Marx's greatest work, _Das Kapital_, published in 1867, was to the new revolution just such an inspiration and guide as the _Contrat Social_ of Rousseau was to the revolution of '89. The brilliant genius of Lassalle yielded to the sway of the principle of Nationality, and ultimately of Empire, as strongly as the narrower and gloomier nature of Marx was repelled by these principles. It was this trait in his writings, as well as the fiery energy of his soul and his faith in the Prussian peasant and the Prussian artisan, that attracted for a time the interest of Bismarck. Even a State such as Austria Lassalle regarded as higher than any federal union whatever. The image of Lassalle's character, his philosophy, and too swift career, may be found in his earliest work, _Heracleitus_, the god-gifted statesman whom Plato delineated, seeking not his own, but realizing his life in that of others, toiling ceaselessly for the oppressed, the dumb, helpless, leaderless masses who suffer silently, yet know not why they suffer. A monarchy resting upon the support of the artisan-myriads against the arrogance of the _bourgeois_, as the Tudor monarchy rested upon the support of the yeomen and the towns against the arrogance of the feudal barons--this, in the most effective period of his career, was Lassalle's ideal State. And it is his remarkable pamphlet in reply to the deputation from Leipsic in 1863 that has fitly been characterized as the charter of the whole movement of democratic socialism in Germany down to the present hour.