

FROM ACCESSION GM 1 FREDERICK WILLIAM IV. TO 1848. 249 



and freedom from prejudice, magnanimity and forbearance ; in 

 other words, practising to forgive and to forget. It was, in 

 fact, the 'natural rights,' those general 'ideas of 1789,' which 

 the aged contemporary of the First Eevolution, with its theo- 

 retical ideas, was anxious to see brought into practice by the 

 king, in whose highly gifted soul, he was convinced, they could 

 not but awaken sympathy. / 



Foremost among these were two liberal questions which Htun- 

 boldt sought with peculiar energy to see accomplished during 

 the reign of Frederick William IV. the emancipation of tile; 

 Jews and the abolition of slavery. In the case of the latter 

 he could only exert a restricted influence, owing to the sub- 

 ordinate position occupied by Prussia among the European 

 Powers ; the solution of the Jewish question, on the contrary, 

 was one of the special difficulties presented at this period to the 

 consideration of the Prussian monarchy. From Humboldt's 

 letter of January 2, 1842, we have seen that the emancipation 

 of the Jews was viewed by him as a ' vital ' question ; and as in 

 the distribution of outward honours and distinctions he felt 

 the necessity of complete religious equality, how much more 

 would he feel it requisite in regard to all rights of citizenship ! 

 During the year 1842, many opportunities presented themselves 

 of giving powerful expression to his views upon this subject. 

 He expressed himself at court ' in terms of great severity ' l 

 upon the ' detestable enactment against the Jews,' with which 

 the country was threatened, and which contained regulations 

 of the narrowest bigotry : the law ' was at variance with every 

 principle of political policy tending towards national union, it 

 consisted of a presumptuous interpretation on the part of weak 

 humanity of the inscrutable decrees of Grod ' the rough draft 

 of the law commenced with the supposition that it would be a 

 fulfilment of the Divine will to maintain the separation of the 

 Jewish people 'the history of the dark ages shows to what 

 extremes such interpretations may be carried.' Upon this sub- 

 ject he manifested equal tact in addressing the king in his own 

 fantastical style. In a similar strain he wrote to the minister, 

 Count Stolberg, that he was firmly convinced that the intended 

 innovations would be in the highest degree irritating, as liable 



1 ' Briefe an Varnhagen/ No. 63. 



