Letter to Arnold Ruge, March 5, 1842

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Dear Friend,

I fully agree with the plan for the Anekdota philosophica and also think it would be better to include my name among the others. A demonstration of this kind, by its very nature, precludes all anonymity. Those gentlemen must see that one’s conscience is clear.

With the sudden revival of the Saxon censorship it is obvious from the outset that it will be quite impossible to print my “Treatise on Christian Art,” which should have appeared as the second part of the Posaune. But what about including it in a modified version in the Anekdota? The mass of material obnoxious to the censorship which now fills people’s minds perhaps makes it possible also to publish the Anekdota, as material accumulates, in a number of separate intalments! Another article which I also intended for the Deutsche Jahrbücher is a criticism of Hegelian natural law, insofar as it concerns the internal political system. The central point is the struggle against constitutional monarchy as a hybrid which from beginning to end contradicts and abolishes itself. Res publica is quite untranslatable into German. I would send both these articles immediately for your examination if they did not require the rewriting of a fair copy and, in pan, some corrections. The fact is that my future father-in-law, Herr von Westphalen, lay on his death-bed for three months and died the day before yesterday. During this period, therefore, it was impossible to do anything properly.

Regarding the other things, next time.

With sincerest respect, Devotedly yours, Marx

Apropos. Through an oversight, the manuscript on the censorship contains the phrase: “the censorship of tendency and the tendency censorship.” It should be: “the censorship of tendency and the tendency of censorship.”

Be so kind as to send me the reply directly by post to Trier.

Bauer has been suspended from his post, as he writes in a letter just received, par lit de justice.