We are not one of those malcontents who, even before the 
appearance of the new Prussian censorship decree, exclaim: Timeo 
Danaos et dona ferentes.*, On the contrary, since an examination 
of already promulgated laws is approved in the new instruction, 
even if it should prove not to agree with the government’s views, 
we are making a start with this at once. Censorship is official criti- 
cism; its standards are critical standards, hence they least of all can 
be exempted from criticism, being on the same plane as the 
latter. 

Certainly everyone can only approve of the general trend ex- 
pressed in the introduction to the instruction: 

“In order already now to free the press from improper restrictions, which are 
against the intentions of the All-Highest, His Majesty the King, by a supreme order 
issued to the royal state ministry on the 10th of this month, has been pleased to 
disapprove expressly of any undue constraint on the activity of writers and, re- 
cognising the value and need of frank and decent publicity, has empowered us to 
direct the censors anew to due observance of Article II of the censorship decree 
of October 18, 1819.” 

Certainly! If censorship is a necessity, frank liberal censorship is 
still more necessary. 

What might immediately arouse some surprise is the date of the 
law cited; it is dated October 18, 1819. What? Is it perhaps a law 
which conditions of time made it necessary to repeal? Apparently 
not; for the censors are only directed “anew” to ensure observance 
of it. Hence the law has existed until 1842, but it has not been 
observed, for it has been called to mind “in order already now” to 

* I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts (Virgil, Aeneid, II, 49).— Ed. 

free the press from improper restrictions, which are against the 
intentions of the All-Highest. 

The press, in spite of the law, has until now been subjected to 
improper restrictions—that is the immediate conclusion to be 
drawn from this introduction. 

Is this then an argument against the law or against the censors? 

We can hardly assert the latter. For twenty-two years illegal ac- 
tions have been committed by an authority which has in its charge 
the highest interest of the citizens, their minds, by an authority 
which regulates, even more than the Roman censors did, not only 
the behaviour of individual citizens, but even the behaviour of 
the public mind. Can such unscrupulous behaviour of the high- 
est servants of the state, such a thoroughgoing lack of loyalty, 
be possible in the well-organised Prussian state, which is proud of 
its administration? Or has the state, in continual delusion, se- 
lected the most incapable persons for the most difficult posts? 
Or, finally, has the subject of the Prussian state no possibil- 
ity of complaining against illegal actions? Are all Prussian. writ- 
ers so ignorant and foolish as to be unacquainted with the laws 
which concern their existence, or are they too cowardly to demand 
their observance? 

If we put the blame on the censors, not only diets own honour, 
but the honour of the Prussian state, and of the Prussian writers, 
is compromised. 

Moreover, the more than twenty years of illegal behaviour of 
the censors in defiance of the law would provide argumentum ad 
hominem* that the press needs other guarantees than such general 
instructions for such irresponsible persons; it would provide the 
proof that there is a basic defect in the nature of the censorship 
which no law can remedy. 

If, however, the censors were capable, and the law was no good, 
why appeal to it afresh for removal of the evil it has caused? 

Or should, perhaps, the objective defects of an institution be 
ascribed. to individuals, in order fraudulently to give the impres- 
‘sion of an improvement without making any essential improve- 
ment? It is the habit of pseudo-liberalism, when compelled to make 
concessions, to sacrifice persons, the instruments, and to preserve 
the thing itself, the institution. In this way the attention of i a 
superficial public is diverted. 

Resentment against the thing itself becomes resentment against 
persons. It is believed that by a change of persons the thing itself 

* Convincing proof (literally: an argument to the man).— Ed. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 11] 

has been changed. Attention is deflected from the censorship to 
individual censors, and those petty writers of progress by com- 
mand allow themselves petty audacities against those who have 
fallen out of favour and perform just as many acts of homage 
towards the government. 

Yet another difficulty confronts us. 

Some newspaper correspondents take the censorship instruction 
for the new censorship decree itself. They are mistaken, but their 
mistake is pardonable. The censorship decree of October 18, 1819, 
was to continue only provisionally until 1824, and it would have 
remained a provisional law to the present day if we had not learnt 
from the instruction now before us that it has never been 
implemented. 

The 1819 decree was also an interim measure, with the differ- 
ence that in its case a definite period of expectation of five years 
was indicated, whereas in the new instruction it is of unlimited 
duration, and that at that time laws on the freedom of the press were 
the object of expectation whereas now it is laws on censorship. 

Other newspaper correspondents regard the censorship instruc- 
tion as a refurbishing of the old censorship decree. Their error 
will be refuted by the instruction itself. 

We regard the censorship instruction as the anticipated spirit of 
the presumable censorship law. In so doing we adhere strictly to 
the spirit of the 1819 censorship decree, according to which laws 
and ordinances are of equal significance for the press. (See the 
above-mentioned decree, Article XVI, No. 2.) 

Let us return to the instruction. 

“According to this law,” namely, Article II, “the censorship should not prevent 
serious and modest investigation of truth, nor impose undue constraint on writers, 
or hinder the book trade from operating freely.” 

The investigation of truth which should not be prevented by the 
censorship is more particularly defined as one which is serious and 
modest. Both these definitions concern not the content of the 
investigation, but rather something which hes outside its content. 
From the outset they draw the investigation away from truth and 
make it pay attention to an unknown third thing. An investigation 
which continually has its eyes fixed on this third element, to which 
the law gives a legitimate capriciousness, will it not lose sight of the 
directly at the truth, without looking to the right or left? Will I not 
forget the essence of the matter, if I am obliged not to forget to 
state it in the prescribed form? 

Truth is as little modest as light, and towards whom should it be 
so? Towards itself? Verum index sui et falsi.* Therefore, towards 

falsehood? 

If modesty is the characteristic feature of the investigation, then 
it is a sign that truth is feared rather than falsehood. It is a means 
of discouragement at every step forward I take. It is the imposition 
on the investigation of a fear of reaching a result, a means of guarding 
against the truth. 

Further, truth is general, it does not belong to me alone, it 
belongs to all, it owns me, I do not own it. My property is the 
form, which is my spiritual individuality. Le style c’est ’-homme. Yes, 
indeed! The law permits me to write, only I must write in a style 
that is not mine! I may show my spiritual countenance, but I must 
first set it in the prescribed folds!) What man of honour will not 
blush at this presumption and not prefer to hide his head under 
the toga? Under the toga at least one has an inkling of a Jupiter’s 

head. The prescribed folds mean nothing but bonne mine 4 mauvais 
eu.< 

: You admire the delightful variety, the inexhaustible riches of 
nature. You do not demand that the rose should smell like 
the violet, but must the greatest riches of all, the spirit, exist in 
only one variety? I am humorous, but the law bids me write se- 
riously. I am audacious, but the law commands that my style be 
modest. Grey, all grey, is the sole, the rightful colour of freedom. 
Every drop of dew on which the sun shines glistens with an inex- 
haustible play of colours, but the spiritual sun, however many the 
persons and whatever the objects in which it is refracted, must 
produce only the official colour! The most essential form ofthe spir- _ 
it is cheerfulness, light, but you make shadow the sole manifestation 
of the spirit; it must be clothed only in black, yet among flow- 
ers there are no black ones. The essence of the spirit is always 
truth itself but what do you make its essence? Modesty. Only the 
mean wretch is modest, says Goethe,‘ and you want to turn the 
spirit into such a mean wretch? Or if modesty is to be the mod- 
esty of genius of which Schiller speaks, then first of all turn all 
your citizens and above all your censors into geniuses. But then 
the modesty of genius does not consist in what educated speech 

* Truth is the touchstone of itself and of falsehood (Spinoza, Ethics, Part II, 
Prop. 43).— Ed. 

5 Style is the man.— Fd. 

“ To put a good face on a bad job.— Ed. 

. J. Goethe, Rechenschaft.— Ed. 

* F. Schiller, Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung.— Ed. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 113 

consists in, the absence of accent and dialect, but rather in 
speaking with the accent of the matter and in the dialect of its 
essence. It consists in forgetting modesty and immodesty and 
getting to the heart of the matter. The universal modesty of the 
mind is reason, that universal liberality of thought which reacts to 
each thing according to the latter’s essential nature. 

Further, if seriousness is not to come under Tristram Shandy’s? 
definition according to which it is a hypocritical behaviour of the 
body in order to conceal defects of the soul, but signifies 
seriousness in substance, then the entire prescription falls to the 
ground. For I treat the ludicrous seriously when I treat it 
ludicrously, and the most serious immodesty of the mind is to be 
modest in the face of immodesty. 

Serious and modest! What fluctuating, relative concepts! Where 
does seriousness cease and jocularity begin? Where does modesty 
cease and immodesty begin? We are dependent on the temperament of 
the censor. It would be as wrong to prescribe temperament for the 
censor as to prescribe style for the writer. If you want to be consis- 
tent in your aesthetic criticism, then forbid also a too serious and too 
modest investigation of the truth, for too great seriousness is the most 
ludicrous thing of all, and too great modesty is the bitterest irony. 

Finally, the starting point is a completely perverted and abstract 
view of truth itself. All objects of the writer’s activity are com- 
prehended in the one general concept “truth”. Even if we leave 
the subjective side out of account, viz., that one and the same object 
is refracted differently as seen by different persons and _ its 
different aspects converted into as many different spiritual charac- 
ters, ought the character of the object to have no influence, not even 
the slightest, on the investigation? Truth includes not only the 
result but also the path to it. The investigation of truth must itself 
be true; true investigation is developed truth, the dispersed 
elements of which are brought together in the result. And should 
not the manner of investigation alter according to the object? If 
the object is a matter for laughter, the manner has to seem 
serious, if the object is disagreeable, it has to be modest. Thus you 
violate the right of the object as you do that of the subject. You 
conceive truth abstractly and turn the spirit into an examining 
magistrate, who draws up a dry protocol of it. 

Or is there no need of this metaphysical twisting? Is truth to be 
understood as being simply what the government decrees, so that 
investigation is added as a superfluous, intrusive element, but 

L. Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Vol. I, 
Ch. XI.— Ed. 

which for etiquette’s sake is not to be entirely rejected? It almost 
seems so. For investigation is understood in advance as in con- 
tradiction to truth and therefore appears with the suspicious offi- 
cial accompaniment of seriousness and modesty, which of course 
is fitting for the layman in relation to the priest. The government’s 
understanding is the only state reason. True, in certain circum- 
stances of time, concessions have to be made to a different under- 
standing and its chatter, but this understanding comes on the 
scene conscious of the concession and of its own lack of right, 
modest and submissive, serious and tedious. If Voltaire says: “Tous 
les genres sont bons, excepté le genre ennuyeux’’,* in the present case 
the genre ennuyant” becomes the exclusive one, as is already suffi- 
ciently proved by the reference to the “proceedings of the Rhine 
Province Assembly”. Why not rather the good old German cu- 
rialistic style? You may write freely, but at the same time every 
word must be a curtsey to the liberal censorship, which allows you 
to express your equally serious and modest opinions. Indeed, 
do not lose your feeling of reverence! 

The legal emphasis is not on truth but on modesty and serious- 
ness. Hence everything here arouses suspicion: seriousness, mod- 
esty and, above all, truth, the indefinite scope of which seems to 
conceal a very definite but very doubtful kind of truth. 

“The censorship,” the instruction states further, “should therefore by no means 
be implemented in a narrow-minded interpretation going beyond this law.” 

By this law is meant in the first place Article II of the 1819 de- 
cree, but later the instruction refers to the “spirit” of the cen- 
sorship decree as a whole. The two provisions are easily combined. 
Article II is the concentrated spirit of the censorship decree, the 
further subdivision and more detailed specification of this spir- 
it being found in the other articles. We believe the above- 
mentioned spirit cannot be better characterised than by the 
following expressions of it: 

Article VII. “The freedom from censorship hitherto accorded the Academy of Sciences 
and the universities is hereby suspended for five years.” 

§10. “The present temporary decision shall remain in force for five years from 
today. Before the expiry of this term there shall be a thorough investigation in the 
Bundestag of how the kind of provisions regarding freedom of the press proposed in 
Article 18 of the Bundesakte could be put into effect, and thereby a definite 
decision reached on the legitimate limits of freedom of the press in Germany.” 

A law which suspends freedom of the press where it has hitherto 

* “All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.” F. Voltaire, L’enfant 
prodigue.— Ed. 
> The annoying kind.— Ed. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 115 

existed, and makes it superfluous through censorship where it was 
to be brought into existence, can hardly be called one favourable 
to the press. Moreover, §10 directly admits that provisionally a 
censorship law will be introduced instead of the freedom of the press* 
proposed in Article 18 of the Bundesakte and perhaps intended 
tobe put intoeffect at some time. This quid pro quo? at least reveals 
that the circumstances of the time called for restrictions on the 
press, and that the decree owes its origin to distrust of the press. 
This annoyance is even excused by being termed provisional, val- 
id for only five years—unfortunately it has lasted for 22 years. 

The very next line of the instruction shows how it becomes in- 
volved in a contradiction. On the one hand, it will not have the 
censorship implemented in any interpretation that goes beyond 
the decree, and at the same time it prescribes such excess: 

“The censor can very well permit a frank discussion also of internal affairs.” 

The censor can, but he does not have to, there is no necessity. 
Even this cautious liberalism very definitely goes not only be- 
yond the spirit but beyond the definite demands of the censor- 
ship decree. The old censorship decree, to be exact, Article II 
cited in the instruction, not only does not permit any frank discus- 
sion of Prussian affairs, but not even of Chinese affairs. 

“Here,” namely, among violations of the security of the Prussian state and the 
German Federated States, the instruction comments, “are included all attempts to 
present in a favourable light parties existing in any country which work for the 
overthrow of the state system.” 

Is this the way a frank discussion of Chinese or Turkish national 
affairs is permitted? And if even such remote relations endanger 
the precarious security of the German Federation, how can any 
word of disapproval about internal affairs fail to do so? 

Thus, on the one hand, the instruction goes beyond the spirit 
of Article II of the censorship decree in the direction of liberal- 
ism—an excess whose content will become clear later, but which 
is already formally suspicious inasmuch as it claims to be the conse- 
quence of Article II, of which wisely only the first half is quoted, 
the censor however being referred at the same time to the article 
itself. On the other hand, the instruction just as much goes beyond 
the censorship decree in an illiberal direction and adds new press rest- 
rictions to the old ones. 

In the above-quoted Article II of the censorship decree it is 
stated: 

* The confusion of one thing with another.— Ed. 

“Its aim” (that of the censorship) “is to check all that is contrary to the general 
principles of religion, irrespective of the opinions and doctrines of individual religious 
parties and sects permitted in the state.” 

In 1819, rationalism still prevailed, which understood by religion 
in general the so-called religion of reason. This rationalist point of 
view is also that of the censorship decree, which at any rate 1s so 
inconsistent as to adopt the irreligious point of view while its aim 
is to protect religion. For it is already contrary to the general 
principles of religion to separate them from the positive content 
and particular features of religion, since each religion believes 
itself distinguished from the various other would-be religions by its 
special nature, and that precisely its particular features make it the 
true religion. In quoting Article II, the new censorship instruction 
omits the restrictive additional clause by which individual religious 
parties and sects are excluded from inviolability, but it does not 
stop at this and makes the following comment: 

“Anything aimed in a frivolous, hostile way against the Christian religion in 
general, or against a particular article of faith, must not be tolerated.” 

The old censorship decree does not mention the Christian re- 
ligion at all; on the contrary, it distinguishes between religion and 
all individual religious parties and sects. The new censorship in- 
struction does not only convert religion in general into the 
Christian religion, but adds further a particular article of faith. 
A delightful product of our Christianised science! Who will still 
deny that it has forged new fetters for the press? Religion, it is 
said, must not be attacked, whether in general or in particular. Or do 
you perhaps believe that the words frivolous and hostile have 
made the new fetters into chains of roses? How adroitly it is 
citizen’s sense of decorum, it 1s the exoteric word for the world at 
large, but the adjective hostile is whispered into the censor’s ear, it 
is the legal interpretation of frivolity. We shall find in this 
instruction more examples of this subtle tact, which offers the 
public a subjective word that makes it blush and offers the censor 
an objective word that makes the author grow pale. In this way 
even lettres de cachet*' could be set to music. 

And in what a remarkable contradiction the censorship instruc- 
tion has entangled itself! It is only a half-hearted attack that 
is frivolous, one which keeps to individual aspects of a phenome- 
non, without being sufficiently profound and serious to touch the 
essence of the matter; it is precisely an attack on a merely particular 
feature as such that is frivolous. If, therefore, an attack on the 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 117 

Christian religion in general is forbidden, it follows that only a 
frivolous attack on it is permitted. On the other hand, an attack on 
the general principles of religion, on its essence, on a particular 
feature insofar as it is a manifestation of the essence, is a hostile 
attack. Religion can only be attacked in a hostile or a frivolous way, 
there is no third way. This inconsistency in which the instruction 
entangles itself is, of course, only a seeming one, for it de- 
pends on the semblance that in general some kind of attack on re- 
ligion is still permitted. But an unbiassed glance suffices to realise 
that this semblance is only a semblance. Religion must not be 
attacked, whether in a hostile or a frivolous way, whether in 
general or in particular, therefore not at all. 

But if the instruction, in open contradiction to the 1819 cen- 
sorship decree, imposes new fetters on the philosophical press, it 
should at least be sufficiently consistent as to free the religious 
press from the old fetters imposed on it by the former rationalist 
decree. For it declares that the aim of the censorship is also 

“to oppose fanatical transference of religious articles of faith into politics and 
the confusion of ideas resulting therefrom”. 

The new instruction, it is true, is clever enough not to mention 
this provision in its commentary, nevertheless it accepts it in citing 
Article II. What does fanatical transference of religious articles of 
faith into politics mean? It means making religious articles of faith, 
by their specific nature, a determining factor of the state; it means 
making the particular nature of a religion the measuring-rod of the 
state. The old censorship decree could rightly oppose this confu- . 
sion of ideas, for it left a particular religion, its definite content, 
open to criticism. The old decree, however, was based on the shal- 
low, superficial rationalism which you yourselves despised. But you, 
who base the state even in details on faith and Christianity, who 
want to have a Christian state, how can you still recommend the 
censorship to prevent this confusion of ideas? 

The confusion of the political with the Christian-religious 
principle has indeed become official doctrine. We want to make this 
confusion clear in a few words. Speaking only of Christianity 
as the recognised religion, you have in your state Catholics and 
Protestants. Both make equal claims on the state, just as they have 
equal duties to it. They both leave their religious differences out 
of account and demand equally that the state should be the 
realisation of political and juridical reason. But you want a Chris- 
tian state. If your state is only Lutheran-Christian, then for the 
Catholic it becomes a church to which he does not belong, 

which he must reject as heretical, and whose innermost essence is 
contrary to him. It is just the same the other way round. If, 
however, you make the general spirit of Christianity the particular 
spirit of your state, you nevertheless decide on the basis of your 
Protestant views what the general spirit of Christianity is. You 
define what a Christian state is, although the recent period has 
taught you that some government officials are unable to draw 
the. line between the religious and the secular, between state and 
church. In regard to this confusion of ideas, it was not censors but 
diplomats who had, not to decide, but to negotiate.” Finally, you are 
adopting a heretical point of view when you reject definite dogma 
as non-essential. If you call your state a general Christian state, you are 
admitting with a diplomatic turn of phrase that it is un-Chris- 
tian. Hence either forbid religion to be introduced at all into poli- 
tics — but you don’t want that, for you want to base the state not on 
free reason, but on faith, religion being for you the general sanction 
for what exists—or allow also the fanatical introduction of religion 
into politics. Let religion concern itself with politics in its own way, but 
you don’t want that either. Religion has to support the secular 
authority, without the latter subordinating itself to religion. Once 
you introduce religion into politics, it is intolerable, indeed irreli- 
gious, arrogance to want to determine secularly how religion has 
to act in political matters. He who wants to ally himself with 
religion owing to religious feelings must concede it the decisive 
voice in all questions, or do you perhaps understand by religion 
the cult of your own unlimited authority and governmental wisdom? 

There is yet another way in which the orthodox spirit of the new 
censorship instruction comes into conflict with the rationalism of 
the old censorship decree. The latter includes under the aim of 
the censorship also suppression of “what offends against morality 
and good manners”. The instruction reproduces this passage as a 
quotation from Article II. Its commentary, however, while making 
additions as regards religion, contains omissions as regards morali- 
ty. Offending against morality and good manners becomes violation 
of “propriety and manners and external decorum”. One sees: 
morality as such, as the principle of a world that obeys its own laws, 
disappears, and in place of the essence external manifestations 
make their appearance, police respectability, conventional decorum. 
Honour to whom honour is due, we recognise true consistency 
here. The specifically Christian legislator cannot recognise morality as 
an independent sphere that is sacrosanct in itself, for he claims 
that its inner general essence belongs to religion. Independent 
morality offends against the general principles of religion, but the 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 119 

particular concepts of religion conflict with morality. Morality 
recognises only its own universal and rational religion, and 
religion recognises only its particular positive morality. Hence, 
according to this instruction, the censorship must reject the 
intellectual heroes of morality, such as Kant, Fichte and Spinoza, 
as irreligious, as violating propriety, manners, and external de- 
corum. All these moralists start out from a contradiction in 
principle between morality and religion, for morality is based on 
the autonomy of the human mind, religion on its heteronomy. Let us 
turn from these undesirable innovations of the censorship—on 
the one hand, the weakening of its moral conscience, on the other 
hand, the rigorous heightening of its religious conscience —to 
what is more welcome, the concessions. 

It “follows in particular that writings in which the state administration is 
assessed as a whole or in its individual branches, laws that have been or are still to 
be promulgated are examined for their inner value, mistakes and misconceptions 
revealed, improvements indicated or suggested, are not to be rejected because they 
are written in a spirit that does not agree with the government’s views, as long as 
their formulation is decent and their tendency well-meaning”. 

Modesty and seriousness of investigation — both the new instruc- 
tion and the censorship decree make this demand, but for the 
former decorous formulation is as little sufficient as truth of 
content. For it the tendency is the main criterion, indeed it is its 
all-pervading thought, whereas in the decree itself not even the 
word tendency is to be found. Nor does the new instruction say 
what constitutes tendency, but how important it is for it may be 
seen from the following extract: 

“In this connection it is an indispensable premise that the tendency of remon- 
strances expressed against measures of the government should not be spiteful or 
malevolent, but well-intentioned, and goodwill and insight are required of the 
censor so that he knows how to distinguish between the one case and the other. 
Considering this, the censors must also pay special attention to the form and tone 
of writings for the press and insofar as, owing to passion, vehemence and arrogance, 
their tendency is found to be pernicious, must not allow them to be printed.” 

The writer, therefore, has fallen victim to the most frightful 
terrorism, and is subjected to the jurisdiction of suspicion. Laws against’ 
tendency, laws giving no objective standards, are laws of terror- 
ism, such as were invented owing to the emergency needs of 
the state under Robespierre and the corruption of the state under 
the Roman emperors. Laws which make their main criterion not 
actions as such, but the frame of mind of the doer, are nothing but 

positive sanctions for lawlessness. Better like that Russian Tsar* to 
have everyone’s beard cut off by Cossacks in his service than to 
make the state of mind due to which I wear a beard the criterion 
for the cutting. 

Only insofar as I manifest myself externally, enter the sphere of 
the actual, do I enter the sphere of the legislator. Apart from my 
actions, I have no existence for the law, am no object for it. 
My actions are the sole thing by which the law has a hold on me; 
for they are the sole thing for which I demand a right of 
existence, a right of actuality, owing to which therefore I come 
within the sphere of actual law. The law which punishes tendency, 
however, punishes me not only for what I do, but for what I 
think, apart from my actions. It is therefore aninsult to the honour 
of the citizen, a vexatious law which threatens my existence. 

I can turn and twist as I will, it is not a question of the facts. My 
existence is under suspicion, my innermost being, my individuality, 
is considered bad, and it is for this opinion of me that I am punished. 
The law punishes me not for any wrong I commit, but for the 
wrong I do not commit. I am really being punished because my 
action is not against the law, for only because of that do I compel 
the lenient, well-meaning judge to seize on my bad frame of mind, 
which is clever enough not to come out in the open. 

The law against a frame of mind is not a law of the state promul- 
gated for its citizens, but the law of one party against another party. 
The law which punishes tendency abolishes the equality of the cit- 
izens before the law. It is a law which divides, not one which unites, 
and all laws which divide are reactionary. It is not a law, but a 
privilege. One may do what another may not do, not because the 
latter lacks some objective quality, like a minor in regard to con- 
cluding contracts; no, because his good intentions and his frame of 
mind are under suspicion. The moral state assumes its members to 
have the frame of mind of the state, even if they act in opposition to an 
organ of the state, against the government. But in a society in which 
one organ imagines itself the sole, exclusive possessor of state 
reason and state morality, in a government which opposes the 
people in principle and hence regards its anti-state frame of mind as 
the general, normal frame of mind, the bad conscience of a 
faction invents laws against tendency, laws of revenge, laws against a 
frame of mind which has its seat only in the government members 
themselves. Laws against frame of mind are based on an unprinci- 
pled frame of mind, on an immoral, material view of the state. 

* Peter the Great.— Ed. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 12] 

They are the involuntary cry of a bad conscience. And how is a 
law of this kind to be implemented? By a means more revolting 
than the law itself: by spies, or by previous agreement to regard 
entire literary trends as suspicious, in which case, of course, the 
trend to which an individual belongs must also be inquired into. 
Just as in the law against tendency the legal form contradicts the 
content, just as the government which issues it lashes out against 
what it is itself, against the anti-state frame of mind, so also in 
each particular case it forms as it were the reverse world to its laws, 
for it applies a double measuring-rod. What for one side is right, 
for the other side is wrong. The very laws issued by the government 
are the opposite of what they make into law. 

The new censorship instruction, too, becomes entangled in this 
dialectic. It contains the contradiction of itself doing, and making 
it the censor’s duty to do, everything that it condemns.as anti-state 
in the case of the press. 

Thus the instruction forbids writers to cast suspicion on the 
frame of mind of individuals or whole classes, and in the same 
breath it bids the censor divide all citizens into suspicious and un- 
suspicious, into well-intentioned and evil-intentioned. The press 
is deprived of the right to criticise, but criticism becomes the daily 
duty of the governmental critic. This reversal, however, does not 
end the matter. Within the press what was anti-state as regards 
content appeared as something particular, but from the aspect of 
its form it was something universal, that is to say, subject to 
universal appraisal. 

However, now the thing is turned upside-down: the particular 
now appears justified in regard to tts content, what is anti-state 
appears as the view of the state, as state law; in regard to its form, 
however, what is anti-state appears as something particular, that 
cannot be brought to the general light of day, that is relegated 
from the open air of publicity to the office files of the governmen- 
tal critic. Thus the instruction wants to protect religion, but it 
violates the most general principle of all religions, the sanctity and 
inviolability of the subjective frame of mind. It makes the censor 
instead of God the judge of the heart. Thus it prohibits offensive 
utterances and defamatory judgments on individuals, but it ex- 
poses you every day to the defamatory and offensive judgment 
of the censor. Thus the instruction wants the gossip of evil-mind- 
ed or ill-informed persons suppressed, but it compels the cen- 
sor to rely on such gossip, on spying by ill-informed and evil- 
minded persons, degrading judgment from the sphere of ob- 
jective content to that of subjective opinion or arbitrary action. 

Thus suspicion must not be cast on the intention of the state, but 
the instruction starts out from suspicion in respect of the state. 
Thus no bad frame of mind must be concealed under a good 
appearance, but the instruction itself is based on a false appear- 
ance. Thus the instruction wants to enhance national feeling, but it 
is based on a view that humiliates the nation. Lawful behaviour 
and respect for the law are demanded of us, but at the same time 
we have to honour institutions which put us outside the law 
and introduce arbitrariness in place of law. We are required to 
recognise the principle of personality to such an extent that we 
trust the censor despite the defects of the institution of censorship, 
and you violate the principle of personality to such an extent that 
you cause personality to be judged not according to its actions but 
according to an opinion of the opinion of its actions. You demand 
modesty and your starting point is the monstrous immodesty of 
appointing individual servants of the state to spy on people’s 
hearts, to be omniscient, philosophers, theologians, politicians, 
Delphic Apollos. On the one hand, you make it our duty to 
respect immodesty and, on the other hand, you forbid us to be 
immodest. The real immodesty consists in ascribing perfection 
of the genus to particular individuals. The censor is a particular 
individual, but the press becomes the embodiment of the whole 
genus. You order us to have trust, and you give distrust the 
force of law. You repose so much trust in your state institutions 
that you think they will convert a weak mortal, an official, into a 
saint, and make the impossible possible for him. But you distrust 
your state organism so much that you are afraid of the isolated 
opinion of a private person; for you treat the press as a private 
person. You assume that the officials will act quite impersonally, 
without animosity, passion, narrow-mindedness or human weak- 
ness. But what is impersonal, ideas, you suspect of being full of 
personal intrigue and subjective vileness. The instruction demands 
unlimited trust in the estate of officials, and it proceeds from 
unlimited distrust in the estate of non-officials. Why should we not 
pay tit for tat? Why should we not look with suspicion on precisely 
this estate of officials? Equally as regards character. From the 
outset one who is impartial should have more respect for the 
character of the critic who acts publicly than for the character 
of the critic who acts in secret. 

What is at all bad remains bad, whoever personifies this bad- 
ness, whether a private critic or one appointed by the government, 
but in the latter case the badness is authorised and regarded 
from above as a necessity to realise goodness from below. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 123 

The censorship of tendency and the tendency of censorship are a gift 
of the new liberal instruction. No one will blame us if we turn to the 
further provisions of the instruction with a certain misgiving. 

“Offensive utterances and defamatory judgments on individuals are not suitable 
for publication.” 

Not suitable for publication! Instead of this mildness we could 
wish that an objective definition of offensive and defamatory 
judgments had been given. 

“The same holds good for suspicion of the frame of mind of individuals or’ (a 
significant or) “whole classes, for the use of party names and other such personal 
attacks.” 

Inadmissible, therefore, also are classification by categories, 
attacks on whole classes, use of party names—and man, like 
Adam, has to give everything a name for it to exist for him; party 
names are essential categories for the political press, 

“Because, as Dr. Sassafras supposes, 
Every illness for its cure 
Must first receive a name.” * 

All this is included in personal attacks. How then is one to make 
a start? One must not attack an individual, and just as little the 
class, the general, the juridical person. The state will—and here it 
is right—tolerate no insults, no personal attacks; but by a simple 
“or” the general is also included in the personal. By “or” the 
general comes into it, and by means of a little “and” we learn 
finally that the whole question has been only of personal attacks. 
But as a perfectly simple consequence it follows that the press is 
forbidden all control over officials as over such institutions that 
exist as a class of individuals. 

“If censorship is exercised in accordance with these directives in the spirit of the 
censorship decree of October 18, 1819, adequate scope will be afforded for 
decorous and candid publicity, and it is to be expected that thereby greater 
sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland will be aroused and thus national 
feeling enhanced.” 

We are ready to admit that in accordance with these directives 
for decorous publicity, decorous in the sense understood by the 
censorship, a more than adequate field of play> is afforded — 
the term field of play is happily chosen, for the field is calculated 
for a sportive press that is satisfied with leaps in the air. Whether 
it is adequate for a candid publicity, and where its candidness lies, 

7 C. M. Wieland, Der Neue Amadis, No. 36.— Ed. 
DA pun on the German word Spielraum, which means “scope” and “field of 
play”.— Ed. 

we leave to the readers’ perspicacity. As for expectations held 
out by the instruction, national feeling may, of course, be en- 
hanced just as the sending of a bow-string enhances the feeling of 
Turkish nationality: but whether the press, as modest as it is se- 
rious, will arouse sympathy for the interests of the Fatherland we 
shall leave it to decide for itself; a meagre press cannot be fat- 
tened with quinine. Perhaps, however, we have taken too serious 
a view of the passage quoted. We shall, perhaps, get at the mean- 
ing better if we regard it as merely a thorn in the wreath of 
roses. Perhaps this liberal thorn holds a pearl of very ambiguous 
value. Let us see. It all depends on the context. The enhancement 
of national feeling and the arousing of sympathy for the interests 
of the Fatherland, which in the above-cited passage are spoken of 
as an expectation, secretly turn into an order, which imposes a new 
constraint on our poor, consumptive daily press. 

“In this way it may be hoped that both political literature and the daily press 
will realise their function better, that with the acquirement of richer material they 
will also adopt a more dignified tone, and in future will scorn to speculate on the 
curiosity of their readers through communication of baseless reports taken from 
foreign newspapers and originating from evil-minded or badly informed corre- 
spondents, by gossip and personal attacks—a trend against which it is the un- 
doubted duty of the censorship to take measures.” 

In the way indicated it is hoped that political literature and the 
daily press will realise their function better, etc. However, better 
realisation cannot be ordered, moreover it is a fruit still to be 
awaited, and hope remains hope. But the instruction is much too 
practical to be satisfied with hopes and pious wishes. While the 
press is granted the hope of its future improvement as a new 
consolation, the kindly instruction at the same time deprives it of a 
right it has at present. In the hope of its improvement it loses 
what it still has. It fares like poor Sancho Panza, from whom all 
the food was snatched away under his eyes by the court doctor in 
order that his stomach should not be upset and make him 
incapable of performing the duties imposed on him by the duke.’ 

At the same time we ought not to miss the opportunity of 
inviting the Prussian writer to adopt this kind of decorous style. In 
the first part of the sentence it is stated: “In this way it may be 
hoped that’. This that governs a whole series of provisions, 
namely, that political literature and the daily press will realise their 
function better, that they will adopt a more dignified tone, etc., 

* Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part IV, Ch. 47.— Ed. 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 125 

etc., that they will scorn communication of baseless reports, etc., 
taken from foreign newspapers. All these provisions are still 
matters for hope; but the conclusion, which is joined to the 
foregoing by a dash: “a trend against which it is the undoubted 
duty of the censorship to take measures”, absolves the censor from 
the boring task of awaiting the hoped-for improvement of the daily 
press, and instead empowers him to delete what he finds undesir- 
able without more ado. Internal treatment has been replaced by 
amputation. 

“To approach this aim more closely, however, requires that great care be taken 
in agreeing to new publications and new editors, so that the daily press will 
be entrusted only to completely irreproachable persons, whose scientific ability, 

position and character guarantee the seriousness of their efforts and the loyalty of 
their mode of thought.” 

Before we go into details, let us make one general observation. 
The approval of new editors, hence of future editors in general, is 
entrusted wholly to the “great care’, naturally of the state officials, 
of the censorship, whereas at least the old censorship decree left 
the choice of editors, with certain guarantees, to the discretion of the 
publisher: 

“Article IX. The supreme censorship authority is entitled to inform the 
publisher of a newspaper that a proposed editor is not such as to inspire the 
requisite trust, in which case the publisher is bound either to take another editor or, 
if he wants to retain the one designated, to furnish for him a security to be determined 
by our above-mentioned state ministries on the proposal of the above-mentioned 
supreme censorship authority.” 

The new censorship instruction expresses a quite different 
profundity, one could call it a romanticism of the spirit. Whereas 
the old censorship decree demands an external, prosaic, hence 
legally definable, security, on the guarantee of which even the 
objectionable editor is to be allowed, the instruction on the other 
hand takes away all iad teleadle will from the publisher of a 
newspaper. Moreover, it draws the attention of the preventive 
wisdom of the government, the great care and intellectual profun- 
dity of the authorities, to internal, subjective, externally indefin- 
able, qualities. If, however, the indefiniteness, delicate sensitivity, 
and subjective extravagance of romanticism become purely external, 
merely in the sense that external chance no longer appears in its 
prosaic definiteness and limitation, but in a fantastic glory, in an 
imaginary profundity and splendour—then the instruction, too, 
can hardly avoid this romantic fate. 

The editors of the daily press, a category which includes all 
journalistic activity, must be completely irreproachable men. “Scien- 

tific qualification” is put forward in the first place as a guarantee of 
this complete irreproachability. Not the slightest doubt arises as 
to whether the censor can have the scientific qualification to pass 
judgment on scientific qualification of every kind. If such a crowd 
of universal geniuses known to the government are to be found in 
Prussia— every town has at least one censor—why do not these 
encyclopaedic minds come forward as writers? If these officials, 
overwhelming in their numbers and mighty owing to their 
scientific knowledge and genius, were all at once to rise up and 
smother by their weight those miserable writers, each of whom can 
write in only one genre, and even in that without officially attested 
ability, an end could be put to the irregularities of the press much 
better than through the censorship. Why do these experts who, 
like the Roman geese, could save the Capitol by their cackling 
remain silent? Their modesty is too great. The scientific public 
does not know them, but the government does. 

And if these men are indeed such as no state has succeeded in 
discovering, for never has a state known whole classes composed 
solely of universal geniuses and encyclopaedic minds— how much 
greater must be the genius of the selectors of these men! What 
secret science must be theirs for them to be able to issue a cer- 
tificate of universal scientific qualification to officials unknown in 
the republic of science! The higher we rise in this bureaucracy of 
intelligence, the more remarkable are the minds we encounter. For 
a state which possesses such pillars of a perfect press, is it worth 
the trouble, is it expedient to make these men the guardians of a 
defective press, to degrade the perfect into a means for dealing 
with the imperfect? 

The more of these censors you appoint, the more you deprive 
the realm of the press of chances of improvement. You take away 
the healthy from your army in order to make them physicians of 

the unhealthy. 
Merely stamp on the ground like Pompey and a Pallas Athena 

in complete armour will spring from every government build- 
ing. Confronted by the official press, the shallow daily press will 
disintegrate into nothing. The existence of light suffices to expel 
darkness. Let your light shine, and hide it not under a bushel. 
Instead of a defective censorship whose full effectiveness you 
yourselves regard as problematic, give us a perfect press to whom 
you have only to give an order and a model of which has been in 
existence for centuries in the Chinese state. : 
But to make scientific qualification the sole, necessary condition 
for writers of the daily pfess, is that not a provision concerning 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 127 

the mind, no favouring of privilege, no conventional demand? Is it 
not a stipulation as regards the matter, not a stipulation as regards 
the person? 

Unfortunately the censorship instruction interrupts our pane- 
gyric. Alongside the guarantee of scientific qualification is the de- 
mand for that of position and character. Position and character! 

Character, which follows so immediately after position, seems 
almost to be a-‘mere outcome of the latter. Let us, therefore, take a 
look at position in the first place. It is so squeezed in between 
scientific qualification and character that one is almost tempted to 
doubt the good conscience that called for it. 

The general demand for scientific qualification, how liberal! The 
special demand for position, how illiberal! Scientific qualification 
and position together, how pseudo-liberal! Since scientific qualifica- 
tion and character are very indefinite things, whereas position, on 
the other hand, is very definite, why should we not conclude that 
by a necessary law of logic the indefinite will be supported by the 
definite and obtain stability and content from it? Would it then 
be a great mistake on the part of the censor if he interpreted 
the instruction as meaning that position is the external form in which 
scientific qualification and character manifest themselves socially, 
the more so since his own position as censor is a guarantee for 
him that this view is the state’s view? Without this interpretation 
it remains at least quite incomprehensible why scientific qualifica- 
tion and character are not adequate guarantees for a writer, why 
position is a necessary third. Now if the censor were to find 
himself in a quandary, if these guarantees were seldom or never 
present together, where should his choice fall? A choice has to be 
made, for someone has to edit newspapers and_ periodicals. 
Scientific qualification and character without position could pres- 
ent a problem for the censor on account of their indefiniteness, 
just as in general it must rightly be a surprise to him that such 
qualities could exist separately from position. On the other hand, 
ought the censor to have any doubts about character and science 
where position is present? In that case he would have less con- 
fidence in the judgment of the state than in his own, whereas 
in the opposite case he would have more confidence in the writer 
than in the state. Ought a censor to be so tactless, so ill-disposed? 
It is not to be expected and will certainly not be expected. Position, 
because it is the decisive criterion in case of doubt, is in general the 
absolutely decisive criterion. 

Hence, just as earlier the instruction was in conflict with the 
censorship decree owing to its orthodoxy, now it is so owing to its 

romanticism, which at the same time is always the poetry of 
tendency. The cash security, which is a prosaic, real guarantee, 
becomes an imaginary one, and this imaginary guarantee turns 
into the wholly real and individual position, which acquires a 
magical fictitious significance. In the same way the significance of 
the guarantee becomes transformed. The publisher no longer 
chooses an editor, for whom he gives a guarantee to the authorities, 
instead the authorities choose an editor for him, one for whom 
they give a guarantee to themselves. The old decree looked for the 
work of the editor, for which the publisher’s cash security served 
as guarantee. The instruction, however. is not concerned with 
the work of the editor, but with his person. It demands a definite 
personal individuality, which the publisher’s money should provide. 
The new instruction is just as superficial as the old decree. But 
whereas the latter by its nature expressed and delimited prosaical- 
ly defined provisions, the instruction gives an imaginary signifi- 
cance to the purest chance and expresses what is merely individual 
with the fervour of generality. 

Whereas, however, as regards the editor the romantic instruc- 
tion expresses the extremely superficial definiteness in a tone of 
the most .easy-going indefiniteness, as regards the censor it 

expresses the vaguest indefiniteness in a tone of legal definite- 
ness. 

“The same caution must be exercised in the appointment of censors, so that the 
post of censor shall be entrusted only to men of tested frame of mind and ability, 
who fully correspond to the honourable trust which that office presupposes; to 
men who are both right-thinking and keen-sighted, who are able to separate the 
form from the essence of the matter and with sure tact know how to set aside doubt 
where the meaning and tendency of a writing do not in themselves justify this 
doubt.” 

Instead of position and character as required of the writer, we 
have here the tested frame of mind, since position is already there. 
More significant is that whereas scientific qualification is demanded 
of the writer, what is demanded of the censor is ability without 
further definition. The old decree, which is drawn up in a rational 
spirit except in respect of politics, calls in Article III for “scientifi- 
cally-trained” and even “enlightened” censors. In the instruction 
both attributes have been dropped, and instead of the qualification 
of the writer, which signifies a definite, well-developed ability that 
has become a reality, there appears in the case of the censor the 
aptitude for qualification, ability in general. Hence the aptitude for 
ability has to act as censor of actual qualification, however much in 
the nature of things the relationship should obviously be the 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 129 

reverse. Finally, merely in passing, we note that the ability of the 
censor is not more closely defined as regards its objective content, 
and this, of course, makes its character ambiguous. 

Further, the post of censor is to be entrusted to men “who fully 
correspond to the honourable trust which that office presupposes”. 
This pleonastic pseudc-definition, to select for an office men in 
whom one has trust that they (will?) fully correspond to the hon- 
ourable trust, certainly a very full trust, reposed in them, is not 
worth further discussion. 

Finally, the censors must be men 

“who are both right-thinking and keen-sighted, who are able to separate the form 
from the essence of the matter and with sure tact know how to set aside doubt where 
the meaning and tendency of a writing do not in themselves justify this doubt”. 

Earlier, on the other hand, the instruction prescribes: 

“Considering this” (namely, the investigation of tendency), “the censors must 
also pay special attention to the form and tone of writings for the press and insofar 
as, owing to passion, vehemence and arrogance, their tendency is found to be 
pernicious, must not allow them to be printed.” 

On one occasion, therefore, the censor has to judge of the 
tendency from the form, on another occasion, of the form from the 
tendency. If previously content had already disappeared as a crite- 
rion for censorship, now form also disappears. As long as the 
tendency is good, faults of form do not matter. Even if the work 
cannot be regarded exactly as very serious and modest, even if it 
may appear to be vehement, passionate, arrogant, who would let 
himself be frightened by the rough exterior? One has to know how 
to distinguish between form and essence. All semblance of defini- 
tions had to be abandoned, the instruction had to end in a complete 
contradiction with itself, for everything by which tendency is 
supposed to be recognised is, on the contrary, determined by the 
tendency and must be recognised from the tendency. The vehe- 
mence of the patriot is holy zeal, his passionateness is the 
sensitiveness of the lover, his arrogance a devoted sympathy which 

is too immeasurable to be moderate. 
All objective standards are abandoned, everything is finally re- 

duced to the personal relation, and the censor’s tact has to be called 
a guarantee. What then can the censor violate? Tact. But tact- 
lessness is no crime. What is threatened as far as the writer is 
concerned? His existence. What state has ever made the existence 
of whole classes depend on the tact of individual officials? 

I repeat, all objective standards are abandoned. As regards the 
writer, tendency is the ultimate content that is demanded from 
him and prescribed to him. Tendency as formless opinion appears 

6* 

as object. Tendency as subject, as opinion of opinion, is the 
censor’s tact and his sole criterion. 

But whereas the arbitrariness of the censor—and to sanction 
the authority of mere opinion is to sanction arbitrariness—is a 
logical consequence which was concealed under a semblance of 
objective definitions, the instruction on the other hand quite 
consciously expresses the arbitrariness of the Oberprasidium; trust 
is reposed in the latter without reserve, and this trust reposed in the 
Oberprasident is the ultimate guarantee of the press. Thus the essence 
of the censorship in general is based on the arrogant imaginary 
idea that the police state has of its officials. There is no confidence 
in the intelligence and goodwill of the general public even in the 
simplest matter; but even the impossible is considered possible for 
the officials. 

This fundamental defect is inherent in all our institutions. Thus, 
for example, in criminal proceedings judge, accuser and defender 
are combined in a single person. This combination contradicts all 
the laws of psychology. But the official is raised above the laws of 
psychology, while the general public remains under them. Never- 
theless, one could excuse a defective principle of state; it becomes 
unpardonable, however, if it is not honest enough to be consistent. 
The responsibility of the officials ought to be as immeasurably 
above that of the general public as the officials are above the 
latter, and it is precisely here, where consistency alone could 
justify the principle and make it legitimate within its sphere, it is 
precisely here that it is abandoned and the opposite principle 
applied. 

The censor, too, is accuser, defender and judge in a single 
person; control of the mind is entrusted to the censor; he is 
irresponsible. 

The censorship could have only a provisionally loyal character if 
it was subordinated to the regular courts, which of course is 
impossible so long as there are no objective laws governing 
censorship. But the worst method of all is to subject the censor- 
ship to censorship again, as by an Oberprasident or supreme 
college of censors. 

Everything that holds good of the relation of the press to the 
censorship holds good also of the relation of the censorship to the 
supreme censorship and that of the writer to the supreme censor, 
although an intermediate link is interposed. It is the same relation 
placed on a higher plane, the remarkable error of leaving matters 
alone and wanting to give them another nature through other 
persons. If the coercive state wanted to be loyal, it would abolish 

Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction 131 

itself. Every point would require the same coercion and the same 
counter-pressure. The supreme censorship would have to be 
subjected to censorship in its turn. In order to escape from this 
vicious circle, it is decided to be disloyal; lawlessness now begins in 
the third or ninety-ninth stage. Because the bureaucratic state is 
vaguely conscious of this, it tries at least to place the sphere of 
lawlessness so high that it escapes the eye, and then believes that 
lawlessness has duaopesred 

The real, radical cure for the censorship would be its abolition; for 
the institution itself is a bad one, and institutions are more 
powerful than people. Our view may be right or not, but in any 
case the Prussian writers stand to gain through the new instruction, 
either in real freedom, or in freedom of ideas, in consciousness. 

. . . 5 . . . a 
Rara temporum felicitas, ubi quae velis sentire et quae sentias dicere licet. 

February 10, 1842 posium 

Anekdota zur neuesten deutschen Philosophie 
und Publicistik, Bd. 1, 1843