Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/340

 322 L A S L A S with his empty pockets against the capitalists lie compared to a battle with teeth and nails against modern artillery. In short, Lassalle accepted the orthodox political economy to show that the inevitable operation of its laws left no hope for the working classes, and that no remedy could be found but by abolishing the conditions in which these laws had their validity in other words, by abolishing the present relations of labour and capital altogether, And this could only be done by the productive association of the working men with money provided by the state. The states of Europe had spent hundreds of millions in silly dynastic squabbles, or to appease the wounded vanity of royal mistresses ; why refuse to advance a few millions to solve the greatest problem of modern civilization 1 Lassalle s estimate was that a loan of a hundred million thalers would be more than enough to bring the principle of productive association into full movement throughout the kingdom of Prussia. And he held that such association should be the voluntary act of the working men themselves, the Government merely reserving to itself the right to examine the books of the various societies. All the arrange ments should be carried out according to the rules of business usually followed in such transactions. But how move the Government to grant such a loan ] Simply by introducing (direct) universal suffrage. The working men were an overwhelming majority ; they were the state, and should control the Government. The aim of Lassalle, then, was to organize the working classes into a great political power, which in the way thus indicated, by peaceful resolute agitation, without violence or insurrection, might attain the goal of productive association. In this way the fourth estate would be emancipated from the despotism of the capitalist, and a great step taken in the solution of the great &quot; social question.&quot; It will be seen that the net result of Lassalle s life was to produce a European scandal, and to originate a socialistic movement in Germany, which, in spite of repressive laws, at last election (1881) was able to return thirteen members to the reichstag. This result was hardly commensurate with his ambition, which was boundless. In the heyday of his passion for Fraulein von Donniges, his dream was to be enthroned as the president of the German republic with her seated at his side. With his energy, ability, and gift of dominating and organizing, he might indeed have done a great deal. Bismarck coquetted with him as the representative of a force that might help him to combat the Prussian liberals; so late as 1878, in a speech before the reichstag, he spoke of him with deep respect, as a man of the greatest amiability and ability from whom much could be learned. Even Bishop Ketteler of Mainz had declared his sympathy for the cause he advocated. Lassalle s two learned works were Die Philosophic Ilcrakleitos dcs Dunklen von Ephcsos (Berlin, 1858), and the System dcr erworbencn Rcchte (Leipsic, 1861), both marked by great learning and intellec tual power. But of far more historical interest are the speeches and pamphlets connected with his socialistic agitation, of which the most important are Ucber Verfassungswcsen ; Arbeiterpro- gramm ; Offends Antwortschreiben ; Zur Arbcitcrfragc ; Arbeitcr- lesebuch; Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch, oder Kapital und Arbeit. His drama, Franz von Sickingen, published in 1859, is a work of no poetic value. The best authority on Lassalle s life and writings is George Brandes s Danish work, Ferdinand Lassalle (German translation, Berlin, 1877). See also Laveleye, Le socialisme contemporain, Paris, 1881; Fortnightly Preview, 1869; Contemporary Reviciv, 1881. There is already a considerable literature on his love affair and death: MeineBczichungen zuF. Lassalle, by Helene von Racow- itza, a very strange book ; EntJuillungenuberdastragischeLcbensende F. Lassalle s by B. Becker; Im Anschluss an d&amp;gt;e Memoiren dcr If. von Eacowitza, by A. Kutschbach; and an English and Italian novel. (T. K.) LASSEN, CHRISTIAN (1800-1876), an eminent Orien talist, was born on October 22, 1800, at Bergen in Norway. Having received his first university education at Christiania, he went to Germany, and continued his philological studies at Heidelberg and Bonn. The latter university, though only founded a few years previously (in 1818), had already become one of the chief centres of Oriental studies. The lectures of A. W. von Schlegel, the distinguished critic and leader of the German &quot;Romantic school, who shares with F. Bopp the honour of having founded the critical school of Sanskrit philology, were especially attractive to the young Norwegian, and determined him henceforth to devote his energies chiefly to the exploration of the newly-opened mine of Indian literature. Having acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit, he spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating MSS., and collecting materials for future research, especially in reference to the Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with E. Burnouf, his first work, Essai sur le Pali (Paris, 1826). On his return to Bonn he studied Arabic, for some time, under Freytag, and took the degree of Ph.D., his dissertation discussing the Arabic notices of the geography of the Punjab (Commentatio geographica atque historica de Pentapotamia Indica, Bonn, 1827). Soon after he was admitted privatdocent, and entered on his academical career with an inaugural disserta tion De Taprobane insula. In 1830 he was appointed &quot;extraordinary &quot; and in 1840 &quot;ordinary&quot; professor to the newly-created chair of Old Indian language and literature, Schlegel continuing to hold (till his death in 1845) the chair of history c In spite of a tempting offer of the Sanskrit chair at Copenhagen, in 1841, Lassen remained faithful to the university of his adoption to the end of his life. He died at Bonn on May 8, 1876, having been affected with almost total blindness for many years. As early as 1864 he was relieved of the duty of lecturing. The numerous works and essays published by Lassen during half a century of unremitting labour, cover a wide field of Oriental research, and afford ample evidence of the thorough accuracy of his scholarship and the comprehensiveness of his learning. In 1829-31 he brought out, in conjunction with Schlegel, a critical annotated edition of the Hitopadesa, the now well-known manual of political ethics in the form of fables, interspersed with moral maxims. The appearance of this edition marks the starting-point of the critical study of the Sanskrit literature. At the same time Lassen assisted his teacher and friend in editing and translating the first two cantos of the epic Rdmdyana (1829-38). In 1832 he brought out the text of the first act of Bhavabhuti s drama, Malatim&dhava, and a complete edition, with a Latin translation, of the Sdnkhya-kdrikd, one of the chief works of the Sankhya philosophy. In 1837 followed his edition and translation of Jayadeva s charming lyrical drama, Gttagovinda, and his Institutioncs linguae Pracriticie, which still forms the standard work on the popular dialects of the Indian dramas. His Anthologia Sanscritica, which came out the following year, con tained several hitherto unpublished texts, and did much to stimulate the study of Sanskrit in German universities, where, indeed, it continues to be used, new editions of it having been published by Gildemeister in 1865 and 1868. In 1845 Lassen brought out a new and improved edition of Schlegel s text and translation of the famous philosophical episode of the Mahdbhdrata, the &quot;Bhagavadgita.&quot; He did not, however, confine himself to the study of Indian languages, but acted likewise as a scientific pioneer in other fields of philo logical inquiry. In his Bcitrage zur Dcutung der Eugubinischen Tafcln (1833), he prepared the way for the correct interpretation of the Umbrian inscriptions ; and the Zeitschrift fur die Ki .nde des Morgenlandes (7 vols., 1837-50), started and conducted by him, the first three volumes in conjunction with Ewald and Rodiger, contains, among other valuable papers from his pen, grammatical sketches of the Belnchi and Brahui languages, and an essay on the Lycian inscriptions. Soon after the appearance of Burnouf s Com- mentaire sur le Ya$na (1833), Lassen also directed his attention to the Zend, and to Iranian studies generally; and in his work Die alt- pcrsischcn Kcilinschriften von Perscpolis (1836) he first made known the true character of the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions, thereby anticipating, by one month, Burnouf s Memoir c on the same subject, while Major (Sir Henry) Rawlinson s famous memoir on the Behistun inscription, though drawn up in Persia, independ ently of contemporaneous European research, at about the same time, did not reach the Royal Asiatic Society until three years later. Subsequently Lassen published, in the sixth volume of his