Moses Hess

“ This monarch missed his great opportunity to raise Germany, by means of supporting social, political and religious reform, to the dignity of a useful modern State, to liberate it from the yoke of Feudalism and save it from disruption, and finally to create for himself a nation and to give to the people a real king, to create a modern monarchy which would support all the oppressed peoples and terrify the conquering mediaeval lords of war. ”

“ If we consider the plan of history, as mapped out in the sacred Scriptures of the Jews, without prejudice, we shall see in it, not only the conception of the unity of mankind, but also the unity of all life, cosmic, organic and social. Our sacred Scriptures presuppose the unity of God, in spite of the apparent variety which the word presents, and the unity of the human genus, notwithstanding the differences of races; because the total plan of the history of the world seems to have been always present to the spirit of the Jewish people, from the beginning of its history. ”

“ Between the stage of embryonic life, through which Society had passed, and the stage of maturity and independence, upon which it will enter, there lies the gap which we can hardly bridge, namely, the revolutionary critical epoch, which gave birth to modern Society, the period which made possible the independence of future social life from the past and laid the foundation of a creative Society. What revolution does for life, criticism accomplishes for ideas and views. ”

“ And finally, when, after the long struggle between the pagan world of sensuality and barbarous force, on the one hand, and the spiritual, mystic, Jewish view on the other, the sun of modern humanitarian civilization shed its feeble rays upon a better and more perfect world, it was a Jew who was able to signal to the world that the final stage of the process of human development has begun. ”

“ Christianity represents a departure from the classical essence of both Judaism and Paganism. The Jewish view of the world was, and is, that the universe is a sacred creation of one Supreme Being. To Paganism, in its typical classical form, which reached its culmination in the Greek spirit, the divine unity, present in the world, appeared only as a product of the harmonious combination of multiple and various universal forces. The creative essence of Judaism did not disappear with its created classical culture, because the Jewish creative genius did not exhaust itself in its creation. ”

“ The philosophical and industrial forms of speculation employed by spiritual and material capitalists and dominating the fields of scientific and industrial labor, are the two breasts which nourish our Society, and as a result, the child labor is strongly bound to its mother-capital-the creative spirit is chained to the former traditional achievements; and finally, the new Society is made subject to its ancient ghost. It is, therefore, the task of the intellectual, as well as the industrial workers, to liberate themselves from the domination of speculation. ”

“ Without regeneration there can be no people, and without a people, in the modern sense of the word, there can be no modern patriotism. Present-day German patriotism, which expresses itself only in verbal protestations against our neighbors, while it has neither the courage nor the talent to occupy itself with the work of regeneration, is only an air bubble. Germany does not suffer from the oppression of a foreign yoke, nor is there any fear that it will suffer in the future, as the patriots would have us believe, but it is ailing as a result of its murdered revolution ”

“ But if they continue to conjure themselves, as well as the German people, with the might and glory of the "German Sword," they will only add to the old unpardonable mistakes, grave new ones; they will only play into the hands of the reaction, and drag all Germany along with them. ”

“ Only a stupid reaction, which is consciously or unconsciously swept along by its own alarm, can bear us malice when we sympathize with France in all matters of a social, political nature, and yet try to absorb and assimilate everything good in German spiritual and intellectual life.
The cause of national regeneration of oppressed peoples can expect no help and sympathy from Germany. ”

“ The old, rigid institutions of feudal Society and the last dead residue of dogmatism must first be dissected by the sharp knife of criticism and analysis, into its elements, before new social and spiritual creations can come into being. In the course of the development of new elements there came to the front a new antagonism which did not exist before, and the reconciliation of which is at present under discussion. ”

“ The forces of labor in the industrial world on the one hand, and the investigators in the scientific field, on the other, liberated from the bonds of feudalism and dogmatism alike, have brought forth the last antagonism, namely, the one between labor and speculation. In the revolutionary atmosphere of free competition of all labor forces, there were formed centers of gravity which will ultimately absorb the individual productive forces and organize them for their own purpose. ”

“ A God head, of whom we know nothing, is without influence on our social, spiritual and moral life. It is only the creative God who will be the God of the age of maturity of the social life. The rationalistic view of life suits only the now antiquated form of Society, which is at present in the process of dissolution. Just as modern Nationalism is a reflection of the spirit of revolution, so is modern rationalistic supernaturalism a spiritual reflection of the reaction against the progressive social tendencies. ”

“ Had not the uprising of the peasants been shamefully betrayed by the leaders of German culture and civilization, the development of the nation would, at that time, have already assumed a normal form, and not only would Germany be the equal of the other civilized nations, but as the first-born modern nation, would have held the roost prominent place among them. ”

“ Every life-sphere, which has reached the completion of its development, insures the continuity of its existence, first, by means of reproduction, and, secondly, by establishing an equilibrium between production and consumption. The social life-sphere also will enter upon its age of maturity from the moment when this point of view prevails in the social economic movement. Where this point of view is only shared by a few individuals, who utilize it for private purposes, the age is dominated by speculation. ”

“ Even the French Revolution, which taught all European nations to love and esteem liberty, brought to Germany only the shame of foreign rule and the still worse domination of the reaction, which since then settled so securely upon the back of the German people, that not even the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 could, in any way, overthrow it from its seat. ”

“ The Jewish view, which sees in the world of Nature and life the continual operation of one creative force, is confirmed by observation. We cannot fail to conceive in any created phenomenon in Nature, or in the sphere of spirit, the immediate influence of the Creator. Those who try to avoid this conclusion, explaining the rise of beings as only a result of a mere mechanical operation of the law of cause and effect, and oppose to the theory of creation that of the eternity of matter, will find it difficult to uphold their view. ”

“ During the development of organic or social life, there occurs always a division of labor among the various parts of the organisms which brings forth, along with the perfection of special functions, a certain narrowness and one-sidedness. In human life, this tendency often degenerates into a kind of monomania, the effects of which are harmful to the human spirit. But when the perfected organism of the historical races reaches its final stage of development, the various strivings of history will also reach their ultimate harmony in a perfected human society. ”

“ Scientists and Socialists should work hand in hand for the last liberation of humanity, for the emancipation of all forms of labor from speculation. And their efforts will certainly be successful, for we see that scientists in Germany and industrial laborers in England are gradually approaching the goal. But in Germany, as well as in England, these efforts are isolated; the impulse to unite both tendencies, the scientific and the industrial, can come only from the land of modern revolution and centralization. ”

“ The last dominating race is the German. But, thanks to the French people, which succeeded not only in reconciling race antagonism in its own land, but also uprooted every form of race domination within the borders of France, the race struggle is nearing its end. And along with the cessation of race antagonism, the class struggle will also come to a standstill. The equalization of all classes of Society will necessarily follow the emancipation of the races, for it will ultimately become only a scientific question of social economics. ”

“ And yet, in spite of all these difficulties, the German revolution would have triumphed, had it not been for the fact that the cities, the seat of a social class, which had immediate interest in the downfall of Feudalism, were too narrow-minded and cowardly at heart to see the great importance of the peasant uprising and to struggle for their own liberation. ”

“ Medieval reaction succeeded twice during the present century, once during the War of Liberation, and for the second time, during the Italian war, in defeating the modern efforts of the German people for political and social regeneration, by inflaming the race dominance instincts in the hearts of the lords of war, who think themselves lords of the land by divine right, and consider the people as their rightly inherited slaves. ”

“ The teaching of Spinoza, which derives the entire spiritual-moral system of life from the single idea of God as the ground of Nature and Thought, and which assigns the Knowledge of God as the highest aim of life, reconciles the apparent contradiction between philosophy and experimental science on the one hand and between reason 'and feeling on the other. ”

“ They arose through the act of creation, by the same act which successively calls into existence every being, and continues to form centers of gravity, which in the cosmic world we name atoms; in the organic, germs; and in the social, revelations.
Creation, however, does not mean the forming of new elements, but only a new arrangement of existing materials. Every creation is a combination of two opposite movements into a new, balanced and more perfect one. ”

“ And were Germany to go to war again with any nation, the same result would be repeated; a victory of the army would be a victory of reaction. So deeply have we sunk, that we are forced to hail a defeat of the army as a happy event in the history of the German people. ”

“ Luther, with his doctrinal stupidity, thought it more advantageous to join the nobility rather than the common people and finally betrayed the peasants, just as, even to-day, the German doctrinaires are always ready to betray the people whenever they attempt to take the democratic movement seriously. ”

“ Germany, during that period, gave birth to a great reform, but inasmuch as it did not succeed in becoming a truly national reform, it only divided the nation into two. The political-social revolution of the peasants, on the other hand was finally drowned in their own blood. ”

“ The unity of the human genus is a conception developed in the course of ages through historical activity, and not an original, natural idea, inherent in the human soul. It is not an immediate datum of organic life, but a product of the social historical development process. It has the variety of the primitive racial tribes as its antecedent, their struggle as its conditions, and their final harmonious cooperation as its aim. ”

“ It unfastens the chains of traditional representations which hold the present in the grip of the past, opens the way toward a new independent life, and, like revolution, considers itself independent of the creative being itself, which tradition has represented as extra-mundane, as long as it has not rediscovered that creative being in the world itself. ”

“ The root of this antagonism, however, lies not in the malice of this or that class, but is inherent in the history of the development of the human race which, as long as it has not reached its aim, the age of maturity, must pass toward its goal through race and class struggles, just as the human individual, while in the midst of his mental development, is dominated by one-sided representations and tendencies. ”

“ But if we observe the life of the cosmic sphere where it is still being generated and developed in universal space, we cannot deny to it attributes of the divine life-the life that is so beautifully described in our literature in the Words: "Last in creation, first in thought." ”

“ Who can foresee the catastrophes that may befall us as a result of our arrested development? Certainly, we hope that the struggle of the German people will come to an end with the equalization of all oppressed peoples which struggle to attain the same aim. ”

“ The age of race dominance is at an end. Even the smallest people, whether it belongs to the Germanic or Romance, Slavic or Finnic, Celtic or Semitic races, as soon as it advances its claims to a place among the historical nations, will find sympathetic supporters in the powerful civilized Western nations. Like the patriots of other unfortunate nations, the German 'patriots can attain their aim only by means of a friendly alliance with the progressive and powerful nations of the world. ”