Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

TRIER, BONN AND BERLIN II

idea of the 'unity of theory and practice'.^43 Once again, this is to read

into Marx's essay much more than is there. All that Marx meant is that

the sort of profession that deals with abstract ideas should be approached

with special circumspection, for 'they can make happy him who is called

to them; but they destroy him who takes them overhurriedly, without

reflection, obeying the moment'.^44 The problem was above all a practical

one and not at all posed in terms of theories.

The essay ended with a purple passage revealing a pure, youthful

idealism:

History calls those the greatest men who ennoble themselves by

working for the universal. Experience praises as the most happy the

one who made the most people happy. Religion itself teaches that

the ideal for which we are all striving sacrificed itself for humanity, and

who would dare to gainsay such a statement?

When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most

to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices

for all. Then we experience no meagre, limited, egotistic joy, but our

happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally

effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.^45

The essay was marked by Wyttenbach, who qualified it as 'fairly good'
and praised Marx for being rich in ideas and well organised, though
he rightly criticised Marx's 'exaggerated desire for rare and imaginative
expressions'.^46
The enthusiasm for excessive imagery and the love of poetry that Marx
was to display in his first years at the university were heightened by his
friendship with Baron von Westphalen who was a third important influ-
ence on the young Marx in addition to his home and school. Ludwig von
Westphalen was twelve years older than Heinrich Marx, being born in
1770 into a recently ennobled family. His father, Philip von Westphalen,
an upright, straightforward and extremely capable member of the rising
German middle class, had been private secretary to the Duke of Brunswick
during the Seven Years War, had given essential help to his master in
several military campaigns culminating in the battle of Minden, and was
consequently ennobled by George III of England. During the war he had
married a Scottish noblewoman, Jeanie Wishart, who had come to Ger-
many to visit her sister, whose husband, General Beckwith, commanded
the English troops. Jeanie Wishart was descended from the Earls of Argyll
and brought with her, among other things, the crested silver that Marx and
Jenny later had so many occasions to pawn.^47 The youngest of their sons,
Ludwig von Westphalen, inherited the liberal and progressive views of
his father: after the defeat of Prussia he entered the civil service of the