in Germany, though universal for men is by no means equal, but
founded on property qualifications. In Prussia, e. g., a three class
system of voting is in force which is best illustrated by the following
figures: In 1898 there were 6,447,253 voters; 3.26 per cent belonged to
the first class, 11.51 per cent to the second class, and 85.35 per cent
to the third class. But the 947,218 voters of the first and second
classes had twice as many votes as the five and a half millions of the
third class.

[45] Author's note.

Lassalle's "System of Acquired Rights" argues in its second part mainly
the proposition that the Roman testament is as old as Rome itself, and
that there has never been in Roman history "a time without a testament."
According to him, the testament had its origin in pre-Roman times in the
cult of the departed. Lassalle, as a convinced Hegelian of the old
school, derives the provisions of the Roman law, not from the social
condition of the Romans, but from the "speculative conception" of will,
and thus arrives at this totally anti-historic conclusion. This is not
to be wondered at in a book that draws from the same speculative
conception the conclusion that the transfer of property was purely a
side issue in Roman inheritance. Lassalle not only believed in the
illusions of Roman jurists, especially of the earlier ones, but he
outstripped their fancy.

[46] Author's note.

I first intended to place the brilliant critique of civilization,
scattered through the works of Fourier, by the side of Morgan's and of
my own. Unluckily I cannot spare the time. I only wish to remark that
Fourier already considers monogamy and private property in land the main
characteristics of civilization, and that he calls them a war of the
rich against the poor. We also find with him the deep perception that
the individual families (les families incoherentes) are the economic
units of all faulty societies divided by opposing interests.

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Property and the State, by Frederick Engels

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