14 November 1868.

Dear Fred,

Since the beginning of the week I have had a carbunculous swelling on the right loin (not yet quite extinct). Nevertheless – and hence the following description of my difficult gait – I visited the Museum, because this constant confinement and lying at home (the affair has now been going on, with some intervals of course, for over 4 months) would drive me mad. With all that I am convinced that the present eruptions are only the last after-pains. At the Museum – by the by – I saw, among other things, the latest writings of old Maurer (the old Bavarian Privy Councillor, who already played a role as one of the regents of Greece and was among the first, long before Urquhart, to denounce the Russians) on the German Mark, village, etc., constitution. He shows in detail that private property in land only arose later, etc. The idiotic Westphalian Junker view (Möser, etc.) that the Germans settled individually, each on his own, and only afterwards formed villages, districts, etc., is completely refuted. It is interesting precisely now that the Russian manner of the redistribution of the land at fixed periods [[in Germany at first annually]] persisted in Germany in places right into the 18th and even the 19th century. The view I have advanced, that everywhere the Asiatic, or Indian, forms of property form the beginning in Europe, receives new proof here [[although M. knows nothing of it]]. For the Russians, however, even the last trace of a claim to originality vanishes, even in this line. What remains to them is still today to be stuck in forms which their neighbours have long since cast off. The books of old Maurer (of 1854 and 1856, etc.) are written with genuinely German erudition, but at the same time in the more intimate and readable manner that distinguishes the South Germans (Maurer is from Heidelberg, but the point applies even more to Bavarians and Tyrolese like Fallmerayer, Fraas, etc.) from the North Germans. Old Grimm (Rechtsalterthümer, etc.) also gets sharply rapped over the knuckles here and there, i.e., re, non verbis. Besides, I have looked at the things by Fraas, etc., on agriculture. By the by, you must send me back Dühring, along with the proof sheets of my book. You will have seen from D. what Carey’s great discovery is, namely, that mankind // in agriculture // passes from ever // worse to ever // better soil. Partly because cultivation descends from the waterless hills, etc., to the damp lowland. But particularly because Mr. C. understands by the most fertile soil swamps and the like, which must first be fabricated into soil. Finally, because English colonisation in America began with lousy New England, which, namely Massachusetts, is Carey’s model country. Thanks for your exertions with the damned book. I cannot find Eynern’s letter, but it is sufficient to write to Meissner that you sent it to me. I have received, with little modification, the same letter from Vienna. I am sending you, enclosed, the clippings about Lassalle sent to me by Fox. Apart from the arch-scoundrel B. Becker, in Vienna Reusche; this loafer is there, on Hatzfeldt’s money (as our J. Ph. Becker writes to Borkheim), N.B. // – the enclosed Vienna article on Lassalle’s life is by him – to glorify the Itzig as God’s son and the old sow as the Mother of God. Still heard nothing from Holland, and the wedding is supposed to be on 8 April (I have, with difficulty, managed to shift the matter that far vis-à-vis Lafargue). In addition, I have to pay about £5 for water and gas (also last summons) on the 17th of this month (next Tuesday). As for the Dutch, it seems to me that I shall squeeze nothing out of them until I personally fall upon them again – without prior notice. But just now there can be no question of that. Have you read the scandal (reported to me by Borkheim) between Dühring and ‘Privy Councillor’ Wagner, the former accusing the latter of having sneaked away his manuscript or something about the cooperation of workers?

Salut D K M

From Maurer I have seen that the revolution in the views on the history and development of ‘Germanic’ property, etc., proceeds from the Danes, who, it seems, are generally busying themselves with archaeology in all corners. But, although they thus give an impetus, there is always a hitch somewhere or else. They lack, after all, the right critical instinct and above all a sense of proportion. It is exceedingly striking to me that Maurer, who often recalls Africa, Mexico, etc., by way of example, knows absolutely nothing of the Celts, and therefore also attributes the development of common property in France entirely to the Germanic conquerors. ‘As if’, Mr. Bruno would say, ‘as if’ we did not still possess a wholly communist Celtic (Welsh) law book from the 11th century, and ‘as if’ the French, precisely in the last few years, had not in places dug up original communities of Celtic form! As if! But the matter is quite simple. Old M. has studied, apart from German and Roman ancient Roman conditions, only Oriental (Greek-Turkish!) ones.