York, January 1854 

Signed: Karl Marx 

The man of small-scale war (see Decker’s Theorie des kleinen Kriegs) 
does not need to be a man at all noble, but must have a _ noble 
consciousness. According to Hegel, the consciousness that is noble 
becomes transmuted necessarily into a consciousness that is base.’ 
I shall elucidate this transmutation from the effusions of Herr 
Willich—who is Peter the Hermit and Walther Havenought in 
one person. I shall confine myself to the cavaliere della ventura’; 
the cavalieri del dente‘ standing behind him I leave to their mission. 

To make it clear from the outset that the man of the noble 
consciousness is wont to express truth in the “higher” sense by lies 
in the “ordinary” sense, Herr Willich begins his reply to my 
Revelations’ with the words: 

“Dr. Karl Marx published a report on the Cologne Communist trial in the 
Neue-England-Zeitung and the Criminal-Zeitung.” ¢ 

I have never reported on the Cologne Communist trial in the 
Criminal-Zeitung. It is common knowledge that I published the 

Revelations in the Neue-England-Zeitung and Herr Willich published 
Hirsch’s confessions in the Criminal-Zeitung. 

On p. 11 of the Revelations it is stated: “From the list of 
documents stolen from the Willich-Schapper party and from the 
dates of these documents it follows that although the party had 
been warned by Reuter’s burglary, it still constantly found ways 
and means of having its documents stolen and allowing them to fall 
into the hands of the Prussian police.” On p. 64 this passage is 
repeated.’ 

“Herr Marx,” replied Herr Willich, “knows very well that these documents 
were themselves mostly falsified, and in part invented.” 

Mostly falsified, therefore not wholly falsified. In part invented, 
therefore not wholly invented. Herr Willich, therefore, admits: 
both before and after Reuter’s burglary, documents belonging to 
his faction found their way to the police. Just as I assert. 

So the noble-mindedness of Herr Willich consists in detecting a 
false consciousness behind a correct fact. “Herr Marx knows.” How 
does Herr Willich know what Herr Marx knows? I know of some 
of the documents in question that they are genuine. About none 
of them do I know that during the proceedings at the trial it was 
shown to be falsified or invented. But I ought to have known 
“more”, since “a certain Blum, who was among Willich’s closest 
associates”, was ‘“Marx’s informant”. Blum, therefore, flourished? 
in Willich’s immediate neighbourhood. So much the more distant 
did he keep himself from me. All that I know about Blum, to 
whom I have never spoken, not even metaphorically, is that he is 
said to be a Russian by birth and a shoemaker by trade, that he 
also plays the part of Morison, swears by Willich’s Morison pills, 
and now probably lives in Australia.**’ About the activity of the 
Willich-Kinkel missionaries, I received information from Mag- 
deburg, not London. Hence the man of the noble consciousness 
could have spared himself the certainly painful operation of pub- 
licly vilifying one of his sons in the faith on the basis of mere suspi- 
cion. 

At first the noble-minded one tells a lie attributing a non-existent 
informant to me, then he tells a lie denying the existence of an 
existing letter. He quotes: “Page 69 of the Revelations, note A“ from 
the alleged letter of Becker’s.” 

Herr Willich is too noble-minded to assume that “a man of 
intellect and character” like Becker could fail to see the intellect 
and character of a man like Willich. Hence, he converts Becker’s 
letter into an alleged one and me into a forger. He does so, of 
course, out of nobility of mind. The alleged letter is still in the 
possession of defence counsel Schneider II. I sent it to Cologne 
for the defence at the time of the trial, because it refutes that 
‘Becker had any part in Willich’s stupidities. Not only was the letter 
written by Becker, but the Cologne and London postmarks testify 
to the date of despatch and receipt.