Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

108 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

inhibited and hindered us. Rather, it will then be revealed that we did not

will and grasp what was right, or, what amounts to the same thing, that we

did not approach it in the right way, [nicht auf die rechte Weise in dasselbe

eingegangen sind], and, to remain within the previous metaphor [Bild], if

the Idea, which we all seemed to revere, proves itself, at the moment we

would seize control of it utterly and completely [da wir uns ganz und gar

ihrer bemeistern wollen], to be the noli me tangere, then this surely occurs

not because it has once and for all conspired against all contact, but rather

because we lack the fingers to touch it, because in us there is, instead of a

higher sense of touch, blind groping and, instead of fine antennae, coarser

tools.^59

Precisely because of his brimming confidence that their conceptual labor

portends ineluctable empirical transformation—that their Auffassen of the idea

is essentially identical with its eventual Aufführen—Gans is eager to insist that

failed execution would necessarily indicate a flawed conception.

In his insistence that the Verein’s (still hypothetical) failure would bespeak

intellectual shortcomings on the part of its members, Gans links the two related

problematics with which I am chiefly concerned: the relation of theory and real-

ity and the project of refashioning Jewish subjectivity so as to harmonize with a

“scientifically” comprehended structure of ethical totality. Should reality belie,

not fulfill, the Verein’s theoretical vision, Gans reasons that the failure must be

attributed to personal flaws, and in a sense to the flaw of personality (or bad

subjectivity) itself. These links become clearer in the remarks with which Gans

closes this speech:

No cause, I’ve often said in this assembly, requires more true enthusiasm than

ours: whoever allows personality to prevail here, or places personal aims over

ours, acts not only traitorously vis-à-vis our cause but also nonsensically and

inconsistently; for since joining with us precisely demonstrates [beweist]

that each personality has been relinquished and removed [aufgegeben und

beseitigt], he must be called shallow and empty who, having the great wide

world beyond us at his disposal for his ego, intrudes into our circle in order

to install it here [um es hier gelten(d) zu machen].... We do not need forces

but rather one living force, and this has never been made up of the mere ag-

gregate of individuals.^60

Gans defines the Verein’s success as contingent on the suspension of personal-

ity. His call to leave personality at the door and to devote oneself to the Verein’s

cause echoes Hegel’s theorization of how civil servants overcome their subjec-