The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present

III. The Theoretical Foundations of German Historicism I: Wilhelm von Humboldt

[ C H A P T E R i n ] The Theoretical Foundations of German Historicism I: Wilhelm vonHumboldt WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT'S personality was unique and manysided ,1 so that his intellectual development was not typical of changes taking place in the German intellectual climate of his time. But there are certainly aspects of Humboldt's life and thought which are highly indicative of these transformations. An aristocrat, cosmopolitan in outlook, a friend of Goethe and especially of Schiller with whom he exchanged over a thousand letters,2 Humboldt on the eve of the invasion of Germany by revolutionary France shared fully in the Humanitdtsideal. An active statesman in the Prussian reform administrations of Stein and Hardenberg after 1809, Humboldt participated in the new liberalism, which in the struggle against Napoleon affirmed national values against the principles of 1789. He no longer viewed the German nation as primarily a cultural community, but as one of political power.3 Throughout Humboldt's life there is a thread of continuity with the cosmopolitan, humanistic orientation of his younger years, as well as a clear shift of emphasis toward the new national values. Humboldt's first political writings were stimulated by the French Revolution. He had visited Paris during the crucial months of 17894 and had assessed the developments in France more soberly than many other Germans. They, like his friend Friedrich Gentz, had first welcomed the upheaval with almost unbounded enthusiasm, only to turn as strongly against it. On the surface, his Ideas on an Attempt 44 1. W THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS.' VON HUMBOLDT 45 to Define the Limits of the State's Sphere of Action of 1791, often considered the classic work on German Liberalism, proposes a state very similar to that of orthodox liberalism since Locke. The state is not an end in itself, but "a subordinated means, to which the true end, man, must not be sacrificed."5 Its purpose is the protection of the fullest freedom of all individuals; its functions are to be reduced to the absolute minimum needed to protect the rights of the individual against violation from within and to guarantee his security against threats from without.6 Rejecting the totalitarian argument that the state must further the happiness of its citizens, Humboldt denies the state all positive functions, including a role in education, religion, or the improvement of morals.7 These and other functions might be required in society, he admits, but they should be the work of free, voluntary associations, not of the state. The state must not be identified with civil society (Nationalverein), Humboldt warns. The state is marked by coercion and the concentration of power; civil society, on the other hand, consists of a pluralism of groups, freely chosen by the individuals and subject to change.8 Not the state, but the voluntary institutions of a free society preserve and foster cultural values, according to Humboldt. The line dividing state and civil society therefore needs to be a clear one, with the state forbidden from interference in the private lives of its citizens. This assumes a state, governed by standing laws which guarantee the rights of the private individual against official interference. But the theoretical foundations upon which Humboldt bases his concept of the state were very different from those of classical liberalism . The latter had sought a theoretical justification for individual liberties in a doctrine of natural law. It saw the sources of man's humanity in his ability to think and thus to grasp the rational structure of the universe and of ethics. Classical liberalism viewed rights in terms of abstract, universal principles. It saw those characteristics as essentially human which were universal and uniform amongmen. But for Humboldt, as for Goethe, Schiller, or Herder, who also shared in the Humanitatsideal of German classicism, it was essential to man's humanity that he develop his own unique individualityto its fullest. They shared the Enlightenment belief that man possessed a special dignity, but this dignity, they held, had to be understood in dynamic terms of individual growth. However, while they recognized that man's dignity and end were prescribed by the nature of things or 46 THE GERMAN CONCEPTION OF HISTORY reason, they did not think that reason dictated clear rules for this development. Rather, man's growth had to be governed by the inner nature of his peculiar individuality. Freedom from state interference was necessary because "man's...