ce is coming
in the near future. This "near future" proves to have been fifty years
removed, and I trust, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, that
you will all consider a fifty-years' interval long enough to satisfy
the requirements of the "near future."

But the men who, undeterred by all the difficulties of the task, put
all their energies into this stupendous undertaking of carrying
scientific knowledge and scientific habits of thought among the body
of the people,--are they fairly open to the accusation of having
sought to incite the indigent classes to hatred of the well-to-do? Do
they not thereby really deserve the thanks and the affection of the
propertied classes, and of the bourgeoisie above all?

Whence arises the bourgeoisie's dread of the people in political
matters?

Look back, in memory, to the months of March, April, and May, 1848.
Have you forgotten how things looked here at that time? The power of
the police was broken; the people filled all the streets and public
places. And all streets, all public places and all the people in the
hands of Karbe, Lindenmueller, and other reckless agitators like
them,--men without knowledge, without intelligence, without culture,
thrown into prominence by the storm which stirred our political life
to its depths. The _bourgeoisie_, scared and faint hearted, hiding in
their cellars, trembling every instant for fear of their property and
their lives, which lay in the hands of these coarse agitators, and
saved only by the fact that these agitators were too good-natured to
make such use of their power as the bourgeoisie feared they would. The
_bourgeoisie_, secretly praying for the reestablishment of the police
power and quaking with a fright which they have not yet forgotten, the
recollection of which still leaves them incapable of taking up the
political struggle.

How came it that in a city which proudly calls itself the metropolis
of intelligence, in so great a city, in the home of the most brilliant
intellects,--how came it that the people here for months together
could be at the disposal of Karbe and Lindenmueller and could tremble
before them in fear for their life and property. Where was the
intelligence of Berlin? Where were the men of science and of insight?
Where were you, Gentlemen?

A whole city is never cowardly.

But these men reflected and told one another: The people do not
understand our ways of thinking; they do not even understand our
speec