FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[236] [Aside from the contradiction implied between this sentence and that other, on page 247, in which the internationally overshadowing economic development of the United States is admitted, the forecast, though cautiously advanced, that Germany may take the lead in the accomplishment of the pending Social Revolution, is justified neither by her economic nor her social development, least of all by her geographic location.

As to her economic development, Germany has made rapid and long strides during the last twenty years; so rapid and so long that the progress has caused the Socialists of Germany, in more instances than one, to realize—and to say so—that, what with her own progress, and with outside circumstances, Germany was distancing England economically. This is true. But the same reason that argues, and correctly argues, the economic scepter off the hands of England places it, not in those of Germany, but in the hands of the United States.

As to her social development, Germany is almost half a revolutionary cycle behind. Her own bourgeois revolution was but half achieved. Without entering upon a long list of specifications, it is enough to indicate the fact that Germany is still quite extensively feudal in order to suggest to the mind robust feudal boulders, left untouched by the capitalist revolution, and strewing, aye, obstructing the path of the Socialist Movement in that country. The social phenomenon has been seen of an oppressed class skipping an intermediary stage of vassalage, and entering, at one bound, upon one higher up. It happened, for instance, with our negroes here in America. Without first stepping off at serfdom, they leaped from chattel slavery to wage slavery. What happened once may happen again. But in the instance cited and all the others that we can call to mind, it happened through outside intervention. Can Germany perform the same feat alone, unaided? Do events point in that direction? Or do they rather point in the direction that the work, now being realized there as demanding immediate attention, and alone possible and practicable, is the completion of the capitalist revolution, first of all?

But even discounting both these objections—granting that both in point of economic and of social development Germany were ripe for the Socialist Revolution—her geographic location prevents her leadership. No one single State of the forty-four of the Union, not even the Empire State of New York, however ripe herself, could lead in the overthrow of capitalist rule in America unless the bulk of her sister States were themselves up to a certain minimum of ripeness. Contrariwise, any attempt by even such a State would be promptly smothered. What is true of any single State of the Union is true of any one country of Europe. It is, therefore, true of Germany. Whatever doubt there be as to Germany's ripeness, there can be none as to the utter unripeness of all the other European countries with the single exceptions of France and Belgium,—and surely none as to Russia, that ominous cloud to the East, well styled the modern Macedon to the modern Greek States of the nations of Western Europe. Though there is no "District of Columbia" in Europe, the masses would be mobilized from the surrounding hives of the Cimmerian Darkness of feudo-capitalism, and they would be marched convergently with as much precision and despatch upon the venturesome leader. And what is true as to Germany on this head is true of any other European country. Facts and their relations to one another must be ever kept in sight. 'Tis the only way to escape illusions—and their train of troubles.

For the rest, not the sordid competitive spirit of the bourgeois world, but that noble and ennobling emulation, cited by the Author in a quotation from John Stuart Mill, animates the nations of the world that are now racing towards the overthrow of capitalist domination. Surely none will begrudge laurels due that one that shall be the first to scale the ramparts of the international burg of capitalism, strike the first blow, and give the signal for the final emancipation of the human race.—The Translator.]

[237] The number of students at the German universities averaged as follows per six months:


Quarter.		Protestant
Theology.		Catholic
Theology.
Law.
Medicine.
Philosophy.
Total.
1841-42—18462117102734671943307211626
1846-47—18511798129740611827304612029
1851-52—18561751130041692291284012351
1861-62—18662437115328672435439213284
1866-67—18712154 98230112838462613611
1871-72—18761780 83641213491589616124
1876-77—18811961 68251343734805719568
1881-82—18863880 95250346869912325838
1881-82—18863880 95250346869912325838
1886-874546117852398450866627828
18874803123255058685842428455
1887-884632113748108435845028480
18884835117461068915820429275
1888-894642120763048886825529294

During the summer six months of 1893—notably the weaker of the two seasons—the total number of students, exclusive of the University of Brunswick, of which we had no returns, had risen to 31,976. Unfortunately we had no like classification of the students, and are hence prevented from inserting it in the above table.