[Rheinische Zeitung No. 130, May 10, 1842] 

In a city like Berlin a stranger would be committing a real crime 
against himself and against good taste if he did not inspect all the 
sights. Yet the most remarkable thing in Berlin, that which 
distinguishes the Prussian capital above all others, remains all too 
often unnoticed by him; I am speaking of the University. I do not 
mean the imposing facade on the Opera Square, or the anatomy 
and mineralogy museums, but the many lecture-halls with witty 
and pedantic professors, with students young and old, gay and 
serious, with freshmen and old-stagers, lecture-halls in which 
words have been spoken and are still spoken daily that spread 
beyond the frontiers of Prussia and even beyond the bounds 
within which German is spoken. Berlin University enjoys the 
reputation, like no other, of standing in the mainstream of 
contemporary thought and of having made itself such an arena of 
intellectual battles. How many other universities, Bonn, Jena, 
Giessen, Greifswald, and even Leipzig, Breslau and Heidelberg, 
have withdrawn from these battles and sunk into that learned 
apathy which has at all times been the bane of German science! 
Berlin, on the other hand, numbers representatives of all trends 
among its academic staff and thus allows a lively polemic which 
gives the students an easy, clear overall picture of present-day 
trends. In such circumstances I was tempted to take advantage of 
the now commonly granted privilege to sit in at lectures, and so I 
went in one morning, just as the summer term was beginning. 
Several lecturers had already begun their courses, most were 
beginning that day. Of all the lectures open to me the most 
interesting was the start of Marheineke’s course on the introduction 

of Hegelian philosophy into theology. In general, the first lectures 
by the local Hegelians this term were of very particular interest 
because with several of them one could be sure in advance of 
direct polemics against Schelling’s philosophy of revelation, while 
others could be expected not to hesitate in saving the honour of 
Hegel’s offended manes. Marheineke’s course was too evidently 
directed against Schelling not to attract special attention. The 
lecture-hall was filled long before his arrival; young men and old, 
students, officers and goodness knows who else, sat and stood 
packed closely together. At last he enters; the talk and hum of 
voices cease instantly, hats fly off as if by command. A firm, 
strong figure, the serious, resolute face of a thinker, the high 
forehead wreathed in hair gone grey in the hard toil of thinking; 
during the lecture itself a noble demeanour, nothing of the 
scholar who buries his nose in the notes from which he is reading, 
no histrionic gesticulation; a youthful, upright posture, the eye 
fixed firmly on the audience; the delivery itself calm, dignified, 
slow but always fluent, plain but infinitely rich in striking thoughts 
which follow close one upon the other, each more penetrating 
than the preceding one. On the rostrum Marheineke impresses 
you by his sureness, imperturbable firmness and dignity, and also 
by the freedom of mind which radiates from his entire personality. 
Today, however, he stepped onto the rostrum in a very special 
mood, impressing his audience far more powerfully even than 
usually. If for a whole term he had patiently endured Schelling’s 
unworthy utterances on the dead Hegel and his philosophy, if he 
had quietly listened to Schelling’s lectures to the end—and for a 
man like Marheineke that is indeed no trifle—the moment had 
now come when he could reply to the attack, when he could lead 
proud thoughts into the field against proud words. He began with 
general remarks in which he described in masterly strokes the 
present attitude of philosophy to theology, referred appreciatively 
to Schleiermacher, saying that his pupils had been led to phi- 
losophy by his thinking which stimulated thinking, and that any 
who took a different path had themselves to blame for it. 
Gradually he passed to Hegelian philosophy and soon made a 
clear allusion to Schelling. 

“Hegel,” he said, “desired above all else that in philosophy one should rise 
above one’s own vanity and not behave as if one had divined something special and 
here the matter could now rest; in particular he was not the man to come out with 

grand promises and dazzling words, but was content to let the philosophical deed speak 
for him. He has never been the miles gloriosus* of philosophy who boasted much 

about himself.— Now, of course, nobody thinks himself too ignorant or too limited 
to pass adverse judgment on him and his philosophy; and nobody can fail to make 
his fortune if he has a thorough refutation of it in his pocket; for how easily he 
could insinuate himself with it can be seen from those who merely promise a 
refutation and afterwards do not keep their word.” 

At these last words the applause of the audience, of which there 
had already been single outbursts, broke into stormy acclamation, 
which, being new at a theological lecture, greatly surprised the 
lecturer, and in its fresh spontaneity offered a striking contrast to 
the dry cheers barely produced by subventions at the end of the 
lectures which Marheineke was attacking. He quietened the ap- 
plause with a gesture and continued:. 

“This desired refutation is nevertheless not yet available, nor will it be, as long 
as irritation, ill humour, envy and passion generally are employed instead of calm, 
scientific examination; as long as gnosticism and fantasy are considered sufficient to 
dethrone philosophical thought. The first condition of this refutation is, of course, 
to understand the opponent correctly, and here many of Hegel’s enemies are like 
the dwarf who fought against the giant, or the still better known knight who tilted 
against windmills.” 

This is the main content of Marheineke’s first lecture as far as it 
may be of interest to the wider public. Marheineke has once more 
shown how courageous and calm he always is on the field of battle 
when it is a matter of defending the freedom of science. By virtue 
of his character and acumen he stands out far more as Hegel’s 
successor than Gabler, to whom this title is usually given. The 
grand, free vision with which Hegel surveyed the entire realm of 
thought and grasped the phenomena of life is also Marheineke’s 
inheritance. Who will condemn him if he is not prepared to 
sacrifice his long-held conviction, his hard-won achievement, to a 
development which has only come about in the last five years? 
Marheineke has advanced with the times long enough to be 
entitled to a scientific summing-up. It is a great quality in him that 
he feels at home even in the most outlying areas of philosophy 
and makes its cause his own, as he has done every day from Leo’s 
Hegelingen to Bruno Bauer’s dismissal.'** 

Incidentally Marheineke intends to have these lectures printed 
when they are completed.'* 

Il 
[Rheinische Zeitung No. 144, May 24, 1842] 

A few students were sitting scattered in a spacious lecture-hall 
waiting for the lecturer. The notice on the door said that 
Professor von Henning was at this hour to. begin a public lecture 

on the Prussian financial system. Attracted by the subject, put on 
the order of the day by Bulow-Cummerow,? and the name of the 
lecturer, one of Hegel’s older pupils, I was surprised that it did 
not appear to arouse more interest. Henning entered, a slim man 
in his “prime”, with thin fair hair, and began to present his 
subject in rapidly flowing, perhaps rather too detailed discourse. 

“Prussia,” he said, “stands out among all other states by having a financial 
system based entirely on the modern science of political economy, and having had 
the hitherto unique courage to apply in practice the theoretical results of Adam 
Smith and his followers. England, for instance, where the modern theories 
originated, is still up to the eyes in the old system of monopoly and prohibition, 
France almost more so, and neither Huskisson in the former country nor Duchatel 
in the latter has been able to overcome private interests by his more reasonable 
views, to say nothing of Austria and Russia; whereas Prussia has firmly recognised 
the principle of free trade and free industry and has abolished all monopolies and 
prohibitive customs duties. This aspect of our political system, therefore, places us 
high above states which in another respect, the development of political freedom, 
are far ahead of us. If our government’s achievement in respect of finance has 
been so extraordinary, it must also be admitted, on the other hand, that peculiarly 
favourable conditions existed for such a reform. The disaster of 1806° cleared the 
ground on which the new edifice could be erected; the government’s hands were 
not tied by a representative system, enabling the particular interests to assert 
themselves. But unfortunately there are still old gentlemen whose narrow-minded- 
ness and peevishness make them carp at what is new and accuse it of being an 
unhistorical, unpractical, forcibly imposed construction evolved from abstract 
theory; as if history had stopped in 1806 and it were wrong for practice to conform 
with theory, with science; as if the essence of history were stagnation or movement 
in a circle, and not progress, as if there could really be practice devoid of all 

theory.” 

I may be permitted to look more closely at these last points, with 
which public opinion in Germany, and particularly in Prussia, will 
surely declare itself in accord; it is high time to oppose resolutely 
the eternal talk of a certain party about “historical, organic, 
natural development”, about the “natural state”, etc., and publicly 
expose these dazzling visions. If there are states which must 
indeed take the past into consideration and are obliged to advance 
more slowly, this does not apply to Prussia. Prussia cannot advance 
quickly enough, cannot develop rapidly enough. Our past lies buried 
under the ruins of pre-Jena Prussia, it has been swept away by the 
flood of the Napoleonic invasion. What fetters us? We no longer 
have to drag on our feet those medieval balls and chains which 
hamper the progress of so many states; the dirt of past centuries 

no longer sticks to our soles. How then can anyone talk about 
historical development here without meaning a return to the 
ancien régime? A retreat which would be the most shameful there 
ever was, the most cowardly denial of the most glorious years of 
Prussian history, treason— conscious or unconscious— against the 
Fatherland, since it would necessitate another catastrophe like that 
of 1806. No, it is clear as daylight that Prussia’s salvation lies solely in 
theory, in science, in development through the intellect. Or to see it from 
another angle, Prussia is no “natural” state, but one which has 
come into being through politics, through purposeful action, 
through the intellect. From the French side the attempt has 
recently been made to represent this as our state’s greatest 
weakness; on the contrary, this circumstance is our main strength, 
provided that it is rightly used. Prussia, if it so wants, can raise 
itself as high above the “natural” states as the conscious intellect 
stands above unconscious nature. Since provincial differences in 
Prussia are so great, the system must grow purely from thought in 
order that no province shall be wronged; a gradual fusion of the 
different provinces will then take place of itself, the separate 
peculiarities all dissolving in the higher unity of a free state 
consciousness, whereas otherwise several centuries would not 
suffice to bring about the internal legislative and national unity of 
Prussia, and the first violent blow would be bound to have such 
consequences for the internal cohesion of our state against which 
no man could offer reliable guarantees. The road which other 
states have to take is determined in advance by a definite national 
character; we are free from this compulsion; we can make of 
ourselves what we will; dismissing all other considerations, Prussia 
can follow solely the inspiration of reason; it can, as no other state, 
learn from the experience of its neighbours; it can stand — which 
no other country can—as the model state for Europe, at the 
height of its time, and represent in its institutions the complete 
state consciousness of its century. 

This is our vocation, this is what Prussia has been created for. 
Should we barter away this future for the sake of a few hollow 
phrases from a dead trend? Shall we not listen to history itself, 
which entrusts us with this vocation of bringing the flower of all 
theory to life? Prussia’s basis, I say it once more, is not the ruins of 
past centuries, but the eternally young spirit which becomes 
conscious in science and creates for itself its own freedom in the - 
state. And if we were to give up the spirit and its freedom, we 
should be denying ourselves, we should be betraying our most 
sacred possession, we should be murdering our own living strength 

and should not be worthy any longer to stand in the ranks of the 
European states. Then history would pronounce its terrible death 
sentence on us: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found 
wanting.” ?