Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/462



ENTLEMEN: Requested to deliver an address before you, I have thought it best to choose, and to treat in a strictly scientific way, a subject, which, from its nature, must be particularly interesting to you, namely, the special relation of the character of the historical period in which we are living to the idea of a working class.

I have said that my treatment of the subject will be purely scientific.

A true scientific attitude, however, is nothing more than perfect clearness, and therefore the complete separation of our thinking from any preconceived notion. For the sake of this complete absence of preconceived notions with which we must approach the subject, it will even be necessary, in the course of the discussion, to form a clear conception of what we really mean by the term "workingmen" or "working class." For even on this point we must not admit any preconceived notion, as if these terms were something perfectly well understood—which is by no means the case. The language of common life very frequently attaches at different times different conceptions to the words "workingman" or "working class," and we must therefore, in due time, get a clear conception as to what meaning we will attach to these designations.

With this problem, however, we are not concerned at the present moment. We must rather begin this presentation with a different question: The working class is only