In the way in which nature united individuals into nations and sorted mankind into nations, there lay contained a deep and mysterious means by which the individual, who is nothing by himself, and the race (Geschlecht), which has meaning only in individuals, kept on the true road of the proportionate and gradual development of their energies.44
Germany was not merely a spiritual unit, Humboldt now urged; as he and Goethe had once believed, Germany required no political bonds, but rested upon a community of “manners and customs, language and literature.” What made Germany a whole was the “memory of rights and liberties enjoyed in common, of glory won in battle and dangers faced together, the memory of close bonds which linked the fathers and which are now alive only in the nostalgic longings of the grandchildren.”45 This unity required political expression. Fearful of overly great centralization, Humboldt saw a confederation as the solution of the problem of national unification most in harmony with German’s history and character, although a confederation dominated by Prussia and Austria. However, this German state needed to be strong against the outside, not merely to provide protection in an unstable world, but also because political power was a prerequisite for the cultural development of Germany.
Germany must be free and strong, not only to be able to defend herself against this or that neighbor, or for that matter, against any enemy, but because only a nation which is also strong toward the outside can preserve the spirit within from which all domestic blessings flow. Germany must be free and strong, even if she is never put to a test, so that she may possess the self-assurance required for her to pursue her development as a nation unhampered and that she may be able to maintain permanently the position which she occupies in the midst of the European nations, a position which is so beneficial to these nations.46
Power, largely conceived in military terms, now appeared to Humboldt as a positive good. This was not inconsonant with his earlier observations on the positive effects of war upon character. As he wrote in 1817, in a recommendation on the army budget:
The usefulness of a strong army ready for battle begins long before the day war is declared. Throughout periods of peace such an army assures internal security, strengthens the influence of the state in all its dealings with foreign powers, and exercises an influence on the character of the nation.47
This emphasis upon the dependence of the individual on the nation finds its most extreme expressions in passages in his correspondence during the war years. Because of their casual character, perhaps they need to be received with some caution. Thus, he writes his wife:
Believe me. There are only two good and benevolent forces (Potenzen) in this world, God and the nation (Volk). Everything in between is useless and we are of use only to the degree that we are close to the nation (Volk).
Again he states:
All national energy, life and spontaneity rests in the nation (Volk). One can accomplish nothing without the nation and needs it constantly. Man is nothing but by virtue of the power of the whole and only as long as he strives to be in accord with it.48
This concept of the nation or people as an individual with an individual character led him to propose a harsh treatment of France at the Congress of Vienna. He based his demands not only on the political interests of Prussia or of Germany, but on his condemnation of the French national character, the absence of a “striving for the divine which the French lack not only as a nation but virtually without exception also as individuals.”49
From this new emphasis upon historic and collective forces, the draft recommendation Humboldt prepared for a Prussian Constitution50 is interesting, for it indicates a new type of liberalism which no longer recognized the individual as the basic unit in politics and as the purpose for which the state exists. The draft did guarantee the basic rights of the individual to be secure in his person and in his property, due process of law, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press. It also provided for representation. The draft conceived the constitution not merely as serving the “objective” purpose of the state and providing more efficient government, but also as fulfilling the “subjective” needs of the citizens. Through political participation, they would grow morally and spiritually. Society was no longer seen as a composite of individuals, but as an organic whole of corporations representing social functions. The corporations, it is true, were adapted to the demands of modern Prussian life and primarily were viewed as organs of political representation.
Humboldt wished to maintain the economic freedom established by the reform edicts. The political role of the nobility was to be preserved only to the extent that the nobles still fulfilled an actual function. Humboldt idealized corporate institutions far less than Stein. Extensive administrative functions were to be transferred from the central government to the communities and the provinces in order to stimulate local participation in public affairs. The proposed estates general for the monarchy were to have powers similar to those possessed by the parliaments created by the French Charter or by the Southwestern German constitutions granted in the 1820’s, and they were to resemble these parliaments in their organization. But the language of this document, which certainly envisaged a much higher degree of popular participation than did these other constitutional documents, was much further removed than they were from the principles of 1789. The author of the Limits of the State now saw the individual acquire his rights of citizenship, no longer by virtue of being an individual, but only on the basis of meeting the qualifications for acceptance into a corporation.51
4.
There is little radically new in the three important essays which Humboldt wrote on the nature of history after 1814. His views of history, in terms of growth and life, his stress that the act of understanding requires the total personality and not merely the rational faculties of the observer, and his belief in the uniqueness of the individual, were all present. However, the emphasis had changed. The residues of belief in a common human nature and in common human rights derived from reason (basic elements of the theoretical foundations of the political liberalism of Humboldt’s Limits of the State), now had receded almost completely in the background. His theoretical rejection of rational ethics and of objective criteria of knowledge was now almost absolute. History remains the only source of knowledge about man, but since man is irrational and history the scene of his actions, history must be approached by a method which takes into account this irrationality.
Three aspects of Humboldt’s essays of this period are of particular interest: (a) the extent to which he pursues the irrational forces of life and history; (b) his theory of ideas52 by which he seeks to find a metaphysical foundation for his doctrine of individuality and discover meaning and a common basis of existence in a pluralistic world; (c) his theory of understanding or Verstehen53 through which he attempts to do justice to the irrational nature of history, as well as of man.
The first aspect, the irrational character of history, forms the topic of Humboldt’s “Reflections on World History,”54 a bitter critique of the idea of progress and all attempts at systematic philosophies of history, including those of Kant. It is folly to seek meaningful direction in history, Humboldt argues. Attempts to do so only do violence to the events of history by forcing them into schemes and robbing them of their individuality. They treat mankind too intellectually, cutting the close relation of man’s history