Towards the end of the last century, again with the aid of liberalism, laws against the socialists were drawn up. After they had been passed war was waged against socialistic literature. In the year 1886 there appeared a real Index Librorum Prohibitorum, its title read, “Social Democratic publications and societies prohibited by the imperial law against the dangerous designs of Social Democracy,” which law had then been in force eight years. A supplementary list was published two years later, in 1888. _Hilgers_ makes this comment on it: “How many additional pamphlets have been condemned in the time from March 28, 1888, to September 30, 1890, we cannot state.” According to the foregoing official statement the average is 130 a year. Hence we assume that the printed matter prohibited during the twelve years that the law was in force amounted to between 15,000 and 16,000. This number of social democratic pamphlets forbidden within twelve years exceeds by far the number of all books prohibited by the Roman Index in the course of the entire nineteenth century—books that are the products of all countries in the world and dealing with all branches; the number of these German prohibitions is ten times that of Roman prohibitions. Indeed, in the course of a year and a half the new German Empire prohibited more writings of Germans than Rome had prohibited during the entire past century. We may mention here _Goethe_. In the atheism dispute, at the end of the eighteenth century, decision was rendered upon _Goethe’s_ advice against the philosopher _Fichte_; _Fichte_ was discharged in spite of petitions and mediations in his favour. The liberal Grand Duke _Karl August of Saxony Weimar_ granted in 1816, after the French conqueror had been overthrown, freedom of the press. Professor _Oken_ of Jena availed himself of this privilege, and printed in his “Isis” contributions complaining about the government. _Goethe_ had to advise what should be done against it. He thought that the paper should have been suppressed by the police at its very first announcement; “the measure neglected at the beginning is to be taken immediately and the paper is to be prohibited. By prohibiting the ‘Isis’ the trouble will be stopped at once” (Briefwechsel des Grossh. _Karl August v. Sax.-Weimar-Eisenach_ mit _Goethe_, II, 1863, 90). And this was done, in spite of the freedom granted the press.