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Ins und Steinthal: Zeitschrift für Völtetpfychogie und
Sprachkund«, WI. U, S.3
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Execute the Judgment of Truth and Peace in your Gates.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO SOCIAL INTERESTS AND PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM.
VOL. I
CHICAGO, AUGUST 23, 1878
No. 11
CONTENT.
They may he worlds, but let me for to-night
Gaze on the beauty of yon liquid blue,
Studded with gems whose iridescent light
Trembles the soft air through.
True, it were wise to name each separate part
That helps to form this delicate rich rose ;
But let me, foolishly, look in its heart,
And mark how fair it glows.
Books tell of wondrous secrets buried deep,
Written upon the rocks,—and it may be;
The grass is green; let it all beneath it sleep,—
The new green world for me!
I do not care to hear the ancient tale
Of magi, prophets, patriarchs of old;
A sweeter story doth this flowery vale,
Low-tinkling stream, and purple air unfold.
Let me a little while forget my years,
See with a child’s eyes for a little while;
Let me forget that there be death or tears
In nature’s golden smile.
(Catherine J. Schiller in the Atl. Monthly.)
[Copyright Secrrcd.J
fsiERDINAND )..ssASSALLE ;
A Biographical and Characteristic Sketch.
[Adapted frtm> -"««■
Part I.
Lassalle Before the Agitation.
Chapter IY.
The first thing Lassalle did now, was
to return to his work on Heraclitus. As
that work lies before us, it is not diffi
cult for the attentive reader thereof to
discern in it two distinct characteristics,
as though two different persons had been
working on it. The ideas which had been
advanced and written down by Lassalle,
as a young man, have been revised and
published by Lassalle at a ripe age. A
more mature historical bias has evident
ly reconstructed that which had been
strictly metaphysical and purely Helen
istic at first. But these reconstructions
have now so changed the character of
the work as to efface from it the scien
tific capacities of Lassalle in his youth
“The philosophy of Heraclitus the ob
scure,” is a study in the history of phil
osophy in the Hegelian spirit. There
was something in Lassalle’s mental or
ganism which attracted him forcibly
toward the Hegelian philosophy, so pop
ular in his young days. He had great
dialectic proclivities and a strong desire
to become master of a clue or a pick-lock
by means of which he should be enabled
to penetrate into the chambers of sci
ence and knowledge for the purpose of
obtaining power. And great were the
prospects which Hegel’s philosophy op
ened to its adherents.
It may be reasonably conjectured why
Lassalle had such a predilection for Her
aclitus. Since ages past Heraclitus had
been called “the obscure,” and of his
works only fragmentary pieces had been
left, which required a profound knowl
edge of the whole classical literature in
order to be filled out and understood.
This difficult task was of a nature to
attract Lassalle, who loved to wrestle
with difficulties which others were afarid
to approach. Again, as an enthusiastic
Hegelian, Lassalle conceived a desire to
throw light on the spirit of a thinker
who had been the precursor of Hegel,
and whose philosophy had not been un
derstood, because it had been so closely
related to that of the modern master.
And lastly, the young and sanguine
apostle of the Present was attracted by
the spirit of the ancient thinker, whose
traits of character, capacities and pecul
iarities had been similar to those brew
ing in his own soul. Of Heraclitus it
was said : “He has banished all quiet
ude and rest from the world, for the
world was absolute motion for him,” and
great was Lassalle’s satisfaction when
he could exclaim “It is apparent that
Heraclitus was far from that apathy,
which gave such a dreary, tiresome char
acter to the reasoning of the ethic-po
litical stoics of a latter period. There
was storm in that nature !”*
contains a protest against the assump
tion to consider a certain discipline or
branch of learning morally isolated
This protest betrays how his natural
view extended over the system of life,
how his soul embraced the grand, the
endless as a unit. Thus his work on
Heraclitus opens with the following em
phasized sentence: “At the present
time, when the history of philosophy
ceased to be considered as a collection
of curiosities, when thoughts are recog
nized as productions of history, and the
history of philosophy as the exponent of
its own continuous development—the
time must come in which the history of
philosophy as well as that of religion, of
art, of state or the mode of living of the
lower classes of citizens should no longer
be considered as separate disiplines of
society.” This strong emphasss on “his
torical development,” however, should
not beguile the reader to believe that
the work “on Heraclitus” is based more
on the modern than on the Hegelian
principle of reasoning. The preface,
from which the quotation is an extract,
belongs undoubtedly to the latest writ
ten parts of the work. And even this
“historical development” is of a purely
metaphysical nature. If the abstract
thought is termed by Lassall a “histori
cal production,” the categories of thought
are regarded by him as metaphysical ob
jects, whose motion and evolution pro
duce history. Philosophers are not
ranged according to the degree of their
total psychological development, but ac
cording to the place which the category,
represented by them, takes in the sys
tem. Heraclitus represents Becoming,
Parmenides represents Being—thus we
know beforehand that, greater as the
latter is in spirit than the former, he
stands prior in mention and lower than
he in degree *
I must not he understood to imply
that Lassalle did not understand Herac
litus thoroughly—the case is just the
reverse. The Hegelian metaphysical
method was the most suitable means by
which a thinker could he understood,
whose power and originality was at the re
motest extremes of a developed dialectic
of the Sophists. On this point I did not
rely on my own judgment. I consulted
a man who is an authority on this sub
ject—a professor of philology at the
Berlin university. Upon my inquiry :
in how far did Lassalle understand Her
aclitus, I have received the following
characteristic reply: “Certainly he under
stood him well. A philologist of normal
capacities cannot and ought not under
stand Heraclitus. But it cannot be
denied that Lassalle understood him
thoroughly, and that his book is an ex
cellent work.”
In the conception and explanation of
Heraclitus’ iiietaphysics,.Lassalle proves
conception of Being, the identity of the
great contrariety between existence and
non-existence in the law of God. Na
ture itself is only the corporified revela
tion of this law, the identity of contra
riety which forms her innermost soul.
Day is nothing else but a motion toward
becoming night; night—a motion to
ward becoming day ; the ascension of
the sun—a perpetual motion toward its
descension, etc. The whole is only a
visible substantiation of this harmony of
the two contrarieties which permeates
and rules all that exists.
. . . “This reconciled contradiction,
the existing non-existence is the germ
and the whole depth (sic !) of philosophy.
For the present be it said that this is
expressed in the one sentence : Only
non-existence IS.” t
If the method which Lassalle employs
in his historic philosophical researches
is purely Hegelian, it becomes apparent
on the other hand, that his chief interest
in the object of his studies consists in
the endeavor to find his great master
prototyped. If Hegel had lived in
Asiatic-Greece at the end of the sixth
century before the present era, he would
have been Heraclitus. In ancient times
already it has been said of Heraclitus
that having regarded the contrarieties
as the primitive principle, he could not
+ Lassalle could never rid himself of the He
gelian jargon, in his tragedy “Franz vonSlck
inyen", he makes Charles V speak of his ob
jects:
In his latest and greater work on “Rapital
und Arbeit” he uses such expressions as
Compare also his “System
tle.r e.ruinrhenen Rechtc” Vol. II, page 9.
admit of contradictions (Yol. I, p. 119.)
Heraclitus has declared with a panthe
ism which reminds one of Spinoza, that:
“Before God everything was fair and
just, but men have accepted one thing
as right and the other as wrong.” ( Yol.
I, p. 92) + So also did Heraclitus evince
an inclination to say things which may
be disagreeable to sound common sense,
the same inclination which was so evi
dent at first when the Hegelian philoso
phy was in its development. Thus Las
salle himself says : (Yol. II, p. 276) “If
a modern pliolosophy is pleased to reit
erate repeatedly that just what appears
to be known best, the truths of every
day, which every person believes to
know from himself, is the thing which is
known the least, and which is altogether
of an inconceivable nature to a reflecting
mind—it was Heraclitus who, as the first
apostle of a purely speculative and self
conscious idea, has made the same de
claration on the impotency of unspecu
lating thought and of the purely sub
jective mind.”
The ethics of Heraclitus, says Lassalle
uy iuoiv
Thought, which is the external basis of
morality, viz : “Resign^ on to the gen
eral.” This is helenistic as well as mod
ern. But Lassalle cannot deny himself
the pleasure to prove that in his specifi
cations of this thought, the ancient
Greek philosopher coincided with He
gel’s “Philosophy of State,” (Yol. II, p.
449) “As in the Hegelian philosophy the
laws are understood to be the realization
of the general substantial volition, with
out, however, reflecting upon the formal
will of a certain subject or of a number
of subjects,—so also is the General of
Heraclitus very far removed from the
category of the empirical generality.”
But Lassalle brings forward this point
not for the purpose of demonstrating the
analogy which existed between the two
masters, but because it fully agrees with
his own political views. Since his early
youth, his ideal of State was the incarna
tion of morality, reason and justice. His
inspiration for this idea, his belief that
the mission of state is not only to pro
tect, but also to promote justice and
culture, runs through all his writings.
It is perceptible in his scientific works,
as here in the work on “Heraclitus;” it
is manifested more clearly, although but
in occasional darts, in his great work on
jurisprudence ("System dev erivorbenen
Rechte,” Yol. I, p. 4" ; "V' ol. II, p. 603
and many more) until at last it is loudly
proclaimed in his pamphlets on politics
and economy, in which he as an agitator
led such a passionate polemic against
the Manchester theory with all the ardor
of sincere conviction and with the gifts
of the pen and the tongue, which made
him so beloved and so feared.
% See Eelesiast, VII, 29; Lamentations of
Jeremiah, III, 38,—En. Jewish Advance.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)