Johann Gottfried Herder on World History: An Anthology

An Anthology

Michael Palma, Johann Gottfried Herder, Hans Adler, Ernest A. Menze, Michael Palma, Ernest A. Menze

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317466819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was an influential German critic and philosopher, whose ideas included "cultural nationalism" - that every nation has its own personality and pattern of growth. This anthology contains excerpts from Herder's writings on world history and related topics.

Part I

Principles of History—
Principles of Historiography

1

Early Leaves of Critical Groves

In this short text from 1767, Herder addresses the crucial question of the relationship between historiography and philosophy of history. As he frequently does, he begins his general reflections with a discussion of an individual “instance.” The following text documents Herder’s earliest discussion of the approach to art history of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68) and of Winckelmann’s groundbreaking work entitled History of Ancient Art (Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764). The “Early Leaves” constitute a part of Herder’s larger project entitled Critical Groves, three parts of which appeared in 1769; the fourth was published posthumously in 1843.

Portions of Herder’s “Early Leaves” were published for the first time in 1963 by Hans Dietrich Irmscher.* The first complete annotated edition, prepared by Regine Otto, appeared in 1990.**

The plan according to which Mr. Winckelmann¹ intended to carry out his outstanding history of art, by his own account, is the following—and I concede that in the more recent literature an undertaking such as this has rarely been carried out in so grand a manner: “The History of Ancient Art which I have undertaken to write is not a mere chronicle of epochs, and of the changes which occurred within them. I use the term History in the more extended signification which it has in the Greek language; and it is my intention to attempt to present a system.”²

I will leave it to certain philologists of my nation to gather together the various instances of the meanings of the word from a number of indices and dictionaries. In short, history in its Greek origin may mean “inspection, knowledge, science,” and such is, after all, also a real story of things past.

But a system? Did the Greeks endeavor to erect such an edifice out of the pages of history? Is it possible to erect something like this, while allowing the work always to remain history?—For my purposes it amounts to the same thing whether history is a story of complicated events, or of simple makings, of data or of facts. Even the history of the thought, the higher learning, the art of a people, and of many peoples, remains, as simple as the subject matter may be, always a history of events, actions, transformations. Thus, if one historiographer is able to provide a system, each of them must be able to do so in his own fashion.

And why should he not be able to provide it? Each event, each fact in the world in its way is a whole, a whole that may be presented for the purposes of instruction; therefore, what is such a clear presentation, such a complete description of it for the instruction of others, if not a historical system? Each event, each fact in the world has its reasons to be and its causes that somehow brought it into being; as a being it also has consequences and a description of all this is, what else, then, but a historical system? Each event, finally, is nothing but a link in a chain, it is woven into connection with other events by means of attraction and repulsion,³ it is effective in the interplay of things in the world. Is not a plan describing this connectedness, this universal system of effects a historical system? Is not a writer of history of such dimensions a philosopher, a pragmatic systematizer?⁴

More than likely! And among all philosophers, master craftsmen of didactic systems, and systematizers, such a universal philosopher—should he exist—would be for me the first and the greatest. But his very greatness means that I cannot touch his face; therefore, I cast my eyes downward and prefer to reflect.

If history were, in its simplest sense, nothing but the description of an event, of a process, the first mandate would be that the description be complete, that it exhaust the matter, that it show us the event from all sides. Even the annalist,⁵ the writer of memoirs,⁶ is bound to this completeness, and thus is obliged in a work standing by itself to create a “system.” This is indeed so in a work standing by itself. Here a merely one-dimensional point of view is flawed, a one-sided portrayal of the same to be rejected. His historical datum should be for him an edifice to be inspected from all sides, and to be drawn from every vantage point. But I would like to see the writer of history who would be able to attain perfection even in this one instance. It is as impossible to represent on a level surface an entire body in the round that has been perceived without projection from one vantage point, as it is for the annalist and writer of memoirs to create out of his subject matter, and be it the most important, and be his discussion of detail nothing less than abundant, a historical system. There is always, even in the singular instance, even in the matter of mere external appearance, only the attempt at a system, and that is sufficient, indeed!

Sufficient for us human beings who perceive in one dimension, but not sufficient for his many-sided subject matter, and how much less yet for the inner nature of the same, for the causes of its genesis, for the state of its being! Here historical perception ceases and prophecy begins. Since I can never see cause as cause, effect as effect, but always must infer, conjecture, guess; since in this art of inference I have nothing for my witness but the similarity of cases, and since therefore my acuteness,⁷ or my wit⁸ in finding this similarity of one to another, this consequence of one through the other, is my only guarantor of the truth; since this guarantor, however, can be nothing but my acuteness, my wit, and since it therefore can be only a dubious witness, and a prophet of truth perhaps only for me, and a few of my brethren, it may be concluded that the writer of history and the philosopher of history cannot stand completely on the same ground. Place two spectators with telescopes of equal strength on the same spot and they will pretty much see the same; however, when it comes to passing judgment on what they have seen, to inferring, to conjecturing, they will no longer agree so fully. One seeks the causes of the event who knows where, and who knows how different in appearance, and just there and just as different in appearance does he indeed find them. This one and that one, each according to the position of his head, according to the house rules of his intellect and wit. And finally, there is the impact of the causation found, the more and less of difference in the impact—no human being can see this; each one must infer, conjecture, guess. Therefore, it is not the actual writer of history, it is not the eyewitness to the event who provides the causes, who judges why and to what extent something has come to be from them. Rather, it is no one else but the one who reflects on history, who seeks reasons, more or less true, more or less certain, more or less probable, who measures the tie between cause and effect, and who follows it.

Therefore, the writer of history should not be a systematizer or—why so contemptuously—a philosopher of history? Not so quick, my reader, we haven’t come that far. I do not want to be a historical doubter, and I leave to our new Historical Society⁹ the important examination of the questions, “to what extent is the sensus communis of judgment in things historical still the same in people of different estates and ways of living, or, more importantly, of varying composition of spiritual powers, or, most importantly yet, of differing degrees of education and its variables? How far may the humor of one’s mind go to find in history, too, one’s favorite views and one’s favorite causes? How much may my humor contribute to the fact that I find in what I sought that, which I wanted to find, and find it more really the more often I try? How far may one persuade oneself to confuse experience and judgment, to believe as if one saw, and to subtilize opinion into experience? How much may the peculiarity of our thinking tie us to one or the other view, and how much may a certain historical disposition of our historical soul allow us to turn our thinking into the most appropriate, subsequently into the necessary, and ultimately into the one and only? From here must follow, with psychological dimensions, the determination of historical certainty, and of probability! From here must follow (and, strictly speaking, this last from here is for me) the difference between history and judgment: history and system. History must be believed; however, that which in it is intended to be seen as system, must be examined.”

However, what in reference to a history may be considered a system is not merely the connection between one cause and effect, or secondly, of each individual cause and effect; rather, thirdly at last, it is the entire coordination of many events in terms of a plan, with a purpose, that constitutes a system. How is this so? Would it be possible, in terms of our theory of history, for a historicus par excellence to exist without this plan, without this coordinating of events that gives them a purpose? The mere raconteur is an annalist, a scribbler of memoirs and newspapers; the one who reasons about individual tales is a historical raisonneur; but the one who coordinates many events in terms of a plan, who gives them a purpose, he is, according to our art of history, the real historical artist, the painter of a grand portrait of the most fitting composition, he is the historical genius, the true creator of a history! And if that is so, history and system are one!

Very well! creator, genius, painter, and artist of history; but my simple mind, taught by Socrates to take time in arriving at a concept, is still so far behind that it is once more reminded of the original question: To what extent is the historical creator, who thought of a world of events, who wove together the connections and created, in accordance with this plan, a history, to what extent is he still a writer of history? It is readily apparent that I, once more, am back at the capital A.¹⁰

And since my memory is not sufficient to recall all the rules of historiography from Lucian to Abbt, and Gatterer,¹¹ and since, at any rate, examples of history preceded rules of history, how valuable would it be if I were to digress to a few of the oldest e...