NEW FRONTIERS 293
any one individual and that he needed the help of the specialists.
Perhaps this discouraging discovery explains the long interval be
tween the conception of his project in Switzerland and the time
when it was partially completed and ready, to that extent, for
publication.
Weitling stated that he completed the major portion of the
treatise, as finally published, in 1844. It is certain that he worked
hard on the first draft in London, to the neglect of the propaganda
for social reform, much to the disgust of the cosmopolitan radi
cals assembled in the English metropolis. Georg Schirges reported
that "Weitling has thrown himself into the arms of learning and,
among other things, is studying Latin."^2 A redraft of the London
manuscript was made in Brussels in 1846, and Marx's refusal to
interest himself in its publication and Engels' sarcastic comments
may have affected the final break with Marx and Engels at the
Brussels conference. The manuscript of Weitling's Gerechtigkeit,
which saw the light of day fifty years after his death, contained
a glossary to explain the author's use of words and concepts. After
another revision of his philological studies made in Hamburg in
1848-49 and a final recast in the United States about 1855, part
of the material dealing with his universal language was set in type
and printed, but it was never bound in book form. The author's
account books for 1854, 1855, and 1856 show occasional entries
for expenditures from the treasury of the Arbeiterbund totaling
$70.88 to pay for setting type. Weitling regarded his efforts to
produce a universal language as his most important work. What
ever other material may have been on hand to complete the manu
script was either lost or destroyed in 1869.
The 196-page unbound treatise, with a prospectus issued years
earlier in Europe, and several other fragments are all that exist of
this curious exercise in semantics. Weitling's theories of language
may be stated in rather simple terms, and much that he said on
this subject was sensible and clear, but the classifications and
symbols for the new artificial world tongue defy all attempts at
(^2) Barnikol, Weitling der Gefangene, 31.