Table Of ContentEnlightenment, Revolution,
and Romanticism
ENLIGHTENMENT,
REVOLUTION, and
ROMANTICISM
The Genesis of Modern
German Political Thought,
1790—1800
Frederick C. Beiser
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copyright © 1992 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
This book has been digitally reprinted. The content remains
identical to that of previous printings.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beiser, Frederick C., 1949-
Enlightenment, revolution, and romanticism : the genesis of modern
German political thought, 1790-1800 / Frederick C. Beiser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-25717-8
ι. Germany—Politics and government—1740—1806. 2. Liberalism—
Germany. 3. Romanticism—Germany. 4. Conservatism—Germany.
5. Philosophy, German—18th century. I. Title.
DD419.B45 1992
32θ·5'θ943—dc2o
91—40026
CIP
For H.
PREFACE
If we wish to study the origins of modern German political thought, the
1790s deserve our closest attention. The reaction to the French Revolution,
which took place during this decade, led to the formation of three antithetical
political traditions in Germany: liberalism, conservatism, and romanticism.
Each of these traditions has played a central role in the development of
modern German political thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The task of this book is to determine the genesis and context of these
traditions and to provide an analysis of their fundamental political ideals. It
gives a survey of the major political thinkers and movements of the 1790s.
Each chapter considers one or more of the central figures of this decade, the
genesis of their political theory, their reaction to the French Revolution, and
the importance of politics for their thought in general.
By concentrating on a single formative decade, I hope to give a more
thorough account of these political traditions than has been possible with
broader surveys. The study of any important historical period requires what
Fritz Valjavec has called "Mut zum Detail." Only by focusing in depth on
individual thinkers can we escape superficial generalizations and clichés.
A new study of the 1790s requires, I hope, little apology. There has not
been any thorough study of this decade in English. The only major study of
German political theory after the French Revolution is Reinhold Aris's His-
tory of Political Thought in Germany, 1789—1815 (London, 1936), but this
work is marred by prejudices, is very superficial philosophically, and is out
of date. Klaus Epstein's Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton,
1966), while crucial for an understanding of this period, covers only some
of the more important conservative thinkers. G. P. Gooch's Germany and
the French Revolution (London, 1920), although a useful survey of the
various reactions to the French Revolution, provides only a superficial
account of the political theories. George Kelly's brilliant study of the origins
of Hegelianism, Idealism, Politics, and History (Cambridge, 1969), has a
much too narrow approach to its subject, focusing on a few major
philosophers. He sees only the cloud-covered peaks, ignoring the whole
vii
vtii • Preface
topography of the land below. As a result, Kelly drastically exaggerates the
significance of Rousseau at the expense of the more influential Montesquieu.
This book counters two current opinions. The first is the still prevalent
view that German thought throughout the eighteenth century, and even
during the French Revolution, was apolitical. This view, first expounded by
Madame de Staël in her De l'Allemagne (1806), has gained wide acceptance
since its propagation by Heine, Marx, and Engels. Against this view I have
attempted to show the political purpose of most German philosophy in the
1790s. Although I have focused upon the 1790s, a decade when the influence
of politics is most conspicuous, I have not limited myself to that period.
Whenever possible I have also examined a philosopher's intellectual develop-
ment in the preceding decades. Even then, I argue, we find that German
philosophy was politically motivated. Hence its political dimension cannot
be limited to the revolutionary decade alone.
The second opinion is the belief common among analytic philosophers
that the essential interest and value of the German philosophical tradition
lies in its arguments, the chains of reasoning that can be reconstructed from
a close reading of a few selected texts. This narrowly analytical approach to
the history of philosophy, if pushed to extremes and regarded as the only
worthy one, ultimately emasculates its subject. The history of philosophy is
much more than a set of arguments. It also consists of moral, political, and
religious values, ends, and ideals. We can understand the history of
philosophy only if we consider the purpose of argument, the values, ends,
and ideals that lead a philosopher to construct an argument in the first place.
Both of these opinions have blinded us to the underlying political values
and ideals of German thought in the late eighteenth century. The central
thesis of this work is that German philosophy in this period—whether it
concerns epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, or aesthetics—was dominated
and motivated by political ends. Here I use the word "political" in its
normal sense of anything concerned with the government of human beings.
The subject matter of this book is not, therefore, German political
thought in any narrow sense. My proper subject is German philosophy in
general in the 1790s. Since German philosophy in the 1790s is so profoundly
politicized, however, any study of it inevitably becomes a study of German
political thought.
This book continues my study of German philosophy in the 1780s, The
Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, 1987). These two books together are meant to survey German
philosophy in its most formative modern period, from the publication of
Kritik der reinen Vernunft in 1781 to the dawn of the nineteenth century.
In working on this book I have incurred many debts of gratitude, both
to individuals and to institutions. I am especially grateful to the following
Preface · ix
people for their encouragement or reading of earlier drafts: Christiane
Goldmann, Paul Guyer, Henry Harris, Michael Morgan, Susan Neimann,
Fania Oz-Salzberger, James Schmidt, Harriet Strachan, Michael Theunissen,
and Kenneth Westphal. I am also grateful for the generous assistance pro-
vided by the staffs of several libraries: the British Library, London; the Uni-
versity Library of the Free University of Berlin; the University Library of the
University of Göttingen; and the Prussian State Library, Berlin. The book
was written from 1988 to 1990 in Berlin and London; the final draft was
prepared in the spring of 1991 in Bloomington, Indiana. My first two years
of research were generously supported by the Alexander von Humboldt
Stiftung, Bonn.
