Wir leben immer in einer Welt, die wir uns selbst bilden.
We live in a world we ourselves create.
Übers Erkennen und Empfinden in der menschlichen Seele (1774); cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.)Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877-1913) vol. 8, p. 252. Translation from Roy PascalThe German Sturm und Drang (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959) p. 136
For every ancient nation likes to consider itself the firstborn and to take its territory for humanity’s birthplace.
"This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity" ["Auch eine Philosophie zur Geschichte der Menscheit"] (1774), as translated by Michael N. Forster, inJohann Gottlieb von Herder: Philosophical Writings (2002), edited by Michael N. Forster, p. 299
Am sorgfältigsten, mein Freund, meiden Sie die Autorschaft darüber. Zu früh oder unmäßig gebraucht, macht sie den Kopf wüste und das Herz leer, wenn sie auch sonst keine üblen Folgen gäbe. Ein Mensch, der die Bibel nur lieset, um sie zu erläutern, lieset sie wahrscheinlich übel, und wer jeden Gedanken, der ihm aufstößt, durch Feder und Presse versendet, hat sie in kurzer Zeit alle versandt, und wird bald ein blosser Diener der Druckerey, ein Buchstabensetzer werden.
With the greatest possible solicitude avoid authorship. Too early or immoderately employed, it makes the headwaste and the heart empty; even were there no other worse consequences.A person, who reads only to print, to all probability reads amiss; and he, who sends away through the pen and the press every thought, the moment it occurs to him, will in a short time have sent all away, and will become a mere journeyman of the printing-office, acompositor.
Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betressend (1780-81), Vierundzwanzigster Brief; cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.)Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877-1913) vol. 10, p. 260. Translation fromSamuel Taylor ColeridgeBiographia Literaria (London: Rest Fenner, 1817) vol. 1, ch. 11, pp. 233-34
In his later work, in particular, he voices considerable animus against British colonization in India; in his 1803 preface to a new edition of Forster’s Sakuntala, he says that “English rhyme schemes suit Indian poetry as searing-hot water acts on the sweet blooms of the Mallika, which singe and destroy them (as the English do the Hindus themselves),” and deplores the fact that “‘this cultural and spiritual treasure of the most peace-loving nation of our earth” has been entrusted to ‘the most commerce-driven nation of the globe.”’ In an essay of 1802 entitled ‘“Conversations about the Conversion of the Indians by Our European Christians” he is even more vehemently critical. The non-European asks hard questions of the European: now that Europe has “subjugated, robbed, plundered, and murdered” the Indians, do they want to convert them? “If someone came to your land and explained your holy of holies, laws, religion, wisdom, state organization, etc. in an arrogant manner, with the most vulgar person in mind as an audience, how would you greet him?” The European weakly responds: ‘‘This case is different. We have power, ships, wealth, cannons, culture.”"4® Similarly, Herder rages against Jesuit attempts to convert the Chinese, which have resulted, reports, in the persecution of perhaps as many as 300,000 Chinese Christians. “And for how many banishments, imprisonments and beatings of converted mandarins are the foreign proselytizers guilty! And why do the converted suffer? For foreign words and customs.’’
in Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009)
Der Appetit nach einer schönen Frucht ist angenehmer als die Frucht selbst.
The craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself.
Christoph Martin Wieland (ed.)Der deutsche Merkur vol. 20 (1781) p. 214; cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.)Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin Weidmann, 1888) vol. 15, p. 307. Translation from Maturin M. BallouPearls of Thought (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1881) p. 13
Calmly take what ill betideth; Patience wins the crown at length: Rich repayment him abideth Who endures in quiet strength. Brave the tamer of the lion; Brave whom conquered kingdoms praise; Bravest he who rules his passions, Who his own impatience sways.
"Die wiedergefundenen Söhne" [The Recovered Sons] (1801) as translated inThe Monthly Religious Magazine Vol. 10 (1853) p. 445
With the regret of a traveler, obliged to leave a country before he learned to know it as he wished, I take leave of Asia. How little we know of it! What we do know comes from such late periods and from such dubious authorities! The eastern part of Asia has become known to us only recently through religious or political parties, and in the hands of scholars in Europe has become so confused in parts that we still see great stretches of it as a fairytale land. In the Near East and in neighboring Egypt everything from all periods appears to us as a ruin or a vanished dream; what we know from written sources we know only from the mouths of passing Greeks, who were partly too young and partly of too foreign a way of thinking to under- stand the deep antiquity of these states; they were only able to grasp what interested them. The archives of Babylon, Phoenicia, and Carthage are no more: Egypt was in its decline, almost before a single Greek visited its interior. Everything has been shrunk down to a few faded pages, containing fables of fables, fragments of history, a dream of the prehistorical world.
quoted from Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire_ Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009)
You see, my friend, how holy these books are to me, and how much I (according to Voltaire’s ridicule) am a Jew, when | read them: for should we not be Greeks and Romans, when we read [the works of] Greeks and Romans? Every book must be read in its own spirit, and so too the book of books, the Bible; and since this one contains, from the beginning to the end, the revealed spirit of God... we cannot do anything more perverse than to read God’s texts with the spirit of Satan, that is, to embellish the oldest wisdom by invoking the most recent stupidities, [or to explain) heavenly simplicity by means of today’s roguish witticisms.
quoted from Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire_ Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009)
Was in dem Herzen andrer von Uns lebt, Ist unser wahrestes und tiefstes Selbst.
Whate'er of us lives in the hearts of others Is our truest and profoundest self.
"Das Selbst, ein Fragment", cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.)Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877-1913) vol. 29, p. 142; Translation fromHans Urs von Balthasar (trans. Graham Harrison)Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988) vol. 1, p. 504.
Sag' o Weiser, wodurch du zu solchem Wissen gelangtest? "Dadurch, daß ich mich nie andre zu fragen geschämt."
"Tell me, O wise man, how hast thou come to know so astonishingly much?" By never being ashamed to ask of those that knew!
"Der Weg zur Wissenschaft"; cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.)Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin Weidmann, 1887-1913) vol. 26, p. 376; Translation byThomas Carlyle, from Clyde de L. Ryals and Kenneth Fielding (eds.)The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995) vol. 23, p. 160.
JesusChrist is, in the noblest and most perfect sense, the realized ideal ofhumanity.
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert,Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 54
[India is the] lost paradise of allreligions andphilosophies," "the cradle of humanity," and also its "eternal home," and the great Orient "waiting to be discovered within ourselves."... "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes ofwisdom andvirtue withsimplicity,strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, coldEuropean world."... "O holy land (India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' ... "Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all religion."
Quotes by Herder about India. Quoted from Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication. (quoting Ghosh, Pranebendranath Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of India (1900)p334, Singhal, Damodar P India and world Civilization Rupa and Co Calcutta 1993 p. 231)
It is therefore indisputable, that the Brahman had educated their people towards a certain gentleness, moderation and purity, or, at the very least, had strengthened them in these virtues, so that, conversely, to them the Europeans often appeared dirty, drunken and raving. Their bearing and language are spontaneous and graceful, their relations are peaceful, their bodies are clean, and their way of life is simple and harmless. Children are raised in a mild manner, yet they nevertheless are not lacking in knowledge, nor even less in quiet industry and the fine, though imitative, arts; even the lowest tribes learn to read, write and count. Therefore, since the Brahman were for millennia the educators of the youth, they have provided an unequivocal service to humanity.
quoted from :Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.p 24. Herder 1814-16, 3:31; in German in Herder 1965. 2:33:
Herder (1803) objected that "the pains that have been taken, to make of all the people of the earth, according to this genealogy, descendants of the Hebrew, and half-brothers of the Jews, are contrary not only to chronology and universal history but to the true point of view of the narrative itself." As far as he was concerned, "the central point of the largest quarter of the Globe, the primitive mountains of Asia, prepared the first abode of the human race" (517-18).
quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 1
Let us abandon these regions where our predecessors, like Buet, Buxtorf or Bochart, sought the beginnings of the world! These corners of Arabia and Judaea, these basins of the Nile and the Euphrates, these coasts of Phoenicia and Damascus, where the human race might have come into existence like mice or rats; all these must be left behind! Let us scale the mountain laboriously to the summit of Asia. Where will this lead us? The horizons swing back and forth. History, which has dated all things from that beginning, will have another beginning and another end.
Herder, quoted in Leon Poliakov - The Aryan myth A history of racist and nationalist ideas in Europe-Sussex University Press (1974), page 187
The Hindus are the gentlest branch of humanity. They do not with pleasure offend anything that lives; they honor that which gives life and nourish themselves with the most innocent of foods, milk, rice, the fruits of the trees, the healthy herbs which their motherland dispenses . . . Moderation and calm, a soft feeling and a silent depth of the soul characterize their work and their pleasure, their morals and mythology, their arts and even their endurance under the most extreme yoke of humanity.
J.G. Herder, as quoted in Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding, Motilal Banarasidass Publishers Pvt. Limited, Delhi, 1990. Also quoted in Ram Swarup (2000). On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections. Ch. 4.
The Bramins have formed their people to such a degree of gentleness, courtesy, temperance and chastity, or at least have so confirmed them in these virtues, that Europeans frequently appear, on comparison with them, as beastly, drunken or mad. In their air and language they are unconstrainedly elegant; in their behaviour, friendly; in their persons, clean; in their way of life, simple and harmless ... they are not destitute of knowledge, still less of quiet industry or nicely imitative art; even the lowest castes learn reading, writing and arithmetic. . . .
Herder, quoted in Poliakov, L. (1974). The Aryan myth : a history of racist and nationalist ideas in Europe p 186
Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784-91)
How transitory allhuman structures are, nay how oppressive the best institutions become in the course of a few generations.
German quotations are fromIdeen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1841); except where otherwise noted, English translations are fromOutlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1803) as translated by T. Churchill
Nowhere onearth does therose ofhappiness blossom without thorns; but what bursts forth out of these thorns is everywhere and in variousguises the transient, yetbeautiful rose ofman’sjoy inliving.
Die zwei größten Tyrannen der Erde, der Zufall und die Zeit.
The two grand tyrants of the Earth,Time andChance.
Vol. 1, p. x; translation vol. 1, p. xi
Jeder liebt sein Land, seine Sitten, seine Sprache, sein Weib, seine Kinder, nicht weil sie die besten auf der Welt, sondern weil sie die bewährten Seinigen sind, und er in ihnen sich und seine Mühe selbst liebt.
Every one loves his country, his manners, hislanguage, his wife, his children; not because they are the best in the World, but because they are absolutely his own, and he loves himself and his own labours in them.
Vol. 1, p. 13; translation vol. 1, p. 18
Variant translation: Everyone loves his own country, customs, language, wife, children, not because they are the best in the world, but because they are his established property, and he loves in them himself, and the labor he has bestowed on them.
Das Maschinenwerk der Revolutionen irret mich also nicht mehr: es ist unserm Geschlecht so nötig, wie dem Strom seine Wogen, damit er nicht ein stehender Sumpf werde. Immer verjüngt in neuen Gestalten, blüht der Genius der Humanität.
I am no longer misled, therefore, by the mechanism ofrevolutions: it is as necessary to our species, as the waves to the stream, that it becomes not a stagnant pool. The genius of humanity blooms in continually renovatedyouth.
Vol. 1, p. 294; translation vol. 1, p. 416
Variant translation:The working of revolutions, therefore, misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.
Air, fire, water and the earth evolve out of the spiritual and materialstaminibus in periodic cycles oftime. Diverse connections ofwater,air, andlight precede the emergence of the seed of the simplest plant, for instance moss. Many plants had to come into being, then die away before ananimal emerged.Insects,birds,water animals, and night animals preceded the present animal forms; until finally the crown of earthly organization appeared—the human being, microcosm. He is the son of all the elements and beings,Nature’s most carefully chosen conception and the blossom ofcreation. He must be the youngest child of Nature; manyevolutions and revolutions must have preceded his formation.
Wie hinfällig alles Menschenwerk, ja wie drückend auch die beste Einrichtung in wenigen Geschlechtern werde. Die Pflanze blühet und blühet ab; eure Väter starben und verwesen: euer Tempel zerfällt: dein Orakelzelt, deine Gesetztafeln sind nicht mehr: das ewige Band der Menschen, die Sprache selbst veraltet; wie? und Eine Menschenverfassung, Eine politische oder Religionseinrichtung, die doch nur auf diese Stücke gebauet sein kann: sie sollte, sie wollte ewig dauern?
How transitory all human structures are, nay how oppressive the best institutions become in the course of a few generations. The plant blossoms, and fades: your fathers have died, and mouldered into dust: your temple is fallen: your tabernacle, the tables of your law, are no more: language itself, that bond of mankind, becomes antiquated: and shall a political constitution, shall a system ofgovernment orreligion, that can be erected solely on these, endure for ever?
Vol. 2, p. 79; translation vol. 2, pp. 113-14
Die Natur des Menschen bleibt immer dieselbe; im zehntausendsten Jahr der Welt wird er mit Leidenschaften geboren, wie er im zweiten derselben mit Leidenschaften geboren ward, und durchläuft den Gang seiner Thorheiten zu einer späten, unvollkommenen, nutzlosen Weisheit. Wir gehen in einem Labyrinth umher, in welchem unser Leben nur eine Spanne abschneidet; daher es uns fast gleichgültig sein kann, ob der Irrweg Entwurf und Ausgang habe.
The nature of man remains ever the same: in the ten thousandth year of the World he will be born with passions, as he was born with passions in the two thousandth, and ran through his course of follies to a late, imperfect, useless wisdom. We wander in a labyrinth, in which our lives occupy but a span; so that it is to us nearly a matter of indifference, whether there be any entrance or outlet to the intricate path.
Vol. 2, p. 186; translation vol. 2, pp. 266-7
…nothing in Nature stands still; everything strives and moves forward. If we could only view the first stages of creation, how the kingdoms of nature were built one upon the other, a progression of forward-striving forces would reveal itself in all evolution.
Nowhere onearth does therose ofhappiness blossom without thorns; but what bursts forth out of these thorns is everywhere and in variousguises the transient, yetbeautiful rose ofman’sjoy inliving.
Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, Bk. 8, Ch. 5; as quoted inJohann Gottfried Herder : Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (2004), edited and translated by Ioannis D. Evrigenis and Daniel Pellerin, p. v
We (Goethe and Herder) had not lived together long in this manner when he confided to me that he meant to be competitor for the prize which was offered atBerlin, for the best treatise on theorigin of language. His work was already nearly completed, and, as he wrote a very neat hand, he could soon communicate to me, in parts, a legible manuscript. I had never reflected on such subjects, for I was yet too deeply involved in the midst of things to have thought about their beginning and end. The question, too, seemed to me in some measure and idle one; for if God had created man as man, language was just as innate in him as walking erect; he must have just as well perceived that he could sing with his throat, and modify the tones in various ways with tongue, palate, and lips, as he must have remarked that he could walk and take hold of things. If man was of divine origin, so was also language itself: and if man, considered in the circle of nature was a natural being, language was likewise natural. These two things, like soul and body, I could never separate. Silberschlag, with a realism crude yet somewhat fantastically devised, had declared himself for the divine origin, that is, that God had played the schoolmaster to the first men. Herder’s treatise went to show that man as man could and must have attained to language by his own powers. I read the treatise with much pleasure, and it was of special aid in strengthening my mind; only I did not stand high enough either in knowledge or thought to form a solid judgment upon it. But one was received just like the other; there was scolding and blaming, whether one agreed with him conditionally or unconditionally. The fat surgeon (Lobstein) had less patience than I; he humorously declined the communication of this prize-essay, and affirmed that he was not prepared to meditate on such abstract topics. He urged us in preference to a game of ombre, which we commonly played together in the evening.
The Autobiography of Johann Goethe, p. 349-350
Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Johann Gottfried Herder boldly proclaimed this idea, asserting that each age and every people embody ideals and capacities peculiar to themselves, thus allowing a fuller and more complete expression of the multiform potentialities of humankind than could otherwise occur. Herder expressly denied that one people or civilization was better than another. They were just different, in the same way that theGerman language was different from theFrench.
About the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions and even clear presentations of this or that part of a large evolutionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most divergent quarters. Especially remarkable were those which came fromErasmus Darwin inEngland, fromMaupertuis inFrance, fromOken inSwitzerland, and from Herder, and, most brilliantly of all, fromGoethe inGermany.
Over the years,historians have tried to discern grand patterns, perhaps one grand pattern, that explain everything. For some religions, history provides evidence of the working out of a divine purpose. For theGerman philosopherGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, it demonstrated the manifestation of the infinite spirit (Geist) on earth.Karl Marx built on Hegel to produce his“scientific” history, which purported to show that history was moving inexorably toward its destined end of fullCommunism. Johann Gottfried von Herder, the influentialGerman thinker of the late eighteenth century, history showed that an organic German nation had existed for centuries, although in political terms it had not yet reached its full potential. For imperialists likeSir Charles Dilke, the study of the past confirmed the superiority of theBritish race.Arnold Toynbee, whose work is largely neglected now, saw a pattern of challenge and response as civilizations grew great in overcoming obstacles and then failed as they turned soft and lazy. TheChinese, unlike most Western thinkers, did not seehistory as a linear process at all. Their scholars talked in terms of a dynastic cycle where dynasties came and went in an unending repetition, following the unchanging pattern ofbirth,maturity, anddeath, all under the aegis ofheaven.
