FERDINAND LASSALLE. 
77 
the death of his father, only took into his hands the administra 
tion of goods of which he was already co-proprietor. The ideas 
of the Romans and those of the Germans have become utterly 
foreign to us, and the principle of hereditary succession is no 
longer rooted in our beliefs. 
Herr H. von Sybel replied to Lassalle that it is with 
hereditary succession as with royalty. Nations no longer 
believe in divine right, and nevertheless they still keep their 
kings, because experience has shown that constitutional mon 
archy guarantees in a convenient way public liberty and pros 
perity. Hereditary succession is no longer the object of a 
superstitious worship, and accordingly statesmen can restrict 
the degrees of inheritance and impose duties upon succession ; 
but it is an excellent means of stimulating work and the 
formation of capital, and it is upon this ground that it is 
preserved. 
Lassalle thought with the Saint Simonians that the golden 
age lies before us. His pantheistic conception of history led 
him to believe that, in consequence of an inherent law, 
humanity is destined to reach, step by step, a state in which 
the working man will enjoy all those advantages possessed to 
day by the bourgeoisie., and in which, consequently, there would 
be but one class, obtaining, by the aid of science, ample satisfac 
tion of all its needs through moderate and wholesome labour. 
Every man could thus attain all the intellectual and moral 
development of which nature had made him capable. The 
social organization would no longer be a hindrance to any one, 
but would be for all a support and a means of advancement. 
As may easily be believed, the ideas of Lassalle do not 
present any very great originality. His views of social recon 
struction are borrowed from Saint-Simon and Louis Blanc, his 
criticism of Political Economy from Karl Marx. Nevertheless, 
the study of his writings is not devoid of utility, because in 
more than one point he has shown that the generally received 
economic theories are superficial, badly formulated, or even 
entirely erroneous. Thus, his discussion upon the mode in 
which capital is formed is very remarkable, and so is his picture 
of the origin and economic development of society.