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Johann Gottfried von Herder's Materials for the Philosophy of the History
of Mankind laid the intellectual foundations for the
claims of romantic philosophy that the nation
was all. Although his theories were soon
picked up by German political activists,
he was inspired to consider these issues
because, as a resident of a German city in
Latvia (many cities of Eastern Europe were
German speaking, even as the local rural
population spoke a Slavic or Baltic language),
he reflected on the value of local Lettish
culture, and the problems of its suppression
by international cosmopolitan culture.
"Nature has sketched with mountain ranges
which she fashioned and with streams which
she caused to flow from them the rough but
substantial outline of the whole history
of man . One height produced nations of hunters,
thus supporting and rendering necessary a
savage state; another, more extended and
mild, afforded a field to shepherd peoples
and supplied them with tame animals; a third
made agriculture easy and needful; while
a fourth led to fishing and navigation and
at length to trade. The structure of the
earth, in its natural variety and diversity,
rendered all such distinguishing conditions
inescapable . . Seas, mountain ranges and
rivers are the most natural boundaries not
only of lands but also of peoples, customs,
languages and empires, and they have been,
even in the greatest revolutions in human
affairs, the directing lines or limits of
world history. If otherwise mountains had
arisen, rivers flowed, or coasts trended,
then how very different would mankind have
scattered over this tilting place of nations....
Nature brings forth families; the most natural
state therefore is also one people, with
a national character of its own. For thousands
of years this character preserves itself
within the people and, if the native princes
concern themselves with it, it can be cultivated
in the most natural way: for a people is
as much a plant of nature as is a family,
except that it has more branches. Nothing
therefore seems more contradictory to the
true end of governments than the endless
expansion of states, the wild confusion of
races and nations under one scepter. An empire
made up of a hundred peoples and a 120 provinces
which have been forced together is a monstrosity,
not a state-body.
What is the supreme law which we note in
all great historical events? In my opinion,
it is this: that, in every part of our earth,
all possible development is determined in
part by the position and the necessities
of the locality, in part by circumstances
and the opportunities of the age, and in
part by the inborn and self-nourishing character
of the peoples.... All events in the human
sphere, like all productions of nature, are
decreed solely by time, locality, and national
character, in short by the coordination of
all the forces of life in their most positive
individuality.
Active human powers are the springs of human
history, and, as man originates from and
in one race, so his body, education, and
mode of thinking are genetic. Hence that
striking national character, which, deeply
imprinted on the most ancient peoples, is
unequivocally displayed in all their operations
on the earth. As the mineral water derives
its component parts, its operative power,
and its flavor from the soil through which
it flows, so the ancient character of peoples
arose from the family features, the climate,
the way of life and education, the early
actions and employments, that were peculiar
to them. The manners of the fathers took
deep root and became the internal prototype
of the descendants. The mode of thinking
of the Jews, which is best known to us from
their writings and actions, may serve as
an example: both in the land of their fathers
and in the midst of other nations they remain
as they were, and even when mixed with other
peoples they may be distinguished for some
generations onward. It was and is the same
with all other peoples of antiquity---Egyptians,
Chinese, Arabs, Hindus, etc. The more secluded
they lived, nay frequently the more they
were oppressed, the more their character
was confirmed, so that, if every one of these
nations had remained in its place, the earth
might have been regarded as a garden where
in one plot one human national plant, in
another, another, bloomed in its proper form
and nature, where in this corner one kind
of national animal, in that, another, pursued
its course according to its instincts and
character....
Has a people anything dearer than the speech
of its fathers? In its speech resides its
whole thought-domain, its tradition, history,
religion, and basis of life, all its heart
and soul. To deprive a people of its speech
is to deprive it of its one eternal good....
As God tolerates all the different languages
in the world, so also should a ruler not
only tolerate but honor the various languages
of his peoples.... The best culture of a
people cannot be expressed through a foreign
language; it thrives on the soil of a nation
most beautifully, and, I may say, it thrives
only by means of the nation's inherited and
inheritable dialect. With language is created
the heart of a people; and is it not a high
concern, amongst so many peoples---Hungarians,
Slavs, Rumanians, etc.---to plant seeds of
well-being for the far future and in the
way that is dearest and most appropriate
to them? . . .
The savage who loves himself, his wife, and
his child with quiet joy and glows with limited
activity for his tribe as for his own life
is, it seems to me, a more genuine being
than that cultured shade who is enchanted
by the shadow of his whole species.... In
his poor hut, the former finds room for every
stranger, receives him as a brother with
impartial good humor and never asks whence
he came. The inundated heart of the idle
cosmopolitan is a home for no one....
No greater injury can be inflicted on a nation
than to be robbed of her national character,
the peculiarity of her spirit and her language.
Reflect on this and you will perceive our
irreparable loss. Look about you in Germany
for the character of the nation, for their
own particular cast of thought, for their
own peculiar vein of speech; where are they?
Read Tacitus; there you will find their character:
"The tribes of Germany, who never degrade
themselves by mingling with others, form
a peculiar, unadulterated, original nation,
which is its own archetype. Even their physical
development is universally uniform, despite
the large numbers of the people," and
so forth. Now look about you and say: "The
tribes of Germany have been degraded by mingling
with others; they have sacrificed their natural
disposition in protracted intellectual servitude;
and, since they have, in contrast to others,
imitated a tyrannical prototype for a long
time, they are, among all the nations of
Europe, the least true to themselves.''.
. .
If Germany were only guided by the forces
of the age, by the leading strings of her
own culture, our intellectual disposition
would doubtless be poor and restricted; but
it would be true to our own soil, fashioned
upon its own model, and not so misshapen
and cast down....".
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