Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/7

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Ferdinand Lassalle was born in the year 1825 at Breslau in Silesia, where his father carried on the business of a merchant, and intended that his son should follow the same occupation. But young Lassalle having early given proof of unusual ability, and a "certain passionate energy of character," preferred a more ambitious career, and having passed with distinction through the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, devoted himself to the task of raising the condition of the people. Young, handsome, highly gifted, and thoroughly trained in the intellectual school of the highest German thought, he found a ready entrance to the best society of Berlin, and in Mendelssohn's house in particular gained the friendship of Humboldt and other eminent men. The poet Heine thus writes of him to Varnhagen von Euse—"My friend Lassalle, who is the bearer of this letter, is a young man of extraordinary ability. To the most thorough scholarship, the widest knowledge, the greatest penetration I have ever met with, and the greatest power of expression, he unites an energy of will, and a prudence in action, which fairly astonish me." He hints at one defect, however, with characteristic irony—"He is thoroughly stamped with the impress of these later times, which ignore the self-denial and modesty about which we of the older generation used, with more or less hypocrisy, perpetually to prate."

In 1848 Lassalle took a leading part in organising armed resistance to the reactionary Government, and when brought to trial, he undertook his own defence, and admitting the fact, maintained that he had done no more than his duty, and was acquitted by the jury. He now devoted himself anew to philosophy and literature. The first book that he published was entitled "The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Mystic of Ephesus," which was considered to be both a brilliant and a learned work. His tragedy "Franz von Sickingen" contains many passages of brilliant oratory, but was not found suitable for the stage. His brochure on "The Italian war