Dear Marion,

There is, I believe, an unrecognized imbalance
in the development of the human mind (spirit, Geist)
in consequence of which early in life
language has a far more powerful effect on our behavior
than does judgment and experience.
For better or worse we learn to speak and to hear,
and therefore to rationalize about matters
long before life has given us the opportunity
to experience them, to become familiar with them,
to understand the consequences which our words entail.

I have vivid memories
that as a medical student and as
an inexperienced physician
I asked myself why
all (medical, scientific) knowledge
should not be reduced to language.
Such a process would place the highest premium
on textbooks and encyclopedias.
It would make the acquisition of knowledge and skills
independent of apprenticeship
and of social subordination in general.
The naive postulate holds that knowledge is acquired from books.
and that such book knowledge is power.

Later, ruminating on epistemology,
I stumbled on an ambiguity about knowledge
which is reflected in the phrase:
"knowing that,"
i.e. being able to articulate a "fact",
as distinct from the phrase:
"knowing how",
i.e. being able to act to a specific purpose,
knowing how in consequence both of unconscious ability
and of the explicit application of "factual" knowledge.
I learned to speak, to "think",  to "reason",
long before I gained the experience that would interpret for me
what speech, reason or thought in any specific instance entailed.

I adduce these considerations to interpret
Buechner's intellectual and emotional
development in his short life.
Buechner became a revolutionary from the word
"revolution" and from associated concepts
before he had learned what revolution entailed.
Dantons Tod is the documentation
of that process of learning.

Buechner was a mere twenty years old when 
he launched his conspiratorial activities.
He had grown up in a family
that admired the French Revolution.
and he had come to venerate it.
It was unavoidable that there should have been a gap
between the message  (die Botschaft) of the revolution
and the reality with which he would experience its meaning
and its consequences.
This gap is the occasion of the composition of Dantons Tod.

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Am October 17, 1813 wurde Georg Buechner geboren
zog im Herbst 1831 im Alter von 18 Jahren
zum Studium der Medizin nach Strassburg
und zog October 31, 1833 im Alter von 20 Jahren,
nach Giessen wo er sein medizinisches Studium fortsetzte.
In Giessen betaetigte er sich an einer revolutionaeren Verschwoerung.
Den Winter 1834-1835 verbrachte er in Darmstadt
Am 21. Februar 1835 sandte er die Handschrift
von Dantons Tod an Gutzkow.
Mit dem Ertrag der Veroeffentlichung hoffte er die Kosten
seiner Flucht zu bestreiten.
Am 9. Maerz 1835 floh er
mit Geld dass ihm die Mutter geliehen hatte
nach Strassburg.
Auf Grund seiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten in Strassburg
wurde ihm von der Universitaet Zuerich die Doktorwuerde verliehen.
Am 18. Oktober 1836 zog er nach Zuerich.
Dort erkrankte er Ende Januar 1837 am Typhus,
und starb drei Wochen spaeter,
am 19. Februar 1837s.