THE  FORERUNNERS—FICHTE  AND  MARLO.  J
yoke  which  weighed  upon  Germany  since  the  Thirty  Years’
War,  and  had  hardly  opened  his  eyes  to  modern  life.  He  was
agitated  by  no  spirit  of  revolt,  no  aspiration  towards  a  better
order  of  things.  The  saying  of  Lassalle  was  true  :  while
English  and  French  working  men  dreamed  of  reforms,  the
German  working  man  had  to  be  awakened  to  the  fact  that  he
was  miserable.  Therefore  the  first  socialistic  writings  made
but  little  stir  when  they  appeared.
It  was  from  France  that  came  the  first  ideas  of  social
transformation  and  revolution.  This  was  recognized  by  Karl
Marx,  the  most  learned  of  German  Socialists.  “  The  emancipation ­
  of  Germany  will  be  that  of  all  humanity,”  he  wrote
in  a  review,  some  numbers  of  which  appeared  in  Paris  in  1844  ;
“  but  when  all  is  ready  in  Germany,  the  insurrection  will  only
wake  at  the  crowing  of  the  Gallic  cock.”  •
To  find  the  first  manifestations  of  modem  Socialism  in
Germany,  we  must  refer  back  to  Kant’s  most  famous  disciple,
Fichte,  who  was  inspired  by  the  ideas  of  the  French  Revolution, ­
  as  he  himself  declares.  In  his  “  Materials  for  the
Justification  of  the  French  Revolution,”  he  writes  :  “Property
can  have  no  other  origin  than  labour.  Whosoever  does  not
work,  has  no  right  to  obtain  the  means  of  existence  from
society.”  In  1796  he  proclaimed  “the  right  to  property.”
He  says  in  his  “Principles  of  Natural  Right,”  “  Whosoever  has
not  the  means  of  living  is  not  bound  to  recognize  or  respect
the  property  of  others,  seeing  that,  as  regards  him,  the  principles ­
  of  the  social  contract  have  been  violated.  Every  one
should  have  some  property  ;  society  owes  to  all  the  means
of  work,  and  all  should  work  in  order  to  live.”  In  his  book
on  “The  State  in  Accordance  with  Right”  {Rechtstaat),  he
foreshadows  a  collective  organization  which  would  realize
what  he  understands  by  right:  “Labour  and  distribution
should  be  collectively  organized  ;  every  one  should  receive
for  a  fixed  amount  of  labour,  a  fixed  amount  of  capital  which
would  constitute  his  property,  according  to  right.  Property
*  Vide  the  Review  Deutsch-Französische  Jahrbücher,  published  by
Arnold  Ruge  and  Karl  Marx,  assisted  by  Hess,  Engels,  Ilerwegh,  and
Kruno  Bauer.