for ensuring confidence
in the records drawn up by the wardens, but that something must of necessity
be done to prevent infringements from increasing".

An urban deputy said:

"Credence must be given to all testimony of properly appointed and
sworn forest officials. Life appointment is, so to speak, an impossibility
for many communities, and especially for owners of small estates. A decision
that only forest officials who have been appointed for life should be trusted,
would deprive these owners of all forest protection. In a large part of
the province, communities and private owners would necessarily have to
entrust the protection of their wooded areas to field wardens, because
their forest area is not large enough to enable them to appoint special
foresters for it. It would indeed be strange if these field wardens, who
have also taken an oath to protect the forests, were not to enjoy complete
confidence when they reported a theft of wood, but were trusted when they
testified to the infringement of forest regulations."

---

Rheinische Zeitung, No. 303, Supplement, October 30, 1842

Thus town and countryside and the
princely estate have had their say. Instead of smoothing out the
difference between the rights of the infringer of forest regulations and
the claims of the forest owner, they found that this difference was not
great enough. There was no attempt to afford equal protection to the forest
owner and the infringer of forest regulations, it was only sought to make
the protection of the small forest owner equal to that of the big forest
owner. In this latter case, equality down to the minutest detail is imperative,
whereas in the former case inequality is an axiom. Why does the small forest
owner demand the same protection as the big forest owner? Because both
are forest owners. But are not both the forest owners and the infringers
of forest regulations citizens of the state? If small and big forest owners
have the same right to protection by the state, does this not apply even
more to small and big citizens of the state?

When the member of the princely estate refers to France -- for
interest knows no political antipathies -- he only forgets to add that
in France the warden's charge concerns the fact but not the value. Similarly,
the worthy urban spokesman forgets that it is inadmissible to rely on a
field warden here because it is a matter not only of registering a theft
of wood but also of establishing the value of the wood.

What is the gist of all the arguments we have just heard? It is
that the small forest owner does not have the means for appointing
a warden for life. What follows from this? It follows that the small forest
owner is not entitled to undertake this task. But what conclusion is drawn
by the small forest owner? That he is entitled to appoint a warden as a
valuer who can be given notice of dismissal. His lack of means entitles
him to a privilege.

Moreover, the small forest owner does not have the means to support
an independent collegium of judges. Therefore let the state and
the accused manage without an independent collegium of judges, let a manservant
of the small forest owner have a seat on the tribunal, or if he has no
manservant, let it be his maidservant; and if he has no maidservant, let
him sit there himself. Has not the accused the same right in regard to
the executive power, which is an organ of the state, as he has in regard
to the judicial power? Why then should not the tribunal also be organised
in accordance with the means of the small forest owner?

Can the relation between the state and the accused be altered
because of the meagre resources of a private person, the forest owner?
The state has a right in relation to the accused because it confronts him
as the state. An immediate consequence of this is its duty to act towards
the law-breaker as the state and in the manner of the state. The state
has not only the means to act in a way which is as appropriate to its reason,
its universality, and its dignity as it is to the right, the life and the
property of the incriminated citizen; it is its absolute duty to possess
and apply these means. No one will make this demand of the forest owner,
whose forest is not the state and whose soul is not the soul of the state.
-- But what conclusion was drawn from that? It was concluded that since
private property does not have means to raise itself to the standpoint
of the state, the latter is obliged to lower itself to the irrational and
illegal means of private property.

This claim on the part of private interest, the paltry soul of
which was never illuminated and thrilled by thought of the state, is a
serious and sound lesson for the latter. If the state, even in a single
respect, stoops so low as to act in the manner of private property instead
of in its own way, the immediate consequence is that it has to adapt itself
in the form of its means to the narrow limits of private property. Private
interest is sufficiently crafty to intensify this consequence to the point
where private interest in its most restricted and paltry form makes itself
the limit and rule for the action of the state. As a result of this, apart
from the complete degradation of the state, we have the reverse effect
that the most irrational and illegal means are put into operation against
the accused; for supreme concern for the interests of limited private property
necessarily turns into unlimited lack of concern for the interests of the
accused. But if it becomes clearly evident here that private interest seeks
to degrade, and is bound to degrade, the state into a means operating for
the benefit of private interest, how can it fail to follow that a body
representing private interests, the estates, will seek to degrade,
and is bound to degrade, the state to the thoughts of private interest?
Every modern state, however little it corresponds to its concept, will
be compelled to exclaim at the first practical attempt at such legislative
power: Your ways are not my ways, your thoughts are not my thoughts!

How completely unsound the temporary hiring of a denouncing warden
is, cannot be more glaringly shown than by an argument advanced against
life appointment, which cannot be attributed to a slip of the tongue, for
it was read out. The following remark, namely, was read out by an urban
deputy:

"Community forest wardens appointed for life are not, and cannot be,
under such strict control as royal officials. Every spur to loyal
fulfilment of duty is paralysed by life appointment. If the forest
warden only half performs his duty and takes care that he cannot be charged
with any real offence, he will always find sufficient advocacy in his favour
to make a proposal for his dismissal under §56 useless. In such circumstances
the interested parties will not even dare to put forward such a proposal."

We recall that it was decreed that the warden making the charge should
be given full confidence when it was a question of entrusting him with
the task of valuation. We recall that §4 was a vote of confidence
in the warden.

We now learn for the first time that the denouncing warden needs
to be controlled, and strictly controlled. For the first time he appears
not merely as a man, but as a horse, since spurs and fodder are the only
stimuli of his conscience, and the muscles for performing his duty are
not merely slackened but completely paralysed by life appointment. We see
that selfishness has a double set of weights and measures for weighing
and measuring people, and two world outlooks, two pairs of spectacles,
one showing everything black and the other in rosy tints. When it is a
matter of making other people the victim of its tools and giving a favourable
appearance to dubious means, selfishness puts on its rose-coloured spectacles,
which impart an imaginary glory to these tools and means, and deludes itself
and others with the unpractical, delightful dreaming of a tender and trusting
soul. Every wrinkle of its countenance expresses smiling bonhomie. It presses
its opponent's hand until it hurts, but it does so as a sign of its trust
in him. But suddenly it is a question of personal advantage, of carefully
testing the usefulness of tools and means behind the scenes where stage
illusions are absent. Being a strict judge of people, it cautiously and
distrustfully puts on its world-wise dark spectacles of practice. Like
an experienced horse-dealer it subjects people to a lengthy ocular inspection,
overlooking no detail, and they seem to it to be as petty, as pitiful,
and as dirty, as selfishness itself.

We do not intend to argue with the world outlook of selfishness,
but we want to compel it to be consistent. We do not want it to reserve
all worldly wisdom for itself and leave only fantasies for others. We want
to make the sophistical spirit of private interest abide for a moment by
its own conclusions.

If the warden making the charge is a man such as you describe,
a man whom life appointment, far from giving him a feeling of independence,
security and dignity in the performance of his duty, has, on the contrary,
deprived of any incentive to do his duty, how can we expect this man to
behave impartially towards the accused when he is the unconditional slave
of your arbitrary power? If only spurs force this man to do his duty, and
if you are the wearer of the spurs, what fate must we prophesy for the
accused, who wears no spurs? If even you yourself cannot exercise sufficiently
strict control over this warden, how can the state or the accused side
in the case control him? Does not what you say of life appointment apply
instead to an appointment that can be terminated: "if the forest warden
only half performs his duty, he will always find sufficient advocacy in
his favour to make a proposal for his dismissal under §56 useless"?
Would not all of you be advocates for him as long as he performed half
his duty, namely, the protection of your interests?

The conversion of naive, excessive confidence in the forest warden
into abusive, censorious distrust reveals the gist of the matter. It is
not in the forest warden but in yourselves that you place this tremendous
confidence which you want the state and the infringer of forest regulations
to accept as a dogma.

It is not the warden's official position, nor his oath, nor his
conscience that should be the guarantee of the accused against you; on
the contrary, your sense of justice, your humanity, your disinterestedness,
your moderation should be the guarantee of the accused against the forest
warden. Your control is his ultimate and only guarantee. Imbued with a
vague notion of your personal excellence, wrapt in poetic self-delight,
you offer the parties in the case your individual qualities as a means
of protection against your laws. I confess that I do not share this romantic
conception of the forest owners. I do not at all believe that persons can
be a guarantee against laws; on the contrary, I believe that laws must
be a guarantee against persons. And can even the most daring fantasy imagine
that men who in the noble work of legislation cannot for a moment rise
above the narrow, practically base standpoint of self-seeking to the theoretical
height of a universal and objective point of view, men who tremble even
at the thought of future disadvantages and seize on anything to defend
their interests, can these men become philosophers in the face of real
danger? But no one, not even the most excellent legislator, can be allowed
to put himself above the law he has made. No one has the right to decree
a vote of confidence in himself when it entails consequences for third
persons.

But whether it is permissible for you even to demand that people
should place special confidence in you, may be judged from the following
facts.

"He must oppose §87," stated an urban deputy, "since its provisions
would give rise to extensive and fruitless investigations, as a result
of which personal freedom and freedom of intercourse would be violated.
It is not permissible beforehand to regard everyone as a criminal and to
assume a crime before having proof that it has been committed."

Another urban deputy said that the paragraph ought to be deleted. The vexatious
provision that "everyone has to prove where he obtained his wood", with
the result that everyone could be under suspicion of stealing and concealing
wood, was a gross and injurious intrusion into the life of the citizen.
The paragraph was adopted.

In truth, you presume too much on people's inconsistency if you
expect them to proclaim as a maxim that distrust is to their detriment
and confidence is to your advantage, and if you expect their confidence
and distrust to see through the eyes of your private interest and feel
through the heart of your private interest.

Yet another argument is advanced against life appointment, an
argument of which it is impossible to say whether it is more calculated
to evoke contempt or ridicule.

"It is also impermissible that the free will of private persons
should be so greatly restricted in this way, for which reason only
appointments that can be terminated should be allowed."

The news that man possesses free will which must not be restricted in all
kinds of ways, is certainly as comforting as it is unexpected. The oracles
which we have so far heard have resembled the ancient oracle at Dodona.
[5] They are dispensed from wood. Free will, however,
does not have the quality of an estate. How are we to understand this sudden
rebellious emergence of ideology, for as far as ideas are concerned we
have before us only followers of Napoleon?

The will of the forest owner requires freedom to deal with the
infringer of forest regulations as it sees fit and in the way it finds
most convenient and least costly. This will wants the state to hand over
the evil-doer to it to deal with at its discretion. It demands plein
pouvoir. [g] It does not oppose the restriction of
free will it opposes the manner of this restriction, which is so
restrictive that it affects not only the infringer of forest regulations
but also the owner of the wood. Does not this free will want to have numerous
freedoms? Is it not a very free, an excellent, free will? And is it not
scandalous in the nineteenth century to dare to restrict "so greatly in
this way" the free will of those private persons who promulgate public
laws? It is, indeed, scandalous.

Even that obstinate reformer, free will, must join the adherents
of the good arguments headed by the sophistry of private interest. But
this free will must have good manners, it must be a cautious loyal free
will, one which is able to arrange itself in such a way that its sphere
coincides with the sphere of the arbitrary power of those same privileged
private persons. Only once has there been mention of free will, and on
this one occasion it appears in the shape of a squat private person who
hurls blocks of wood at the spirit of rational will. Indeed, what need
is there for this spirit where the will is chained to the most petty and
selfish interests like a galley-slave to his rowing bench?

The climax of this whole argument is summarised in the following
remark, which turns the relationship in question upside-down:

"While the royal forest wardens and gamekeepers may be appointed for
life, in the case of rural communities and private persons this evokes
the most serious misgivings."

As if the sole source of misgivings were not in that private servants act
here in the place of state officials! As if life appointment was not aimed
precisely against private persons, who are the ones that evoke misgivings!
Rien n'est plus terrible que la logique dans l'absurdité [h],
that is to say, nothing is more terrible than the logic of selfishness.

This logic, which turns the servant of the forest owner into a
state authority, turns the authority of the state into a servant of
the forest owner. The state structure, the purpose of the individual
administrative authorities, everything must get out of hand so that everything
is degraded into an instrument of the forest owner and his interest operates
as the soul governing the entire mechanism. All the organs of the state
become ears, eyes, arms, legs, by means of which the interest of the forest
owner hears, observes, appraises, protects, reaches out, and runs.

The commission proposed the addition to §62 of a conclusion
demanding that inability to pay be certified by the tax-collector, the
burgomaster and two local officials of the community in which the infringer
of forest regulations lives. A deputy from the rural communities considered
that to make use of the tax-collector was contrary to existing legislation.
Of course, no attention was paid to this contradiction.

In connection with §20, the commission proposed:

"In the Rhine Province the competent forest owner should be authorised
to hand over convicted persons to the local authority to perform penal
labour in such a way that their working days will be put to the account
of the manual services on communal roads which the forest owner is obliged
to render in the rural community, and accordingly subtracted from this
obligation."

Against this, the objection was raised

"that burgomasters cannot be used as executors for individual members
of the rural community and that the labour of convicts cannot be accepted
as compensation for the work which has to be performed by paid day-labourers
or servants".

The spokesman commented:

"Even if it is a burdensome task for the burgomasters to see that unwilling
and insubordinate prisoners convicted of infringing forest regulations
are made to work, nevertheless it is one of the functions of these officials
to induce disobedient and evil-minded persons in their charge to return
to the path of duty, and is it not a noble deed to lead the convict
away from the wrong road back to the right path? Who in the countryside
has more means of doing this than the burgomasters?"

Reineke put on an anxious and sorrowful mien

Which excited the pity of many a good-natured man,

Lampe, the hare, especially was sore distressed.

[J Goethe, Reineke Fuchs, Sechster Gesang]

The Provincial Assembly adopted the proposal.

---

Rheinische Zeitung, No. 305, Supplement, November 1 1842

The good burgomaster must undertake a burdensome
task and perform a noble deed in order that the forest owner can fulfil
his duty to the community without expense to himself. The forest owner
could with equal right make use of the burgomaster as a chief cook or head
waiter. Is it not a noble deed for the burgomaster to look after the kitchen
or cellar of those in his charge? The convicted criminal is not in the
charge of the burgomaster, but in the charge of the prison superintendent.
Does not the burgomaster lose the strength and dignity of his position
if, instead of representing the community, he is made an executor for individual
members, if he is turned from a burgomaster into a taskmaster? Will not
the other, free members of the community be insulted if their honest work
for the general good is degraded to the level of penal labour for the benefit
of particular individuals?

But it is superfluous to expose these sophistries. Let the spokesman
be so good as to tell us himself how worldly-wise people judge humane phrases.
He makes the forest owner address the following reply to the farm
owner who displays humanity:

"If some ears of corn are pilfered from a landowner, the thief would
say: 'I have no bread, so I take a few ears of corn from the large amount
you possess', just as the wood thief says: 'I have no firewood, so I steal
some wood.' The landowner is protected by Article 444 of the Criminal Code,
which punishes the taking of ears of corn with 2-5 years' imprisonment.
The forest owner has no such powerful protection!"

This last envious exclamation of the forest owner contains a whole confession
of faith. You farm owner, why are you so magnanimous where my interests
are concerned? Because your interests are already looked after. So let
there be no illusions! Magnanimity either costs nothing or brings something
in. Therefore, farm owner, you cannot deceive the forest owner! Therefore,
forest owner, do not deceive the burgomaster!

This intermezzo alone would suffice to prove what little meaning
"noble deeds" can have in our debate, if the whole debate did not prove
that moral and humane reasons occur here merely as phrases. But interest
is miserly even with phrases. It invents them only in case of need, when
the results are of considerable advantage. Then it becomes eloquent, its
blood circulates faster, it is not sparing even with noble deeds that yield
it profit at the expense of others, with flattering words and sugary endearments.
And all that, all of it, is exploited only in order to convert the infringement
of forest regulations into current coin for the forest owner, to make the
infringer of forest regulations into a lucrative source of income, to be
able to invest the capital more conveniently -- for the wood thief has
become a capital for the forest owner. It is not a question of misusing
the burgomaster for the benefit of the infringer of forest regulations,
but of misusing the burgomaster for the benefit of the forest owner. What
a remarkable trick of fate it is, what a remarkable fact, that on the rare
occasions when a problematic benefit for the infringer of forest regulations
is given a passing mention, the forest owner is guaranteed an unquestionable
benefit!

The following is yet another example of these humane sentiments!

Spokesman: "French law does not acknowledge the commutation
of imprisonment into forest labour; he considers this commutation a wise
and beneficial measure, for imprisonment does not always lead to reform
but very often to corruption."

Previously, when innocent persons were turned into criminals, when in connection
with the gathering of fallen wood a deputy remarked that in prison they
were brought into contact with inveterate thieves, prisons were said to
be good. Suddenly reformatories have been metamorphosed into institutions
for corruption, for at this moment it is of advantage to the interests
of the forest owner that prisons corrupt. By reform of the criminal is
understood improvement of the percentage of profit which it is the
criminal's noble function to provide for the forest owner.

Interest has no memory, for it thinks only of itself. And the
one thing about which it is concerned, itself, it never forgets.
But it is not concerned about contradictions, for it never comes into contradiction
with itself. It is a constant improviser, for it has no system, only expedients.

Whereas humane and rightful motives have no part to play except

Ce qu'au teal nous autres sots humains,

Nous appelons faire tapisserie, [i]

expedients are the most active agents in the argumentative mechanism of
private interest. Among these expedients, we note two that constantly recur
in this debate and constitute the main categories, namely, "good motives"
and "harmful results". We see sometimes the spokesman for the commission,
sometimes another member of the Assembly, defending every ambiguous provision
against hostile shafts of objections by means of the shield of shrewd,
wise and good motives. We see every conclusion drawn from the standpoint
of right rejected by referring to its harmful or dangerous results. Let
us examine for a moment these extensive expedients, these expedients par
excellence, these expedients covering everything and a little more.

Interest knows how to denigrate right by presenting a prospect
of harmful results due to its effects in the external world, it knows how
to whitewash what is wrong by ascribing good motives to it, that is, by
retreating into the internal world of its thoughts. Law produces bad results
in the external world among bad people wrong springs from good motives
in the breast of the honest man who decrees it; but both, the good motives
and the harmful results, have in common the peculiar feature that they
do not look at a thing in relation to itself, that they do not treat the
law as an independent object, but direct attention away from the law either
to the external world or to their own mind, that therefore they manoeuvre
behind the back of the law.

What are harmful results? Our whole account has shown that they
are not to be understood as harmful results for the state, the law, or
the accused. Moreover, we should like to make quite clear in a few lines
that they do not include harmful results for the safety of citizens.

We have already heard from members of the Assembly themselves
that the provision by which "everyone has to prove where he obtained his
wood" is a gross and injurious intrusion into the life of the citizen and
makes every citizen the victim of vexatious bullying. Another provision
declares that everyone in whose keeping stolen wood is found is
to be regarded as a thief, although a deputy stated:

"This could be dangerous for many an honest man. Wood stolen by someone
nearby might be thrown into his courtyard and the innocent man punished."

Under §66 any citizen who buys a broom that is not issued under monopoly
is punishable by hard labour from four weeks to two years. On this, an
urban deputy commented as follows:

"This paragraph threatens with hard labour each and every citizen of
the Elberfeld, Lennep and Solingen districts."

Finally, supervision and management of the game and forest police have
been made not only a right but a duty of the military, although
Article 9 of the Criminal Code speaks only of officials who are under the
supervision of state prosecutors and can therefore be the object of immediate
proceedings on the part of the latter, which is not the case with the military.
This is a threat both to the independence of the courts and to the freedom
and security of citizens.

Hence, far from there being any talk of possible harmful results
for the safety of citizens, their safety itself is treated as a circumstance
having harmful results.

What then are harmful results? Harmful is that which is harmful
to the interests of the forest owner. If, therefore, the law does not result
in the furtherance of his interests, its results are harmful. And in this
respect interest is keen-sighted. Whereas previously it did not see what
was obvious to the naked eye, it now sees even what is only visible through
a microscope. The whole world is a thorn in the side of private interest,
a world full of dangers, precisely because it is the world not of a single
interest but of many interests. Private interest considers itself the ultimate
purpose of the world. Hence if the law does not realise this ultimate purpose,
it becomes inexpedient law. Law which is harmful to private interests
is therefore law with harmful results.

Are good motives considered to be better than harmful results?

Interest does not think, it calculates. Motives are its figures.
Motive is an incentive for abolishing the basis of law, and who can doubt
that private interest will have many incentives for doing so? The goodness
of a motive lies in the casual flexibility with which it can set aside
the objective facts of the case and lull itself and others into the illusion
that it is not necessary to keep one's mind on what is good, but that it
suffices to have good thoughts while doing a bad thing.

Resuming the thread of our argument, we mention first of all a
side line to the noble deeds recommended to the Herr Burgomaster.

"The commission proposed an amended version of §34 along the following
lines: if the accused demands that the warden who drew up the charge be
summoned, then he must also deposit with the forestry court in advance
all the costs thereby incurred."

The state and the court must not do anything gratis in the interests of
the accused. They must demand payment in advance which obviously in advance
makes difficult any confrontation of the warden making the charge and the
accused.

A noble deed! Just one single noble deed! A kingdom for a noble
deed! But the only noble deed proposed is that which the Herr Burgomaster
has to perform for the benefit of the Herr Forest Owner. The burgomaster
is the representative of noble deeds, their humanised expression, and the
series of noble deeds is exhausted and ended for ever with the burden which
was imposed with melancholy sacrifice on the burgomaster.

If, for the good of the state and the moral benefit of the criminal,
the Herr Burgomaster must do more than his duty, should not the forest
owners, for the sake of the same good, demand less than their private
interest requires?

One might think that the reply to this question had been given
in the part of the debate already dealt with, but that is a mistake. We
come to the penal provisions.

"A deputy from the knightly estate considered that the forest owner
would still be inadequately compensated even if he received (over and above
the simple replacement of the value) the amount of the fine imposed, which
would often not be obtainable."

An urban deputy remarked:

"The provisions of this paragraph (§15) could have the most serious
consequences. The forest owner would receive in this way threefold
compensation, namely: the value, then the four-, six-, or eightfold fine,
and in addition a special sum as compensation for loss, which will often
be assessed quite arbitrarily and will be the result of a fiction rather
than of reality. In any case, it seemed necessary to him to direct that
the special compensation in question should be claimed at once at the forestry
court and awarded in the court's sentence. It was obvious from the nature
of the case that proof of loss sustained should be supplied separately
and could not be based merely on the warden's report."

Opposing this, the spokesman and another member explained how the additional
value mentioned here could arise in various cases indicated by them.
The paragraph was adopted.

Crime becomes a lottery in which the forest owner, if he is lucky,
can even win a prize. There can be additional value, but the forest owner,
who already receives the simple value, can also make a profitable business
out of the four-, six-, or eightfold fine. But if, besides the simple value,
he receives special compensation for loss, the four-, six-, or eightfold
fine is also sheer profit. If a member of the knightly estate thinks the
money accruing as a fine is an inadequate guarantee because it would often
not be obtainable, it would certainly not become more obtainable by the
value and the compensation for loss having to be recovered as well. We
shall see presently how this difficulty of receiving money from the accused
is overcome.

Could the forest owner have any better insurance for his wood
than that instituted here, whereby crime has been turned into a source
of income? Like a clever general he converts the attack against him into
an infallible opportunity for a profitable victory, since even the additional
value of the wood, an economic fantasy, is turned into a substance by theft.
The forest owner has to be guaranteed not only his wood, but also his wood
business, while the convenient homage he pays to his business manager,
the state, consists in not paying for its services It is a remarkable idea
to turn the punishment of crime from a victory of the law over attacks
on it into a victory of selfishness over attacks on selfishness.

In particular, however, we draw the attention of our readers to
the provision of §14, which compels us to abandon the customary idea
that leges barbarorum are laws of barbaric peoples. Punishment
as such, the restoration of the law, which must certainly be distinguished
from restitution of the value and compensation for loss, the restoration
of private property, is transformed from a public punishment into
a private compensation, the fines going not to the state treasury,
but to the private coffers of the forest owner.

True, an urban deputy stated: "This is contrary to the dignity
of the state and the principles of correct criminal jurisprudence", but
a deputy from the knightly estate appealed to the Assembly's sense of right
and fairness to protect the rights of the forest owner, that is to say,
he appealed to a special sense of right and fairness.

Barbaric peoples order the payment of a definite monetary compensation
(atonement money) to the injured person for a definite crime. The notion
of public punishment arose only in opposition to this view, which regards
a crime merely as an injury to the individual, but the people and the theory
have yet to be discovered which are so complacent as to allow an individual
to claim for himself both the private punishment and that imposed by the
state.

The Assembly of the Estates must have been led astray by a complete
qui pro quo. The law-giving forest owner confused for a moment his
two roles, that of legislator and that of forest owner. In one case as
a forest owner he made the thief pay him for the wood, and in the other
as a legislator he made the thief pay him for the thief's criminal frame
of mind, and it quite accidentally happened that in both cases it was
the forest owner who was paid. So we are no longer faced by the simple
droit du seigneur. [j] We have passed through
the era of public law to the era of double patrimonial right, patrimonial
right raised to the second power. The patrimonial property owners have
taken advantage of the progress of time, which is the refutation of their
demands, to usurp not only the private punishment typical of the barbaric
world outlook, but also the public punishment typical of the modern world
outlook.

Owing to the refunding of the value and in addition a special
compensation for loss, the relation between the wood thief and the forest
owner has ceased to exist, for the infringement of forest regulations has
been completely abolished. Both thief and property owner have returned
to their former state in its entirety. The forest owner has suffered by
the theft of wood only insofar as the wood has suffered, but not insofar
as the law has been violated. Only the sensuously perceptible aspect of
the crime affects him, but the criminal nature of the act does not consist
in the attack on the wood as a material object, but in the attack on the
wood as part of the state system, an attack on the right to property as
such, the realisation of a wrongful frame of mind. Has the forest owner
any private claims to a law-abiding frame of mind on the part of the thief?
And what is the multiplication of the punishment for a repetition of the
offence except a punishment for a criminal frame of mind? Can the forest
owner present private demands where he has no private claims? Was the forest
owner the state, prior to the theft of wood? He was not, but he becomes
it after the theft. The wood possesses the remarkable property that as
soon as it is stolen it bestows on its owner state qualities which previously
he did not possess. But the forest owner can only get back what has been
taken from him. If the state is given back to him -- and it is actually
given him when he is given not only a private right, but the state's right
over the law-breaker -- then he must have been robbed of the state, the
state must have been his private property. Therefore the wood thief, like
a second St. Christopher, bore the state itself on his back in the form
of the stolen wood.

Public punishment is satisfaction for the crime to the reason
of the state; it is therefore a right of the state, but it is a right which
the state can no more transfer to private persons than one person can hand
over his-conscience to another. Every right of the state in relation to
the criminal is at the same time a right of the criminal in relation to
the state. No interposing of intermediate links can convert the relation
of a criminal to the state into a relation between him and private persons.
Even if it were desired to allow the state to give up its rights, i.e.,
to commit suicide, such an abandonment of its obligations on the part of
the state would be not merely negligence, but a crime.

It is therefore as impossible for the forest owner to obtain from
the state a private right to public punishment as it is for him to have
any conceivable right, in and for himself, to impose public punishment.
If, in the absence of a rightful claim to do so, I make the criminal act
of a third person an independent source of income for myself, do I not
thus become his accomplice? Or am I any the less his accomplice because
to him falls the punishment and to me the fruit of the crime? The guilt
is not attenuated by a private person abusing his status as a legislator
to arrogate to himself rights belonging to the state because of a crime
committed by a third person. The embezzling of public, state funds is a
crime against the state, and is not the money from fines public money belonging
to the state?

The wood thief has robbed the forest owner of wood, but the forest
owner has made use of the wood thief to purloin the state itself.
How literally true this is can be seen from §19, the provisions of
which do not stop at imposing a fine but also lay claim to the body
and life of the accused. According to §19, the infringer of forest
regulations is handed over completely to the forest owner for whom he has
to perform forest labour. According to an urban deputy, this "could
lead to great inconvenience. He wished merely to call attention to the
danger of this procedure in the case of persons of the other sex".

A deputy from the knightly estate gave the following eternally
memorable reply:

"It is, indeed, as necessary as it is expedient when discussing a draft
law to examine and firmly establish its principles in advance, but once
this has been done, there can be no going back to them in discussing each
separate paragraph."

After this, the paragraph was adopted without opposition.

Be clever enough to start out from bad principles, and you cannot
fail to be rightfully entitled to the bad consequences. You might think,
of course, that the worthlessness of the principle would be revealed in
the abnormity of its consequences, but if you knew the world you would
realise that the clever man takes full advantage of every consequence of
what he has once succeeded in carrying through. We are only surprised that
the forest owner is not allowed to heat his stove with the wood thieves.
Since it is a question not of right, but of the principles which the Provincial
Assembly has chosen to take as its starting point, there is not the slightest
obstacle in the way of this consequence.

In direct contradiction to the dogma enunciated above, a brief
retrospective glance shows us how necessary it would have been to discuss
the principles afresh in respect of each paragraph; how, through the voting
on paragraphs which were apparently unconnected and far remote from one
another, one provision after another was surreptitiously slipped through,
and once the first has been put through in this way, then in regard to
the subsequent ones even the semblance of the condition under which
alone the first could be accepted was discarded.

---

Rheinische Zeitung, No. 307, Supplement, November 3 1842

When in connection with §4 the question arose
of entrusting valuation to the warden making the charge, an urban deputy
remarked:

"If the proposal that fines should be paid into the state treasury
is not approved, the provision under discussion will be doubly dangerous."

It is clear that the forest warden will not have the same motive for overestimating
if his valuation is made for the state and not for his employer. Discussion
of this point was skilfully avoided, the impression being given that §14,
which awards the money from the fine to the forest owner, could be rejected.
§4 was put through. After voting ten paragraphs, the Assembly arrived
at §14, by which §4 was given an altered and dangerous meaning.
But this connection was totally ignored; §14 was adopted, providing
for fines to be paid into the private coffers of the forest owners. The
main, indeed the only, reason adduced for this is that it is in the interests
of the forest owner, who is not adequately compensated by the replacement
of the simple value. But in §15 it has been forgotten that it was
voted that the fine should be paid to the forest owner and it is decreed
that he should receive, besides the simple value, a special compensation
for loss, because it was thought proper that he should have an additional
value, as if he had not already received such an addition thanks to the
fines flowing into his coffers. It was also pointed out that the fines
were not always obtainable from the accused. Thus the impression was
given that only in regard to the money was it intended to take the
place of the state, but in §19 the mask is discarded and a claim advanced
not only for the money, but for the criminal himself, not only for the
man's purse, but for himself.

At this point the method of the deception stands out in sharp
and undisguised relief, indeed in self-confessed clarity, for there is
no longer any hesitation to proclaim it as a principle.

The right to replacement of the simple value and compensation
for loss obviously gave the forest owner only a private claim against
the wood thief, for the implementation of which the civil courts were available.
If the wood thief is unable to pay, the forest owner is in the position
of any private person faced with an impecunious debtor, and, of course,
that does not give him any right to compulsory labour, corvée services,
or in short temporary serfdom of the debtor. What then is the basis
of this claim of the forest owner? The fine. As we have seen, by
appropriating the fine for himself, the forest owner claims not only his
private right, but also the state's right to the wood thief, and
so puts himself in the place of the state. In adjudging the fine to himself,
however, the forest owner has cleverly concealed that he has adjudged himself
the right of punishment itself. Whereas previously he spoke of the
fine simply as a sum of money, he now refers to it as a punishment
and triumphantly admits that by means of the fine he has converted a public
right into his private property. Instead of recoiling in horror before
this consequence, which is as criminal as it is revolting, people accept
it precisely because it is a consequence. Common sense may maintain that
it is contrary to our concept of right, to every kind of right, to hand
over one citizen to another as a temporary serf, but shrugging their shoulders,
people declare that the principle has been discussed, although there has
been neither any principle nor any discussion. In this way, by means of
the fine, the forest owner surreptitiously obtains control over the person
of the wood thief. Only §19 reveals the double meaning of §14.

Thus we see that §4 should have been impossible because of
§14, §14 because of §15, §15 because of §19, and
§19 itself is simply impossible and should have made impossible the
entire principle of the punishment, precisely because in it all the viciousness
of this principle is revealed.

The principle of divide et impere [divide and rule] could
not be more adroitly exploited. In considering one paragraph, no attention
is paid to the next one, and when the turn of that one comes, the previous
one is forgotten. One paragraph has already been discussed, the other has
not yet been discussed, so for opposite reasons both of them are raised
to a position above all discussion. But the acknowledged principle is "the
sense of right and fairness in protecting the interests of the forest owner",
which is directly opposed to the sense of right and fairness in protecting
the interests of those whose property consists of life, freedom, humanity,
and citizenship of the state, who own nothing except themselves.

We have, however, reached a point where the forest owner, in exchange
for his piece of wood, receives what was once a human being.

Shylock. Most learned judge! -- A sentence! come, prepare!

Portia. Tarry a little; there is something else. This bond
cloth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are "a pound
of flesh": Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; But, in the
cutting it, if thou cost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and
goods Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate Unto the state of Venice.

Gratiano. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!

Shylock. Is that the law?

Portia. Thyself shaft see the act.

[W. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene
1. -- Ed.]

You, too, should see the act!

What is the basis of your claim to make the wood thief into a
serf? The fine. We have shown that you have no right to the fine money.
Leaving this out of account, what is your basic principle? It is that the
interests of the forest owner shall be safeguarded even if this results
in destroying the world of law and freedom. You are unshakeably determined
that in some way or other the wood thief must compensate you
for the loss of your wood. This firm wooden foundation of your argument
is so rotten that a single breath of sound common sense is sufficient to
shatter it into a thousand fragments.

The state can and must say: I guarantee right against all contingencies.
Right alone is immortal in me, and therefore I prove to you the mortality
of crime by doing away with it. But the state cannot and must not say:
a private interest, a particular existence of property, a wooded plot of
land, a tree, a chip of wood (and compared to the state the greatest tree
is hardly more than a chip of wood) is guaranteed against all contingencies,
is immortal. The state cannot go against the nature of things, it cannot
make the finite proof against the conditions of the finite, against accident.
Just as your property cannot be guaranteed by the state against all contingencies
before a crime, so also a crime cannot convert this uncertain nature
of your property into its opposite. Of course, the state will safeguard
your private interests insofar as these can be safeguarded by rational
laws and rational measures of prevention, but the state cannot concede
to your private demand in respect of the criminal any other right than
the right of private demands, the protection given by civil jurisdiction.
If you cannot obtain any compensation from the criminal in this way owing
to his lack of means, the only consequence is that all legal means
to secure this compensation have come to an end. The world will not be
unhinged on that account, nor will the state forsake the sunlit path of
justice, but you will have learned that everything earthly is transitory,
which will hardly be a piquant novelty for you in view of your pure religiosity,
or appear more astonishing than storms, conflagrations or fevers. If, however,
the state wanted to make the criminal your temporary serf, it would be
sacrificing the immortality of the law to your finite private interests.
It would prove thereby to the criminal the mortality of the law, whereas
by punishment it ought to prove to him its immortality.

When, during the reign of King Philip, Antwerp could easily have
kept the Spaniards at bay by flooding its region, the butchers' guild would
not agree to this because they had fat oxen in the pastures. [6]
You demand that the state should abandon its spiritual region in order
to avenge your pieces of wood.

Some subsidiary provisions of §16 should also be mentioned.
An urban deputy remarked:

"According to existing legislation, eight days' imprisonment is reckoned
as equivalent to a fine of 5 talers. There is no sufficient reason for
departing from this." (Namely, for making it fourteen days instead of eight.)

The commission proposed the following addition to the same paragraph:

"that in no case a prison sentence should be less than 24 hours".

When someone suggested that this minimum was too great, a deputy from the
knightly estate retorted:

"The French forestry law does not have any punishment of less than
three days."

In the same breath as it opposed the provision of the French law by making
fourteen days' imprisonment instead of eight the equivalent of a fine of
5 talers, the Assembly, out of devotion to the French law, opposed the
three days being altered to 24 hours.

The above-mentioned urban deputy remarked further:

"It would be very severe at least to impose fourteen days' imprisonment
as an equivalent for a fine of 5 talers for pilfering wood, which after
all cannot be regarded as a crime deserving heavy punishment. The result
would be that one who has the means to buy his freedom would suffer simple
punishment, whereas the punishment of a poor person would be doubled."

A deputy from the knightly estate mentioned that in the neighbourhood of
Cleve many wood thefts took place merely in order to secure arrest and
prison fare. Does not this deputy from the knightly estate prove precisely
what he wants to refute, namely, that people are driven to steal wood by
the sheer necessity of saving themselves from starvation and homelessness?
Is this terrible need an aggravating circumstance?

The previously mentioned urban deputy said also:

"The cut in prison fare, which has already been condemned, must be
regarded as too severe and, especially in the case of penal labour,
quite impracticable."

A number of deputies denounced the reduction of food to bread and
water as being too severe. But a deputy from a rural community remarked
that in the Trier district the food cut had already been introduced and
had proved to be very effective.

Why did the worthy speaker find that the beneficial effect in
Trier was due precisely to bread and water and not, perhaps, to the intensification
of religious sentiment, about which the Assembly was able to speak
so much and so movingly? Who could have dreamed at that time that bread
and water were the true means for salvation? During certain debates one
could believe that the English Holy Parliament [7] had
been revived. And now? Instead of prayer and trust and song, we have bread
and water, prison and labour in the forest! How prodigal the Assembly is
with words in order to procure the Rhinelanders a seat in heaven! How prodigal
it is too, with words, in order that a whole class of Rhinelanders should
be fed on bread and water and driven with whips to labour in the forest
-- an idea which a Dutch planter would hardly dare to entertain in regard
to his Negroes. What does all this prove? That it is easy to be holy if
one is not willing to be human. That is the way in which the following
passage can be understood:

"A member of the Assembly considered the provision in §23 inhuman;
nevertheless it was adopted."

Apart from its inhumanity, no information was given about this paragraph.

Our whole account has shown how the Assembly degrades the executive
power, the administrative authorities, the life of the accused, the idea
of the state, crime itself, and punishment as well, to material means
of private interest. It will be found consistent, therefore, that the
sentence of the court also is treated as a mere means, and the legal
validity of the sentence as a superfluous prolixity.

"In §6 the commission proposed to delete the words 'legal!,
valid' since, in cases of judgment by default, their adoption would
give the wood thief a ready means of avoiding an increased punishment for
a repetition of the offence. Many deputies, however, protested against
this, declaring that it was necessary to oppose the commission's proposed
deletion of the expression 'legal!, valid sentence' in §6 of
the draft. This characterisation applied to sentences in this passage,
as also in the paragraph, was certainly not made without juridical consideration.
If every first sentence pronounced by the judge sufficed as grounds for
imposing a severer punishment, then, of course, the intention of punishing
repeated offenders more severely would be more easily and frequently achieved.
It had to be considered, however, whether one was willing to sacrifice
in this way an essential legal principle to the interests of
forest protection stressed by the spokesman: One could not agree that
the violation of an indisputable basic principle of judicial procedure
could give such a result to a sentence which was still without legal validity.
Another urban deputy also called for the rejection of the commission's
amendment. He said the amendment violated the provisions of the criminal
law by which there could be no increase of punishment until the first punishment
had been established by a legally valid sentence. The spokesman for the
commission retorted: 'The whole forms an exceptional law, and therefore
also an exceptional provision, such as has been proposed is permissible
in it.' The commission's proposal to delete the words 'legally valid' was
approved."

The sentence exists merely to identify recidivism. The judicial forms seem
to the greedy restlessness of private interest to be irksome and superfluous
obstacles of a pedantic legal etiquette. The trial is merely a reliable
escort for the adversary on his way to prison, a mere preliminary to execution,
and if the trial seeks to be more than that it has to be silenced. The
anxiety of self-interest spies out, calculates and conjectures most carefully
how the adversary could exploit the legal terrain on which, as a necessary
evil, he has to be encountered, and the most circumspect countermanoeuvres
are undertaken to forestall him. In the unbridled pursuit of private interest
you come up against the law itself as an obstacle and you treat it as such.
You haggle and bargain with it to secure the abrogation of a basic principle
here and there, you try to silence it by the most suppliant references
to the right of private interest, you slap it on the shoulder and whisper
in its ear: these are exceptions and there are no rules without an exception.
You try, by permitting the law as it were terrorism and meticulousness
in relation to the enemy, to compensate it for the slippery ease of conscience
with which you treat it as a guarantee of the accused and as an independent
object. The interest of the law is allowed to speak insofar as it is the
law of private interest, but it has to be silent as soon as it comes into
conflict with this holy of holiest

The forest owner, who himself punishes, is so consistent
that he himself also judges, for he obviously acts as a judge by
declaring a sentence legally binding although it has no legal validity.
How altogether foolish and impractical an illusion is an impartial judge
when the legislator is not impartial! What is the use of a disinterested
sentence when the law favours self-interest! The judge can only puritanically
formulate the self-interest of the law, only implement it without reservation.
Impartiality is then only in the form, not in the content of the sentence.
The content has been anticipated by the law. If the trial is nothing but
an empty form, then such a trifling formality has no independent value.
According to this view, Chinese law would become French law if it was forced
into the French procedure, but material law has its own necessary,
native form of trial. Just as the rod necessarily figures in Chinese
law, and just as torture has a place in the medieval criminal code as a
form of trial, so the public, free trial, in accordance with its own nature,
necessarily has a public content dictated by freedom and not by private
interest. Court trial and the law are no more indifferent to each other
than, for instance, the forms of plants are indifferent to the plants themselves,
and the forms of animals to their flesh and blood. There must be a single
spirit animating the trial and the law, for the trial is only the form
of life of the law, the manifestation of its inner life.

The pirates of Tidong [8] break the arms and
legs of their prisoners to ensure control over them. To ensure control
over wood thieves, the Provincial Assembly has not only broken the arms
and legs but has even pierced the heart of the law. We consider its merit
in regard to re-establishing some categories of our trial procedure as
absolutely nil; on the contrary, we must acknowledge the frankness and
consistency with which it gives an unfree form to the unfree content. If
private interest, which cannot bear the light of publicity, is introduced
materially into our law, let it be given its appropriate form, that of
secret procedure so that at least no dangerous, complacent illusions will
be evoked and entertained. We consider that at the present moment it is
the duty of all Rhinelanders, and especially of Rhenish jurists, to devote
their main attention to the content of the law, so that we should
not be left in the end with only an empty mask. The form is of no value
if it is not the form of the content.

The commission's proposal which we have just examined and the
Assembly's vote approving it are the climax to the whole debate, for here
the Assembly itself becomes conscious of the conflict between the interest
of forest protection and the principles of law, principles endorsed
by our own laws. The Assembly therefore put it to the vote whether the
principles of law should be sacrificed to the interest of forest protection
or whether this interest should be sacrificed to the principles of law,
and interest outvoted law. It was even realised that the whole law
was an exception to the law, and therefore the conclusion was drawn
that every exceptional provision it contained was permissible. The
Assembly confined itself to drawing consequences that the legislator had
neglected. Wherever the legislator had forgotten that it was a question
of an exception to the law, and not of a law, wherever he put forward the
legal point of view, our Assembly by its activity intervened with confident
tactfulness to correct and supplement him, and to make private interest
lay down laws to the law where the law had laid down laws to private interest.

The Provincial Assembly, therefore, completely fulfilled its
mission. In accordance with its function, it represented a definite
particular interest and treated it as the final goal. That in doing
so it trampled the law under foot is a simple consequence of its sash,
for interest by its very nature is blind, immoderate, one-sided; in short,
it is lawless natural instinct, and can lawlessness lay down laws? Private
interest is no more made capable of legislating by being installed on the
throne of the legislator than a mute is made capable of speech by being
given an enormously long speaking-trumpet.

It is with reluctance that we have followed the course of this
tedious and uninspired debate, but we considered it our duty to show by
means of an example what is to be expected from an Assembly of the Estates
of particular interests if it were ever seriously called upon to make
laws.

We repeat once again: our estates have fulfilled their function
as such, but far be it from us to desire to justify them on that account.
In them, the Rhinelander ought to have been victorious over the estate,
the human being ought to have been victorious over the forest owner. They
themselves are legally entrusted not only with the representation of particular
interests but also with the representation of the interests of the province,
and however contradictory these two tasks may be, in case of conflict there
should not be a moment's delay in sacrificing representation of particular
interest to representation of the interests of the province. The sense
of right and legality is the most important provincial characteristic
of the Rhinelander. But it goes without saying that a particular interest,
caring no more for the province than it does for the Fatherland, has also
no concern for local spirit, any more than for the general spirit. In direct
contradiction to those writers of fantasy who profess to find in the representation
of private interests ideal romanticism, immeasurable depths of feeling,
and the most fruitful source of individual and specific forms of morality,
such representation on the contrary abolishes all natural and spiritual
distinctions by enthroning in their stead the immoral, irrational and soulless
abstraction of a particular material object and a particular consciousness
which is slavishly subordinated to this object.

Wood remains wood in Siberia as in France; forest owners remain
forest owners in Kamchatka as in the Rhine Province. Hence, if wood and
its owners as such make laws, these laws will differ from one another only
by the place of origin and the language in which they are written. This
abject materialism, this sin against the holy spirit of the people
and humanity, is an immediate consequence of the doctrine which the Preussische
Staats-Zeitung preaches to the legislator, namely, that in connection
with the law concerning wood he should think only of wood and forest and
should solve each material problem in a non-political way, i.e.,
without any connection with the whole of the reason and morality of the
state.

The savages of Cuba regarded gold as a fetish of the
Spaniards. They celebrated a feast in its honour, sang in a circle
around it and then threw it into the sea. If the Cuban savages had been
present at the sitting of the Rhine Province Assembly, would they not have
regarded wood as the Rhinelanders' fetish? But a subsequent
sitting would have taught them that the worship of animals is connected
with this fetishism, and they would have thrown the hares into the
sea in order to save the human beings. [9]

---

NOTES

From the MECW

---

1 Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly. Third Article. Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood is one
of the series of articles by Marx on the proceedings of the Rhine Province
Assembly from May 23 to July 25, 1841. Marx touched on the theme of the
material interests of the popular masses for the first time, coming out
in their defence. Work on this and subsequent articles inspired Marx to
study political economy. He wrote about this in the preface to his A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859): "In the year
1842-43, as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, I first found myself
in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material
interests. Debates of the Rhine Province Assembly on the theft of wood
and the division of landed property; the official polemic started by Herr
von Schaper, then Oberprasident of the Rhine Province, against the Rheinische
Zeitung about the condition of the Mosel peasantry, and finally the
debates on free trade and protective tariffs caused me in the first instance
to turn my attention to economic questions."

Excerpts from the speeches by the deputies to the Assembly are
cited from Sitzungs-Protokolle des sechsten Rheinischen Provinzial-Landtags,
Koblenz, 1841.

2 The second article written by Marx
on the proceedings of the Rhine Province Assembly, banned by the censors,
was devoted to the conflict between the Prussian Government and the Catholic
Church or the so-called church conflict.

3 Marx refers to the Criminal Code of
Karl V (Die peinliche Halsgerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V. Constitutio
criminalis Carolina), approved by the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1532;
it was distinguished by its extremely cruel penalties.

4 The reference is to the so-called
barbaric laws (leges barbarorum) compiled in the fifth-ninth centuries
which were records of the common law of various Germanic tribes (Franks,
Frisians, Burgundians, Langobards [Lombards], Anglo-Saxons and others).

5 Dodona -- a town in Epirus,
seat of a temple of Zeus. An ancient oak grew near the main entrance to
the temple with a spring at its foot; oracles interpreted the will of the
gods from the rustling of its leaves.

6 The fact mentioned took place during
the siege of Antwerp in 1584-85 by the troops of King Philip II of Spain,
who were suppressing the Netherland's revolt against absolutist Spain.

7 The reference is to the Barebone's,
nominated, or Little Parliament summoned by Cromwell in July and dissolved
in December 1653. It was composed mainly of representatives of the Congregational
Churches who couched their criticism in religious mystic terms.

8 Tidong -- a region in Kalimantan
(Borneo).

9 An allusion to the debate of the Sixth
Rhine Province Assembly on a bill against violations of game regulations,
which deprived the peasants of the right to hunt even hares.

a "There are two kinds of corruption,"
says Montesquieu, "one when the people do not observe the laws, the other
when they are corrupted by the laws: an incurable evil because it is in
the very remedy itself." Ch. Montesquieu, De l'esprit des lois,
Tome premier, livre sixième, chapitre XII.

b A pun on the German word Kasten,
meaning both "castes" and "boxes".

c "Little extras."

d A pun on the German words Hühneraugen -- corns, and Augen -- eyes.

e W. Shakespeare, The Merchant of
Venice, Act IV, Scene 1.

f "When he is afraid, he is terrible."

g "Full powers."

h "Nothing is more terrible than logic
carried to absurdity."

i What, at a ball, we simple folk call
being wallflowers.

j Right of the (feudal) lord.

Articles by Karl Marx in The Rheinische Zeitung

The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law [68]

---

Written: between April and early August 1842

Source: MECW, Volume 2, p. 203

First Published: (without “The Chapter on Marriage” which was cut by the censor) in the Supplement to the Rheiniche Zeitung No. 221, August 9, 1842; “The Chapter on Marriage” was first published in MECW 1927.

---

 

It is commonly held that the historical school is a reaction against the frivolous spirit of the eighteenth century. The currency of this view is in inverse ratio to its truth. In fact, the eighteenth century had only one product, the essential character of which is frivolity, and this sole frivolous product is the historical school.

The historical school has taken the study of sources as its watchword, it has carried its love for sources to such an extreme that it calls on the boatman to ignore the river and row only on its source-head. Hence it will only find it right that we go back to its sources, to Hugo's natural law. Its philosophy is ahead of its development; therefore in its development one will search in vain for philosophy.

According to a fiction current in the eighteenth century, the natural state was considered the true state of human nature. People wanted to see the idea of man through the eyes of the body and created men of nature, Papagenos, the naivety of which idea extended even to covering the skin with feathers. During the last decades of the eighteenth century, it was supposed that peoples in a state of nature possessed primeval wisdom and everywhere one could hear bird-catchers imitating the twittering method of singing of the Iroquois, the Indians, etc., in the belief that by these arts the birds themselves could be enticed into a trap. All these eccentricities were based on the correct idea that the primitive state was a naive Dutch picture of the true state.

The man of nature of the historical school, still without any of the trappings of romantic culture, is Hugo. His textbook of natural law is the Old Testament of the historical school. Herder's view that natural men are poets, and that the sacred books of natural peoples are poetic works, presents no obstacle to us, although Hugo talks the most trivial and sober prose, for just as every century has its own peculiar nature, so too it gives birth to its own peculiar natural men. Hence, although Hugo does not write poetry, he does write fiction and fiction is the poetry of prose corresponding to the prosaic nature of the eighteenth century.

By describing Herr Hugo as the forefather and creator of the historical school, however, we are acting in accord with the latter's own view, as is proved by the gala programme of the most famous historical jurist in honour of Hugo's jubilee. By regarding Herr Hugo as a child of the eighteenth century, we are acting even in the spirit of Herr Hugo himself, as he testifies by his claim that he is a pupil of Kant and that his natural law is an offshoot of Kantian philosophy. We shall begin with this item of his manifesto.

Hugo misinterprets his teacher Kant by supposing that because we cannot know what is true, we consequently allow the untrue, if it exists at all, to pass as fully valid. He is a sceptic as regards the necessary essence of things, so as to he a courtier as regards their accidental appearance. Therefore, he by no means tries to prove that the positive is rational; he tries to prove that the positive is irrational. With self-satisfied zeal he adduces arguments from everywhere to provide additional evidence that no rational necessity is inherent in the positive institutions, e.g., property, the state constitution, marriage, etc., that they are even contrary to reason, and at most allow of idle chatter for and against. One must not in any way blame this method on his accidental individuality; it is rather the method of his principle, it is the frank, naive, reckless method of the historical school. If the positive is supposed to be valid because it is positive, then I have to prove that the positive is not valid because it is rational, and how could I make this more evident than by proving that the unreasonable is positive and the positive unreasonable, that the positive exists not owing to reason, but in spite of reason? If reason were the measure of the positive, the positive would not be the measure of reason. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't!” [Hamlet Act II, Scene 2] Hugo, therefore, profanes all that the just, moral, political man regards as holy, but he smashes these holy things only to be able to honour them as historical relics; he desecrates them in the eyes of reason in order afterwards to make them honourable in the eyes of history, and at the same time to make the eyes of the historical school honourable.

Hugo's reasoning, like his principle, is positive, i.e., uncritical. He knows no distinctions. Everything existing serves him as an authority, every authority serves him as an argument. Thus, in a single paragraph he quotes Moses and Voltaire, Richardson and Homer, Montaigne and Ammon, Rousseau's Contrat social and Augustine's De civitate Dei. The same levelling procedure is applied to peoples. According to Hugo, the Siamese, who considers it an eternal law of nature that his king should have the mouths of charterers sewn up and the mouth of a clumsy orator slit to the ears, is just as positive as the Englishman, who would consider it a political anomaly if his king were autocratically to impose even a penny tax. The shameless Conci, who runs about naked and at most covers himself with mud, is as positive as the Frenchman who not only dresses, but dresses elegantly. The German who brings up his daughter as the jewel of the family, is not more positive than the Rajput, who kills his daughter to save himself the trouble of feeding her. In short, a rash is just as positive as the skin itself.

In one place, one thing is positive, in another something else; the one is as irrational as the other. Submit yourself to what is positive in your own home.

Hugo, therefore, is the complete sceptic. With him, the eighteenth-century scepticism in regard to the rationality of what exists appears as scepticism in regard to the existence of rationality. He accepts the Enlightenment, he no longer sees anything rational in the positive, but only in order no longer to see anything positive in the rational. He thinks the appearance of reason has been expelled from the positive in order to recognise the positive without the appearance of reason. He thinks the false flowers have been plucked from the chains in order to wear real chains without any flowers.

Hugds relation to the other Enlighteners of the eighteenth century is about the same as that between the dissolution of the French state at the debauched court of the Regent and the dissolution of the French state during the National Assembly. In both cases there is dissolution! In the former case it appears as debauched frivolity, which realises and ridicules the hollow lack of ideas of the existing state of things, but only in order, having got rid of all rational and moral ties, to make sport of the decaying ruins, and then itself to be made sport of by them and dissolved. It is the corruption of the then existing world, which takes pleasure in itself. In the National Assembly, on the other hand, the dissolution appears as the liberation of the new spirit from old form, which were no longer of any value or capable of containing it. It is the new life's feeling of its own power, which shatters what has been shattered and rejects what has been rejected. If, therefore, Kant's philosophy must be rightly regarded as the German theory of the French revolution, Hugo's natural law is the German theory of the French ancien rigime. We find in it once more the whole frivolity of those roues, the base scepticism, which, insolent towards ideas but most subservient towards what is palpably evident, begins to feel clever only where it has killed the spirit of the positive, in order to possess the purely positive as a residue and to feel comfortable in this animal state. Even when Hugo weighs up the force of the arguments, he finds with an unerring sure instinct that what is rational and moral in institutions is doubtful for reason. Only what is animal seems to his reason to be indubitable. But let us listen to our enlightener from the standpoint of the ancien régime! Hugo's views must be heard from Hugo himself. To all his combinations should be added: he himself said.

Introduction

“The sole juristic distinguishing feature of man is his animal nature.”

The Chapter on Freedom

“A limitation of freedom” (of a rational being) “lies even in the fact that it cannot of its own accord cease to be a rational being, i.e., a being which can and should act rationally.”

“Absence of freedom in no way alters the animal and rational nature of the unfree man or of other men. All the obligations of conscience remain. Slavery is not only physically possible, but also possible from a rational standpoint, and any research which teaches us the contrary must be based on some kind of error. Of course, slavery is not absolutely lawful, i.e., it does not follow from man's animal nature, or from his rational nature, or from his nature as a citizen. But that it can be provisionally lawful, just as much as anything acknowledged by its opponents, is shown by comparison with private law and public law.” The proof is: “From the point of view of animal nature, he that is owned by a rich man, who suffers a loss without him and is heedful of his needs, is obviously more secure against want than the poor man whom his fellow men make use of so long as he has anything for them to use, etc.” “The right to maltreat and cripple servi [slaves] is not essential, and even when it occurs it is not much worse than what the poor have to endure, and, as regards the body, it is not so bad as war, from participation in which slaves as such should everywhere he exempt. Even beauty is more likely to be found in a Circassian slave girl than in a beggar girl.” (Listen to the old man!)

“As regards its rational nature, slavery has the advantage over poverty that the slave-owner, even from well-understood economic considerations, is much more likely to expend something on the education of a slave who shows ability than in the case of a beggar child. Under a constitution the slave is spared very many kinds of oppression. Is the slave more unfortunate than the prisoner of war, whose guards' only concern is that they are temporarily responsible for him, or more unfortunate than the convict labourer over whom the government has placed an overseer?”

“Whether slavery as such is advantageous or disadvantageous for reproduction is a question still in dispute.”

The Chapter on Marriage

“Regarded from the philosophical standpoint of positive law, marriage is already often considered much more essential and much more rational than world appear from a quite free examination”.

It is precisely the satisfaction of the sexual instinct in marriage that suits Herr Hugo. He even draws a wholesome moral from this fact:

“From this, as from countless other circumstances, it should have been clear that to treat the human body as a means to an end is not always immoral, as people, including presumably Kant hinuelf, have incorrectly understood this expression.”

But the sanctification of the sexual instinct by exclusiveness, the bridling of this instinct through laws, the moral beauty which idealises the bidding of nature and makes it an element of spiritual union, the spiritual essence of marriage, that is precisely what Herr Hugo finds dubious in marriage. But before we go further into his frivolous shamelessness, let us listen for a moment to the French philosopher in contrast to the historical German.

“By renouncing for one man alone that mysterious reserve which divine law has implanted in her heart, the woman pledges herself to this man for whose sake she momentarily suspends the modesty which she never loses, for whom alone she lifts the veils which otherwise are her refuge and her adornment. Hence this intimate confidence in her husband, the result of an exclusive relation which can only exist between her and him, and without which she feels herself dishonoured. Hence her husband's thankfulness for the sacrifice and that mixture of desire and respect for a being who, even while sharing his pleasures, seems only to be submitting to him. Hence the source of all that is orderly in our social system”.

So says the liberal philosophical Frenchman Benjamin Constant! And now let us listen to the servile, historical German:

“Much more dubious is the second circumstance, that outside marriage the satisfaction of this instinct is not permitted! Animal nature is against this restriction. Rational nature is still more so, because”... (guess!)... “because a man must be almost omniscient in order to foresee what result it will have, because it is therefore tempting God to pledge oneself to satisfy one of the most powerful natural instincts only when this can take place with one particular persons” “The sense of the beautiful, which is free by its very nature, has to be fettered and what depends on it has to be wholly divorced from it.”

See what kind of schooling our Young Germans have received!

“This institution conflicts with the nature of civil society insofar as ... finally the police undertake an almost insoluble task!”

Clumsy philosophy, which has no such consideration for the police!

“Everything that follows as a consequence from a more precise definition of the marriage law, shows us that marriage, whatever principles are adopted in relation to it, is still a very imperfect institution.”

“This restriction of the sexual instinct to marriage has nevertheless also important advantages, namely, by its means infectious diseases are usually avoided. Marriage saves the government a lot of trouble. Finally, there is also the consideration, which is everywhere so important, that in regard to marriage civil law is the customary one.” “Fichte says: An unmarried man is only half a man. I” (i.e., Hugo) “am extremely sorry, however, to have to declare that such a beautiful utterance, putting me above Christ, Fénelon, Kant and Hume, is a monstrous exaggeration.”

“As regards monogamy and polygamy, this is obviously a matter of man's animal nature”!!

The Chapter on Education

We learn at once that: “The art of education gives rise to no less objection against the juridical relation connected with it” (education in the family) “than the art of loving does against marriage.”

“The difficulty that education may only be carried out within such a relation, however, gives rise to far fewer doubts than is the case with the satisfaction of the sexual instinct if for no other reason than that it is permissible to entrust education by contract to a third person, so that he who feels a very strong urge in this respect can easily satisfy it, only not, of course, necessarily in regard to the particular person whom he would like to engage. It is, however, also irrational that, by virtue of such a relationship, someone to whom no one would entrust a child, may carry on education and exclude others from education.” “Finally, here also there is compulsion partly because the educator is often not permitted by positive law to give up this relationship, and partly because the one to be educated is compelled to let himself be educated by this particular teacher.” “The reality of this relationship depends mostly on the mere accident of birth, which is connected with the father through marriage. This way of originating the relationship is obviously not very rational, if only because it usually opens the way to preference, which itself is already an obstacle to a good education. That it is not even absolutely necessary is evident from the fact that education is given also to children whose parents are already dead.”

The Chapter on Civil Law

§ 107 tells us that the “necessity of civil law in general is imaginary”

The Chapter on Constitutional Law

“It is a holy duty of conscience to obey the authorities in whose hands power lies.” “As regards the division of governmental powers, it is true that no particular constitution is absolutely lawful, but every constitution is provisionally lawful, whatever the division of governmental powers.”

Has not Hugo proved that man can cast off even the last fetter of freedom, namely, that of being a rational being?

These few extracts from the philosophical manifesto of the historical school suffice, we think, for pronouncing a historical verdict on this school, instead of unhistorical fantasies, vague figments of the brain, and deliberate fictions; they suffice for deciding whether Hugo's successors are fit to be the legislators of our time.”

At all events, in the course of time and civilisation, this crude genealogical tree of the historical school has been shrouded in mist by the smokescreen of mysticism, fantastically wrought by romanticism, and inoculated with speculation; the many fruits of erudition have been shaken off the tree, dried and deposited with much boasting in the great storehouse of German erudition. Truly, however, little criticism is needed to recognise behind all these fragrant modem phrases the dirty old idea of our enlightener of the ancien régime, and his dissolute frivolity behind all the extravagant unctuosity.

If Hugo says: “Animal nature is the distinctive juristic feature of man”, from which it follows: law is animal law, the educated moderns say, instead of the crude, frank “animal” law, something like “organic” law, for who on hearing the word “organism” thinks at once of the animal organism? If Hugo says that marriage and other moral-legal institutions are irrational, the moderns say that these institutions are indeed not creations of human reason, but are representations of a higher “positive” reason, and so on in regard to all the other articles. Only one conclusion is voiced by all with equal crudity: the right of arbitrary power.

The juridical and historical theories of Haller, Stahl, Leo, and their fellow thinkers should he regarded only as codices rescriptia of Hugo's natural law, which after some operations of critical analysis allow the old original text to be made legible again, as we shall show in more detail at a suitable time.

All the tricks of embellishment are the more in vain as we still have the old manifesto, which, if not intelligent, is nevertheless very easy to understand.

 

---

Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Articles by Karl Marx in The Rheinische Zeitung

The Question of Centralisation in itself and with regard to the Supplement to No. 137 of the Rheinische Zeitung Tuesday, May 17, 1842 [57]

---

Written: After May 17, 1842;

Source: MECW Volume 2, p. 182;

First Published: MECW, 1927.

---

 

"Germany and France with regard to the question of centralisation" with the sign ./. ./.

"Whether state power should issue from a single point or whether each province, each locality, should administer itself, and the central government, only acting as the power of the whole, should rule also the individual parts of the state when the state has to be represented externally-this is a question on which views are still very much divided."

The fate which a question of the time has in common with every question justified by its content, and therefore rational, is that the question and not the answer constitutes the main difficulty. True criticism, therefore, analyses the questions and not the answers. just as the solution of an algebraic equation is given once the problem has been put in its simplest and sharpest form, so every question is answered as soon as it has become a real question. World history itself has no other method than that of answering and disposing of old questions by putting new ones. The fiddles of each period are therefore easy to discover. They are questions of the time, and although the intention and insight of a single individual may play an important role in the answers, and a practised eye is needed to separate what belongs to the individual from what belongs to the time, the questions, on the other hand, are the frank, uncompromising voices of the time embracing all individuals; they are its mottoes, they are the supremely practical utterances proclaiming the state of its soul. In each period, therefore, reactionaries are as sure indicators of its spiritual condition as dogs are of the weather. To the public, it looks as if the reactionaries make the questions. Hence the public believes that if some obscurantist or other does not combat a modern trend, if he does not subject something to question, then the question does not exist. The public itself, therefore, regards the reactionaries as the true men of progress.

"Whether state power should issue from a single point", i.e., whether a single point should rule, or whether each province, etc., should administer itself and the central government act only externally as the power of the whole "in relation to the exterior" -the question of centralisation cannot be formulated in this way. The author [Moses Hess] assures us that

"this question, considered from a higher standpoint, falls away of itself as being futile", for "if man is really what he should be by his essence, individual freedom is not separate from general freedom". "If, therefore, one assumes a nation to be made up of righteous people, the question under consideration cannot arise at all." "The central power would Eve in all members, etc., etc." "But just as in general every external law, every positive institution, etc., would be superfluous, so would any central state power, etc. Such a society would be not a state, but the ideal of mankind." "One can make it astonishingly easy to solve the most difficult state problems if one looks at our social life from a high philosophical standpoint. And theoretically, such a solution of the problems is quite correct, indeed the only correct one. But it is a question here not of a theoretical, etc., but of a practical, naturally merely empirical and relative, answer to the question of centralisation, etc."

The author of the article begins with a self-criticism of his question. Seen from a higher standpoint, it does not exist, but at the same time we are told that, seen from this high standpoint, all laws, positive institutions, the central state power and finally the state itself, disappear. The author rightly praises the "astonishing ease" with which this standpoint is able to orient itself, but he is not right in calling such a solution of the problems "quite correct, indeed the only correct one", he is not right in calling this standpoint a "Philosophical" one. Philosophy must seriously protest at being confused with imagination. The fiction of a nation of "righteous" people is as alien to philosophy as the fiction of "praying hyenas" is to nature. The author substitutes "his abstractions" for philosophy. ...

 

---

Karl Marx

Yet Another Word on Bruno Bauer und die Aakadmische Lehrfreiheit by Dr. O. F. Gruppe, Berlin, 1842 [74]

---

Source: MECW Volume 1, p. 211;

Written: in early September 1842;

First published: in the journal Deutsche fahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 5. jg., No.- 273, November 16, 1842 and Signed: K. M.;

Transcribed: in 2000 for marxists.org by Andy Blunden.

---

If someone in Germany wanted to write a comedy of dilettantism, Herr Dr. O. F. Gruppe would be an indispensable character in it. Fate has equipped him with that iron tenacity which great men cannot do without, least of all the great men of dilettantism. Even if most of his adventures, like those of Sancho Panza, meet with ambiguous signs of acknowledgment, the monotony of this success is relieved and varied by the con-dc ingenuousness and touching naivety with which Herr Gruppe accepts his laurels. One cannot fail to perceive even a certain magnanimity in the consistency which has taught Herr Gruppe to conclude: Because I have been thrown out of the schoolroom of philology, it will be my mission to be thrown out also from the ball-room of aesthetics and the halls of philosophy. That is a lot, but it is not all. I shall not have played out my role until I have been thrown out of the temple of theology: and Herr Gruppe is conscientious enough to play out his role.

In his latest performance, however, Herr Gruppe has to some extent departed from the height of his standpoint. We do not doubt for a moment that his latest work Bruno Bauer and Academic Freedom of Teaching has been by no means written “in the service of a party or under an influence”. Herr Gruppe felt the need to be thrown oat of theology, but worldly wisdom here came to the aid of his comic instinct. As is fitting for comic characters, Herr Gruppe up to now has worked with most delightful seriousness and most unusual pomposity. Incompleteness, superficiality, and misunderstandings were his fate, but they were not his tendency. The great man acted according to his nature, but he acted for himself and not for others. He was a buffoon by profession: we have no doubt that in his latest performance he is a buffoon by order and for remuneration. The evil intention, the unscrupulous distortion, the base perfidy, will leave the reader, too, in no doubt about it.

It would be contrary to our view of comic characters to waste an extensive critical apparatus on Herr Gruppe. Who wants a critical account of Eulenspiegel? Anecdotes are wanted, and we give an anecdote about Herr Gruppe which is the anecdote of his pamphlet. It concerns Bauer's exposition of St. Matthew 12: 38-42. The kind reader will have to put up with theological matters for an instant, but he will not forget that it is our purpose to deal with Herr Gruppe and not with theology. He will find it only fair that the characteristic features of Bauer's opponents should he brought to the notice of the newspaper public, since Bauer's character and teaching has been made a newspaper myth.

We shall quote the passage in question from St. Matthew in its entirety.

“Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.

“But he answered and said unto them. An evil and adulterous. generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here."

The Protestant theologians were struck by the contradiction that Jesus here rejects miracles, whereas otherwise he performs miracles. They were struck by the even greater contradiction that at the very time when the Lord refuses the demand for a miracle, he promises a miracle, and indeed a great miracle, his three days' stay in the underworld.

Since the Protestant theologians are too ungodly to admit a contradiction of the scripture with their understanding, since they are too sanctimonious to admit a contradiction of their understanding with the scripture, they falsify, distort and twist the clear words and the simple meaning of the scripture. They maintain that Jesus here does not counterpose his teaching and his spiritual personality to the demand for a sign; they maintain that

“he is speaking of the whole of his manifestation, which is more than the manifestation of Solomon and of Jonas, and of which 'in particular' his miracle also were a part”.

By the most thoroughgoing exegesis, Bauer proves to them the absurdity of this explanation. He quotes for them St. Luke [11: 29-30], in which the troublesome passage about the whale and the three days' stay under the earth is missing. It says:

“This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation”;

upon which St. Luke makes the Lord relate how the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas and the queen of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Bauer shows that the crux is given still more simply in St. Mark [8: 12-13].

“Why,” says Jesus, “cloth this generation seek after a sign? verify I say unto you, There shall no sign he given unto this generation. And he left them."

Bauer comes out against the theologians' false interpretation and arbitrary distortion of the texts, and he refers them to what is actually written by once more summing up the meaning of Jesus' speech in the following words:

“Keep away from me, theologian! For, it is written: a greater than Jonas is here, a greater than Solomon that is to say, the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas, the queen of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But you have given no credence to my words, to my speech, yet these words are the expression of a personality, whose spiritual compass is infinite, whereas the personalities of Jonas and Solomon were still limited. But so it shall be, only the sign of Jonas shall he given to you, you shall not see any other sign than this my person and its expression, even if infinite, in the word."

After presenting Jesus' speech in this way, Bauer adds:

“Where then in particular are the miracles?"

And Herr Gruppe? Herr Gruppe says:

“'The most unusual thing in this connection is that Bauer in his own baroque manner presents himself as a prophet. On p. 296 we read the emphatic passage: keep away from me, theologian!” etc. (p. 20).

Herr Gruppe is so shameless as to want to make the reader believe that Bauer is speaking about himself, that he is making himself out to he the infinite personality, whereas Bauer is explaining Jesus' speech. Much as we might like to, we cannot excuse this qui pro quo, this Eulenspiegel trick, as due to Herr Gruppe's notorious weakness of intellect and dilettantist ignorance. Ale deception is obvious. It is not merely that Herr Gruppe does not tell the reader what it is all about. We might still think that the dilettante had accidentally opened Bauer's work at p. 296 and in the happy-go-lucky haste of compiling his book did not have time to read the preceding and following statements. But Herr Gruppe suppresses the conclusion of the “emphatic passage”; the conclusion, which is beyond all possible misunderstanding: “But so it shall be, only the sign of Jonas shall be given to you, you shall not see any other sign than this my person and its expression, even if infinite, in the word. Where then 'in particular' are the miracles?"

Herr Gruppe was aware that even the biassed reader, the reader who was so foolish as to look for Bauer not in Bauer's writings, but in the writings of Herr Gruppe, could not fail to he convinced that Bauer was not speaking on his own account, but that he was saying what is written. Disregarding all other absurdities, what else could have been implied by the words “Where then in particular are the miracles?"

We doubt whether German literature has a similar specimen of shamelessness to offer.

Herr Gruppe says in his foreword:

“During my work it has become increasingly evident to me that we are living in an age of rhetoricians and sophists” (p. iv).

If this is meant to he a confession, we must seriously protest against it. Herr Gruppe is neither a rhetorician nor a sophist. Until the period of his pamphlet on Bauer, he was a comical character, he was a rogue in the naive sense; since then he has lost nothing but his naivety, and hence he is now — but let his conscience tell him that. For the rest, Bauer can regard it an acknowledgment of his intellectual superiority that he could be opposed only by men so low in intelligence and so remote from any superiority that he could hit them only by allowing himself to fall to their level.

 

---

Marx/Engels Internet Archive

Correspondent of The Kölnische Zeitung by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

A Correspondent of The Kölnische Zeitung vs. The Rheinische Zeitung

Source: MECW Volume 1, p. 277;
Written: on November 16, 1842;
Published: in the Rheinische Zeitung No. 321, November 17, 1842;
Transcribed: in 2000 for marxists.org by Andy Blunden.
Cologne, November 16. The stoutest champion of the “separation of town and countryside” in the Kölnische Zeitung today again raises his rumbling voice, and today it is not the province but the Rheinische Zeitung which he selects for the honour of being the victim of his private intelligence and his private illusions. We believe the good man when he says that the reading of the articles on communal constitution in the Rheinische Zeitung at breakfast numbed his head and hurled him back into “exceedingly confused dreams”. We believe that it is very inconvenient for one who knows Cologne and Bickendorf well to be bustled through the Orient, through Greece, Rome, the German Empire, Gaul and France and even through thoughts which necessarily appear as “sophistries” and “dialectical tricks” to the routine of practical intercourse and narrowly limited outlook. We do not want to judge this cheerful self-complacency amiss for the by no means moderate courtesies which it is capable of bestowing on its own achievements, for it belongs to the character of narrow-mindedness to consider its own limitations as the limitations and the pillars of the world. And as our good and humorous friend adduces no new grounds but supports the view that a ground which has been rejected and refuted at its first presentation can, like an importunate petitioner, achieve its aim in the end if only it has the obstinacy to return again and again; as therefore our friend, true to the principles established in respect of newspaper articles, expects the effect of his well-worded and correctly ordered grounds not from themselves, but from their repetition, nothing else remains for us but finally to banish from the real world a few phantasmagoria that may have come to him in “sleep” and in “confused dreams” and so to contribute as much as is in our power to eliminating the reappearing belief in ghosts, which is known to confuse its dreams of things with the things themselves. Our somnambulist saw in a dream how the peasants were alerted by the Rheinische Zeitung to march with spades and hoes on the towns because the latter harboured tyrannical intentions.
In his intervals of clear consciousness our somnambulist will have to agree with himself that the “towns” do not lie in the Kölnische Zeitung, that we have even rejected its arbitrary interpretation of the towns’ intentions, and that finally a work which even goes beyond the range of vision of “one who knows Cologne and Bickendorf well” is still less able to provoke the peasant to a demonstration with “spades and hoes"-which probably play their role as a sample of “unprejudiced views” drawn “from practical life and intercourse”. On awakening, our somnambulist will further find it beyond all doubt that to put right an alleged “correspondent” of the Kölnische Zeitung is no “distortion of the truth”, that provoking “dissatisfaction” with the Kölnische Zeitung and taking sides against its contemplative correspondent is no ,,arousing of dissatisfaction and frenzy of parties” against the state; or can it be that not only the “towns” lie in the Kölnische Zeitung, but the state itself is embodied in it and its contributors! Our friend will then also grasp that one may have the “boundless arrogance” to irritate the literary productions of the sign — — without “challenging by indecent sallies” “the highest state authorities”, whom he makes responsible not only for his opinions but even for his arguments and who would like to disavow this self-styled ally.
With the present level of German science it will be more than an upheaval if the hollow theories which strain to conceive themselves as the result of world history, and the general range of vision of today’s doctrine were to experience the bitter fate of finding their critical yardstick in the “unprejudiced” views, drawn from civil intercourse and practical life, of “one who knows Cologne and Bickendorf well”. This gentleman will find it understandable that pending the epoch of this Reformation and of the conjectural literary magnitude of the sign-.-, we consider his present isolated endeavours too fragmentary, and, with his permission, too insignificant in every respect to nourish and cultivate the dream of their importance by any further assessment of them.

 

Announcement [147]

---

Source: MECW Volume 1, p.376

First published: in the Rheinische Zeitung No. 77, March 18, 1843

---

The undersigned declares that, owing to the present conditions of censorship, he has retired as from today from the editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung.

Cologne, March 17, 1843

Dr. Marx

 

---

Announcement by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Announcement by the Editors of the Rheinische Zeitung of their Reply to Oberpräsident Von Schaper ^[127]

Source: MECW Volume 1, p. 331
Written: on January 2, 1843
First published: in the Rheinische Zeitung No. 3, January 3, 1843.
Cologne, January 2. Since the “corrections” made by Herr Oberpräsident von Schaper and the explanations requested of the Rheinische Zeitung have been widely aired in the press, we take this occasion to state that our reply, which has been delayed only because a number of investigations have become necessary, will follow in the coming week.

 

Cabinet Order on the Daily Press by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Cabinet Order on the Daily Press [103]

Source: MECW Volume 1, p280;
Written: in mid-November 1842;
First published: in the Rheinische Zeitung No. 320, November 16, 1842;
Transcribed: in 2000 for marxists.org by Andy Blunden.
Cologne, November 15. Today’s Kölnische Zeitung carries the following royal Cabinet Order, which was sent to all provincial ministries in the course of last month:
“I have already frequently pointed out that the tendency of the bad part of the daily press to mislead public opinion on matters of general concern by disseminating untruths or distorted facts should be countered by contrasting every such false report at once with the truth through a correction of the facts published in the same newspapers that were guilty of the falsifications. It does not suffice to leave counteraction against the evil tendencies of a daily newspaper, which have a pernicious effect on the public mind, to other papers that are imbued with a better spirit and to expect it only from them. The poison of corruption must be rendered harmless in the very place where it has been dispensed; that is not only the duty of the authorities to the circle of readers to whom the poison has been proffered, it is at the same time the most effective means for destroying tendencies to deception and lying as they manifest themselves, by compelling the editors themselves to publish the judgment passed on them. I have therefore noted with displeasure that little or no use has been made so far of this means, which is as legitimate as it is essential, for curbing manifestations of degeneration on the part of the press.. Inasmuch as the present laws may not have sufficiently established the obligation of our domestic newspapers to publish without demur, and, moreover, without any comments or introductory remarks, all factual corrections officially sent them, I expect from the state ministry immediate proposals for the necessary supplementary legislation. If, however, they are already adequate for the purpose, it is My will that they should be vigorously implemented by My magistrates for the protection of law and truth, and I recommend this, not only to the ministries themselves, but in particular to the immediate attention of the Oberpräsidents, to whom the state ministry shall give directives to this end.
“The more deeply I have it at heart that the noble, loyal and commendably frank frame of mind, wherever it may be displayed, shall not find its freedom of speech curtailed, and that truth shall be as little as possible restricted in the sphere of public discussion, the more ruthlessly must the spirit that employs the weapons of lying and n-iisleading be held under restraint so that freedom of speech cannot be cheated of its fruits and its blessings by being misused.
“Sanssouci, October 14, 1842 (signed) Frederick William
We hasten the more urgently to communicate the above royal Cabinet Order to our readers, because we see in it a guarantee for the Prussian press. Every loyal newspaper can only regard it as significant support on the part of the government if untruths or distorted facts, the publication of which cannot always be avoided even with the greatest circumspection on the part of the editorial board, are corrected from an authoritative source. By these official explanations the government not only guarantees a certain historical correctness of the factual content of the daily press, but also, what is still more important, recognises the great significance of the press by positive participation, which will restrict within ever narrower bounds negative participation by prohibition, suppression and censorship. At the same time, the royal Cabinet Order presupposes a certain independence of the daily press, for if without such independence tendencies to deception, lying and pernicious tendencies are not likely to spring up and establish themselves in the daily press, still less is a noble, loyal and commendably frank frame of mind. This royal presupposition of a certain independence of the daily press should be welcomed by Prussian newspapers as the most excellent guarantee of this independence and as an unambiguous expression of the royal will.

 

Communal Reform and the Kölnische Zeitung

Karl Marx

Communal Reform and the Kölnische Zeitung ^[100]

Source: MECW, Volume 1, p. 266;
Written: on November 7-12, 1842;
Published: in the Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 312, 316 and 317, November 8, 12 and 13, 1842;
Transcribed: in 2000 for marxists.org by Andy Blunden.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 312, November 8, 1842

Cologne, November 7. We have not considered it appropriate when discussing the question of the Communal Reform to take into account what has appeared on the subject in the provincial papers, and in particular in the Kölnische Zeitung. We shall easily justify ourselves if we show by an example the approximate strength of the argument which has been advanced in defence of the separation of the urban and rural communities.

The Supplement to No. 309 of the Kölnische Zeitung adduces under the heading “Summing Up” the authorities for the affirmative and negative answers to the question of separation. Among other curiosities we find as grounds against the separation “some newspaper articles”, and in favour of the separation “likewise newspaper articles”, just as newspaper articles have “likewise” appeared in favour of censorship. In any case we must mention with the greatest praise a devotion which considers an article a ground for the mere reason that it is a newspaper article as indeed a very uncritical, but despite its comical tone, rare recognition of the periodical press. Credit for an equally praiseworthy ingenuousness by no means attaches to the juxtaposition of two other authorities for and against the separation of the urban and rural communities. Said to have been against this separation is the Provincial Assembly of 1833, which moreover was prevailed upon by a single energetic personality, and accordingly therefore only this personality was against the separation; in favour of the separation was the whole Provincial Assembly of 1827 with the exception of one vote; but, honourable Summing Up, if the 1833 Provincial Assembly is only worth as much as the single personality which it followed, then what rules out the possibility that the 1827 Provincial Assembly is worth less than the single vote which it opposed; and yet the Provincial Assembly, which is so hesitating, so unable to depend on itself, still remains an authority! If further the petitions from Cologne, Aachen and Koblenz are adduced as petitions for the separation of the urban and rural communities because these petitions are limited to Cologne, Aachen and Koblenz, in the best of cases this can prove only the limitation of these petitions, but by no means their reasonableness; besides, having in their initial haste grasped so little the generality of the question and considered the interest of the whole province, these cities have just as little conceived their particular reform in any kind of opposition to the general reform. They made a petition only for themselves, but by no means against the province. We admired immediately at the beginning the comical ingenuousness of the “Summing Up”, and although it does not preserve this quality throughout but, as we have just heard, could not but occasionally lapse into small intentional subtleties, this comicality and ingenuousness nevertheless victoriously reasserts itself in the end. Said to be in favour of the separation of the city and the countryside are also

“the remaining cities of the Rhine Province, whose petitions are unknown as far as their content is concerned, but which in making their requests could presumably only speak for themselves, since no single locality can be the organ of a whole province”.

So not only a newspaper article in the abstract is an authority, but even the decided mediocrity of a “presumably only” can puzzle out the unknown content of the remaining cities' petitions. That this prophet who is called “presumably only” is a false prophet is proved by the petition of the city of Trier. At the end of the “Summing Up” emerges the inner ground which is the real ground for a separation of the city and the countryside. What is wanted is not only to separate the city from the countryside, but to separate the individual cities from one another and from the province, to separate the province from its own intelligence. A single locality could not be the organ of a whole province? Correct. The single locality must not be the whole organ, but it must be a part of this organ, and hence must be for its part the organ of the whole and general interest. And does not such a view remove all possibility of even a single city communal system? If a single locality cannot be the organ of the whole province, can a single citizen be the organ of a whole city? This citizen, as follows from the argument advanced above, can only request something for himself, and not for the whole city, and since the whole city consists only of single citizens, nothing at all can be requested for the city as a whole. The “Summing Up” ends with what the separation of the city and the countryside must in general end with if it is to be consistent, with making not only the city, not only the province, but even the state itself impossible. Once the particular is to be asserted in hostile opposition to the general, in the end all political and social institutions must be made to disappear before the ultimate indivisible particular, the single individual in his physical appetites and aims. The troops that the “Summing Up” puts into the field on its side resemble, with few exceptions, Falstaff's recruits: all they are good for is to fill the a breach with the corpses of thoughts [Paraphrase of Falstaff's words from Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part One, Act IV, Scene 2]. Enough of the grave-digger business!

Finally, a well-intended recollection of the Kölnische Zeitung. For the first time a sense of modesty and mistrust of its own strength has crept into the leading article, although it is otherwise accustomed to behave as if it were the criterion de omnibus rebus et de quibusdam aliis. [of all things and certain others] Not for the first time, but indeed for all time can Kölnische Zeitung become convinced on this occasion of the untenability of its editorial principle. Since all unpaid contributors are welcome, a few fingers with an itch to write and set in motion by a mediocre brain suffice to falsify the expression of public opinion. When one casts a glance at the columns of the Kölnische Zeitung, one would think the view favouring the separation of the city and the countryside is predominant in the Rhine Province. But if one casts a glance at the Rhine Province, one would think the Rhine Province is not predominant in the Kölnische Zeitung.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 316, November 12, 1842

Cologne, November 11. Our appeal to the Rhineland “provincial papers” regarding the communal reform question did not fail to produce results. The Kölnische Zeitung found itself moved to dip its issue of Nov. 11 into a false bright instead of the usual twilight colour and to recognise, though with unmistakable ill humour, hesitant reservations, suspicious side-glances, and deliberate ambiguity, the equal rights of town and countryside. Today once again we seize the opportunity to make the Kölnische Zeitung conscious of its state of mind and will not abandon the pleasant, though fantastic hope that it will renounce its point of view as soon as it has gained consciousness of its point of view.

“Incidentally,” the Kölnische Zeitung concludes its article today, “as regards the communal system question, which has such a high claim to the general interest, the editorial board of the Kölnische Zeitung considers it appropriate to state that in this respect also it pays allegiance to the principle of equality of rights but considers it its duty to give as free scope as possible to discussion of the forms in which an improvement of the present situation, which is thoroughly unfree and acknowledged by all parties to be no longer tolerable, is to be effected.”

The Kölnische Zeitung has so far not carried a single article about the forms in which the communal reform is to be effected while maintaining the principle of equality of rights. It was therefore impossible for us to fight a non-existent opponent. Or does the Kölnische Zeitung consider that the “separation of town and countryside”, a separation which a number of its articles suggested should be simulated legally by means of a separate communal system, is likewise one of the forms in which the principle of equality of rights is crystallised? Does it hold that the established inequality of rights is a form of equality of rights? The struggle in the Kölnische Zeitung centred not on the different forms of one and the same principle, but rather on the difference of the principle itself, and, indeed, in this struggle, if we consider the articles of the Kölnische Zeitung, according to that paper's own suggestion, as mere articles, i.e., according to their numerical mass, most of the troops belonged to the opponents of equality. We said to the Kölnische Zeitung. Be honest, do not falsify the expression of public opinion, fulfil the calling of a Rhineland paper, which is to represent the spirit of the Rhineland, disregard personal considerations, in a vital question for the province close your columns to all individual opinions which have the defect of wishing to assert a separate attitude in opposition to the will of the people. And how does the Kölnische Zeitung reply!

It finds it “appropriate” to pay allegiance to the principle of equality of rights in relation to the communal reform, a “finding appropriate” that will be considered very clever in respect of the Rhine Province, and not precisely as a proof of the inventiveness of the Kölnische Zeitung. Alongside this moderate allegiance to the spirit of the province, however, the Kölnische Zeitung considers it its “duty” to give as free scope as possible to discussion of the “forms” of the communal reform, among which forms it also includes the forms of “inequality”. This “devotion to duty” will be found appropriate from the standpoint of its private interests and private considerations, however inappropriate this standpoint itself is. To cut off all hiding places for the Kölnische Zeitung, which creeps into concealment behind the difference between form and content, we pose the categorical question whether it declares an inequality of town and countryside legally established by means of a separate communal system to be a “form” of equality of rights and believes it can continue to keep its columns open to pretences of such equality as a mere question of form. Tomorrow we shall return to the article of the Kölnische Zeitung in question.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 317, November 13, 1842

Cologne, November 12. The article in No. 314 of the Rheinische Zeitung on the question of the communal system, which has such a high claim to the general interest a is nothing but an avant-propos to the detailed discussion of communal equality for town and country which is being carried on in our supplement. The Kölnische Zeitung introduces its reference to this, that is, to the matter itself, with “Incidentally”, just as the worker at the craftsmen's banquet begins his speech with “In general”, but this must not at all diminish the merits of the Kölnische Zeitung in respect of originality, since we recognise it rather as a habit of the paper, a habit which is just as original as praiseworthy, that in dealing with a question of general interest it “incidentally” touches also on the “matter itself”. This method of treatment, which is somewhat intentional, possesses a wonderful elasticity which makes the most curious misunderstandings possible and for a third party even probable as the proper understanding of the matter.

So the Kölnische Zeitung begins its article in question of November 4c with the anecdote that a “neighbouring paper”, namely, the Rheinische Zeitung, has called on “all Rhine Province papers to join forces against the threat, allegedly coming from Berlin, to the equality before the law of urban and rural communities” and issued the common slogan: “Equality for all, for townspeople and for peasants.” The Kölnische Zeitung declares itself prepared to take up this slogan

“insofar as by equality is understood not the foolish dream of the Communists, but, as we presume, the only possible equality, equality of rights”.

This cunning side-glance at the communist dreams would have been just as impossible as the magnanimous presumption of our non-communist tendency would have been unnecessary had the Kdlnische Zeitung begun its report with the matter itself, with the fact that the Rheinische Zeitung wants an equal communal system for town and countryside and even designates this equality expressly in the article quoted as “equality of rights of urban and rural communities”. But if the Kolnische Zeitung were to see this equality itself as communist foolishness, then it would simply have to be referred to its own credo introduced by the Catonic “Caeterum”. [Cato]

The ridiculous communist side-cut is not enough. The Kölnische Zeitung considers it necessary to associate another confession of faith with that of equality of rights.

“But,” it says, “we must admit that we cannot at all share the concern that the wise government of Frederick William IV is contemplating an infringement of equality of rights in the Rhineland. Before we believe this we must be presented with facts and not with assertions, which, we hope, are without any foundation.”

With this clumsy and perfidious insinuation imputing to us fears of and the spreading of rumours about an intentional infringement of equality of rights in the Rhineland by the wise government of Frederick William IV, the Kölnische Zeitung flees from the field of argument to the field of suspicion and denunciation and convinces us anew that the impotence of understanding seeks as a last resort to assert itself through impotence of character, through the vain recklessness of demoralisation. What is the insinuation of the Kölnische Zeitung based on? Basing ourselves on information from Berlin, we reported that the Rhineland deputies to the Central Commissions had before them a draft of a communal system which did not recognise the equality of town and countryside; we recommended that in this case the Rhine press should adopt the attitude and energy of truth.

If the government submits to the opinion of the Rhineland deputies a communal system which separates town and countryside, it follows from this simple fact that the government, far from having any concealed intention, rather entertains the complete conviction that by such a separation it will not infringe equality of rights in the Rhine Province. If the Rhine press, the organ of the Rhine Province, is convinced that the province is of the opposite view, it follows just as simply that it must prove that a common communal system for town and countryside is a necessary consequence of equality of rights in the Rhine Province; or is it not even a duty of the press to the government not only to express the popular conviction without consideration for the exceptional opinion of single individuals, but also to prove the reasonable content of this conviction?

Finally, it is more than indecent on the part of the Kölnische Zeitung to bring the All-high person of His Majesty into controversies of this kind. It needs really a minimum of intelligence and a maximum of irresponsibility to make any political discussion impossible in a purely monarchical state by the simple and easy manoeuvre of disregarding the true content of the discussion, bringing in a personal relationship to the monarch and thereby turning every objective debate into a debate on a question of confidence. We expressed the hope that all Rhine Province papers would represent the view of the Rhine Province, because and insofar as we entertain the unshakeable conviction that His Majesty would not refuse to recognise the great significance of the general view of the Rhine Province, even if our Berlin information is grounded — which we have no occasion to doubt — even if the Rhine deputies approve a separation of town and countryside, of which there can be all the less doubt since just recently the articles of the Kölnische Zeitung proved that not all Rhinelanders are capable of understanding and sharing the conviction of the vastly overwhelming majority.

The Rheinische Zeitung advanced the slogan of equality of rights for town and countryside, and the Kölnische Zeitung accepted this slogan with the cautious condition that by “equality of rights” we understand equality of rights and no communist dream. The Rheinische Zeitung accompanied the Berlin information with an appeal to the feelings of the Rhine Province papers, and the Kölnische Zeitung denounces it for suspicions concerning His Majesty's intentions. The Rheinische Zeitung called on the various editorial boards of our provincial papers to sacrifice individual considerations and preconceived opinions to the Fatherland, and the Kölnische Zeitung comes out with a flat, entirely unexplained recognition of equality of rights for town and countryside, a recognition whose formal merit it itself nullifies, by declaring the “separation” of town and countryside to be a “form” of equality of rights. Is it possible to write in a more illogical, unprincipled and wretched manner? Is it possible to proclaim more clearly freedom with the lips and unfreedom with the heart? But the Kölnische Zeitung knows the Shakespeare saying:

“... to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand”, [Hamlet]

and the Kölnische Zeitung did not succumb to the temptation to be one out of ten thousand.

Finally, a word about the “separation of town and countryside”. Even apart from general grounds, the law can only be the ideal, self-conscious image of reality, the theoretical expression, made independent, of the practical vital forces. In the Rhine Province town and countryside are not separated in reality. Therefore the law cannot decree this separation without decreeing its own nullity.

 

Karl Marx

In Connection with the article
"Failures of the Liberal Opposition in Hanover"

Editorial Note ^[97]

---

Written: about November 8, 1842;

Source: MECW Volume 1, p 264;

First published: in the Supplement to the Rheinische Zeitung No. 312, November 8, 1842.

---

Since the expression "liberal opposition" in the title originated not with the author of the article in question, but with the editorial board, the latter takes this occasion to add something to explain this designation.

Two reasons are put forward against this expression. As regards its form, it is said that the opposition is not liberal, because it is conservative, because it aims at the continuance of an existing legal situation. According to this dialectic, the July revolution was a conservative and therefore illiberal revolution, for it aimed first of all at preserving the Charte. Nevertheless, liberalism claimed the July revolution as its own. Liberalism,. of course, is conservative, it conserves freedom and, in the face of the assaults of crude, material force, even the stunted status quo forms of freedom. It should be added that, if such an abstraction wishes to be consistent, from its own point of view the opposition of a legal situation dating from the year 1833 must be regarded as progressive and liberal compared with a reaction which is forcing the year 33 back to the year 19.

As regards the content, it is further contended that the content of the opposition, the fundamental state law of 1833, is not a content of freedom. Granted! However little the fundamental state law of 1833 is an embodiment of freedom when measured by the idea of freedom, it is very much an embodiment of freedom when measured by the existence of the fundamental state law of 1819. Altogether, it is not a question primarily of the particular content of this law; it is a question of opposing illegal usurpation in favour of legal content.

The editorial board was the more entitled to call the Hanover opposition liberal since almost all German assemblies acclaimed it as a liberal opposition, as an opposition of legal freedom. Whether it deserves this predicate when looked at from the judgment seat of criticism, whether it has progressed beyond the mere opinion and pretension of being liberal to real liberalism, to examine this was precisely the task of the article in question.

Incidentally, we point out that in our view true liberalism in Hanover in the future has neither to champion the fundamental state law of 1833 nor to hark back to the law of 1819, but must strive for a completely new form of state corresponding to a more profound, more thoroughly educated and freer popular consciousness.

The editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung

 

---

Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel ^[128]

Source: MECW Volume 1, p. 332
Written: between January 1 and 20, 1843
First published: in the Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 15, 17, 18, 19 and 20, January 15, 17, 18, 19 and 20, 1843

Rheinische Zeitung No. 15, January 15, 1843

From the Mosel, January. Nos. 346 and 348 of the Rheinische Zeitung contain two articles of mine, one of which deals with the distress due to lack of firewood in the Mosel region, and the other the special sympathy of the Mosel population for the royal Cabinet Order of December 24, 1841, and for the resulting greater freedom of the press. The latter article is written in coarse, and, if you like, even rude tones. Anyone who often has to hear directly the ruthless voice of want among the surrounding population easily loses the aesthetic tact by which his thoughts can be expressed in the most elegant and modest images. He may perhaps even consider it his political duty for a time to speak in public in the popular language of distress which in his native land he had no chance of forgetting. If, however, it is a question of proving that he speaks the truth, this can hardly mean proving literally every word, for in that case every summary would be untrue and, in general, it would be impossible to reproduce the meaning of a speech without repeating it word for word. Thus, for example, if it was said: “the cry of distress of the vine-growers was regarded as an insolent shrieking”, then to be fair one could demand only that this expressed an approximately correct equation. That is to say, it should be proved that there is an object which to a certain extent measures up to the summary description “insolent shrieking”, and makes this a not inappropriate description. If such a proof is given, the question is no longer one of truth but only of precision of language, and it would be hard to give more than a problematic judgment on extremely subtle nuances of linguistic expression.
The occasion for the above remarks of mine was provided by two rescripts of Oberpräsident von Schaper in No. 352 of the Rheinische Zeitung, dated “Koblenz, December 15”, in which a number of questions are put to me concerning my two articles mentioned above. The delay in the publication of my reply is due primarily to the content of the questions themselves, since a newspaper correspondent, in transmitting with the utmost conscientiousness the voice of the people as he has heard it, is not at all obliged to be prepared to give an exhaustive and motivated account of the occasions and sources of his report. Apart from the fact that such work would require much time and resources, the newspaper correspondent can only consider himself as a small part of a complicated body, in which he freely chooses his particular function. While one is perhaps more concerned to depict his impression of the distressed state of the people obtained directly from their statements, another, who is a historian, will discuss the history of the situation which has arisen; the man of feeling will describe the distress itself; the economist will examine the means required for its abolition, this itself being one problem which can be treated from different aspects: sometimes more on a local scale, sometimes more in relation to the state as a whole, etc.
Thus, with a lively press movement, the whole truth will be revealed, for if the whole appears at first only as the emergence of a number of different, individual points of view which — sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally — develop side by side, in the end, however, this work of the press will have prepared for one of its participants the material out of which he will create a single whole. Thus, gradually, by means of a division of labour, the press arrives at the whole truth, not by one person doing everything, but by many doing a little.
Another reason for the. delay in my reply is that the editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung required further particulars after my first report. Similarly, after the second and third reports, it asked for additional data, and also the present concluding report. Finally, the editorial board, on the one hand, demanded that I myself indicate my sources, and, on the other hand, held up the publication of my reports until it had itself, by some other means, received confirmation of my data. [While confirming the above statements, we point out at the same time that the various mutually explanatory letters made it necessary for us to present a combined account.-Editorial Board of the Rheinische Zeitung.]
Further, my reply appears anonymously. In this respect I am guided by the conviction that anonymity is an essential feature of the newspaper press, since it transforms the newspaper from an assemblage of many individual opinions into the organ of one mind. The name of the author would separate one article from another as definitely as the body separates one person from another, and would thus completely suppress the function of being only a complementary part. Finally, anonymity ensures greater impartiality and freedom, not only of the author, but also of the public, since the latter sees not who is speaking, but what he is saying. Free from an empirical view of the author as a person, the public judges him solely by his intellectual personality.
Since I do not mention my own name, in all my detailed reports I shall give the names of officials and communities only when quoting printed documents that are available in bookshops, or when mentioning names will harm no one. The press is obliged to reveal and denounce circumstances, but I am convinced that it should not denounce individuals, unless there is no other way of preventing a public evil or unless publicity already prevails throughout political life so that the German concept of denunciation no longer exists.
In concluding these introductory remarks I think I am entitled to express the hope that the Herr Oberpräsident, after acquainting himself with my whole exposition, will be convinced of the purity of my intentions and will attribute even possible mistakes to an incorrect view of things, and not to an evil disposition. My exposition itself should show whether I have deserved the serious accusation of slander and of intent to excite dissatisfaction and discontent, even in the present case of continued anonymity, accusations which are the more painful coming from a man who is regarded with particularly great respect and affection in the Rhine Province.
To facilitate a survey of my reply, I have set it out under the following headings:
A. The question of wood distribution.
B. The attitude of the Mosel region to the Cabinet Order of December 24, 1841, and to the resulting greater freedom of the press.
C. The cankers of the Mosel region.
D. The vampires of the Mosel region.
E. Proposals for a remedy.

A. The Question of Wood Distribution

In my article “From the Mosel, December 12” in No. 348 of the Rheinische Zeitung, I referred to the following circumstances:
“The community of several thousand souls to which I belong is the owner of most beautiful wooded areas, but I cannot recollect an occasion when members of the community derived direct advantage from their property by sharing in the distribution of wood”.
On this, the Herr Oberpräsident comments:
“Such procedure, which does not accord with legal provisions, can only be motivated by quite exceptional circumstances”,
and at the same time he demands, in order to verify the facts of the case, that I name the community.
I frankly admit: On the one hand, I believe that a procedure which does not accord with the law, and therefore contradicts it, can hardly be motivated by circumstances, but must always remain illegal; on the other hand, I cannot find that the procedure described by me is illegal.
The instruction (dated: “Koblenz, August 31, 1839") on the management of wooded areas belonging to communities and institutions in the Koblenz and Trier administrative districts, issued on the basis of the law of December 24, 1816, and the royal Cabinet Order of August 18, 1835, and published in the Supplement to No. 62 of the official organ of the royal administration in Koblenz — this instruction states literally the following in § 37:
“In regard to the utilisation of material in the wooded areas, as a rule as much must he sold as is required to cover forest costs (taxes and administrative expenses).
“For the rest, it depends on the decision of the communities themselves whether the material is sold by auction to cover other needs of the community, or whether it is distributed among the members of the community, wholly or in part, gratis or for a definite fee. However, as a rule, firewood and material for making household articles are distributed in natura, but building timber, if it is not used for communal buildings or to assist individual members of the community in cases of damage by fire, etc., is sold by auction”.
This instruction, issued by one of the predecessors of the Herr Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province, seems to me to prove that the distribution of firewood among the members of the community is neither made obligatory by law nor prohibited by it, but is only a question of expediency. Hence in the article in question also, I discussed only the expediency of the procedure. Accordingly, the basis for the Herr Oberpräsident’s demand to know the name of the community disappears, since it is no longer a question of investigating the administration of a particular community, but only of a modification to an instruction. However, I do not object to the editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung, in the event of a special demand from the Herr Oberpräsident, being empowered to name the community in which, to the best of my recollection, there has been no wood distribution. Such information would not be a denunciation of the local authorities but could only promote the welfare of the community.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 17, January 17, 1843

B. The Attitude of the Mosel Region to the Cabinet Order of December 24, 1841, and to the Resulting Greater Freedom of the PMs

In regard to my article from Bernkastel dated December 10, in No. 346 of the Rheinische Zeitung, where I asserted that the Mosel population, in view of its particularly difficult situation, welcomed with exceptional enthusiasm the greater freedom of the press afforded by the royal Cabinet Order of December 24 last year, the Herr Oberpräsident makes the following comment:
“If this article has any meaning, it can only be that hitherto the Mosel population had been forbidden to discuss publicly and frankly its state of distress, the causes of it and the means to remedy it. I doubt that this is so, for in view of the efforts of the authorities to find a remedy for the admittedly distressed state of the vine-growers, nothing could be more desired by the authorities than a discussion, as public and frank as possible, of the conditions prevailing there”. “I should, therefore, be greatly obliged if the author of the above article would be so good as to point out specially the cases where, even before the appearance of the royal Cabinet Order of December 24 last year, the authorities prevented a frank, public discussion of the distressed state of the inhabitants of the Mosel region”.
The Herr Oberpräsident further remarks:
“In addition, I think that I can in advance certainly describe as untrue the assertion in the above-mentioned article that the cry of distress of the vine-growers was for a long time regarded in higher quarters as an insolent shrieking”.
My reply to these questions will take the following course. I shall try to prove:
1) that, first of all, quite apart from the powers of the press prior to the royal Cabinet Order of December 24, 1841, the need for a free press necessarily arises from the specific character of the state of distress in the Mosel region;
2) that even if there were no special obstacles to a “frank and public discussion” before the appearance of the above-mentioned Cabinet Order, my assertion would he no less true, and the particular sympathy of the Mosel population for the royal Cabinet Order and the resulting greater freedom of the press would remain equally understandable;
3) that in actual fact special circumstances prevented a “frank and public” discussion.
From the whole context it will then be seen how far my assertion: “For a long time the desperate state of the vine-growers was doubted in higher quarters, and their cry of distress was regarded as an insolent shrieking”, is true or untrue.
As regards 1. In investigating a situation concerning the state one is all too easily tempted to overlook the objective nature of the circumstances and to explain everything by the will of the persons concerned. However, there are circumstances which determine the actions of private persons and individual authorities, and which are as independent of them as the method of breathing. If from the outset we adopt this objective standpoint, we shall not assume good or evil will, exclusively on one side or on the other, but we shall see the effect of circumstances where at first glance only individuals seem to be acting. Once it is proved that a phenomenon is made necessary by circumstances, it will no longer be difficult to ascertain the external circumstances in which it must actually be produced and those in which it could not be produced, although the need for it already existed. This can be established with approximately the same certainty with which the chemist determines the external conditions under which substances having affinity are bound to form a compound. Hence we believe that by our proof “that the necessity for a free press follows from the specific character of the state of distress in the Mosel region” we give our exposition a basis that goes far beyond anything personal.
The state of distress in the Mosel region cannot be regarded as a simple state of affairs. At least two aspects of it have to he distinguished: the private aspect and the state aspect, for the state of distress in the Mosel region cannot be considered to lie outside the state administration any more than the Mosel region can he considered to lie outside the state. Only the mutual relation between these two aspects provides the actual state of the Mosel region. In order to show the nature of this mutual relation, we shall report an authentic exchange of opinion, certified by documents, between the respective organs of the two sides.
In the fourth issue of Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Förderung der Weinkultur an der Mosel und Saar zu Trier there is a report of negotiations between the Finance Ministry, the government at Trier and the board of the above-mentioned Society. A document presented by the Society to the Finance Ministry contains, among other things, a calculation of the income from the vineyards. The government at Trier, which also received a copy of this document, asked for an expert opinion on it from the chief of the Trier Cadastre Bureau, tax inspector von Zuccalmaglio, who, as the government itself says in one of its reports, seemed to be specially suitable because he
“took an active part at the time when the registers of incomes from vineyards in the Mosel region were compiled”.
We shall now simply put side by side the most striking passages from the official opinion of Herr von Zuccalmaglio and the reply of the board of the Society for the Promotion of Viticulture.
The official reporter;
In the official report covering the past decade, 1829-38, the calculation of the gross income per morgen [4 morgen = 1 hectare] of vineyards in communities belonging to the third class as regards payment of wine tax is based on:
1) the yield per morgen;
2) the price at which a fuder [1,000 litre] of wine is sold in the autumn.
The calculation, however, is not based on any precisely verified data, for
“without official intervention and control it is impossible for either an individual or a society to collect privately trustworthy information on the quantity of wine obtained by all the individual property owners over a specified period in a large number of communities, because many owners may be directly interested in concealing the truth as far as possible”.
The reply of the board of the Society:
“We are not surprised that the Cadastre Bureau does its utmost to defend the procedure practised by it; nevertheless, it is difficult to understand the argument which follows”, etc.
“The chief of the Cadastre Bureau tries to prove by figures that the registered yields are everywhere correct; he says also that the ten-year period assumed by us cannot prove anything here”, etc., etc. “We shall not argue about figures, for, as he very wisely says in the introduction to his remarks, we lack the requisite official information. Moreover, we do not regard it as necessary, since his entire calculation and argument based on official data can prove nothing against the facts we have presented”. “Even if we admit that the registered yields were quite correct at the time of their compilation, or even that they were too low, it is impossible successfully to contest our statement that they can no longer serve as a @ under the present lamentably changed circumstances”.
The official reporter.
“Hence not a fact appears anywhere justifying the assumption that the registered yields from vineyards, based on assessments in the recent period, are too high; but it would he quite easy to prove that the earlier assessments of vineyards of the rural and urban districts of Trier and of the Saarburg district are too low, both in themselves and compared with other crops”.
The reply of the board of the Society:
“A man crying out for help finds it painful when in reply to his wen-founded complaint he is told that during compilation the registered yields could have been put higher rather than lower”.
“Moreover,” the reply points out, “the Herr Reporter, despite all his efforts to reject our data, could hardly refute or correct anything in our figures of income; therefore he has tried only to quote different results as regards expenditure”.
We want now to indicate some of the most striking differences of opinion between the Herr Reporter and the board of the Society on the question of calculating expenditure.
The official reporter.
“In regard to point 8, it should be particularly noted that the renewal of the usual lateral shoots, or what is called Geitzen is an operation recently introduced by only a few owners of vineyards, but nowhere, neither in the Mosel nor the Saar region, can it be regarded as part of the customary method of cultivations”.
The reply of the board of the Society:
“The removal of lateral shoots and the loosening of soil, according to the chief of the Cadastre Bureau, was only recently introduced by a few owners of vineyards”, etc. That, however, is not the case. “The vine-grower has understood that, to save himself from going under completely, he must not fail to try anything that could in some degree improve the quality of the wine. For the prosperity of the region, this attitude should he carefully encouraged, instead of being repressed”.
“And who would think of putting the cost of potato cultivation at a lower figure because there are some cultivators who leave the potatoes to their fate and God’s goodness?”
The official reporter.
“The cost of the barrel indicated in point 14 cannot at all enter into the valuation here, since, as has already been pointed out, the cost of the barrel is not included in the quoted prices of wine. If then the barrel is sold together with the wine, as is usually the case, the cost of the barrel is added to the price of the wine and thus the value of the barrels is reimbursed”.
The reply of the board of the Society:
“When wine is sold, the barrel is included, and there is not and even could not be the slightest question of its reimbursement. The rare cases when the innkeepers of our town buy wine without the barrel cannot be taken into account when viewing the situation as a whole”. “It is not the same with wine as with other goods, which lie in a warehouse until they are sold and the packing and dispatch of which then take place at the expense of the purchaser. Since, therefore, the purchase of wine tacitly includes that of the barrel, it is clear that the price of the latter must be included in the production costs”.
The official reporter.
“If the figures of yields given in the supplement are corrected to correspond to the official data on them, but the calculation of costs is accepted as correct even in all parts, and only the land and wine taxes and the cost of the barrels (or expenditures given in points 13, 14 and 17) are omitted from these costs, the result is as follows:
Gross income 53 talers 21 silver groschen 6 pfennigs
Costs — not including 13, 14 and 17 39 5 0
Net income 14 talers 16 silver groschen 6 pfennigs
The reply of the board of the Society:
“The calculation as such is correct, but the result is incorrect. We based our calculation not on supposed figures, but on figures which express the actual amounts involved, and we found that if from 53 talers of actual expenditure 48 talers representing the actual and only income are subtracted, there remains a loss of 5 talers”.
The official reporter.
“If, nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the state of distress in the Mosel region has considerably worsened compared with the period before the inauguration of the Customs Union, and that in part even a real impoverishment is to be feared, the reason for it should be sought exclusively in the former too high yields”.
“Owing to the previously existing quasi-monopoly of the wine trade in the Mosel region and the rapid succession of good wine years in 1819, 1822, 1825, 1826, 1827 and 1828, an unprecedented luxury developed there. Ale large sums of money in the hands of the vine-grower induced him to buy vineyards at enormous prices and to plant new vineyards at excessive cost in places that were no longer suitable for viticulture. Everyone wanted to become an owner, and debts were incurred which previously could easily be covered by the income from a good year, but which now, with the present unfavourable economic situation, are bound to ruin completely the vine-grower who has fallen into the hands of usurers”.
“One consequence of this will be that viticulture will be confined to the better holdings and will again, as formerly, come more into the hands of the rich landowners, a purpose to which it is most suited owing to the large initial expenditure involved. The rich landowners, too, can more easily withstand unfavourable years and even at such times have adequate means to improve cultivation and to obtain a product which can stand up to competition with that from the now opened countries of the Customs Union. Of course, during the first years this cannot take place without great hardships for the poorer class of vine-growers, most of whom, however, had become owners of vineyards in the previous favourable period. However, it should always be borne in mind that the earlier state of affairs was an unnatural one for which the immanent are now paying. The state ... will be able to confine itself to making the’ transition as easy as possible for the present population by appropriate measures”.
The reply of the board of the Society:
“Truly, one who only fears possible poverty in the Mosel region has not yet seen that poverty which, in its most ghastly form, is already deep-rooted and daily spreading among the morally healthy, tirelessly industrious population of this region. Let no one say, as the chief of the Cadastre Bureau does, that it is the impoverished vine-growers’ own fault. No, all of them have been struck down to a greater or lesser degree: the prudent and the imprudent, the industrious and the negligent, the well-to-do and the indigent; and if things have now gone so far that even the well-to-do, the industrious and the thrifty vine-growers are compelled to say that they can no longer provide themselves with food, then the cause is evidently not to be sought in them.
“It is true that in the favourable years the vine-growers bought new plots at prices higher than usual and that they incurred debts, calculating that their incomes, as they saw them, would suffice gradually to pay them off. But it is incomprehensible how this, which is proof of the enterprising and industrious spirit of these people, can be called luxury, and how it can be said that the present position of the vine-growers has arisen because the earlier state of affairs was an unnatural one, for which the imprudent are now paying.
“The chief of the Cadastre Bureau asserts that people who, according to him, were previously not even property owners (!!), tempted by the unusually good years, increased excessively the total of vineyards, and that the only remedy now lies in reducing the number of vineyards.
“But how insignificant is the number of vineyards which can be adapted for growing fruit or vegetables, compared with the majority which, apart from grapes, can produce only hedges and bushes! And can it he that this highly respectable population, which is crowded into such a relatively small area because of viticulture, and is so courageously struggling against misfortune, does not even deserve an attempt to alleviate its distress so that it can hold out until more favourable circumstances enable it to rise again and become for the state what it was before, namely, a source of income the equal of which is not to be found on any area of equal size apart from the towns”.
The official reporter.
“It is, of course, quite understandable that the richer landowners, too, take advantage of this distress of the poorer vine-growers in order to obtain for themselves all possible alleviations and advantages by a vivid description of the former happy state of affairs in contrast to the present less favourable, but nevertheless still profitable, position”.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 18, January 18, 1843

The reply of the board of the Society:
“We owe it to our honour and our inner conviction to protest against the accusation that we take advantage of the distress of the poorer vine-growers in order to obtain for ourselves all possible advantages and alleviations by means of vivid descriptions.
“No, we assert — and that, we hope, will suffice for our justification — that we were far from having any selfish intention, and that all our efforts were directed towards making the state aware, by a frank and truthful description of the conditions of the poor vine-growers, of a situation the further development of which is bound to he dangerous for the state itself! Anyone who knows the transformation which the present pitiful position of the vine-growers has already increasingly brought about in their domestic life and industrial activity, and even as regards morality, cannot but shudder at the future when he thinks of a continuance or even increase of such distress”.
It has to be admitted, first of all, that the government could not come to a decision but must have vacillated between the view of its reporter and the opposing view of the vine-growers. Bearing in mind, further, that the report of Herr von Zuccalmaglio is dated December 12, 1839, and the answer of the Society is dated July 15, 1840, it follows that up to this time the view of the reporter must have been, if not the sole, at any rate the prevailing view of the government collegium. In 1839, at least, it was still counterposed to the Society’s memorandum as the government’s judgment and therefore, as it were, a résumé of the governmental view, for if a government is consistent its latest opinion can surely be regarded as the sum total of its earlier views and experience. In the report, however, not only is the state of distress not recognised as general but there is no intention of remedying even the admitted state of distress, for it is stated: “The state will be able to confine itself solely to making the transition as easy as possible for the present population by appropriate measures”. Under these circumstances, transition must be taken to mean gradual ruin [Untergang]. The ruin of the poorer vine-growers is regarded as a kind of natural phenomenon, to which one must be resigned in advance, seeking only to mitigate the inevitable. “Of course,” it is stated, “this cannot take place without great hardships”. The Society, therefore, also raises the question whether the vine-growers of the Mosel do not even deserve “an attempt” to save them. If the government had held a decisively opposed view, it would have modified the report at the outset, since the report makes a definite statement on such an important question as the task and decision of the state in this matter. Hence it is evident that the distressed state of the vine-growers could be admitted without there being any effort to remedy it.
We cite now yet another example of the kind of information given to the authorities about conditions in the Mosel region. In 1838, a highly placed administrative official travelled through the Mosel region. At a conference in Piesport with two district presidents, he asked one of them what the vine-growers’ situation was like as regards property and received the reply:
...The vine vine-growers live too luxuriously and if only for that reason things cannot be going badly with them”.
Yet luxury had already become a story of former days. We only incidentally point out here that this view, which coincides with the official report, has by no means been generally abandoned. We recall the statement from Koblenz published in Supplement I of the Frankfürter journal No. 349 (1842), which speaks of the alleged state of distress of the Mosel vine-growers.
The above-quoted official view is reflected, too, in the attitude of higher quarters, which throws doubt on the “desperate” state of the vine-growers and on the general nature of the distress, hence also on its general causes. The reports of the Society quoted above contain, inter alia, the following replies of the Finance Ministry to various petitions:
“Although, as the market prices for wine show, the owners of Mosel and Saar vineyards included in the first and second classes as regards taxation have no cause for dissatisfaction nevertheless it is not denied that vine-growers whose products are of inferior quality are not in an equally favourable position”.
In a reply to a petition for remission of taxation for 1838, it is stated:
“In reply to your representation sent here on October 10 of last year, we have to inform you that the petition for a general remission of the entire wine tax for 1838 cannot be entertained, since you do not belong to the class which is most in need of consideration and whose state of distress, etc., is explicable by quite other causes than taxation”.
Since we wish to construct our exposition solely on factual material, endeavouring, as far as we can, to present only facts in a general form, we shall first of all make clear the general ideas underlying the dialogue between the Trier Society for the Promotion of Viticulture and the government’s reporter.
The government has to appoint an official to give an expert opinion on the memorandum presented to it. It naturally appoints an official who has the greatest possible knowledge of the subject, preferably therefore an official who himself took part in regulating the situation in the Mosel region. This official is not averse to finding in the complaints contained in the document in question attacks on his official understanding and his official activity. He is aware of his conscientious performance of his duty and of the detailed official information at his disposal; he is suddenly faced with an opposing view, and what could be more natural than that he should take sides against the petitioner, and that the intentions of the latter, which could of course always be bound up with private interests, should seem to him suspicious, and that therefore he should suspect them. Instead of using the data in the memorandum, he tries to refute them. In addition, the obviously poor vine-grower has neither the time nor the education to describe his condition; hence the poor vine-grower is unable to speak, whereas the vine cultivator who is able to speak is not obviously poor, and therefore his complaints seem unfounded. But if even the educated vine-grower is rebuked for not having the official understanding, how could the uneducated vine-grower hold his own against this official understanding
For their part, private persons who have observed the real poverty of others in the full extent of its development, who see it gradually coming closer even to themselves, and who, moreover, are aware that the private interest they defend is equally a state interest, and is defended by them as a state interest, these private persons are not only bound to feel that their own honour has been impugned, but consider also that reality itself has been distorted under the influence of a one-sided and arbitrarily established point of view. Hence they oppose the overweening presumption of officialdom; they point out the contradiction between the real nature of the world and that ascribed to it in government offices, contrasting the practical proofs to the official proofs. And, finally, they cannot avoid suspecting that behind total misconception of their account of the actual state of affairs, which is based on well-founded convictions and clear facts, there is a selfish intention, namely, the intention to assert official judgment in opposition to the intelligence of the citizens. Consequently, they conclude also that the expert official who comes into contact with their conditions of life will not give an unprejudiced description of them, precisely because these conditions are partly the result of his activities, whereas the unprejudiced official, who could give a sufficiently impartial judgment, is not an expert. When, however, the official accuses private persons of elevating their private affairs to the level of a state interest, private persons accuse the official of degrading the state interest to the level of a private affair of his own, from which all others are excluded as being mere laymen. In this way even the most patent reality appears illusory compared with the reality depicted in the dossiers, which is official and therefore of a state character, and compared with the intelligence based on this official reality. Hence to the official only the sphere of activity of the authorities is the state, whereas the world outside this sphere of activity is merely an object of state activity, completely lacking the state frame of mind and state understanding. Finally, in the event of a notoriously bad situation, the official puts the main blame on private persons who, he alleges, are themselves responsible for their plight, while he refuses to allow any attack on the excellence of administrative principles or institutions, which are themselves official creations and no part of which he is willing to relinquish. The private person, on the other hand, conscious of his industriousness, his thrift, his hard struggle against nature and social conditions, demands that the official who is supposed to be the sole creative force of the state should put an end to his distress and, since that official claims he can put everything right, that he should prove ‘ his ability to remedy the bad situation by his activity, or at least recognise that institutions which were suitable at a certain time have become unsuitable under completely changed circumstances.
The same standpoint of superior official knowledge and the same antithesis between the administration and the object administered are repeated within the world of officialdom itself. We see that the Cadastre Bureau, in its judgment on the Mosel region, is mainly concerned with asserting the infallibility of the Cadastre, and just as the Finance Ministry maintains that the evil is due to “quite other” causes than “taxation”, so the administration will find that the basis of the distress lies not at all in itself, but outside itself. Not intentionally, but necessarily, the individual official who is in closest contact with the vine-grower sees the state of things as better or other than it actually is. He thinks that the question whether things are all right in his region amounts to the question whether he administers the region correctly. Whether the administrative principles and institutions are good or not is a question that lies outside his sphere, for that can only be judged in higher quarters where a wider and deeper knowledge of the official nature of things, i.e., of their connection with the state as a whole, prevails. He may be most honestly convinced that he himself administers well. Hence either he will find the situation not so entirely desperate or, if he does find it to be so, he will look for the reason outside the administration, partly in nature, which is independent of man, partly in private life, which is independent of the administration, and partly in accidental circumstances, which depend on no one.
The higher administrative bodies are bound to have more confidence in their officials than in the persons administered, who cannot be presumed to possess the same official understanding. An administrative body, moreover, has its traditions. Thus, as regards the Mosel region too, it has its once and for all established principles, it has its official picture of the region in the Cadastre, it has official data on revenue and expenditure, it has everywhere, alongside the actual reality, a bureaucratic reality, which retains its authority however much the times may change. In addition, the two circumstances, namely, the law of the official hierarchy and the principle that there are two categories of citizens — the active, knowledgeable citizens in the administration, and the passive, uninformed citizens who are the object of administration — these two circumstances are mutually complementary. In accordance with the principle that the state possesses conscious and active existence in the administration, every government will regard the condition of a region — insofar as the state aspect of the matter is concerned — as the result of the work of its predecessor. According to the law of hierarchy, this predecessor will in most cases already occupy a higher position, often the one immediately above. Finally, every government is actuated, on the one hand, by the consciousness that the state has laws which it must enforce in the face of all private interests, and, on the other hand, as an individual administrative authority, its duty is not to make institutions or laws, but to apply them. Hence it can try to reform not the administration itself, but only the object administered. It cannot adapt its laws to the Mosel region, it can only try to promote the welfare of the Mosel region within the limits of its firmly established rules of administration. The more zealously and sincerely, therefore, a government endeavours — within the limits of the already established administrative principles and institutions by which it is itself governed — to remove a glaring state of distress that embraces perhaps a whole region, and the more stubbornly the evil resists the measures taken against it and increases despite the good administration, so much the more profound, sincere and decisive will be the conviction that this is an incurable state of distress, which the administration, i.e., the state, can do nothing to alter, and which requires rather a change on the part of those administered.
Whereas, however, the lower administrative authorities trust the official understanding of those above them that the administrative principles are good, and are themselves ready to answer for their dutiful implementation in each separate case, the higher administrative authorities are fully convinced of the correctness of the general principles and trust the bodies subordinate to them to make the correct official judgment in each case, of which, moreover, they have official proofs.
In this way it is possible for a government with the best intentions to arrive at the principle expressed by the government’s reporter in Trier in regard to the Mosel region: “The state will be able to confine itself solely to making the transition as easy as possible for the present population by appropriate measures”.
If we look now at some of the methods which have transpired and which the government has used to alleviate the distress in the Mosel region, we shall find our argument confirmed at least by the history of the administration which is accessible to all; on the secret history, of course, we cannot pass judgment. We include among these measures: remission of taxes in bad wine years, the advice to go over to some other cultivation, such as sericulture, and, finally, the proposal to limit parcellation of landed property. The first of these measures, obviously, can only alleviate, not remedy. It is a temporary measure, by which the state makes an exception to its rule, and an exception which does not cost it much. Moreover, it is not the constant state of distress which is alleviated, it is likewise an exceptional manifestation of it, not the chronic sickness to which people have become accustomed, but an acute form of it which comes as a surprise.
In regard to the other two measures, the administration goes outside the scope of its own activities. The positive activity which it undertakes here consists partly in instructing the Mosel inhabitants how they themselves can come to their own aid, and partly in proposing a limitation or even denial of a right they previously possessed. Here, therefore, we find confirmed the train of thought we described above. The administration, which considers that the distressed state of the Mosel region is incurable and due to circumstances lying outside the scope of its principles and its activity, advises the Mosel inhabitants so to arrange their life that it is adapted to the present administrative institutions and that they are able to exist in a tolerable fashion within them. The vine-grower himself is deeply pained by such proposals, even if they only reach him by rumour. He would be thankful if the government carried out experiments at its own expense, but he feels that the advice that he should undertake experiments on himself means that the government is refusing to help him by its own activity. He wants help, not advice. However much he trusts the knowledge possessed by the administration in its own sphere, and however confidently he turns to it in such matters, he credits himself just as much with the necessary understanding in his own sphere. But limitation of the parcellation of landed property contradicts his inherited sense of right; he regards it as a proposal to add legal poverty to his physical poverty, for he regards every violation of equality before the law as the distress of right. He feels, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, that the administration exists for the sake of the country and not the country for the sake of the administration, but that this relationship becomes reversed when the country has to transform its customs, its rights, its kind of work and its property ownership to suit the administration. The Mosel inhabitant, therefore, demands that, if he carries out the work which nature and custom have ordained for him, the state should create conditions for him in which he can grow, prosper, and live. Hence such negative devices come to nought when they encounter the reality not only of the existing conditions, but also of civic consciousness.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 19, January 19, 1843

What then is the relation of the administration to the distress in the Mosel region? The distressed state of the Mosel region is at the same time a distressed state of the administration. The constant state of distress of part of the country (and a state of distress, which, beginning almost unnoticed more than a decade ago, at first gradually and then irresistibly develops to a climax and assumes ever more threatening dimensions, can well be called constant) signifies a contradiction between reality and administrative principles, just as, on the other hand, not only the nation, but also the government regards the well-being of a region as a factual confirmation of good administration. The administration, however, owing to its bureaucratic nature, is capable of perceiving the reasons for the distress not in the sphere administered, but only in the sphere of nature and the private citizen which lies outside the sphere administered. The administrative authorities, even with the best intentions, the most zealous humanity and the most powerful intellect, can find no solution for a conflict that is more than momentary or transient, the constant conflict between reality and the principles of administration, for it is not their official task, nor would it be possible, despite the best intentions, to make a breach in an essential relation or, if you like, fate. [Verhängnis] This essential relation is the bureaucratic one, both within the administrative body itself and in its relations with the administered body.
On the other hand, the private vine-grower can no more deny that his judgment may be affected, intentionally or unintentionally, by private interest, and therefore the correctness of his judgment cannot be assumed absolutely. Moreover, he will realise that there are in the state a multitude of private interests which suffer, and the general principles of administration cannot be abandoned or modified for their sake. Furthermore, if it is asserted that there is distress of a general character and that the general well-being is endangered in such a manner and to such an extent that private misfortune becomes a misfortune for the state and its removal a duty which the state owes to itself, the rulers regard this assertion of the ruled in relation to them as inappropriate; for the rulers consider they are in the best position to judge how far the welfare of the state is endangered and that they must he presumed to have a deeper insight into the relation between the whole and the parts than the parts themselves have. Furthermore, individuals, even a large number of them, cannot claim that their voice is the voice of the people; on the contrary, their description of the situation always retains the character of a private complaint. Finally, even if the conviction held by the complaining private persons were the conviction of the entire Mosel region, the latter, as an individual administrative unit, as an individual part of the country, would be, in relation to its own province as also in relation to the state, in the position of a private person whose convictions and desires should be judged only by their relation to the general conviction and the general desire.
In order to solve this difficulty, therefore, the rulers and the ruled alike are in need of a third element, which would be political without being official, hence not based on bureaucratic premises, an element which would be of a civil nature without being bound up with private interests and their pressing need. This supplementary element with the head of a citizen of the state and the heart of a citizen is the free press. In the realm of the press, rulers and ruled alike have an opportunity of criticising their principles and demands, and no longer in a relation of subordination, but on terms of equality as citizens of the state; no longer as individuals, but as intellectual forces, as exponents of reason. The “free press”, being the product of public opinion, is also the creator of public opinion. It alone can make a particular interest a general one, it alone can make the distressed state of the Mosel region an object of general attention and general sympathy on the part of the Fatherland, it alone can mitigate the distress by dividing the feeling of it among all.
The attitude of the press to the people’s conditions of life is based on reason, but it is equally based on feeling. Hence it does not speak only in the clever language of judgment that soars above circumstances, but the passionate language of circumstances themselves, a language which cannot and should not be demanded of official reports. The free press, finally, brings the people’s need in its real shape, not refracted through any bureaucratic medium, to the steps of the throne, to a power before which the difference between rulers and ruled vanishes and there remain only equally near and equally far removed citizens of the state.
If, therefore, a freer press became essential owing to the specific state of distress of the Mosel region, if it there became an urgent, because actual, need, it is obvious that no exceptional obstacles to the press were required to create such a need, but that, on the contrary an exceptional freedom of the press was required to .satisfy the existing need.
As regards 2 The press which deals with the affairs of the Mosel region is in any case only a part of the Prussian political press. Hence, in order to ascertain its state before the promulgation of the frequently cited Cabinet Order, it will be necessary to take a quick glance at the state of the whole Prussian press before 1841. Let us listen to a man whose loyal frame of mind is generally recognised:
“General ideas and matters,” says David Hansemann in his book Preussen und Frankreich, second edition, Leipzig, 1834, p. 272, “develop quietly and tranquilly in Prussia, and do so the more unnoticed because the censorship does not permit any thorough discussion in Prussian newspapers of political and even economic questions concerning the state, however decent and moderate their formulation. A thorough discussion can only mean one in which arguments and counter-arguments can be put forward. Hardly any economic question can he discussed thoroughly unless its connections, with internal and external policy are also examined, for there are few questions, perhaps none at all in the case of economic questions, in which such connections do not exist. Whether this exercise of the censorship is expedient, whether the censorship could be exercised in any other way in the present state of the government in Prussia, is not the question here, suffice it that such is the case”.
It should be recalled, further, that §1 of the censorship decree of December 19, 1788, already stated:
“It is certainly not the intention of the censorship to hinder a decent, earnest and modest investigation of the truth or otherwise impose any unnecessary and burdensome constraint on writers”.
In Article II of the censorship decree of October 18, 1819, it is stated again:
“The censorship will not prevent serious and modest investigation of truth nor impose undue constraint on writers”.
Compare with this the introductory words of the censorship instruction of December 24, 1841 130:
“In order already now to free the press from improper restrictions, which are against the intentions of the All-Highest, His Majesty the King, by a supreme order issued to the royal state ministry [... ] has been pleased to disapprove expressly of any undue constraint on the activity of writers and [...] empowered us to direct the censors anew to due observance of Article II of the censorship decree of October 18, 1819”.
Finally, let us recall the following statement:
“The censor can very well permit a frank discussion also of internal affairs. — The undeniable difficulty of determining the correct limits in this ‘matter should not deter the censor from endeavouring to comply with the true intention of the law, nor mislead him into the kind of anxiety which has already only too often given rise to misinterpretations of the government’s intention”.
In view of all these official declarations, it is clear that the question why censorship obstacles have occurred despite the wish of the authorities that conditions in the Mosel region should be discussed as frankly and publicly as possible, becomes instead the more general question: why, in spite of the “intention of the law”, the “government’s intention,” and, finally, the “intentions of the All Highest”, should the press in 1841 admittedly still have to be freed “from improper restrictions”, and the censorship in 1841 have to be reminded of Article II of the 1819 decree? As regards the Mosel region in particular, the former question should not ask what special obstacles to the press have occurred, but what special measures in favour of the press should be taken by way of exception to ensure that this partial discussion of internal conditions is as frank and public as possible.
The clearest indication of the inner content and character of political literature and the daily press prior to the above-mentioned Cabinet Order is contained in the following statement of the censorship instruction:
“In this way it may be hoped that both political literature and the daily press will realise their function better, adopt a more dignified tone, and in future will scorn to speculate on the curiosity of their readers through communication of baseless reports taken from foreign newspapers, etc., etc. ... It is to be expected that thereby greater sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland will be aroused and thus national feeling enhanced”.
From this it seems to follow that, although no special measures prevented a frank and public discussion of conditions in the Mosel region, nevertheless the general state of the Prussian press itself was bound to be an insurmountable obstacle both to frankness and to publicity. If we sum up the above-quoted passages from the censorship instruction, they tell us that: the censorship was excessively anxious and an external barrier to a free press, that hand in hand. with this went the internal narrowness of the press, which had lost courage and even abandoned the effort to rise above the horizon of novelty, and that, finally, in the nation itself sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland and national feeling had been lost, that is to say, precisely the elements which are not only the creative forces of a frank and public press, but also the conditions within which a frank and public press can operate and win popular recognition, recognition which is the breath of life of the press, and without which it hopelessly pines away.
Hence, although measures taken by the authorities can create an unfree press, it is beyond the power of the authorities, when the general state of the press is unfree, to ensure that special questions are discussed as frankly and publicly as possible. Under such conditions, even frank statements which might happen to he made on particular subjects in the columns of the newspaper would fail to evoke any general sympathy, and would therefore be unable to achieve any real publicity.
In addition, as Hansemann rightly remarks, there is perhaps not a single question of the state economy in which connections with internal and external policy do not exist. Hence the possibility of a frank and public discussion of conditions in the Mosel region presupposes the possibility of frank and public discussion of the whole of “internal and external policy”. Individual administrative authorities were so powerless to ensure this possibility that only the direct and decisive expression of the will of the King himself could play a determining and lasting role here.
If public discussion was not frank, frank discussion was not public. Frank discussion was limited to obscure provincial sheets, whose horizon, of course, did not go beyond their area of circulation and, as shown above, could not do so. To characterise such local discussions, we shall quote a few extracts from the Bernkastel Gemeinnütziges Wochenblatt of different years. In 1835 it stated:
“In the autumn of 1833 in Erden, a person from another place made 5 ohms [500-750 litres] of wine. In order to fill the barrel (fuder), this person bought an additional 2 ohm at a price of 30 talers. The barrel cost 9 talers, the grape-pressing tax amounted to 7 talers 5 silver groschen, the harvesting of the grapes 4 talers, cellar rent 1 taler 3 silver groschen, payment for the cooper 16 silver groschen. Therefore, without counting cultivation costs, the total expenditure was 51 talers 24 silver groschen. On May 10, the barrel of wine was sold for 41 talers. It should be noted also that this wine was of good quality and was not sold from sheer necessity, not did it fall into the hands of usurers” (p. 87). “On November 21 in the Bemkastel market, 514 ohm of 1835 wine was sold for 14 silver groschen — fourken silver groschen — and on the 27th of the same month 4 ohms together with the barrel were sold for 11 talers; moreover, it should be noted that on the previous Michaelmas the barrel had been bought for 11 talers” (p. 267, ibid.).
On April 12, 1836, there was a similar item.
We should like to quote also some extracts from 1837:
“On the first of this month in Kinheim in the presence of a notary there was sold by public auction a young, four-year-old vineyard containing about 20Q vine-stocks, correctly trained on stakes. It cost the buyer 1 1/2 pfennigs per stock, under the usual conditions of payment. In 1828, the same vine-stock there cost 5 silver groschen” (p. 47). “In Graach, a widow surrendered her ungathered grape harvest for half of the wine yield and she received for her share one ohm of wine, which she exchanged for 2 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of bread and 112 lb. of onions’ (No. 37, ibid.). “On the 20th of this month there was a forced sale by auction here of 8 fuders of 1836 wine from Graach and Bernkastel, part of it from the best sites, and 1 fuder of 1835 wine from Graach. The sale (barrels included) yielded a total sum of 135 talers 15 silver groschen, so that the wine cost the buyer about 15 talers per fuder. The barrel alone could have cost 10-12 talers. What is left for the poor vine-grower to pay for the cost of cultivation? Is it then impossible to remedy this terrible distress!! (Letter to the Editor)” (No. 4, p. 30).
We have here, therefore, merely a simple relation of facts, sometimes accompanied by a brief elegiac epilogue. Precisely because of their artless simplicity they can produce a shattering effect, but they could hardly even claim to be a frank and public discussion of conditions in the Mosel region.
If then an individual or even a considerable part of a population falls victim to a striking and terrifying misfortune and no one discusses this calamity, if no one treats it as a phenomenon worthy of being thought about and discussed, the unfortunate victims are bound to conclude either that the others are not allowed to speak about it, or that they do not want to do so because they consider the importance attached to the matter illusory. Even for the most uneducated vine-grower, however, the recognition of his misfortune by others, this spiritual participation in it, is an urgent need, if only because he can conclude that when all give thought to it and many speak of it, soon some will do something about it. Even if a free and open discussion of the Mosel conditions had been :permitted, no such discussion took place, and it is clear that people believe only in what actually exists; they do not believe in a free press which might exist, but only in a free press that actually exists. The Mosel inhabitants, of course, had felt their distress before the appearance of the royal Cabinet Order, and indeed had heard doubts expressed about this distress, only they did not see any discussion of it by a public and frank press. After the appearance of the Cabinet Order, on the other hand, they saw such a press spring up, as it were, out of nothing. Thus their conclusion that the royal Cabinet Order was the sole cause of this movement of the press, in which, for the reasons mentioned above, they took such an exceptional interest, owing directly to their actual need, this conclusion seems to have been at least a very popular one. Finally, it seems that, apart from the popularity of this opinion, a critical examination would lead also to the same result. The introduction to the censorship instruction of December 24, 1841, states.
“His Majesty the King has been pleased to disapprove expressly of any undue constraint on the activity of writers and, recognising the value and need of frank and decent publicly ... etc”.
This introductory statement assures the press of a special royal recognition, hence a recognition of its state significance. That a single word from the King could have such an important effect and was welcomed by the Mosel inhabitants as a word of magical power, as a panacea against all their tabulations, seems only to testify to the genuinely royalist disposition of the Mosel population and to their thankfulness expressed in no niggardly fashion, but in overflowing measure.

Rheinische Zeitung No. 20, January 20, 1843

As regards 3. We have tried to show that the need for a free press necessarily arose from the specific character of the conditions in the Mosel region. We have shown further that prior to the appearance of the royal Cabinet Order this need could not be satisfied, if not because of special constraints imposed on the press, at any rate owing to the general state of the Prussian daily press. Lastly we shall show that as a matter of fact special circumstances have been hostile to a frank and public discussion of conditions in the Mosel region. Here, too, we must in the first place stress the point of view by which we have been guided in our exposition and recognise the powerful influence of general conditions on the will of the acting persons. In the special circumstances which prevented a frank and public discussion of the state of affairs in the Mosel region we ought not to see anything but the factual embodiment and obvious manifestation of the above-mentioned general conditions, namely, the specific position of the administration in regard to the Mosel region, the general state of the daily press and of public opinion, and, finally, the prevailing political spirit and its system. If these conditions were, as seems to be the case, the general, invisible and compelling forces of that period, it hardly needs to be shown that they had to take effect as such, and were bound to be manifested in facts and expressed in separate actions which had the semblance of being arbitrary. Anyone who abandons this objective standpoint falls victim to one-sided, bitter feelings against individual personalities in whom he sees embodied all the harshness of the contemporary conditions confronting him.
Among the special obstacles to the press we must include not only individual difficulties due to censorship, but equally the special circumstances which made censorship itself superfluous because they did not allow the object of censorship to come into being at all, even tentatively. When the censorship comes into obvious, persistent and sharp conflict with the press, it can be concluded with a fair certainty that the press has achieved vitality, character and self-assurance, for only a perceptible action produces a perceptible reaction. When, on the other hand, there is no censorship because there is no press, although the need for a free and therefore censurable press exists, one must expect to find a pre-censorship in circumstances which have suppressed by fear the expression of thought even in its more unpretentious forms.
We cannot aim at giving a full description of these special circumstances even in an approximate form. It would mean describing the whole history of the period since 1830 insofar as it concerns the Mosel region. We believe we shall have fulfilled our task if we prove that the frank and public word in all its forms — in spoken form, in written form, and in printed form, print not yet censored as well as that already censored — has encountered special obstacles.
Depression and despondency, which in any case shatter the moral strength required by a distressed population for public and frank discussion, were especially aroused by the court sentences imposed “for insult to an official in the performance of his duty or in connection with his duty”, which necessarily followed numerous denunciations.
This kind of procedure is still fresh in the memory of many Mosel vine-growers. One citizen, particularly liked because of his good nature, jokingly remarked to the maidservant of a district president who the evening before had busily applied himself to the bottle when celebrating the King’s birthday in joyful company: “Your master was a bit tiddly last night”. For this innocent remark he was publicly brought before the police court at Trier, but, as n-fight have been expected, he was acquitted.
We have chosen this particular example because a simple conclusion necessarily follows from it. Each district president is the censor in the chief town of his district. The district president’s administration, however, together with that of the official bodies subordinated to him, will provide the principal subject-matter for the local press, because it is the latter’s immediate concern. If in general it is difficult to be the judge in one’s own case, incidents of the kind mentioned above, which testify to a pathologically sensitive notion of the inviolability attaching to an official position, make the mere existence of the district president’s censorship a sufficient reason for the non-existence of a frank local press.
If, therefore, we see that an ingenuous and innocent utterance can lead to an appearance before police court, a written form of free speech, a petition which is still a long way from publicity by the press, has the same police-court result. In the former case, frank speaking is prevented by the inviolability attaching to an official position in the latter case by the inviolability of the laws of the land.
Following a “Cabinet Order” of July 6, 1936, which stated, among other things, that the King [Frederick William III]was sending his son to the Rhine Province to acquaint himself with the conditions prevailing there, some cultivators in the Trier administrative district were inspired to request their “deputy to the Provincial Assembly” to draw up a petition to the Crown Prince [who became Frederick William IV in 1840] on their behalf. At the same time they indicated the various items of their complaint. In order to increase the importance of the petition by a larger number of signatures, the deputy to the Provincial Assembly [Valdenaire] sent to the environs a messenger who obtained the signatures of 160 peasants. The petition read as follows:
“We, the undersigned inhabitants of the circuit ... of the Trier administrative district, being informed that our gracious King is sending us His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to acquaint himself with our position, and in order to spare His Royal Highness the trouble of hearing complaints from a number of separate persons, herewith authorise our deputy to the Provincial Assembly, Herr .... most humbly to submit to His Royal Highness, His most gracious Majesty’s son, the Crown Prince of Prussia, that:
“1. When we are unable to sell our surplus products, especially as regards cattle and wine, it is impossible for us to pay the taxes, which in all circumstances are too high; for which reason we desire a considerable reduction of the same, since otherwise we have to give the tax-collectors our goods and chattels, as shown by the attached (it contains an order from a tax-collector to pay 1 reichstaler 25 silver groschen 5 pfennigs).
“2. That His Royal Highness should not judge our situation from the evidence of innumerable, much too highly paid, officials, pensioners, persons with special remuneration, d~ and military personnel, rentiers and industrialists, who, owing to the fall in the price of our products, are able to live in the towns cheaply in a luxury such as is not to be found, on the other hand, in the poor hut of the cultivator, who is overwhelmed by debts, and this contrast arouses his indignation. Whereas previously there were 27 officials receiving 29,000 talers, there are now 63 officials, excluding those on pension, who are paid a total of 105,000 talers.
“3. That our communal officials should be elected, as was previously the case, directly by members of the community.
“4. That the tax offices should not be closed for hours on end during the day, but should be open at all times, so that the cultivator who, through no fault of his own, arrives a few minutes late, does not have to wait five to six hours, even having to freeze all night in the street or stand in the burning sun all day, since the official should always be ready to serve the people.
“5. That the provision in §12 of the law of April 28, 1828, renewed by the official gazette of His Majesty’s Government of August 22 last, which makes it a punishable offence to plough within two feet of the ditch at the edge of roads going through cultivate land, should be annulled and the owners allowed to plough their whole land right up to the road ditch, so as to prevent this land from being stolen from them by the highway custodians.
“Your Royal Highness’ most humble subjects”.
(Signatures follow.)
This petition, which the deputy to the Provincial Assembly wanted to hand personally to the Crown Prince, was accepted by someone else with the express promise that it would be given to His Royal Highness. No reply to it was received, but court proceedings were instituted against the deputy to the Provincial Assembly as the initiator of a petition containing “insolent, dishonourable accusations against the laws of the province”. As a result of this charge, the deputy to the Provincial Assembly was sentenced in Trier to six months’ imprisonment with costs. This punishment, however, was amended by the appeal court so that only the part relating to costs was left in force, on the grounds that the conduct of the accused was not quite free from indiscretion and therefore he was responsible for the case being brought against him. The contents of the petition itself, on the other hand, were acknowledged to be not at all punishable.
Partly because of the aim of the Crown Prince’s journey, and partly because of the official position of the accused as a deputy to the Provincial Assembly, the petition in question was bound to be magnified in the eyes of the whole environs into a specially important and decisive event and to attract public attention in the highest degree. Taking this into account, the consequences cannot be said to have encouraged a public and frank discussion of the conditions in the Mosel region or to have made probable any wishes of the authorities on this subject.
We come now to the real obstacle to the press, to prohibitions imposed by the censorship. From what has been said above, it is evident that such prohibitions are bound to be rare, since attempts at a censurable discussion of the Mosel conditions have been a rarity.
The minutes of a council of elders, which, besides some eccentric statements, contained also some frank speaking, were not allowed to be printed owing to the censorship exercised by the district president. The discussion took place in the council of elders, but the minutes of the council were drawn up by the burgomaster. His introductory statement was as follows:
“Gentlemen! The Mosel region between Trier and Koblenz, between the Eifel and the Hundsrücken, is outwardly very poor because it is entirely dependent on viticulture, which has been dealt the death-blow by the trade agreements with Germany. The above-mentioned region is also spiritually poor”, etc.
Finally, yet another fact can be adduced to show. that when a public and frank discussion did overcome all the above-mentioned obstacles and by way of exception managed to get into the columns of a newspaper, it was treated as an exception and subsequently suppressed. Several years ago an article by Herr Kaufmann, professor of cameralistics at Bonn University, “on the distressed state of the vine-growers in the Mosel region, etc”. was printed in the Rhein- und Mosel-Zeitung. After three months, during which it had been reprinted in various newspapers, it was banned by order of the government and the ban is still in force.
I think I have now sufficiently replied to the question of the attitude of the Mosel region to the Cabinet Order of December 10, to the censorship instruction of December 24 based on this order, and to the subsequent freer movement of the press. It only remains for me to substantiate my assertion: “For a long time the desperate state of the vine-growers was doubted in higher quarters, and their cry of distress was regarded as an insolent shrieking”. The statement in question can be divided into two parts: “For a long time the desperate state of the vine-growers was doubted in higher quarters” and “Their cry of distress was regarded as an insolent shrieking”.
The first proposition, I think, requires no further proof. The second one: “Their cry of distress was regarded as an insolent shrieking”, cannot be deduced directly from the first, as the Herr Oberpräsident does by giving it the form: “Their cry of distress was regarded in higher quarters as an insolent shrieking”. Incidentally, this interpolation, too, holds good, insofar as “higher quarters” and “official quarters” can be taken as equivalent in meaning.
That one could speak of a “cry of distress” of the vine-growers, not in a metaphorical sense, but in the strict sense of the word, is evident from the information we have given above. That, on the one hand, this cry of distress was declared to be without justification and the description of the distress itself regarded as a glaring exaggeration prompted by bad, selfish motives; and that, on the other hand, the complaint and the petition of those suffering distress were regarded as “insolent, dishonourable accusations against the laws of the province” — these propositions have been proved by a government report and criminal proceedings. That, furthermore, an excessive outcry, which does not correspond to the true state of affairs and is exaggerated from bad motives, involving insolent accusations against the laws of the province — that such an outcry is identical with a “shrieking”, and indeed an “insolent shrieking”, cannot at least be regarded as a far-fetched or dishonest assertion. That finally, therefore, one side of the identity can be put in place of the other seems simply to follow as a logical consequence.

 

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden

---

Written: Trier, February 10 [1842]


Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 381-382.


Publisher: International Publishers (1975)


First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902

Translated: Clemens Dutt


Transcribed: S. Ryan


HTML Markup: S. Ryan

---

Dear Friend,

I take the liberty of sending you a small contribution for the Deutsche Jahrbücher in the form of the enclosed criticism of the censorship instruction.

If the article is suitable for your journal, I ask you for the time being not to mention my name to anyone except Wigand, and also to Send me by post immediately the issues of the Deutsche Jahrbücher containing my article; because for the time being here in Trier I am completely excluded from the literary world.

It is obvious that it is in the interest of the cause that the printing should be expedited, if the censorship does not censor my censure.

If you do not know of a critic for Vatke's super-clever book on sin - were it not so devilishly clever, one would be tempted to call it stupid--my critical zeal is at your disposal.

It would perhaps be equally worth while to deal again with Bayer's work on the moral Spirit. Feuerbach's criticism was a friendly service. Honourable as is Bayer's moral frame of mind, his work itself is just as weak and even immoral.

I should be very glad if you would let Wigand know that my manuscript will reach you in a few days' time. Bauer's letter in
which he demands that it should be sent off at last, came when I was very ill in bed and therefore was handed to me only a few days ago. Being busy on the enclosed article, I was not able to make the necessary corrections.

As I have now come to the end of some voluminous works, it goes without saying that all my forces are at the disposal of the Deutsche Jahrbücher.

With sincere respect,

Marx

My address is: Dr. Marx, Trier, to be delivered to Geheimer Regierungsrat von Westphalen.

---

Letters: Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge
In Dresden

Written: Trier, March 5 1842;
Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 382-383;
Publisher: International Publishers, 1975;
First Published: Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;
Translated: Clemens Dutt;
Transcribed: S. Ryan.

Dear Friend,
I fully agree with the plan for the Anekdota philosophica and also think it would be better to include my name among the others. A demonstration of this kind, by its very nature, precludes all anonymity. Those gentlemen must see that one’s conscience is clear.
With the sudden revival of the Saxon censorship it is obvious from the outset that it will be quite impossible to print my “Treatise on Christian Art,” which should have appeared as the second part of the Posaune. But what about including it in a modified version in the Anekdota? The mass of material obnoxious to the censorship which now fills people’s minds perhaps makes it possible also to publish the Anekdota, as material accumulates, in a number of separate intalments! Another article which I also intended for the Deutsche Jahrbücher is a criticism of Hegelian natural law, insofar as it concerns the internal political system. The central point is the struggle against constitutional monarchy as a hybrid which from beginning to end contradicts and abolishes itself. Res publica is quite untranslatable into German. I would send both these articles immediately for your examination if they did not require the rewriting of a fair copy and, in pan, some corrections. The fact is that my future father-in-law, Herr von Westphalen, lay on his death-bed for three months and died the day before yesterday. During this period, therefore, it was impossible to do anything properly.

Regarding the other things, next time.

With sincerest respect,
Devotedly yours,
Marx

Apropos. Through an oversight, the manuscript on the censorship contains the phrase: “the censorship of tendency and the tendency censorship.” It should be: “the censorship of tendency and the tendency of censorship.”
Be so kind as to send me the reply directly by post to Trier.
Bauer has been suspended from his post, as he writes in a letter just received, par lit de justice.

 

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden

---

Written: Trier, March 20 [1842];

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 383-386;

Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear Friend,

Novices are the most pious people, as Saxony proves ad oculos. Bauer once had the same sort of scene with Eichhorn in Berlin as you had with the Minister of the Interior. As orators, these gentlemen are as alike as two peas. On the other hand, what is exceptional is that philosophy speaks intelligibly with the state wisdom of these over-assured scoundrels, and even a little fanaticism does no harm. There is nothing more difficult than to make these earthly Providences believe that belief in truth and spiritual convictions exist. They are such sceptical state dandies, such experienced fops, that they no longer believe in true, disinterested love. How, then, is one to get at these roués except with the aid of what, in the highest circles, is called fanaticism! A guards lieutenant regards a lover whose intentions are honourable as a fanatic. Should people no longer marry because of that? It is a remarkable thing that the degradation of people to the level of animals has become for the government an article of faith and a principle. But this does not contradict religiosity, for the deification of animals is
probably the most consistent form of religion, and perhaps it will soon be necessary to speak of religious zoology instead of religious anthropology.

When I was still young and good, I already knew at least that the eggs laid in Berlin were not the eggs of the swan Leda, but goose eggs. A little later I realised that they were crocodile eggs, like, for example, the very latest egg by which, allegedly, on the proposal of the Rhine Province Assembly, the illegal restrictions of French legislation concerning high treason, etc., and crimes of officials, have been abolished. But this time, because it is a question of objective legal provisions, the hocus-pocus is so stupid that even the stupidest Rhenish lawyers have immediately seen through it. At the same time, Prussia has declared with complete naivety that publicity of court proceedings would jeopardise the prestige and credit of Prussian officials. That is an extremely frank admission. All our Rhenish scribblings about publicity and publicising suffer from a basic defect. Honest folk continually point out that these are by no means political, but merely legal, institutions, that they are a right, and not a wrong. As though that were the question! As though all the evil of these institutions did not consist precisely in the fact that they are a right! I should very much like to prove the opposite, namely, that Prussia cannot introduce publicity and publicising, for free courts and an unfree state are incompatible. Similarly, Prussia should be highly praised for its piety, for a transcendental state and a positive religion go together, just as a pocket icon does with a Russian swindler.

Bülow-Cummerow, as you will have seen from the Chinese
newspapers, makes his pen flirt with his plough. Oh, this rustic
coquette, who adorns herself with artificial flowers! I think that writers with this earthly position--for, after all, a position on ploughland is surely earthly--would be desirable, and even more so if in the future the plough were to think and write instead of the pen, while the pen, on the other hand, were to perform serf labour in return. Perhaps, in view of the present uniformity of the German governments, this will come to pass, but the more uniform the governments, the more multiform nowadays are the
philosophers, and it is to be hoped that the multiform army will conquer the uniform one.

Ad rem, since among us, loyal, moral Germans, politica is included in formalia, whence Voltaire deduced that we have the profoundest textbooks on public law.

Therefore, as regards the matter, I found that the article "On
Christian Art" which has now been transformed into "On Religion and Art, with Special Reference to Christian Art", must be entirely
redone because of the tone of the Posaune, which I conscientiously
followed:

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And light unto my path."
"Thy commandments make me wiser than mine enemies, For they are ever with me," and
"The Lord shall roar from Zion"

— this tone of the Posaune and the irksome constraint of the Hegelian exposition should now be replaced by a freer, and therefore more thorough exposition. In a few days, I have to go to Cologne, where I set up my new residence, for I find the proximity of the Bonn professors intolerable. Who would want to have to talk always with intellectual skunks, with people who study only for the purpose of finding new dead ends in every corner of the world!

Owing to these circumstances, therefore, I was not able, of course, to send herewith the criticism of the Hegelian philosophy of law for the next Anekdota (as it was also written for the Posaune); I promise to send the article on religious art by mid-April, if you are prepared to wait so long. This would be the more preferable for me, since I am examining the subject from a new point de vue and am giving also an epilogue de romanticis as a supplement. Meanwhile I shall most actively, to use Goethe's language, continue to work on the subject and await your decision. Be so kind as to write to me on this to Cologne, where I shall be by the beginning of next month. As I have not yet any definite domicile there, please send me the letter to Jung's address.

In the article itself I necessarily had to speak about the general essence of religion; in doing so I come into conflict with Feuerbach to a certain extent, a conflict concerning not the principle, but the conception of it. In any case religion does not gain from it.

I have heard nothing about Köppen for a long time. Have you not yet approached Christiansen in Kiel? I know him only from his history of Roman law, which, however, contains also something about religion and philosophy in general. He seems to have an excellent mind, although when he comes to actual philosophising, his writing is horribly incomprehensible and formal. Perhaps, he has now begun to write plain German. Otherwise he seems to be à la hauteur des principes.

I shall be very pleased to see you here on the Rhine.

Yours,

Marx

I have just had a letter from Bauer in which he writes that he wants to travel northwards again, owing to the silly idea that there he will be better able to conduct his proceedings against the Prussian Government. Berlin is too close to Spandau. At all
events, it is good that Bauer is not allowing the matter to take its own course. As I have learned here from my future brother-in-law, aristocrat comme il faut, people in Berlin are particularly vexed at Bauer's bonne foi.

---

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge
In Dresden

---

Written: Bonn, April 23 [1842];

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 387-388;

Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear Friend,

You must not become impatient if my contributions are delayed for a few days more – but only for a few days. Bauer will probably inform you orally that this month, owing to all kinds of external muddles, it has been almost impossible for me to work.

Nevertheless, I have almost finished. I shall send you four articles: 1) “On Religious Art,” 2) “On the Romantics,” 3) “The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law” 4) "The Positivist Philosophers", whom I have teased a little. These articles, in content, are connected.

You will receive the article “On Religious Art” as a duodecimo extract, for the work has steadily grown into almost book dimensions, and I have been drawn into all kinds of investigations which will still take a rather long time.

I have abandoned my plan to settle in Cologne, since life there is too noisy for me, and an abundance of good friends does not lead to better philosophy.

I have sent the Rheinische Zeitung a long article on our last Rhine Province Assembly with a light introduction about the Preussische Staats-Zeiutng. In connection with the debates on the press I have returned again to the question of censorship and freedom of the press, examining it from other viewpoints.

Thus, Bonn remains my residence for the time being; after all, it would be a pity if no one remained here for the holy men to get angry with.

Yesterday Hasse came from Greifswald, in regard to whom the only thing I have admired is his enormous top-boots, like those of a village priest. He spoke, too, just like the top-boot of a village priest, he knew nothing about anything, is preparing to publish a book in several volumes about the boring Anselm of Canterbury, on which he has been working for ten years. He thinks that the present critical trend is a moment which must be overcome. He speaks of religiosity as a product of life experience, by which he probably means his successful rearing of children and his fat belly, for fat bellies undergo all sorts of experiences and, as Kant says: if it goes behind it becomes an F., if it goes upwards it becomes religious inspiration. What a man this pious Hasse is with his religious constipation!

We were very much amused with what you wrote in your letters about Vatke’s lack of a “full heart.” This super-clever, diplomatic Vatke, who would so much like to be the greatest critic and the greatest believer who always knows everything better than anyone else, this Vatke has for one party no heart, and for the other no head. Hic jacet Vatke – a notable example of what the passion for cards and religious music leads to.

Fichte, who has wrapped himself in the mantle of his unpopularity, has spread the half-ambiguous rumour that he has been invited to Tubingen. The faculty is not meeting his wish to be held fast by an increase in salary.

Sack has made a trip to Berlin with the most pious intentions to speculate on the insanity of his brother and to get himself appointed in his place.

Nothing but wars and debauchery, says Thersites, and if the university here cannot be reproached with wars, at least there is no lack of debauchery.

Do you not want to carry out your plan of a trip to the Rhine?

Yours,
Marx

 

---

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden

---

Written: Trier, July 9 [1842];

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 398-391;

Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear Friend,

If events had not apologised for me, I would have abandoned
any attempt at an excuse. It stands to reason that I regard it as an honour to contribute to the Anekdota and only unpleasant extraneous circumstances prevented me from sending you my articles.

From April to the present day I have been able to work for a total of perhaps only four weeks at most, and that not without interruption. I had to spend six weeks in Trier in connection with another death. The rest of the time was split up and poisoned by the most unpleasant family controversies. My family laid obstacles in my way, which, despite the prosperity of the family, put me for the moment in very serious straits. I cannot possibly burden you with the story of these private scandals; it is truly fortunate that scandals of a public nature make it impossible for a man of character to be irritated over private ones. During this time I was writing for the Rheinische Zeitung, to which I should long ago have sent my articles, etc., etc. I would have informed you long before about these intermezzos, had I not hoped from day to day to be able to complete my work. In a few day's time I am going to Bonn and shall not touch a thing until I have finished the contributions for the Anekdota. Of course, in this state of affairs I was not able to elaborate in particular the article "On Art and Religion" as thoroughly as the subject requires.

Incidentally, do not imagine that we on the Rhine live in a political Eldorado. The most unswerving persistence is required to push through a newspaper like the Rheinische Zeitung. My second article on the Provincial Assembly, dealing with the question of clerical discords, was deleted by the censor. I showed in this article how the defenders of the state adopted a clerical standpoint, and the defenders of the church a state standpoint. This incident is all the more unpleasant for the Rheinische Zeitung because the stupid Cologne Catholics fell into the trap, and defence of the Archbishop would have attracted subscribers. Incidentally, you can hardly imagine how contemptible are oppressors and at the same time how stupidly they dealt with the orthodox blockhead. But the matter has had a successful ending: before the entire world, Prussia has kissed the Pope's mule, and our government automatons walk the streets without blushing. The Rheinische Zeitung has now put in an appeal about the article. In general, the fight for the Rheinische Zeitung is beginning. In the Kölnische Zeitung, the author of the leading articles, Hermes, – ex-editor of the former political Hannoverzeitung, has taken the side of Christianity against the philosophical newspapers in Königsberg and Cologne. If the censor does not again play some trick, a reply from me will be published in the next Supplement. The religious party is the most dangerous in the Rhine area. The opposition has of late become too accustomed to opposing within the church.

Do you know any details about the so called "Free"? The article in the Kölnische Zeitung was, to say the least, undiplomatic. It
is one thing to declare for emancipation--that is honest; it is another thing to start off by shouting it out as propaganda; that sounds like bragging and irritates the philistine. And then, reflect on who are these "Free", a man like Meyen, etc. But, at any rate, if there is a suitable city for such ventures, it is Berlin.

I shall probably be drawn into a prolonged polemic with the Cologne Hermes. No matter how ignorant, shallow and trivial the man is, thanks precisely to these qualities he is the mouthpiece of philistinism and I intend not to let him go on chattering. Mediocrity should no longer enjoy the privilege of immunity. Hermes will also try to saddle me with "The Free", about whom, unfortunately, I do not know the slightest thing for sure. It is fortunate that Bauer is in Berlin. He, at least, will not allow any "stupidities" to be committed, and the only thing that disquiets me in this affair (if it is true and not merely a deliberate newspaper fabrication), is the probability that the insipidity of the Berliners will make their good cause ridiculous and that in a serious matter they will not be able to avoid various "stupidities". Anyone who has spent as much time among these people as I have will find that this anxiety is not without foundation.

How are you getting on with your Jahrbücher?

As you are at the centre of philosophical and theological news, I should like nothing better than to learn something from you about the present situation. True, the movement of the hour-hand is visible here, but not that of the minute-hand.

Old Marheineke seems to have considered it necessary to provide the whole world with documentary proof of the complete impotence of the old Hegelianism. His vote is a disgraceful vote.

Will the Saxons in this Assembly not denounce the censorship? Fine constitutionalism! Hoping to hear from you soon,

Yours,

Marx

Rutenberg is a weight on my conscience. I brought him on to the editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung, but he is absolutely incapable. Sooner or later he will be shown the door.

What do you advise if the article on the Archbishop is not stamped for publication by the high police censorship? It must appear in print because of 1) our Provincial Assembly, 2) the government, 3) the Christian state. Should I, perhaps, send it to Hoffmann and Campe? It does not seem to me suitable for the Anekdota.

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge
In Dresden

---

Written: Cologne, November 30 1842;

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 393-395;

Publisher: International Publishers 1975;

First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear Friend,

My letter today will be confined to the “confusion” with “The Free.”

As you already know, every day the censorship mutilates us mercilessly, so that frequently the newspaper is hardly able to appear. Because of this, a mass of articles by “The Free” have perished. But I have allowed myself to throw out as many articles as the censor, for Meyen and Co. sent us heaps of scribblings, pregnant with revolutionising the world and empty of ideas, written in a slovenly style and seasoned with a little atheism and communism (which these gentlemen have never studied). Because of Rutenberg’s complete lack of critical sense, independence and ability, Meyen and Co. had become accustomed to regard the Rheinische Zeitung as their own, docile organ, but I believed I could not any longer permit this watery torrent of words in the old manner. This loss of a few worthless creations of “freedom,” a freedom which strives primarily “to be free from all thought,” was therefore the first reason for a darkening of the Berlin sky.

Rutenberg, who had already been removed from the German department (where his work consisted mainly in inserting punctuation marks) and to whom, only on my application the French department was provisionally transferred – Rutenberg, thanks to the monstrous stupidity of our state providence, has had the luck to be regarded as dangerous, although he was not a danger to anyone but the Rheinische Zeitung and himself. A categorical demand was made for the removal of Rutenberg. Prussian providence, this despotisme prussien, le plus hypocrite, le plus fourbe, spared the manager an unpleasant step, and the new martyr, who has already learned to display consciousness of martyrdom in facial expression, behaviour and speech with some virtuosity, is exploiting this turn of events. He writes to all the corners of the earth, he writes to Berlin that he is the banished principle of the Rheinische Zeitung, which is adopting a different position in relation to the government. It goes without saying that this also evoked demonstrations from the heroes of freedom on the banks of the Spree, “whose muddy water washes souls and dilutes tea.”

Finally, on top of this came your and Herwegh’s attitude to “The Free” to cause the cup of the angry Olympians to overflow.

A few days ago I received a letter from little Meyen, whose favourite category is, most appropriately, what ought to be. In this letter I am taken to task over my attitude 1) to you and Herwegh, 2) to “The Free,” 3) to the new editorial principle and the position in relation to the government. I replied at once and frankly expressed my opinion about the defects of their writings, which find freedom in a licentious, sansculotte-like, and at the same time convenient, form, rather than in a free, i.e., independent and profound, content. I demanded of them less vague reasoning, magniloquent phrases and self-satisfied self-adoration, and more definiteness, more attention to the actual state of affairs, more expert knowledge. I stated that I regard it as inappropriate, indeed even immoral, to smuggle communist and socialist doctrines, hence a new world outlook, into incidental theatrical criticisms, etc., and that I demand a quite different and more thorough discussion of communism, if it should be discussed at all. I requested further that religion should be criticised in the framework of criticism of political conditions rather than that political conditions should be criticised in the framework of religion, since this is more in accord with the nature of a newspaper and the educational level of the reading public; for religion in itself is without content, it owes its being not to heaven but to the earth, and with the abolition of distorted reality, of which it is the theory, it will collapse of itself. Finally, I desired that, if there is to be talk about philosophy, there should be less trifling with the label “atheism” (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people. Voilà tout.

Yesterday I received an insolent letter from Meyen, who had not yet received this work and who now questions me on every possible thing: 1) I should state on whose side I am in their quarrel with Bauer, about which I know absolutely nothing; 2) why did I not allow this and that to go through; I am threatened with being accused of conservatism; 3) the newspaper should not temporise, it must act in the most extreme fashion, i.e., it should calmly yield to the police and the censorship instead of holding on to its positions in a struggle, imperceptible to the public but nevertheless stubborn and in accordance with its duty. Finally, an infamous report is given of Herwegh’s betrothal, etc., etc.

All this is evidence of a terrible dose of the vanity which does not understand how, in order to save a political organ, one can sacrifice a few Berlin windbags, and thinks of nothing at all except the affairs of its clique. Moreover, this little man strutted like a peacock, solemnly laid his hand on his breast and on his dagger, let fall something about “his” party, threatened me with his displeasure, declaimed à la Marquis Posa, only somewhat worse, etc.

Since we now have to put up from morning to night with the most horrible torments of the censorship, ministerial communications, complaints of the Oberpräsident, accusations in the Provincial Assembly, howls from shareholders, etc., etc., and I remain at my post only because I consider it my duty to prevent, to the best of my ability, those in power from carrying out their plans, you can imagine that I am somewhat irritated and that I replied rather sharply to Meyen. It is possible, therefore, that “The Free” will withdraw for a while. Therefore I earnestly beg that you yourself help us by contributing articles, and also ask your friends to do the same.

Yours,
Marx

 

---

Letters of Marx and Engels 1843

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden

---

Written: Cologne, January 25 [1843];

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 396-398;

Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear

You probably already know that the Rheinische Zeitung has been banned, suspended, and is under sentence of death. The termination of its life has been fixed for the end of March. During this period of grace before execution, the newspaper is being subjected to a double censorship. Our censor, a decent fellow, is under the censorship of von Gerlach, Regierungspräsident here, a passively obedient blockhead. When ready, our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear.

The ban resulted from the coincidence of several special causes: its wide circulation; my own "Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel," in which very highly placed statesmen were thoroughly exposed; our stubborn refusal to name the person who sent us the text of the law on marriage; the convocation of the provincial estates, which we could influence by our agitation; finally, our criticism of the ban on the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, and on the Deutsche Jahrbücher.

The ministerial rescript, which will appear in the newspapers in a day or so, is if possible more feeble than the previous ones. The following are given as motives:

1) The lie that we had no permission, as though in Prussia, where not even a dog can exist without its police number, the Rheinische Zeitung could have appeared even a single day without fulfilling the official conditions for existence.

2) The censorship instruction of December 24 aimed at establishing a censorship of tendency. By tendency it meant the illusion, the romantic belief in possessing a freedom which one would not allow oneself to possess realiter. Whereas the rationalist Jesuitism which prevailed under the former government had a stern, rational physiognomy, this romantic Jesuitism demands imagination as its main requisite. The censored press should learn to live under the illusion of freedom, and of that magnificent man who majestically permitted this illusion. But whereas the censorship instruction wanted censorship of tendency, now the ministerial rescript explains that in Frankfurt a ban, suppression has been invented for a thoroughly bad tendency. It states that the censorship exists only in order to censor eccentricities of a good tendency, although the instruction said precisely the opposite – namely, that eccentricities of a good tendency are to be permitted.

3) The old balderdash about a bad frame of mind, empty theory, hey-diddle-diddle, etc.

Nothing has surprised me. You know what my opinion of the censorship instruction has been from the outset. I see here only a consequence; in the suppression of the Rheinische Zeitung I see a definite advance of political consciousness, and for that reason I am resigning. Moreover, I had begun to be stifled in that atmosphere. It is a bad thing to have to perform menial duties even for the sake of freedom; to fight with pinpricks, instead of with clubs. I have become tired of hypocrisy, stupidity, gross arbitrariness, and of our bowing and scraping, dodging, and hair-splitting over words. Consequently, the government has given me back my freedom.

As I wrote to you once before, I have fallen out with my family and, as long as my mother is alive, I have no right to my property. Moreover, I am engaged to be married and I cannot, must not, and will not, leave Germany without my fiancée. If, therefore, the possibility arose that I could edit the Deutscher Bote with Herwegh in Zurich, I should like to do so. I can do nothing more in Germany. Here one makes a counterfeit of oneself. If, therefore, you will give me advice and information on this matter, I shall be very grateful.

I am working on several things, which here in Germany will find neither censor nor bookseller, nor, in general, any possible existence. I await an early reply from you.

Yours,

Marx

---

Letters of Marx and Engels 1843

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden

---

Written: Cologne, March 13 [1843];

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 398-399;

Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;

Translated: Clemens Dutt;

Transcribed: S. Ryan.

---

Dear Friend,

As soon as it is at all possible I shall set my course straight for Leipzig. I have just had a talk with Stucke, who seems to have been greatly impressed by most of the statesmen in Berlin. This Dr. Stucke is an extremely good-natured man.

As for our plan, as a preliminary I will tell you of my own conviction. When Paris was taken, some people proposed Napoleon’s son with a regency, others Bernadotte, while yet others suggested that Louis Philippe should rule. But Talleyrand replied: “Louis XVIII or Napoleon. That is a principle, anything else is intrigue.”

In the same way I could call almost anything else, other than Strasbourg (or at any rate Switzerland), not a principle, but an intrigue. Books of more than 20 printed sheets are not books for the people. The most that one can venture on there are monthly issues.

Even if the publication of the Deutsche Jahrbücher were again permitted, at the very best we could achieve a poor copy of the deceased publication, and nowadays that is no longer enough. On the other hand, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher – that would be a principle, an event of consequence, an undertaking over which one can be enthusiastic. It goes without saying that I am only expressing my own unauthoritative opinion, and for the rest submit myself to the eternal powers of fate.

Finally – newspaper affairs compel me to close – let me tell you also about my personal plans. As soon as we had concluded the contract, I would travel to Kreuznach, marry and spend a month or more there at the home of my wife’s mother, so that before starting work we should have at any rate a few articles ready. The more so since I could, if necessary, spend a few weeks in Dresden, for all the preliminaries, the announcement of the marriage, etc., take considerable time.

I can assure you, without the slightest romanticism, that I am head over heels in love, and indeed in the most serious way. I have been engaged for more than seven years, and for my sake my fiancée has fought the most violent battles, which almost undermined her health, partly against her pietistic aristocratic relatives, for whom “the Lord in heaven” and the “lord in Berlin” are equally objects of religious cult, and partly against my own family, in which some priests and other enemies of mine have ensconced themselves. For years, therefore, my fiancée and I have been engaged in more unnecessary and exhausting conflicts than many who are three times our age and continually talk of their “life experience” (the favourite phrase of our Juste-Milieu).

Apropos, we have received an anonymous reply to Prutz’s report against the new Tübingen Jahrbücher. I recognised Schwegler by the handwriting. You are described as an over-excited agitator, Feuerbach as a frivolous mocker, and Bauer as a man of wholly uncritical mind! The Swabians! The Swabians! That will be a fine concoction!

On the subject of your very fine, truly popular written complaint, we have inserted a superficial article by Pfützner – half of which, moreover, I have deleted – for lack of a better criticism and of time. P. P. does not go sufficiently deep into the matter and the little capers he cuts tend to turn him into a laughing-stock instead of making his enemy ridiculous.

Yours,
Marx

I have arranged for the books for Fleischer. Your correspondence published at the beginning is interesting. Bauer on Ammon is delightful. The “Sorrows and Joys of the Theological Mind” seems to me a not very successful rendering of the section of the Phenomenology: “The Unfortunate Consciousness.” Feuerbach’s aphorisms seem to me incorrect only in one respect, that he refers too much to nature and too little to politics. That, however, is the only alliance by which present-day philosophy can become truth. But things will probably go as they did in the sixteenth century, when the nature enthusiasts were accompanied by a corresponding number of state enthusiasts. I was most of all pleased by the criticism of the good Literarische Zeitung.

You have probably already read Bauer’s self-defence. In my opinion, he has never before written so well.

As far as the Rheinische Zeitung is concerned I would not remain under any conditions; it is impossible for me to write under Prussian censorship or to live in the Prussian atmosphere.

I have just been visited by the chief of the Jewish community here, who has asked me for a petition for the Jews to the Provincial Assembly, and I am willing to do it. However much I dislike the Jewish faith, Bauer’s view seems to me too abstract. The thing is to make as many breaches as possible in the Christian state and to smuggle in as much as we can of what is rational. At least, it must be attempted – and the embitterment grows with every petition that is rejected with protestations.

 

---