The German Genius

those speaking other tongues. “A Volk , on this theory, is a natural division of the human race, endowed with its own language, which it must preserve as its most distinctive and sacred possession.” Language was given a potency it had never had before.
    It was this close association, between language and self-consciousness, that brought about such a drastic change in the most commonly accepted idea of a “nation.” “A nation no longer simply meant a group of citizens united under a common political sovereign.” 49 It was now regarded as a separate natural entity whose claim to political recognition “rested on the possession of a common language.” 50
    Herder went further. For him, in any Volk grouping, there were two elements. There was first the bourgeoisie ( das Volk der Bürger ), and second a minority of intellectuals ( das Volk der Gelehrsamkeit ). The Bürger were not only the most numerous but also the most useful (he called them “the salt of the earth”), and he sharply distinguished them from what was in fact a third group, the “rabble” ( Pöbel ). What distinguished the Bürger, and what was the chief reason for their social inferiority and political impotence (until that point), he said, was their lack of education. The fact that this was so, he insisted, could not be put down to innate ability, or lack of it. “It was rather the harvest of persistent and wilful neglect.” He therefore came out boldly and blamed the ruling aristocracy for this state of affairs. “That those as yet unborn should be destined to rule over others not yet born, simply by virtue of their blood, seemed to Herder the most unintelligible of propositions.” 51
    Herder, therefore, did not expect the people at the top of the tree ever to do anything to jeopardize their position. Instead, he published his argument in the hope that he might inspire the emergence of popular leaders, “men of the people,” who would spread the message of education (Bildung). It was the job of the state, he felt, to help each individual to develop and fulfill his or her propensities. “To fail to make use of man’s divine and noble gifts, to allow these to rust and thus to give rise to bitterness and frustration, is not only an act of treason against humanity, but also the greatest harm which a state can inflict upon itself.” This shows Herder’s very modern grasp of the links between economics, politics, and education or, more particularly, Bildung. For Herder (as for Humboldt), the development of the self, the humanization of the self, will not only make people better individuals but also better—and more willing—members of the community. Reciprocity is for Herder the whole point of human association. 52
    This fit Herder’s overall aim, to give culture—as well as nation—a new meaning. With his deeply historical view of human affairs, and his Leibnizian inheritance—that change was of the essence—he formed the view that whatever the “collective consciousness” of a Volk was at any particular time, was its culture. 53 This was wholly at odds with the prevailing Enlightenment tradition where culture was aligned with civilization and understood as a reflection of intellectual sophistication. It was thus Herder who was responsible for our modern usage of such phrases and concepts as “political culture,” “peasant culture,” and so on. At root, Herder suspected that culture was not simply the result of experience alone but owed something to a genetic component (though of course the modern understanding of genetics did not then exist). 54 This combination of genetics and experience helped in turn to generate the main ideas that shape history, he said, and, at any particular stage, a Zeitgeist, a “spirit of the time,” can emerge. Herder is credited with coining this term. 55
    Herder’s view was essentially an updated and secularized version of Francke’s Pietist theology: the Creation could be improved upon. It could be developed, evolved, helped to become more than it had been, all via the process of Bildung, which elevated knowledge as the highest good, the all-important foundation for human association. A belief in the perfectibility of man was a sine qua non, he insisted, if we are to accept a role for the human will in the shaping of history. 56 For Herder, recognizing that there is an inborn drive to perfection is part of man’s developing self-consciousness, part of his evolution, in a doubt-ridden,