led to as working the
differences of spiritual constitution between the so-called Germanic
peoples and the peoples of antiquity are today questioned at more than
one point. And quite legitimately so. Considered as peoples simply,
the Greeks or Romans were scarcely less capable of development than
the Germanic peoples. That their States, their political
organizations, collapsed because of the decay of certain institutional
arrangements peculiar to the social life of the times, that is a
fortune in which the states of antiquity quite impartially have shared
with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in
general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the
development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or
later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted
by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As
elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious
or new ethical notions, but, in a general way, it is to be said that,
except in the theocratic States, the role played by religion is only
of secondary importance even in antiquity.

Socrates was not the first nor the only one in Greece who had taught
"new gods." That he in particular was called on to drink the hemlock
was due to reasons of State policy, which had but a very slight and
unessential relation to the acts of sacrilege of which he was accused.
It may be added that this Greek promulgator of new gods is among the
German peoples fairly matched by John Huss and thousands of other
victims of religious persecution.

Lassalle's mistake lies in this, that he seeks the motor force of
development in the "spirit" of the nations, instead of looking for an
explanation of their spiritual life in the peculiar circumstances
which condition their development. But, in spite of this, it must be
said that his conclusions as bearing upon the modern situation are for
the most part substantially sound.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 50: According to this doctrine, the motions of the
"Monads"--animistically conceived units of which the entire universe,
organic or inorganic, was held to be constituted--were (by the fiat of
God at the creation of the world) bound in a preordained sequence, in
such a manner that all these motions constitute a comprehensive,
harmonious series. Wherefore, all events whatever that may take place,
take place as the necessary outcome of the constitu