Lassalle on Heraclitus of Ephesus

Sterling Fishman

Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Jul. - Sep., 1962), pp. 379-391.

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LASSALLE ON HERACLITUS OF EPHE3US

The point of departure for the present study is the two-volume work that Lassalle completed and published in Berlin in 1858: Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos. The affinity of Lassalle to Heraclitus does not rest solely on a piece of philological scholarship, which is what Herakleitos was purported to be. Heralcleitos is merely the point of direct connection, the place where Lassalle openly examined and interpreted Heraclitus. That he misinterpreted Heraclitus all later scholarship attests; what is significant here is not a philological controversy over classical interpretation, but rather the particular manner in which Heraclitus was misread by Lassalle. H e came to Heraclitus through Hegel and read him while still in the glow of the Hegelianism that dominated his youth. The philosopher of Ephesus, as portrayed by Lassalle, had all the demeanor of a young Hegelian.

This over-reading or over-interpretation by Lassalle is to some extent unavoidable, especially with someone as vague as Heraclitus; but too often the interpreter unfairly represents the ancient thinker in wholly modern garb.l The main problem, however, implicit in a study of this nature is a basic one for intellectual history with respect to the relationship of one idea to another and the continuity of ideas. That problem is: what are the relationships of the ideas of one period or figure to those of another and what principles may be used i n assessing these relationships?

Heraclitus was born in Ephesus which during his lifetime was one of the most powerful cities of the Ionian coast. H e was born an aristocrat, a mem- ber of the noblest family in which the royal office of sacrificial priest to the Eleusinian Demeter was hereditary. He lived, however, in a time of demo- cratic upsurge when his position along with that of his family and friends was in jeopardy. "The majority of people have no understanding of the things which they daily meet, nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them, although to themselves they seem to have.'j2 In this and other fragments he indicated a strong contempt for the masses.

Heraclitus was the philosopher who first posited the principle of Logos or world reason. But he regarded the Logos as definitely bound to a material substrate-fire. H e cannot, therefore, be considered an idealist. What he saw in this general law of the universe, this world-mind, was the incessant change and fluctuation of all material things: everything flows and nothing is permanent. All sensory perception of being is illusion, he asserted; every- thing is becoming. The most widely known aphorism of Heraclitus is that of the man who was unable to step twice into the same stream; all is in continual motion and flux.

l For a more comprehensive discussion of this problem, see The Fragments of the Work o f Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature, trans. from the Greek text of Bywater by G. T. W. Patrick (Baltimore, 1889), 2-3. (Hereafter referred to as Fragments. Roman numerals will refer to the number of the fragment.)

Zbid., V, p. 85.

380 STERLING FISHMAN

In the end this philosophy of perpetual change approaches sheer rela- tivism: "The straight and crooked way of the woolcarders is one and the same." "The way upward and the way downward are one and the same." * And finally: "Good and evil are the same."

If, however, Heraclitus is not to be counted as a complete relativist and philosophical nihilist, i t is because there is some reality to which he directs us: namely, the Logos which represents the orderly process of change. He does not separate this Logos from the material world-it is one. But the Logos is fixed and pre-destined. There is an immutable law of determina- tion: "All events proceed with the necessity of fate. . . . The sun will not outstep the measure of his path; or else the goddesses of Fate, the hand- maids of Justice, will know how to find him."6 What Heraclitus preached then is the philosophy of universal change according to a hidden destiny, a doctrine of inexorable flux.

Only some 120 or so mutilated fragments remain of Heraclitus' teach- ings. These have largely been gathered by painstaking reconstructions from such sources as Philo, Plutarch, Clement,' and Origen. Furthermore, Heraclitus wrote in oracular style, in short aphorisms, already described by Socrates, who had the complete work of Heraclitus, as being difficult to comprehend: "Everything that I understood of Heraclitus was excellent. Therefore, I am ready to believe that what I did not understand is also excellent. But in order to make headway through this book, one would have to be one of the swimmers of Delos." 8 The XIXth century not only required a swimmer to understand Heraclitus, but also an architect, for the original text by then had been reduced to 120 or so scattered bits. The scholar of the pre-Socratics, Eduard Zeller, comments, "I believe i t to be impossible to recover the plan of the work, with any certainty from the frag- ments in existence." 9

Why, it might legitimately be asked, is it so important to attempt such a reconstruction? Is this not just a philological exercise? Heraclitus, how- ever, is often considered a prime point, a place from which many modern sys- tems found their initial nurture. He raised questions which troubled many of the great minds of antiquity. The XIXth-century classical scholars, especially those of Germany, had a passion for origins, a penchant for studying the

3 Ibid., L, p. 96. 4 Ibid., LXIX, p. 101. 5 Ibid., LVII, p. 98. 6Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and I t s Enemies (Princeton, 1950), 17.

The epithet for Heraclitus which Lassalle uses, Dunkle (the Obscure), refers to this difficulty of interpretation. Heraclitus had praised the Delphic Oracle for neither speaking nor concealing, but indicating. He undoubtedly modeled his style on the Oracle. He was first called Skoteinos (the Obscure) in the Aristotelian treatise de Mundo. Kathleen Freeman, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, a Companion t o Diels Fragments der Vorsokratiker (3rd edition, Oxford, 1953), 106-107.

Quoted in Dr. Moritz Brasch, Philosophie und Politik, Studien iiber Ferd. Lassalle und Johann Jacoby (Leipzig, n.d.), 6.

Zeller, A History o f Greek Philosophy from the Earliest Period t o the Time o f Socrates, trans. S . F . Alleyne (London, 1881), 11, 5.

381 LASSALLE ON HERACLITUS

origin and development of thought and the connection of different systems of thought. They especially focused on the Greeks who were credited with being the initiators of most modern ideas. In the light of this renewed clas- sical interest Heraclitus was discovered and elevated to a position of im-portance. To Heraclitus all subsequent philosophies of change were traced.1°

The serious study of Hera~l i tus began with Schleiermacher and his col- lection and arrangement of the Heraclitean fragments in 1807.11 Shortly thereafter, Hegel, while lecturing on the history of philosophy, admitted his wholesale approval of the doctrines of Heraclitus, or a t least what he thought these doctrines were: "there is no sentence of Heraclitus which I have not accepted in my logic."12 By the last decades of the century successive monographs by Bernays, Schuster, Teichmiiller, and Pfleiderer appeared in addition to the two volumes by Lassalle. Heraclitus was, furthermore, included and wrestled with a t length by Zeller and Burnet in their histories of early Greek philosophy and was even the subject of a speech given in honor of the birthday of Karl von Wiirttemberg in 1886.13

Yet, the appeal of Heraclitus was not confined to philologists and clas- sicists. Many, as in the case of Lassalle (and later Spengler), used Heracli- tus not only to further their academic careers, but to bolster their philo- sophic systems as well. Schirokauer in his biography of Lassalle states that by the time of Lassalle, Greece had become more than just an "object of enthusiasm, fantasy, and philological study" in Germany.14 For by the middle of the first half of the XIXth century, the early Greek philosophers were being widely used to support the validity of new systems of thought. Early Greeks were often acknowledged as the Quellpunlct of systems which used antiquity as a claim to respectability.16

Equally as culpable, however, as the misinterpreters of Heraclitus, have been those historians and philosophers who have attempted to evaluate his influence. Such gross exaggerations as the following are not uncommon: "Indeed, Socialism is merely Heracliteanism in politics and economics. Thus, in a very important sense, Heraclitus may be said to be the father of Socialism, and to be very much alive among us today." l6 Hegel referred to his inclusion of Heraclitus in his dialectical Logic. Marx and Engels were accquainted with the teachings of the Ephesian. Only in Lassalle is a

Ibid., 105-106. 11F. E. D. Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, der Dunkle von Ephesos in Wolf and

Buttmann's Museum der Alterthumwissenschaft, I (1807), 313-533. l2" . . . ; es ist kein Sate des Heraklit, den ich nicht in meine Logik auf genom-

men." G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Philosophie (Berlin, 1840), 301.

l3Edmund Pfleiderer, Was 1st der Quellpunkt der heraklischen Philosophie? (Tiibingen, 1886).

l4Schirokauer, Lassalle, the Power of Illusion and the Illusion of Power, trans. by Eden and Cedar Paul (London, 1931), 45.

lvfleiderer, Was Ist der Quellpunkt. . . . l6C. D. Warner, ed., Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and

Modern (31 vols., New York, 1902), XIII, 7248.

382 STERLING FISHMAN

major tie-in evident; yet in his instance as an affirmation of Hegelianism rather than of Socialism. Heraclitus has had a vogue with people to the left of center, but can in no way be called "the father of Socialism." l7 Similar exaggerated links have been made between Heraclitus and social, political, and moral relativists. In most cases Heraclitus has provided historical re-inforcement for an already established philosophic position.

Let us now turn then to a more particular study of a single instance in the Heraclitean renaissance, that of Ferdinand Lassalle.

Karl Popper in his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, compares the time of Heraclitus with the XIXth century and concludes that the similarity of the epochs had much to do with the resurrection of the Ephe- sian philosopher. Popper remarks that the discovery of change was es-pecially impressed upon Heraclitus by terrifying personal experiences : he, who was of an aristocratic priestly family, lived in an age of social revolu- tion. "There can be little doubt, I believe, that Heraclitus' philosophy is an expression of a feeling of drift; a feeling which seems to be a typical re- action to the dissolution of the ancient tribal forms of social life." l8 Pop-per believes that the Heraclitean philosophy was the product of a disinte- grating social order.

Popper then makes the equation with the XIXth century. He points out that in addition to Hegel and Marx, Comte, Mill, Lamarck, and Dar- win all dealt primarily with change. They were witnesses to the tremendous and undoubtedly terrifying impression made by changing enviroment. The social and economic impact of the industrial revolution, the impact of politi- cal revolutions in France and America were awe-impelling.

Some reacted to the turbulence by trying to stem it ; they tried to freeze the present and the past. Others incorporated ideas of change into their philosophic systems. These reactions were by no means antithetical. For change according to an immutable plan either of the Hegelian idealist or Marxian materialist varieties are, to Popper, by nature limiting and con- servative. Heraclitus was used in an attempt to institutionalize change. Hegel, who represented the Prussian reaction to 1789, was the first to revive Heraclitus in his philosophic system: "It seems to be more than a mere coincidence that Hegel, who adopted so much of Heraclitus' thought and passed i t on to all modern historicist movements was a mouthpiece of reaction against the French revolution." l9

Lassalle was a young Hegelian. He was born in an age (1825) of small communities, petty states, and more or less separate and ordered castes. But the age of flux was in the offing. Industry was developing. When Las- salle was nine years old, the North German Customs Union opened up a territory of thirty million people to free international trade. One year later the Krupp firm set up its first steam engine. In Silesia where Lassalle grew up there was a rising class of merchants, bankers, and manufacturers. There were also emotional currents which urged young German intellectuals towards freedom and national unity.

l7 Hegel, of course, is not included with those "left of center." lsPopper, The Open Society, 20. 1s lbid., 20.

LASSALLE ON HERACLITUS 383

Throughout this period the existing regimes were ever more on the de- fensive. Censorship worked with varying success throughout Germany. The works of Heine were prohibited. The one field that remained comparatively free was philosophy. The fashion was Hegel. But the young Hegelians such as Lassalle brought the dialectical system to bear on politics and society and went f a r to the left of Hegel politically. To quote Marx, " . . . the abtruse philosophical language in which these ideas were clothed, if i t obscured the mind of both writer and reader, equally blinded the eyes of the censor. And thus i t was that the young Hegelian writers enjoyed a liberty unknown in every other branch of literature." 20

Lassalle had studied Hegel before he came to Heraclitus. While a student in Breslau in 1843, Lassalle discovered Hegel. At the time that he wrote the following, he was eighteen and fired with enthusiasm for the formulator of the dialectic:

Philosophy took possession of me, and i t was in this spirit that I was born again. This second birth gave me everything, gave me clarity, self-assur- ance . . . made of me a self-containing Intellect, that is self-conscious of God.21

The Hegelian dialectic became his religion. He attempted to reconcile his Judaism to i t and when he failed, chose the dialectic over Judaism. His passion for Hegel led him to read the other young Hegelians. I n 1835 Strauss had published his Life of Jesus and Feuerbach's Essence of Chris-tianity appeared in 1841. Lassalle read both avidly.

The dialectic was being liberated from the "absolute spirit" by these Hegelians. Marx wrote of this liberation: "Who has annihilated the dialectic of concepts, the war of the gods which only the philosophers knew? Feuer- bach! Who has put man in the place of the old rag-bag, in the place of infinite consciousness? Feuerbach!" 22

Lassalle, however, remained within the limits of Hegelian evolutionary idealism. H e did become a "determined socialist." "For him the new social order was to come not as a consequence of barricades, or risings or con- spiracies but in the train of the inevitable triumph of the Hegelian idea." 23 Lassalle wished to create a new philosophic system which would continue the work of Hegel. H e wanted to develop and disseminate a scheme of socialist Utopia within an ideal state. In 1845 he wrote from Berlin to his father:

There is not the slightest risk tha t I shall be inspired by revolutionary emotion to rush out into the street. On the contrary, I, as a Hegelian, know perfectly well that one must wait; and that the only way in which an individual can hasten the march of events is by disseminating culture and philosophy. And there is no call for you to worry yourself about my studies. I am concentrating exclusively on the task of working out my system, a task I can only begin in two years' time. For I shall need a t least two or three years in preliminary studies and researches-indeed I shall be lucky if two years will be enough; the field to be covered is enormous. . . .24

David Footman, The Primrose Path, a Life of Ferdinand Lassalle (London, 1946))vii-viii. 21 Zbid., 35. 22 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassalle, 75.

28 Footman, The Primrose Path, 35 24 Zbid., 38.

384 STERLING FISHMAN

Shortly thereafter, in his attempt to satisfy this a~nbition to formulate his own philosophy, and inspired by Hegel and the Hegelian interpretation of Heraclitus, Lassalle began to plan a work on the sage of Ephesus.

He began his study of Heraclitus in 1845 when not yet twenty, The aspirations of the young scholar were many. He desired to demonstrate the forecasting of Hegelian ideas in the writings of Heraclitus. He wished to form his own system of thought as a continuation of Hegel, as a surpassing of Hegel. And lastly, he wanted fame. He saw Heraclitus as the instrument to satisfy all of these desires. It was, however, his craving for fame that motivated him most. Lassalle had an inordinate passion for recognition, which a t times reached pathological proportions. In discussing his proposed work on Heraclitus on his twentieth birthday Lassalle wrote:

I am eager to write my book. It is time to make an end of the increasing spread of ignorance and superficiality. Besides, as soon as I have written my book I shall be a made man, one with worldwide fame.25

These were not the musings of a man whose sole intent was to advance world revolution. His chief desires were to advance himself. Twelve years later on the eve of the publication of Herakleitos he wrote to the Countess Hatzfeldt:

I have reached a time of life when I've got to do something about my im- mortality. I propose to bring off three big coups between now and next spring. First of all Herakleitos, then another thing I am just starting to write and am very excited about; thirdly my book on economics. . . . 26

This letter was written after he had already attained national renown for his advocacy of the Hatzfeldt case. This lust for fame and fear of rejection and exclusion marked the entire life of Lassalle. Even as a youth he once quoted a verse of Ovid in his diary after receiving a bad report from school. The passage is one in which the poet, Ovid, banished to the shores of the Black Sea, relieved his feelings by writing: "Here I am called a barbarian because the barbarians do not know how to value me." 27

Lassalle began his work on Heraclitus as a young man of twenty in 1845 and had almost completed i t in the short period of two years. But i t was not until twelve years later that the work finally appeared. A decade had been spent in fighting for Sophie Hatzfeldt. His energies had been absorbed in thirty-six trials. When he finally completed the work, he was no longer a young Berlin student seeking a position. He had become instead the famous counselor of the Countess Sophie Hatzfeldt. The figure who finally emerged was not an acclaimed young scholar, but rather a famous lawyer and socialist whose hobby it was to dabble in learning.

So important and controversial a figure had Lassalle, the radical, be- come by 1856 that he was several times refused permission to enter Berlin. He wanted to be present a t the time of Heralcleitos' publication in order

25 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassalle,95. ~3 Quoted in Footman, The Primrose Path, 92. 27 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassalle,47.

385 LASSALLE ON HERACLITUS

to reap the expected praise of the Berlin salons. He was continually frus- trated in his efforts to obtain a permit and finally in impatience embarked on an unsatisfying tour of the Near East. He remained restless and eager, however. Only on one occasion is there evidence of great enthusiasm. In this account dated November 20, 1865, Alexandria, Lassalle related the excitement of his first visit to the Ionian coast and especially of his visit to Ephesus, the birthplace of Heraclitus.

His main interest a t this time lay in Germany. On February 8, 1857, he wrote to the Countess: "Do everything possible to secure my move to Ber- lin. . . . I shall have finished Herakleitos by mid-March and have a pas- sionate urge to come to Berlin to arrange for its publication. . . . I am ter- ribly impatient to get to Berlin. I can hardly force myself to be calm enough to finish the book."29 On March 19, 1857, Lassalle wrote and an- nounced that he had completed his book. On the 25th of the same month the long awaited authorization was finally received:

Ferdinand Lassalle, Partikulier, is to be accorded permission to reside in Berlin for a maximum period of six months on account of his need for medical treatment and in view of the publication of a work he has composed on Heraklitm30

The final change of heart by the Chief of Berlin Police may have occurred for several reasons. Most probably the Chief of Police wanted to put the socialist under closer surveillance or to put an end to the Hatzfeldt-Lassalle gossip which was embarrassing to so many noble ladies of the day. Or, in- deed, he might have decided to believe Lassalle, that the latter's purpose for wishing to come to Berlin was to publish a philosophical study of Heraclitus.

Lassalle took up residence on Potsdammer Strasse in May and there awaited the publication of his work. The publishing house of Franz Duncker undertook the printing. Lasalle was not an unusual type of client for Duncker who had also published Hegel. Lassalle spent much of his time in the summer of 1857 seeing his Herakleitos through the presses and attempt- ing to alienate the affections of Lina Duncker, the wife of the publisher. He apparently accomplished both tasks with success.31 In the autumn of 1857 the first volume of Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos appeared.

How did Lassalle deal with Heraclitus? What was his aim? Here Lassalle speaks to us in the introduction to his work. He describes his goal:

, . . to furnish a contribution to the historical development of world his- torical thought-to clarify the proper world historical position, which Heraclitus legitimately holds in this process, his beginning, his continual development in itself, even if only in outline.32

28 F. Lassalle, Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, collected and edited by G. Mayer (6 vols., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1921), VI, 228.

29 Footman, The Primrose Path, 91. 30 Ibid., 93. 31 Ibid., 96-97. 32 F. Lassalle, Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Ephesos (Berlin, 1858), I , xii.

386 STERLING FISHMAN

In order to accomplish this goal Lassalle had done copious research. The effort in itself is great. Not only did Lassalle use existing fragments, but by his ingenuity added appreciably to the extant bits. In the end, he offered an elaborate and impressive reconstruction of the Ephesian's system.

In the Introduction the aim of the research is explained; the relation- ship of Heraclitus to orphic and oriental religious teachings is examined; and the philosophic point of view is given. Lassalle then presents a short and comprehensive development of the Heraclitean system. The remainder of the first volume is devoted to Ontology. The second volume deals with Physics, Epistemology and Ethics. Lassalle presents Heraclitus as a com-prehensive philosophical view. He systematizes the teachings of the Ephe- sian.

The most original feature of the study is its emphasis on the unity of opposites, Lassalle noted3s in pointing out the center of Heraclitus'a thought:

The importance of Heraclitus is first of all, that here for the first time the formal notion of the speculative idea is generally recognized-the unity of opposites as process. This which we generally call the abstract idea of the speculative is a t the center of the teachings of Heraclitus.

Schleiermacher had already recognized that the chief emphasis of the Heraclitean philosophy was on becoming and on motion. But Schleiermacher had treated the idea of becoming only as indifferent variation and that of motion as movement in a straight line.34 Lassalle on the other hand saw becoming as the "unity of the absolute opposition of being and non-being whose transition is one into the other." 3K Considered thus as a dialectician, Heraclitus loses much of his obscurity. "The torches of dialectic illumine his syllogistic thoughts," the twenty-year-old Lassalle had written when beginning the work.a6

The most overriding feature of the monograph is the use of the Hegelian lens. The Hegelian view of philosophy is expressed in the Introduction:

The History of Philosophy has ceased to be of value as a collection of curiosities, as a compilation of real or accidental views. Likewise, the thought is only an historical product; the History of Philosophy-the representation of its self-development is executed in steady and necessary c o n t i n ~ i t y . ~ ~

In the end Lassalle gave a more narrow interpretation of the Greek than Hegel had done. The "Heraclitus of Lassalle literally breathes in Hegelian thinking," wrote Bernstein in his Introduction to Herakleitos in the Reden und S ~ h r i f t e n . ~ ~ Brandes reiterated this in his biography in pointing out

33 Ibid., I , 1. s4Hermann Oncken, Lassalle (Stuttgart, 1904), 95-96. See also Brasch, Phi-

losophie und Politik, 12-13. 35 Ibid. (Brasch), 13. Schirokauer, Lassalle, 106. 37 Lassalle, Herakleitos, I , xii. F. Lassalle, Gesammelte Reden und ~ c h k f t e n , collected and edited by Eduard

Bernstein (12 vols., Berlin, 1920)) VII, 7.

387 LASSALLE ON HERACLITUB

that Herakleitos, though published when Lassalle was thirty-two, was nevertheless a product of his youth, of his "strong, proud Hegelian days." 39

If Hegel provided the dialectical tool with which Lassalle interpreted Heraclitus, he, Hegel, also led Lassalle to his most serious error as well, an error which was to mar the work in the light of later scrutiny. Lassalle made the fundamental mistake of treating Heraclitus, the physical philoso- pher as a thorough-going Hegelian idealist. As indicated above, Lassalle be- lieved that Heraclitus had for the first time grasped the "formal notion of the speculative idea," the principle of the dialectical opposition of being and non-being as a unity of process, the idea of becoming as the divine law.40

When Heraclitus spoke of fire as the Urstof f , the primary substance, Lassalle took him to mean the "ideal logical entity of fire.'' Fire became a "metaphysical abstraction," a pure process,4l as seen by the young Hegelian. Change became a logical process. It is nothing other than the change from being into non-being and the reverse. "The way down is transition into being; the way up is the return into the pure and free negativity of non-being, motion is the undisturbed ideal harmony." 42

With Lassalle the Heraclitean Logos became a law of It is the pure, intelligible, logical law of identity in process of being and non- being. It is the law of opposites and the change into the same.44

Lassalle, under the influence of Hegel, attempted to reduce the physical philosophy of Heraclitus to the dialectical components of Hegel. Hegel, himself, in his passion for logic believed that the dialectical method had been discovered by Heraclitus. He too had misinterpreted non-logical values.45 Lassalle continued this error in his Herakleitos. In the judgment of later scholars, Lassalle's interpretation went far beyond the implications of the Heraclitus fragments. Eduard Zeller points out that Lassalle's defense of his assertions proved little; the appeal to the Cratylus of Plato and Capella were questionably accurate and insufficient anyway.46

Lassalle thus provided a dubious interpretation of Heraclitus. His work was not without value, however, as he added to the existing number of intelligible fragments. His reconstruction of Heraclitus along Hegelian lines, was impressive, but showed no clear grasp of the lessons of Heraclitus. His interpretation was "thoroughly fantastic and arbitrary." 47

This German scholar had no power or no wish to put himself

in the attitude of the Greek mind, which was as widely different from his as possible. It was a mistake for this disciple of pure thought, bred in the stifling atmosphere of a nineteenth-century Hegelian lecture-room and powerless to transport himself out of it, even though to attempt to inter- pret the sentences of an ingenious lover of nature, . . . . 48

39 Georg Brandes, Ferdinand Lassalle, ein literarischer Charakterbild (Berlin, 1877), 34.

40 Lassalle, Herakleitos, I , 24. 41 Ibid., I , 361, and 11, 18 and 30. * Ibid., 11, 241 ff. 43 Ibid., I , 306. 44 Ibid., I , 327. 45 Glenn J. Gray, Hegel's Hellenic Ideal (New York , 1941), 73. 46 Zeller, Greek Philosophy, 11, 26-27. See also Lassalle, Herakleitos, 11, 22. 47 Fragments, p. 10. 48 Ibid.

388 STERLING FISHMAN

The source of Lassalle's error was undoubtedly Hegel's statement that there was no proposition of Heraclitus which he had not included in his own Logic. But "the identity proclaimed was purely physical; logic did not yet exist, and as yet the principle of identity had not been formulated." 49

The reception of the first and second volumes by Berlin's learned circles in 1858 did not, however, reflect the judgment of later scholars against the Hegelian interpretation. Opinions were unanimous and in their praise even exceeded the expectations of the vain Lassalle. August Bockh, who had first taught the young student philology, lauded the work highly. Bockh, even in his later life when Lassalle's study had been shown to be only a deeply learned misinterpretation, was still sufficiently impressed to remark that Herakleitos possessed a "certain ingenious attraction." 50 Alexander von Humboldt, the noted classicist, encouraged his colleagues to obtain the volumes. Brugsch, the Egyptologist, after reading Herakleitos decided that he had a mission to interpret the Book of the Dead which had also been translated and never understood. The greatest acclaim, of course, came from the loyal Hegelians who had their center in the Berlin Philo- sophical Society. Karl Ludwig Michelet, the president of the Society, ar- ranged that Lassalle be invited to become a member and on November 28, 1857, he and a General von Pfuel were taken into the S ~ c i e t y . ~ ~

Lassalle remained a private individual and had no academic grade or title, yet his work entitled him to enter all academic circles. He was little interested in the Philosophic Society itself although he attended their meetings and contributed to their organ, Der Gedanke. The Society, which was a rather inactive '(gentlemen's club,'' represented a retreat from the world, a position which Lassalle did not relish.

Even the police were impressed with Herakleitos by some direct or indirect means and allowed Lassalle to remain in Berlin long after his six month permit had expired. This man, who had come to Berlin presaged as a democrat, seemed, if anything, to sympathize with Heraclitus's con-tempt for the mob. This supposed socialist seemed especially eager to be accepted into the exclusive class of the learned. Professor Lepsius, who remained unconvinced, queried: "Is this the Lassalle of the Hatzfeldt trials? I s the man really so red as he is said to be?" 62

The question was a valid one. Was this the great social reformer? Lassalle had become a conceited celebrity. He basked in the academic praise heaped upon him. Herakleitos had gained that praise for him.

Lassalle, however wrapped in encomiums as he was, did not abandon his socialism nor socialist contacts entirely. Not satisfied solely with the plaudits of academicians, Lassalle turned to his socialist compatriot in London, Karl Mam, for further applause. In January 1858, Lassalle dia- patched a copy of Herakleitos to Marx in Soho.

49 John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (London, 1892), 147. Brasch, Philosophie und Politik, 21. 61 Oncken, Lassalle, 103-104.

52 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassde , 174.

389 L A ~ A L L EON HERACLITUS

Today Lassalle's book arrived. It cost 2 shillings, not the price of the book, but the transportation. . . . This assures it s poor reception. (Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, January 28, 1858) 63

The relationship of Lassalle to Marx during the period 1857-1858 and their correspondence concerning Herakleitos provides an amusing and hypocritical episode in what was always an unusual and interesting tie. It is the correspondence of an inflated and egotistic social dandy with a cold and determined exile; it is the unsure hand of the fame-seeker seeking approval. Lassalle wrote to Marx: "Philosophers and scholars go before me like the heralds of King Ahasmeias before Mordechai and proclaim: 'This is the man who has written Heraklitus.' " 54 And then in another letter almost apologetically:

You may think I am being too academic, as i t has so little connexion with the immediate or rather with the practical needs of the age. . . . [but] we Germans are a theoretical people-which I hope we shall not always be in one sense of the word. It might be useful if I acquired a certain prestige among our theorists.55

It was the publication of Herakleitos that caused Lassalle to reopen correspondence with Marx after a lapse of two years (1856-1858). Las- salle sought the opinion and approval of Marx for his Hegelian study of Heraclitus. Marx, who a t first hesitated to reply, was in need, a t the time, of a political correspondent in Germany and also someone to find a publisher for his Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie. And as usual Marx was in need of someone to lend him money. Marx finally did reply and promised an opinion on Herakleitos when he had read i t carefully. Lassalle, who was eager to have Marx interested in his philosophical out- put, willingly offered his services to Marx and on March 26 announced that he had found a publisher for the Kritik. Jenny Marx answered and thanked Lassalle, Karl being ill a t the time. Finally, on May 31, Marx sent Lassalle his opinion of Herakleitos:

Masterly . . . [but] I believe i t could have been condensed without dis- advantage. I would also have preferred a more critical attitude towards Hegel. While admittedly his dialectic is philosophy's last word i t is es- sential to free it from Hegel's mysticaI nimbus.56

On the same day, however, Marx wrote to Engels: "You will have to give me absolution for the praise I have been compelled to bestow upon Heracli- tus the Obscure."" He had previously written to Engels in reference to Herakleitos:

Heraklitus the Obscure, by Lassalle the Bright, is a feeble composition. There is an enormous display of erudition. But when one has time and money and, like Lassalle, can send to the Bonn University Library for any

83 Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx 1844 bis 1883, collected by Bebel and Bernstein (Stuttgart, 1921), 11, 239.

54 Quoted in Footman, The Primrose Path, 98. EVbid., 93-94. 56 Ibid., 98. 57 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassalle, 174.

390 STERLING FISHMAN

book one wants i t is easy to compose this exhibition of quotations. . . . The book adds nothing to what Hegel wrote in his History of Philosophy: he merely goes into elaborate detail over what could have been easily contained in a small pamphlet. . . . One can see how important he feels himself. He is behaving just like a young man with his first smart suit. [and in regards to the book's reception in Berlin] It seems a fact that the elderly profes- sors were astonished to experience this posthumous flowering of a past age."8

Clearly, while Marx sent messages in mild praise of Herakleitos to Las- salle in return for money and services, he described the work to Engels as a "feeble compilation." Lassalle, in turn, replied with pages of explanation and self-justification. He sought Marx's praise and never understood why he, who was so applauded in Berlin, was so little honored by Marx considered the author of Herakleitos pompous but useful, worth the expense of modest insincerity.

The question of what the philosophy of Heraclitus in truth meant to Lassalle is a difficult one to answer. Initially, i t meant a means to renown. At a time when the aura of Hegel was still a golden hue in learned German circles and classical scholarship was recognized as the most legitimate means to intellectual respectability, Lassalle capitalized on both. But outside the pragmatic potential of reputation what did Heraclitus and his philosophy mean to Lassalle?

The idea expressed by Heraclitus and most agreebly seized by Lassalle was the "fame principle." Lassalle elevated this principle to a place of major importance in his Herakleitos as well as in his own life. Undoubtedly, Heraclitus had stressed the importance of the self; he drew a picture of an individual wrestling with fate and earning fame:

Who falls fighting will be glorified by gods and by men. . . . The greater the fall, the more glorious the fate. . . . The best seek one thing above all others; eternal fame. . . . One man is worth ten thousand, if he is Great.60

Lassalle interprets Heraclitus to mean that fame is the realized infinity of finite man.61 Lassalle sought this very fame and immortality. Eduard Bernstein, a rather unsympathetic biographer, asserts that Lassalle had an "unfortunate fondness for the noise and drum-beating of Fame, and for the blare of its t r ~ r n p e t s . " ~ ~ aBismarck, recognizing this same trait in speech to the Reichstag in April 1881, said of Lassalle: "Being I repeat, ambitious upon a grand scale, Lassalle was not quite sure whether the ruling dynasty in the German Empire was to be that of the Hohenzollern or that of Lassalle. [laughter]

Lassalle regarded the General German Mrorkingmen's Association only from the point of view of his own personality, Bernstein charges. The biographer acknowledges, however, that Lassalle was a convinced socialist: "But that he would have been incapable of sinking himself in the Socialist

Quoted in Footman, The Primrose Path, 98. ~9 Ibid., xiv-xv. Quoted in Popper, The Open Society, 20.j 61 Lassalle, Herakleitos, 11. 436.

"E. Bernstein, Ferdinand Lassalle As a Social Refomer , trans. by E . M. Aveling (London, 1893)) 31. 68 Quoted in Schirokauer, Lassalle, 13.

LABSALLB ON HERACLITUS 391

movement, of sacrificing his personality-note that we do not say his life- to it." e4

How much of this egomania was derived from Heraclitus is impossible to say. But the fame principle went jointly with another of HeraclitusJ- the aristocrat. Lassalle usually went before the workers to speak, not as a comrade, but as an aristocrat. Much internal contradiction is evidenced here. For the man who confessed a democratic faith in universal suffrage did, a t the same time, detest the masses. Even the heroes in his play, Franz von Sickingen, were Sickingen and Ulrich von Hutten who were, as Marx observed, from the feudal class. Lassalle found his feelings expressed by Heraclitus when the latter wrote: "In general, human beings are de- void of rational faculty. While all other persons act as if they were asleep, I alone know." Or when Heraclitus described his fellow citizens: "they deserve to be hanged, since the masses only grow fat like cattle." 66

These ideas, however, cannot be attributed solely to the study of Hera- clitus. Lassalle used the Ephesian to deepen his convictions. Already a t the age of 15, following his attendance a t a play in which a Count Lavagna played a leading r81e, Lassalle had confided his aristocratic inclinations to his diary: "Had I been born a prince I would have been an aristocrat heart and soul. As i t is I am one of the middle classes, and, therefore, a democrat." 67 Here there is a contrast, a contradiction, between a man who was an intellectual aristocrat and a social democrat. "The phenomenon that here meets us is, in the world of thought, precisely that contrast which was outwardly apparent when Lassalle in his dandified clothes, his fine linen, and his patent-leather boots, spoke formally or informally among a number of grimy, horny-hands mechanics." O8 Again, Heraclitus only pro- vided antique representation for a position already taken.

One might continue and more minutely dissect the mind of both in order to further particularize the relationship of their ideas. The task, how- ever, becomes fruitless when protracted to triflings.

In evaluating Herakleitos des Dunklen one commentator wrote:

The characterization of Lassalle's book as a whole is, that i t is a striking example of great philosophic waste, turning as he does the rich and sug- gestive philosophy of the Ephesian into a wretched mouthful of Hegelian phrases.69

For the historian of ideas, Herakleitos represents an excellent example of how the tyranny of a single idea may so mar one's perspective as to cause him to see that idea reflected in all with which he comes in contact. Lassalle was sincere in what he did. But he never left the margin of Hegel.

Rutgers University.

1 3 ~Bernstein, Ferdinand Lassalle, 33. 65 M a n believed that the protagonists in a Peasant's War shouId have been the

peasants. Footman, The Primrose Path, 105-107. 66 Quoted in Oncken, Lassalle, 101. 67 Quoted in Footman, The Primrose Path, 19-20. G8 Brandes, Ferdinand Lassalle, 42. 69 Fragments, pp. 10-11.