In _The Hohensteins_ (1863) the story of a declining noble family, recalling the historical novel of Scott and Hauff's _Lichtenstein_, the socialistic program of Lassalle begins to appear. Lassalle's doctrines find their spokesman in the hero, Bernhard Münzer, the fantastic but despotic agitator and cosmopolitan socialist; while the idealist, Baltasar, voices the reform program of the poet himself in the words: "Educate yourselves, Germans, to love and freedom." In the next novel, _In Rank and File_ (1866), the program of Lassalle is reflected in Leo Gutmann, a character of the Auerbach type. The mouthpiece of the poet is really Walter Gutmann, who sums up the moral of the story in these sentences: "The heroic age is past. The battle-cry is no longer: 'one for all,' but 'all for all.' The individual is only a soldier in rank and file. As individual he is nothing; as member of the whole he is irresistible." Father Gutmann, the forester, is evidently an echo of the poet's family traditions, while Dr. Paulus is an exponent of the philosophy of Spinoza. Leo's career and fall illustrate the futility of the principle of "state aid" in the reform program. Even the seven years of residence in America were not sufficient to rescue him from his visionary schemes. In _Hammer and Anvil_ (1869) the same theme is treated in a different form. The poet teaches here that the conflict between master and servant, ruler and subject, must be reinterpreted and recognized as a necessary condition of society. "The situation is not hammer _or_ anvil, as the revolutionists would have it, but hammer _and_ anvil; for every creature, every man, is both together, at every moment." Thus the "solidarity of interests" is the aim to be kept in view, and is shown by Georg Hartwig, who having learned his lesson in the penitentiary now appears as the owner of a factory and gives his workmen an interest in the profits.