London, 21 September 1874 

Dear Moor, 

I would have written to you long before, had it not been for the 
fact that the news from Karlsbad left me in doubt whether a letter 
would still reach you. 

Delighted to hear that Karlsbad has borne fruit. Once your liver 
is back in working order, it will be possible in due course to calm 
down your nervous system again after the further stimulation 
provoked by the cure. You will also have to continue the treatment 
on your return and should bring instructions with you from 

4 Gertrud Kugelmann 

Karlsbad about how to proceed. It was absurd of you not to have 
gone via Dresden; the journey is much prettier and some idle 
touring would have done you good just now. But there is still time 
to visit the Holstein coast from Hamburg and you should in any 
case spend a few days there, it is very attractive. If you are short oF 
cash Meissner can give you an advance and we shall pay him back 
from here. 

You will have seen reports of the Brussels congress” in The 
Times, they were obviously written by Wingfield, or whatever his 
name is, who was in The Hague. It was a MISERABLE FAILURE: 14 
people, all Belgians apart from 2 German Lassalleans (Frohme 
from Frankfurt and?*), Schwitzguébel, 1 Spaniard, Gomez, and 
Eccarius.—Rochat has sent us a highly entertaining account of the 
nonsense in a small Brussels paper, La Gazette.” 

Furthermore, the two Scheus‘ and the restless Frankel were 
within an ace of destroying the German communist society here.” 
Determined to prove that they could act, they arranged a public 
meeting in their pub and invited the Lassallean robber band of Zilinski 
et Co., whom they had such difficulty in ejecting only 2 years 
previously! I learned of it only when it was too late, gave Frankel a 
piece of my mind and also gave him instructions about what to do, 
whereupon, naturally, he did the opposite. We1, as was to be 
expected, Zilinski turned up with 50-60 men (while from the 
society there were barely 10 men!), packed the committee with his 
own supporters and they HAD IT ALL THEIR own way. Finally, the 
meeting was adjourned, and so we were spared the worst, but it is 
not over yet. Since I have not yet seen Lessner (who must have 
something on his conscience, otherwise he would have come), I 
have not yet had a reliable report on what transpired. Frankel is 
very peeved about his act of heroism and your wife has given him 
a good scolding. The Scheus appear to be 1irrepressible MEDDLERS, 

In Leipzig you will perhaps have a chance to see Blos who is being 
released tomorrow or the day after. At any rate, you will have heard 
that the Cologne workers want to publish a daily paper and Blos has 
approached me to find out whether they could call it Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung—Blos is to be the editor. Since it was not 
possible to confer with you-—at the start of your stay in Karlsbad 
and before any news had arrived from you-——I had to make a 
provisional decision. Consiwerinc that this is the first time that these 
people have approached us IN 4 BECOMING MANNER, 2. that it is unlikely 
that we shali ever publish a Neue Rheinische Zeitung again 

a Paul Kersten - > La Gazette de Bruxelles - © Heinrich and Andreas 

ourselves, if only because of the provincial nature of Cologne, I 
had no objection quant a moi,* and I also hazarded the opinion 
that you too would agree to it. Jenny,” whom I consulted as your 
representative, was also of this opinion. It would have made a very 
shabby impression on the Rhineland workers if we had refused. 
However, if you have any objections there is still time to reverse 
the matter, 

The Volksstaat under Wilhelm‘ is becoming worse and even 
more boring thanks to the tendency to accept materials uncritically 
just to fill up space. Only here and there is there anything 
readable. 

I am deeply immersed in the doctrine of essence. Back from 
Jersey, I found Tyndall’s and Huxley's speeches in Belfast *” 
waiting for me, which once again reveal the plight of these people, 
and the way they are stuck fast in the thing-in-itself and their cry 
of anguish for a philosophy to rescue them. This brought me back 
again, after all manner of interruptions on the first week, to the 
theme of dialectics. In view of the feeble mind of the natural 
scientists, the great Logic’ can only be used sparingly, although as 
far as dialectics are concerned, it goes much more nearly to the 
heart of the matter. But the account of it in the Encyclopaedia, on 
the other hand, could have been tailor-made for these people, the 
illustrations are taken largely from their own subject and are strik- 
ing, and at the same time, because of the more popular presenta- 
ution, they are freer of idealism. Now, since I neither can nor will 
exempt these gentlemen from the punishment of having to learn 
from Hegel, it is clear that there is a veritable treasure-trove here, 
all the more so since even today the old fellow can give them a 
number of tough nuts to crack. Tyndall’s inaugural lecture, 
incidentally, is the boldest speech to have been delivered in 
England to such an audience, and has created a tremendous 
impression and panic. It is evident that Haeckel’s much more 
incisive manner of speaking has not let him rest. I have the 
verbatim report in Nature, which you can read here. His 
acknowledgement to Epicurus will-amuse you. So much is certain: 
the return to a genuinely reflective view of nature is making much 
more serious progress here in England than in Germany, and 
people here seek salvation at least in Epicurus, Descartes, Hume 
and Kant, rather than in Schopenhaver and Hartmann. The 

@ for my part - > Jenny Longuet - © Wilhelm Liebknecht - 4 G. W. F. Hegel, Wis- 
senschaft der Logik. - © G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopédie der philosophischen Wissenschaften 
im Grundrisse, Part 1: Die Logik. 

French thinkers of the eighteenth century, of course, are still 
taboo. 

In New York, the rowdies and braggarts have obtained a 
majority in the General Council, and Sorge has abdicated* and 
completely retired. All the better. It means that we have absolutely 
no responsibility for the nonsense any more and it will soon die a 
natural death. How fortunate that we have records of the 
proceedings! 

Quant a la grande politique,” we can fortunately Ler rv TAKE CARE OF 
itself; there will be time enough to laugh about it all when you 
return. 

Otherwise everything here is au. ricut, Jenny looked very well 
the day before yesterday and was in high spirits. Wrdéblewski is 
better and has used the electricity. There was never any question 
of amputating his arm, only of cutting out a piece of muscle in 
which, in all probability, a nerve end had become lodged, thus 
causing the pain. But he must have felt terrible and our money 
came in the nick of time. 

‘Regards to Meissner from me; I shall be writing to him myself 
about various matters. 

Warmest regards to Tussy, @ revoir. 

Your 
F. E.