FERDINAND  LASSALLE.

77

the  death  of  his  father,  only  took  into  his  hands  the  administration ­
  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  monarchy ­
  guarantees  in  a  convenient  way  public  liberty  and  prosperity. ­
  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  today ­
  by  the  bourgeoisie.,  and  in  which,  consequently,  there  would
be  but  one  class,  obtaining,  by  the  aid  of  science,  ample  satisfaction ­
  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  reconstruction ­
  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.