Manchester, September 16, 1868 

Mr. Davisson has informed me that at its meeting of Sep- 
tember 7 the Directorate took the decision to invite Mr. Karl Vogt 
to give a lecture at the Institute. 

Much as I regret it, this decision obliges me to resign my post as 
chairman as well as that of member of the Directorate. 

I do not need to enter here into the objective grounds on which, 
had I been present, I would have voted against the decision. It is 
not these reasons which make my decision a duty. 

My resignation stems only from reasons not connected with the 
Institute. During 1859 and 1860 my political friends and I levelled 
grave charges of a political nature against Mr. Vogt, presenting 
evidence to support them. (See the work Herr Vogt by Karl Marx, 
London, 1860.) Mr. Vogt has so far remained silent in the face of 
these accusations, which have subsequently been repeated by other 
quarters. 

This entire affair, as well as the polemic about it at the time, is 
probably unknown to the other members of the Directorate, or 
forgotten by them. They are quite entitled to disregard Mr. Vogt’s 
political character and regard him as the more or less agreeable 
populariser of the scientific discoveries of others. I cannot afford 
to do so. Were I to remain in the Directorate after the above 
decision, I would be denying my entire political past and my 
political friends. I would be giving a vote of confidence to a man 
who, I consider it proved, was in 1859 a paid agent of 
Bonapartism. 

Only such a compelling necessity could induce me to resign from 
a post in which I considered it my duty to remain under 
difficulties now fortunately overcome.” 

To the Directorate of the Schiller Institute 19 

I thank the members of the Directorate cordially for the 
confidence they have so lavishly bestowed on me, and leave them 
with the request to retain towards me the same friendly sentiments 
that I shall always cherish for them. 

| Yours faithfully, 
F. E. 

of the International Institute of Social His- script draft 

tory, dam, No. 2, 1950 : ; 
DENNEN CA MINES Published in English for the first