erm in jail. At the expiration of his sentence he returned to
the cause of the Countess, but he was required by the Prussian
government to keep away from Berlin. Not until 1857, through the
intervention of A. von Humboldt, did he receive permission to resume
his residence in the capital. Then, with his friend, the Countess, he
settled down once more to the realization of his youthful dreams, and
the long-deferred career was taken up in earnest.

Lassalle's career as a scholar and man of learning was short, but
productive. It was opened in 1857 with the publication of his work,
the _Philosophy of Heraclitus,_ projected more than ten years before,
and it was concluded in 1861, as the event proved, by the publication
of his _System of the Acquired Rights_. Midway between the two
appeared a dramatic composition, _Franz von Sickingen,_ which served
both as an intellectual diversion from the more serious studies in
philosophy and law and as a personal confession of faith on the part
of the author. None of these works can be pronounced an unqualified
success. The philosophy of Heraclitus was too obscure to exert any
great influence upon contemporary thought, even when expounded by a
Lassalle, and the philosophy of Lassalle himself was too closely
modeled upon that of his master, Hegel, to obtain much notice on its
own account. The treatise on the acquired rights of man was too
technical to attract popular attention and too unorthodox to receive
the general approval of professional students of the law. The _Franz
von Sickingen_ was too deficient in dramatic action to be presented on
the stage and too artificial in literary form to be read in the
library. The three productions secured for Lassalle a position among
scholars but brought him no general recognition.

The three productions, however, pour a flood of light upon
Lassalle's own powerful personality. In the _Philosophy of
Heraclitus_ he grappled with the most formidable philosophical
problems and showed himself a master of the Hegelian dialectic.
In the _System of the Acquired Rights_ he attacked the very foundations
of the current theories of law and justice with the same concentration
of energy and purpose as had been displayed in the more practical
problems of law and justice involved in the case of the Countess
von Hatzfeld. But it is in _Franz von Sickingen_ that Lassalle
expressed his own nature most clearly and most completely.
Here indeed he speaks directly for