An Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe

Appendix 1

603 appendix 1 A Brief Publication History of the Introduction and Its Descendants Like several of his other works, including The Present State of Germany (1667), On the Law of Nature and of Nations (1672), and On the Duty of Man and Citizen (1673), Pufendorf’s Introduction to the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe (1682) began a publishing tradition that continued long after his death, well into the second half of the eighteenth century. Its final editions during that period appear to be those, in English and German, of 1782 and 1783. Yet even those dates may not reflect the end of the work’s pedagogical influence, even at Königsberg , where the new, metaphysical enlightenment of Kant was about to eclipse the civic enlightenment of Pufendorf and Thomasius. For instance, Riccardo Pozzo has shown on the basis of recently discovered course announcements that in the 1790s the University of Königsberg curriculum still contained courses, in both History and Law faculties, on “the history of European empires and states,” on “modern history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” and on “the history of the German Empire and of the individual states thereof.” Given the 1. On the dissemination of Pufendorf’s main natural law works in Europe through the French translations of Jean Barbeyrac, see Othmer (1970). 2. Hunter (2001) and Hochstrasser (2000). 3. Pozzo (2000), 121–24. Lectures on the history and current condition of the main “European states,” based on pedagogical compendia with similar names, were offered frequently throughout the eighteenth century at many other universities, particularly at Göttingen. The latter was known for its historical studies and the new discipline of Statistik which—through Achenwall, Gebauer, Schlözer, Spittler, and others—“built on” and “continued” the “intellectual legacy of Pufendorf” and 604 appendix 1 work’s prominence during the preceding century, it is reasonable to assume that Pufendorf’s Introduction continued to feature prominently in courses with such titles. Furthermore, Kant’s own Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1797), which was based on some thirty years of teaching that subject, still contains philosophized remnants of the end-of-chapter analyses in Pufendorf’s Introduction, particularly in the section on “the Character of Nations,” where Kant generalizes about different European peoples, including the French, English, Spanish, Italians, Germans, and Russians. Pufendorf’s Introduction originated in his lectures at the University of Lund—that is, before 1676, when the Carolina was forced to close because of the Danish occupation—and perhaps even earlier at Heidelberg . It seems he had no plans to publish this material, at least in such a form. However, in 1680 an unauthorized Swedish version by Petrus Brask appeared in Stockholm, based on one or more of the student transcripts that had been circulating. So to gain control over the work, Pufendorf was forced to revise and publish it on his own. It appeared in 1682 while he was royal Swedish historiographer and deeply immersed in preparing his history of Gustavus Adolphus. The first official edition of the work contained, as Chapter 12, Pufendorf’s essay on the papacy, which had been separately published several years earlier, also in German, under the Latin pseudonym Basileus Hypereta. others. See Valera (1986), pp. 129 and 135, and Jarausch (1986), especially pp. 37–42; Vierhaus (1987), Behnen (1987), Pasquino (1986), Van der Zande (2010), and Koskenniemi (2007, 2010); also the Editor’s Introduction above, p. xvi, note 27, and p. xxiv, note 57. 4. Kant, Anthropology, Part II.C, trans. Gregor (1974), 174–82. Of course, it was this historical-political tradition that Kant ultimately rejected, as reflected in his dismissive “sorry comforters” remark in Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), sect. 2, art. 2. See Devetak (2007) and Koskenniemi (2009). 5. Döring (1996a), p. 21, note 54. 6. Malmström (1899), p. 41; Niceron (1732), col. 249. 7. Martinière, “Éloge historique,” in Pufendorf (1753), p. xv; Malmström (1899), p. 42. On Petrus Brask, see Svenskt Biografiskt Handlexikon (1906), vol. 1, p. 133. 8. Pufendorf (1686). 9. Siebenkäs (1790), p. 51, identifies the Hamburg imprint of 1679 as the first edition. According to Niceron (1732), col. 248, the work was incorporated into the Introduction “with some changes.” He notes as well that a few years later a similar brief publication history 605 However, it did not yet include the short history of...