The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10

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SCIENCE AND THE WORKINGMEN (1863)

[A speech delivered by Lassalle in his own defense before the Criminal Court of Berlin on the charge of having incited to class hatred.]

TRANSLATED BY THORSTEIN B. VEBLEN, PH.D. Lecturer in Economics, University of Missouri

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court:

I shall have to make my beginning with an appeal to your indulgence. My defense will go somewhat into detail. It will, on that account, necessarily be somewhat long. But I consider myself justified in pursuing this course, first, by the magnitude of the penalty with which I am threatened under Section 100 of the Criminal Code—the full extent of this penalty amounting to no less than two years' imprisonment. In the second place, and more particularly, I consider my course justified by the fact that this trial by no means centres about a man and the imposition of a penalty.

You will, therefore, permit me, without further preliminary, to carry the discussion from the region of ordinary court-room routine to that higher level on which it properly belongs.

The indictment brought against me is an evil and deplorable sign of the times. It not only offends the common law, but it is a notable violation of the Constitution. This is the first count in the defense which I have to offer.

I. Article 20 of the Constitution reads: "Science and its teaching is free."

What may be the meaning of this phrase in the Constitution, "is free," unless it means that science and its teaching are not subject to the ordinary provisions of the Criminal Code? Is this expression, "Science and its teaching is free," perhaps to be taken as meaning "free within the limits of the general provisions of the criminal code?" But within these limits every expression of opinion is absolutely free—not only science and its teaching. So long as they live within the general specifications of the criminal code, every newspaper writer and every market woman is quite free to write and say whatever they choose. This liberty, which is conceded to all expressions of opinion, need not and could not be proclaimed by a special article of the Constitution as a peculiar concession to "science and its teaching."

To put such a construction upon this article of the Constitution amounts to reading it out of the Constitution, to so interpreting it that it has nothing to say,—which is in our time by no means a neglected method of quietly putting the Constitution out of the way.

Now, the first principle of legal interpretation is that a provision of law must not be so interpreted as to make it superfluous or absurd, or to virtually expunge it. This, of course, applies with peculiar force to an article of the Constitution. There can accordingly be no doubt, Gentlemen, that precisely this was the intention of this provision of the Constitution; namely, that the prerogative was to be conceded to science that it should not lie under the limitations which the general criminal code imposes upon every-day, trivial expressions of opinion.

It is easy to understand that the legislature of any country will seek to protect the institutions of the country. In the nature of the case, the laws forbid inciting the citizens of a country to disorderly outbreak against the constituted authority.

Indeed, if we accept certain current views of law and order we have no difficulty in understanding that the law may consistently forbid all such appeal to the passions as is designed to foster contempt and disregard of existing conventions, or to stir up sentiments of hatred and distrust in their populace through a direct appeal to the unstable emotions.

But what is in the eternal nature of things free, on which no limits must be imposed, the importance of which to the State itself is greater than that of any single provision of law, to the free exercise of which no provision of law can set bounds—that is the impulse to scientific investigation.

No situation and no institution is perfect. Such a thing may happen as that an institution which we are accustomed to consider the most unimpeachable and indispensable, may, in fact, be vicious in the highest degree, and be most seriously in need of reform.

Will any one deny this whose view comprehends the changes which history records since the days of the Hindus or the Egyptians? Or even if he looks no further than the narrow space of the past one hundred years?

The Egyptian fellah warms the hearth of his squalid mud hut with the mummies of the Pharaohs of Egypt, the all-powerful builders of the everlasting pyramids. Customs, conventions, codes, dynasties, states, nations come and go in incontinent succession. But, stronger than these, never disappearing, forever growing, from the earliest beginnings of the Ionic philosophy, unfolding in an ever-increasing amplitude, outleaping all else, spreading from one nation and from one people to another, and handed down, with devout reverence, from age to age, there remains the stately growth of scientific knowledge.

And what is the source of all that unremitting progress, of all that uninterruptedly, but insensibly, broadening amelioration which we see peacefully accomplishing itself in the course of history, if it is not this same scientific knowledge? And, this being so, science must have its way without restraint; for science there is nothing fixed and definite, to which its process of chemical analysis may not be applied, nothing sacred, no noli me tangere. Without free scientific inquiry, therefore, there is no outcome but stagnation, decline and barbarism. And, while free scientific inquiry is the perennial fountain-head of all progress in human affairs, this inquiry and its gradually extending sway over men's convictions, is at the same time the only guarantee of a peaceable advance. Whoever stops up this fountain, whoever attempts to prevent its flowing at any point, or to restrain its bearing upon any given situation, is not only guilty of cutting off the sources of progress, but he is guilty of a breach of the public peace and of endangering the stability of the State. It is through the means of such scientific inquiry and its work of painstaking elaboration that the exigencies of a progressively changing situation are enabled gradually, and without harm, to have their effect upon men's thinking and upon human relations, and so to pass into the life of society. Whoever obstructs scientific inquiry clamps down the safety valve of public opinion, and puts the State in train for an explosion. He prohibits science from finding out the malady and its remedy, and he thereby substitutes the resulting convulsions of the death struggle for a diagnosis and a judicious treatment.

Unrestrained freedom of scientific teaching is, accordingly, not only an inalienable right of the individual, but, what is more to the point, it is, primarily and most particularly, a necessity of life to the community; it involves the life of the State itself.

Therefore has society formulated the provision that "Science and its teaching is free," without qualification, without condition, without limits; and this proviso is incorporated into the Constitution, in order to make it plain that it must remain inviolate even at the hands of the law-giver himself, that even he must not for a moment overlook or disregard it. And so it serves as pledge of the continual peaceable development of social life down to the remotest generations.

Does a question present itself at this point, Gentlemen? Am I setting up a new and unheard-of theory on this head?

Am I, possibly, misconstruing the wording of the Constitution in order to extricate myself from an embarrassing criminal process?

On the contrary, nothing is easier than to prove to you from the evidences of history that this provision of the Constitution has never been taken in any other sense; that for long centuries before the days of the Constitution this theory has been current among us in usage and practice; that it is by ancient tradition a characteristic feature of the culture of all Germanic peoples.

In the days of Socrates, it was still possible to be indicted for having taught new gods (Greek: katnos theous), and Socrates drank the hemlock under such an indictment.

In antiquity all this was natural enough. The genius of antiquity was so utterly identified with the conditions of its political life, and religion was so integral an element in the foundations of the ancient State, that the ancient mind was quite incapable of divesting itself of these convictions, and so getting out of its integument. The spirit of antiquity must stand or fall with its particular political conventions, and, in the event, it fell with them.

Such being the spirit of those times, it follows that any scientific doctrine which carried a denial of any element of the foundations of the State was in effect an attack upon the nation's life and must necessarily be dealt with as such.

All this changes when the ancient world passes away and the Germanic peoples come upon the scene. These latter are peoples gifted with a capacity to change their integument. By virtue of that faculty for development that belongs to the guiding principle of their life, viz.: the principle of the subjective spirit,—by virtue of this, these latter are possessed of a flexibility which enables them to live through the most widely varied metamorphoses. These peoples have passed through many and extreme transformations, and, instead of meeting their death and dissolution in the process, they have by force of it ever emerged on a higher plane of development and into a richer unfolding of life.50

The means by which these peoples are able to prepare the way for and to achieve these transmutations through which they constantly emerge to that fuller life, the rudiments of which are inborn in them, is the principle of an unrestrained freedom of scientific research and teaching.

Hence it comes that this instinct of free thought among these peoples reaches expression very early, much earlier than the modern learned world commonly suspects. "We are mistakenly in the habit of thinking of free scientific inquiry as a fruitage of modern times. But among these peoples that instinct is an ancient one which asserts that free inquiry must be bound neither by the authority of a person nor by a human ordinance; that, on the contrary, it is a power in itself, resting immediately upon its own divine right, superior to and antedating all human institutions whatever.

"Quasi lignum vitae," says Pope Alexander IV. in a constitution addressed to the University of Paris in 1256, "Quasi lignum vitae in Paradiso Dei, et quasi lucerna fulgoris in Domo Domini, est in Sancta Ecclesia Parisiensis Studii disciplina." "As the tree of life in God's Paradise and the lamp of glory in the house of God, such in the Holy Church is the place of the Parisian corporation of learning." To appreciate the import of these words of the holy father, it should be borne in mind that in the Middle Ages all things whatever lived only by virtue of a corporate existence, so that learning existed only as incorporated in a university.

It would be a serious mistake to believe that the universities of the Middle Ages rested that prerogative of scientific censure—censura doctrinatis—to which they laid claim in such a comprehensive way, upon these and other like papal or imperial and royal decrees of establishment. Petrus Alliacensis, a man whom the University of Paris elected as its magnus magister in 1381, and who afterward wore the archiepiscopal and also the cardinal's hat, tells us that not ex jure humano, not from human legislation, but ex jure divino, from divine law, does science derive its competence to exercise the censura; and the privileges and charters granted by popes, emperors and kings are nothing more than the acts of recognition of this prerogative of science that comes to it ex jure divino, or, as an alternative expression has it, ex jure naturali, by the law of nature. And in this, Petrus Alliacensis is substantially borne out by all the later scholastics.

Gentlemen, we are in the habit of giving ourselves airs and of looking down on the Middle Ages as a time of darkness and barbarism. But in so doing we are frequently in the wrong, and in no respect are we more thoroughly in the wrong than in passing such an opinion upon the position of science in the Middle Ages. Frequent and most solemn are the cases in which recognition is made of the right of science to raise her voice without all regard to king and pope, and even against king and pope.

We have recently witnessed a conflict between the government and the house of deputies as to the meeting of expenditures not granted by the house. An impression has been diligently spread abroad through the country that this is an unheard of piece of boldness and a subversive assumption of power on the part of the house of deputies, and indeed there have not been wanting deputies who have been astonished at their own daring, and have taken some pride in it.

But, on the other hand, Gentlemen, in February, 1412, the University of Paris, which was in no way intrusted with an oversight or a control of this country's fiscal affairs, took occasion to address a memorial to the King of France, Charles VI., as it said: "pour la chose publique du votre royaume"—on the public concerns of the realm. And in this memorial the university subjects the fiscal administration of the country, together with other branches of the administration, to a drastic criticism, and passes a verdict of unqualified condemnation upon it. This rémonstrance of the University of Paris rises to a degree of boldness, both in its demands and in its tone, that is quite foreign to anything which our house of deputies has done or might be expected to do. It points out that the revenues have not been expended for the purposes for which they were levied—"on appert clairement, que les dictes finances ne sont point employées à choses dessus dictes," etc.—and it closes this its review with the peremptory demand: "_Item, et il fault savoir, où est cette finance,"—"Now, we have a right to know what has become of these funds." It describes the king's fiscal administration, including the highest officials, the finance ministers, gouverneurs and treasurers, as a gang of lawless miscreants, a band of rogues conspiring together for the ruin of the country. It upbraids the king himself with having packed the parliament of Paris, and so having corrupted the administration of justice. It points out to him that his predecessors carried on the government by means of much smaller revenues: "au quel temps estoit le royaume bien gouverné, autrement que maintenant"—"when the country was well governed, as is not the case today." The rémonstrance goes on to picture the burdens which rest upon the poor, and to demand that these burdens be lightened by means of a forced loan levied upon the rich. And the rémonstrance closes with the declaration that all this, which it has set forth is, in spite of its length, but a very adequate presentation of the matter, in so much that it would require several days to describe all the misgovernment the country suffered.

The university rests its right to make such a rémonstrance upon this ground alone,—that it is the spokesman of science, of which all men know that it is without selfish interest, that there are neither public offices nor emoluments in its keeping, and that it is not concerned with these matters in any connection but that of their investigation; but precisely for this reason, it is incumbent upon science to speak out openly when the case demands it.

And the conclusion to which it comes is of no less serious import than this: It is the king's duty, without all delay (sans quelque dilacion) to dismiss all comptrollers (gouverneurs) of finance from office, without exception (sans nul excepter), to apprehend their persons and provisionally to sequestrate their goods, and, under penalty of death and confiscation of property, to forbid all communication between the lower officials of the fisc and these comptrollers.

If you will read this voluminous rémonstrance, Gentlemen—you may find it in the annals of that time by Enguerrand de Monstrelet (liv. I. c. 99, Tom. II. p. 307 et seq., ed. Douët d'Aroy)—you cannot avoid seeing that, had this memorial been promulgated in our time, e.g., by the University of Berlin, there is scarce an offense enumerated in the code but would have been found in it by the public prosecutor. Defamation and insult of officials in the execution of their office, contempt and abuse of the government's regulations and the disposition taken by the officials, lèse majesté, incitement of the subjects of the State to hatred and disrespect—and, indeed, I know not what all would be the offenses which our prosecutors would have discovered in the document. It is less than a year since, according to the newspapers, a disciplinary inquiry was instituted with respect to a memorial of a very different tenor, wherein one of our universities declined the mandatory suggestions addressed to the university by the ministers in regard to a given appointment. But, at that earlier day, in the dark ages, such was not the custom. On the other hand, in compliance with the university's demands, the treasurer of the crown, Audry Griffart, together with many others of the high officers of finance, was taken into custody, while others avoided a like fate only by escaping into a church vested with the right of asylum.

That was in 1412. But already eighty years before that date there occurred another, and perhaps even more significant case, which I may touch upon more briefly. Pope John XXII. promulgated a new construction of the dogma of visio beatifica and had it preached in the churches. The University of Paris,—nec pontificis reverentia prohibuit, says the report, quominus veritati insistereat,—"reverence of the holy father prevented not the university from declaring the truth"—, although the matter then in question was an article of the faith and lay within a field within which the competence of the pope could not be doubted, still the university, on the 22d of January, 1332, put forth a decree in which this construction of the dogma was classed to be erroneous.

Philip VI. served this decree upon the pope, then resident at Avignon, with the declaration that, unless he recanted as the decree required, he would have him burned as a heretic. And the pope, in fact, recanted, although he was then on his deathbed. All of which you may find set forth in Bulas, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis. (Paris, 1668, fol. Tom. IV. p. 375 et seq.)

These instances, which might be multiplied at will, may suffice to show how unqualified was the freedom of science even in early days, constrained by no punitive limitation at the hands of pope or king; for, be it remembered, in the Middle Ages, science had, as I have before remarked, only a corporate existence in its bearers, the universities. So that the view for which I speak has practically been accepted as much as five hundred years back, even in Catholic times and among Latin peoples.

But now comes Protestantism and creates its political structure, which it erects on precisely this broad principle of free thought and free research. This principle has since that epoch been the foundation upon which our entire political life has rested. A protestant State has no other claim to existence than precisely this—cannot possibly exist on other ground. When has there, since that time, been talk of a penal prosecution in Prussia on account of a scientific doctrine?

Christian Wolf, at Halle, popularized the Leibnizian philosophy, and it was then brought to the notice of the soldier-king, Frederick William I., that, according to Wolf's teaching of preëstablished harmony, deserting soldiers did not desert by their own free will but by force of this peculiar divine arrangement of a preëstablished harmony;51 wherefore this doctrine, being spread abroad among the military, could not but be very detrimental to the maintenance of military discipline. It is true, this soldier-king, whose regiments were his State, was incensed at all this in the highest degree, and that he forthwith, in November, 1723, issued an order-in-council against Wolf, ordering him on penalty of the halter, to leave Prussian ground within twice twenty-four hours—and Wolf was obliged to flee. But, inasmuch as the king's lettres de cachet in that time permitted no appeal, they are also passed over in history as being devoid of interest or historic significance. It may be added that the soldier-king had simply perpetrated a gratuitous outrage, and had not set the claims of law and right aside. He threatened to hang Wolf, and this threat he could have carried out with the help of his soldiers. Even brute force is not devoid of dignity when it acts openly and above-board. He did not insult his courts by asking them to condemn scientific teaching. It did not occur to him to disguise his act of violence under the forms of law.

Moreover, no sooner had Frederick the Great ascended the throne, 31st of May, 1740, than he, six days later, 6th of June, 1740, sent a note to the Councillor of the Consistory, Reinbeck, directing the recall of Wolf. Even Frederick William I. had repented of his violence against Wolf and had in vain, in the most honorable terms, addressed letters of recall to him. But Frederick the Great, while he too had use for soldiers, was no soldier-king, but a statesman. The note to Reinbeck runs: "You are requested to use your best endeavor with respect to this Wolf, who is a person that seeks and loves the truth, who is to be held in high honor among all men, and I believe you will have achieved a veritable conquest in the realm of truth if you persuade Wolf to return to us."

So it appears, then, that also this conflict serves only to add force to the ancient principle that scientific research and the presentation of scientific truth is not to be bound by any limitations or by any considerations of expediency, and must find its sole and all sufficient justification in itself alone. This principle hereby achieved a new lustre and gained the full authentication of the crown.

Even the existence of God was not shielded from the discussion of science. Science was allowed, as it is still allowed, to put forth its proofs against his existence. The provisions of the new penal code bear only upon blasphemous utterances, such revilings of God as may offend those who believe otherwise, not upon the denial of his existence.

For many decades before the days of the Constitution the unquestioned liberty of science on Prussian ground had served the antagonists of Prussia as their supreme recourse, their chief boast and proudest ornament. You will remember the extraordinary sensation created by the case of Bruno Bauer, the Privat Docent on the theological faculty at Bonn, whom it was attempted to deprive of his licentia docendi52 at the ominous instance of the absolutist-pietistical Eichhorn ministry, because of his peculiar doctrine concerning the gospel. This was the first case during the present century in which an assault has been attempted upon the freedom of scientific teaching, and even this was an infinitely less heinous one than the present. The faculties of the university were deeply stirred, and for months together official pronunciamentos swarmed about the town; men of the highest standing, such as Marheinecke and others, declared that protestantism and enlightenment were threatened in their very foundations in case such usurpation, hitherto unheard of in Prussia, were allowed to take its course. And even such expressions of opinion as reached a conclusion subservient to the ministerial view based their conclusion on the ground that the case in question concerned a licentia docendi in the theological faculty, with the fundamental principles of which Bauer's doctrines were incompatible. They took care expressly to declare that had the question concerned a licentia docendi in any one of the nontheological faculties, in a philosophical faculty, e.g., the decision must necessarily have been reversed. No one, not even Eichhorn himself, harbored the conceit that this doctrine and its teaching was to be dealt with by the criminal court. A teacher who spread abroad scientific teachings subversive of theological doctrines was deprived of the opportunity to proclaim his teaching from a theological chair; but to call in the jailer to suppress him—to that depth of subservience to absolutism had no one at that time descended. Alas, that Eichhorn, the much berated, could not have lived to see this day! With what admiration and with what gratification would he have looked upon his "constitutional" successors!