Jacob Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought 9781442676367

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Introduction: A New Dimension to Burckhardt?
Part One: Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History
1. A Historian in Troubled Times
2. Cultural versus Political History: Burckhardt and Ranke
3. Burckhardt’s Cultural History: Philosophy, Style, and Poetry
Part Two: Burckhardt’s Social and Political Thought
4. Elements: Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature
5. Themes: Freedom, the State, and Society
6. Burckhardt and Nietzsche: Two Critiques of Modernity
Conclusion: An Astute Political Thinker
Notes
References
Index of Names
Index of Subjects

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JACOB BURCKHARDT'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT

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RICHARD SIGURDSON

Jacob Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Incorporated 2004 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4780-7 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Sigurdson, Richard Franklin Jacob Burkhardt's social and political thought / Richard Sigurdson Includes bibliograhical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4780-7 1. Burckhardt, Jacob, 1818-1897 - Political and social views. I. Title. DI5.B8S54 2004

907.202

C2003-906791-2

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

To my parents, Frank and Helen Sigurdson

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Contents

Preface ix Introduction: A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 3 Part One: Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History 1 A Historian in Troubled Times 19 2 Cultural versus Political History: Burckhardt and Ranke 59 3 Burckhardt's Cultural History: Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 87 Part Two: Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought 4 Elements: Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 131 5 Themes: Freedom, the State, and Society 164 6 Burckhardt and Nietzsche: Two Critiques of Modernity 198 Conclusion: An Astute Political Thinker 221 Notes 227 References 261 Index of Names 271 Index of Subjects 277

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Preface

This is a book about the political ideas of the nineteenth-century Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97). He is one of those thinkers relatively well known among educated people, but not so prominent as to be immediately recognizable by everyone. His book on The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) is still widely read by successive new cohorts of students and scholars. As well, his name crops up in studies of European history, culture, art, architecture, painting, and so on. He is usually regarded as a venerable old-style scholar with wise things to say on a number of weighty topics. Aside from his groundbreaking hypothesis about the nature of the Renaissance, his lectures on the Greeks and his reflections on the general course of events in world history are the most often quoted by learned writers. There are also many Burckhardt admirers among professional historiographers and philosophers of history. His pioneering work in cultural history and his emphasis on historical style, they tell us, provide useful lessons for contemporary scholars. Of course, there is also a small but hard-core group of devoted Burckhardt scholars who have mined the archives and produced a treasure trove of scholarship. Primarily their work is published in German, though there is a rich and profound English-language literature as well. The cradle of Burckhardt scholarship is at his home university in his beloved home city of Basel, Switzerland, where monumental efforts have been made to disseminate his work, analyse its historical significance, and celebrate his achievements. Most stunning in this regard is the complete, critical edition of Burckhardt's writings currently under preparation. Twentyseven volumes are planned, some of which have now appeared. The final work will include multiple volumes containing previously unpublished or partially published material.

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Preface

I have the greatest respect for the work of the true Burckhardt scholars. But I admit that I come to the topic from the margins of this industry. For one thing, unlike most of the serious writers on Burckhardt I am a political scientist and not a historian. As such, my interest is mainly in Burckhardt's social and political ideas. That's what this book is about. In particular, I am intrigued by his culture critique of modernity, and by his analysis of the distinctive features of the politics of the modern world. I am also fascinated with Burckhardt's place within the history of European political thinking. With this book I hope to make a modest contribution to the larger project of intellectual history, especially to the study of the history of social and political ideas of the tumultuous nineteenth century. My objective is not to advocate Burckhardt's political point of view. Rather, it is to explicate his political views, which have been previously under-appreciated, and to give his ideas the kind of careful consideration that might spur on others to engage in further examination and critical analysis. A secondary aim of this book is to help introduce Burckhardt to a larger English-speaking academic audience. In this spirit, I've tried to gear the contents of the book to a wide readership, including political scientists, cultural critics, humanists, social scientists, European specialists, and anyone else interested in the general intellectual history of the nineteenth century. Of course, I hope that Burckhardt specialists too will find something of worth in these pages. I use the most accessible sources, quoting from the standard English translations whenever possible. Original texts in German are used where necessary, though the publication of the complete critical edition was not underway in time for me to consult this definitive source. It has taken me a long time to prepare this book for publication. In fact, my Burckhardt work has fallen into two distinct periods. More than a decade ago I wrote a doctoral dissertation on Jacob Burckhardt as a political thinker in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who helped me with that project, especially my supervisor Professor Ronald Beiner. It was my great good fortune that Ronnie arrived in Toronto and agreed to serve as my thesis supervisor. As his career since then has demonstrated, he is among the brightest and most prolific political theorists in North America today. His advice and encouragement were invaluable. Crucial, as well, was the supervision provided by Professor Edward Andrew, who served for a time as my acting supervisor during the critical late stages of the dissertation. Others at the

Preface xi University of Toronto to whom I owe gratitude are professors H.D. Forbes, Thomas Pangle, and Alkis Kontos. After completing my dissertation I moved on with academic life and away not only from Burckhardt scholarship but from political theory generally. Employment opportunities and my own interests led me to pursue research in the area of Canadian politics and constitutionalism, far removed from the Burckardtian world of nineteenthcentury culture, society, and history. As chance would have it, though, I reconnected with my past as a Burckhardt scholar when I attended two fascinating colloquia sponsored by the Liberty Fund in 1997 and 1999. Along with a small group of academics - some Burckhardt scholars and others who didn't know the material at all -1 reread Burckhardt and became increasingly motivated to return to the subject. This book is the result of that effort, and my gratitude goes to Dr Alberto Coll for inviting me to the colloquia. Not only is Alberto a wonderfully gracious host but he is a keen thinker whose many insightful comments spurred me to rethink my previous positions on certain matters. Also crucial to my decision to return to Burckhardt and write this book is Professor Stuart Warner. I was startled to find when I met him that Stuart had not only read my articles on Burckhardt but ordered my doctoral dissertation and read it too. That he would make that kind of effort, and find it other than a waste of time, helped convince me that there was good reason to produce this book. At these meetings, as well, I met for the first time the leading young Burckhardt scholars: most notably, Alan Kahan, Tal Howard, and John Hinde. Their work influenced and inspired me. All of them are true scholars and brilliant thinkers. If you have not done so, I urge you to read their books. Many others deserve acknowledgment. The faculty and staff of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, gave me great support. The office of the Dean of Arts, Dr John Rowcroft, provided aid for some of the research and for the preparation of the indexes. Thanks to Jennifer Carkner for her fine work in compiling the indexes. The staff at the University of Toronto Press have been marvellous throughout. Special thanks go to Virgil Duff, Anne Laughlin, and John Parry, and to the external reviewers provided by the Press and by the Aid to Scholarly Publication Programme of the Social Science and Humanities Federation of Canada. Their comments were extremely helpful and made the book much better than it would otherwise have been. Of course, all shortcomings remain my responsibility alone. Finally, a work like this incurs numerous personal debts. For her

xii Preface careful proofreading of the final manuscript and her loving companionship, thanks to Cheryl Dueck. To my children - Erika, Charlotte, Anton and Lorraine - I regret all the time away from you, but very much appreciate your support and love. I am also indebted to Karen for her aid and encouragement during the lean years of work on the original study. And thanks to my parents, to whom I dedicate the book, for their love, support, and encouragement. Richard Sigurdson Fredericton, New Brunswick April 2004

JACOB BURCKHARDT'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT

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Introduction: A New Dimension to Burckhardt?

Burckhardt's Political Thought Jacob Burckhardt was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 25 May 1818 and died in his home city on 8 August 1897, having taught history and art history at the university there for almost forty years. During his own time, Burckhardt earned a superior reputation for his studies of European culture and art history, most especially for his ground-breaking work on the Italian Renaissance. Today, he is best known for his last book, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), which Lord Acton once deemed 'the most penetrating and subtle treatise on the history of civilization that exists in literature.'1 This remarkable work virtually changed the way people thought about a key period in Western civilization. Almost 150 years after its publication, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is still required reading for countless students each year; its popularity ensures that Burckhardt's name remains widely recognized by scholars and the educated public. However, it was only with the posthumous appearance in print of manuscripts of his lectures and his private correspondence - he published almost nothing after 1860! - first in German and then in English, that Burckhardt also gained fame among a smaller readership as a trenchant political thinker and a scathing cultural critic of modernity. The present book seeks to make a contribution to this lesserknown aspect of Burckhardt's legacy. My intention is to provide a general overview of Jacob Burckhardt's social and political thought, particularly those aspects of his thinking that may not be familiar to English-speaking readers who still think of Burckhardt mainly as a cultural historian of the Renaissance.2 By so doing, I hope to situate

4 Introduction his Kulturkritik within a clearly political context and to highlight the political significance of Burckhardt's historiography. Examined in this fashion, Burckhardt offers valuable political reflections that are worthy of contemporary consideration. Despite increased attention of late to his political ideas,3 students of social and political thought still know little about Jacob Burckhardt. Until very recently, even Burckhardt scholars themselves had ignored or downplayed his political thought.4 The vast literature on the historian, much of it heavily biographical, often passes over the theoretical implications of his social and political work.5 And those commentators who did recognize his political purpose tended to highlight the Epicurean and antiquarian conservatism of a man whose self-proclaimed mission was the defence of the culture of old Europe.6 His thought is therefore often regarded as an escape from modernity into the realm of apolitical historical contemplation; his political ideas thus lose any relevance to the struggles of the modern world in which he lived and taught. An exception to this approach comes from those who are interested in Burckhardt primarily as a notable colleague, friend, and probable intellectual precursor of Friedrich Nietzsche. The relationship between the two has resulted in much speculation, raising questions of influence in both directions.7 This issue originates largely with Nietzsche himself, who took an immediate liking to the older scholar and perceived a close intellectual kinship between their enterprises. After he left Basel, and throughout his productive intellectual life, Nietzsche not only admired Burckhardt but regarded him as a mentor. It was to Burckhardt, in fact, that the near-mad philosopher sent his last, harrowed letter: T would much rather be a Basel professor than God; but I have not ventured to carry my private egoism so far as to omit creating the world on His account/8 A day earlier, he had written to Burckhardt: 'You are - thou art - our great, our greatest teacher/9 While Burckhardt showed little reciprocal interest in Nietzsche's philosophy, comparisons between the two are highly suggestive. In its emphasis on the importance of genius, the redemptive powers of human creativity, the uniqueness of the individual, and the pre-eminence of culture, Nietzsche's social and political thought flows from concerns voiced by Burckhardt. And yet Nietzsche had little of the older man's reserve and caution. Burckhardt, the prudent historian and conservative citizen, was unwilling to join the young philosopher's quest for the Ubermensch, whose affirmation of life and creativity would

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 5 justify any means necessary for his promotion and enhancement. Inspired by Burckhardt's depiction of the superabundant health and spiritual strength of the Renaissance tyrants, Nietzsche ignored the moderation and scepticism of Burckhardt and made the highest individual the goal and ultimate end towards which all other aspects of humanity could be sacrificed. Nietzsche's use of Burckhardt's ideas was troubling to the old historian, who attempted late in life to distance himself from his young colleague.10 But in many ways the radicalism of Nietzsche demonstrates the danger inherent in Burckhardt's anti-modernism, with its glorification of individuality, self-creation, and private excellence. Although Burckhardt cannot be held accountable for Nietzsche's views on these matters, he can be criticized for his own prejudice and exaggeration. An inescapable element of Burckhardt's political thought is its vehement antipathy to the spirit of democracy and to the demand for greater equality. Like many conventional conservatives (and some nineteenth-century liberals), Burckhardt mocked the call for universal suffrage and saw in the right of greater political participation by all classes a pathetic tendency towards 'levelling down' and greedy mediocrity. While he shares some of his anti-democratic sensibilities with thinkers such as Humboldt, Tocqueville, and Mill, his dark diagnosis of modern democracy misses their more positive message about the emancipatory potential of liberal citizenship. Yet the very darkness of his vision of the future, especially evident in his oft-quoted prophecies about a coming age of militarism and dictatorship,11 has frequently proved to be its attraction. Interest in Burckhardt's connection to politics has ebbed and flowed over the years, in accordance with the temper of the times. For instance, there was a good deal of attention to his political ideas during the 1930s and 1940s, when his predictions of a coming nationalistic tyranny were often praised as prescient in light of the rise of fascism.12 And his ideas about cultural decline became popular among a few critics of modernity in the decades following the Second World War; he seemed to them a bulwark against philistinism in an age when commercial and technological imperatives led to a questioning of the worth of history and traditional culture. However, Burckhardt's antidemocratic pessimism and disregard for the notion of progress were not much in vogue during the heady days of the 1950s, and his conservative anti-egalitarianism did not strike much of a chord during the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s. What studies there were of him

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Introduction

tended to focus on the social significance of his philosophical or ethical ideas as intriguing representatives of a narrow historical worldview, localized in time, rather than a universal teaching of the human spirit. As a result, Burckhardt has been the subject often of historians of ideas, but seldom of historians of social and political thought. That this is so should come as no surprise when we realize that the questions of interest to Burckhardt have not always appealed to academics concerned with the analysis of political life. His essentially 'cultural' or 'aesthetic' approach to politics and his negative attitude to the stock concepts of mainstream political science - the state, power, equality, sovereignty, constitutionalism - have not endeared him to those who most revere the great tradition of political philosophy. Now that the idea of political theory has expanded to include, among other things, the analysis of the cultural and aesthetic manifestations of politics in society, and now that a sensitivity to language, myth, and symbol are commonplace among political theorists, it is a good time to rethink Jacob Burckhardt's political ideas and to relocate them within the tradition of politically sensitive cultural criticism. In this book, therefore, I discuss the importance of Burckhardt's social and political ideas both to his own particular intellectual project and to the general stream of anti-modern political thinking to which he belongs. Still, I do not mean to imply that Burckhardt was first and foremost a political philosopher. His interests were far too wide-ranging to delimit him in such a manner. Nor would I urge his admission to the pantheon of 'great' political thinkers. His contribution is too ethereal and erratic for this. Nevertheless, we can cull a distinctive and provocative political theory from his disparate writings. Indeed, we must make use of his entire corpus if we are to appreciate the breadth and depth of his socio-political thought. Burckhardt's most important political views appear seldom in his published works, but rather in his posthumously published lectures or private letters. He confided his deepest thoughts only to his students and a small circle of acquaintances, becoming increasingly reluctant over the years to address himself to a wider public. And even in his posthumous works there is no single piece that could be classified unequivocally as a political treatise. Yet I insist that while Burckhardt was not strictly speaking a political philosopher, his political reflections deserve attention from students of the history of political thought. His writings offer a novel perspective on the nature of freedom and individuality, and his powerful Kulturkritik of nineteenth-century politics and society provokes

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 7 fresh thought and analysis of the age of modernity. Despite the narrow focus one sometimes finds in the Burckhardt literature - one that emphasizes only his 'Old World' ideas and attitudes and obscures his conceptual and methodological innovations - there is a wonderfully broad and diverse teaching to be discovered in Burckhardt's books, lectures, and private correspondence. Many of his favourite themes the relationship between the individual and the mass; the tension between the ideals of equality and of human excellence; the quality and nature of culture in the mass age; and the role of the intellectual in the modern state - have been hotly debated by contemporary political theorists. Burckhardt's historical essays challenge us on all these topics: they ask us to rethink our place within the course of history; and his political writings encourage us to cast off many of the accepted theories and symbols whereby we understand ourselves and our relationship to the state, to society, and to modern industrial-technological life in general. Even though we might ultimately disagree with him, reading Burckhardt assures us that we need not acquiesce to the authority of those who privilege political power, the power-state, and material progress without giving adequate attention to style, culture, and historical continuity. As an alternative to traditional, nation-statecentred political theory, Burckhardt's perspective relies on the study of the past and the cultivation of our own critical capacities and our faculties of political judgment as the soundest means for preserving human individuality and freedom in the face of rapid historical change. As we see in the next section, he looked on such an era from an oasis of relative calm. Time and Place: An 'Age of Revolution' and an Oasis A proper understanding of Jacob Burckhardt's social and political thought requires some appreciation of the effect of both his time and his place on his intellectual development. It is common to find Burckhardt described, along with Nietzsche, as a thinker who was unzeitgemass - 'untimely' or 'unseasonable.'13 Indeed, he was clearly out of step with the values and ideals of the modern world, which he set out to criticize from an Archimedean point outside contemporary events. Burckhardt's unique perspective on the modern world derived in part from his historical ability to see things from a pre-modern point of view. Yet he is still relevant because he possessed a philosophical imagination that enabled him to assess his own time according to

8 Introduction standards that we would now label postmodern. In order to have developed this sensibility, Burckhardt had to have experienced, in his own profound way, what it meant to live and to write and to contemplate life within the maelstrom of the modern world. In this regard, Burckhardt's position within nineteenth-century Europe was crucial. Compared to the twentieth century - with its two world wars, revolutionary political movements, and enormous technological change - the Europe of the previous century may appear to us quaint, calm, and conventional. But that is not the way Burckhardt saw things. He regarded his own time, which he situated within a prolonged 'Age of Revolution/ as one of constant, radical, and disturbing change. Burckhardt was in agreement with Edmund Burke that the spirit of the French Revolution had initiated an epoch of constant agitation, which was an abiding threat to the continuity and stability of European civilization. In his own lifetime, Burckhardt saw significant turmoil that would reshape Europe, and these events greatly influenced his social and political thought. The revolutionary years of 1848-9 and the wars of 1870-1 were particularly traumatic for him. He perceived in these events the trajectory of the democratic struggles that were still to come and concluded that the future would be disastrous for the culture and values of old Europe. The transfiguration of the cultural and political landscape by mass opinion, by a popular press, and by mass political movements, and the shock to the economic world administered by technological revolutions in such areas as transportation and production were all felt by Burckhardt as changes of an earth-shattering magnitude. Like Karl Marx, who was born in the same year as he, Burckhardt was a keen analyst and powerful critic of modern capitalism, with its ethos of materialism and consumerism. But unlike Marx, who envisioned the dictatorship of the proletariat and the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie as the avenue towards emancipation, Burckhardt anticipated a dictatorship of an altogether different type and greatly feared that it would grant power to the worst types of people and unleash a spirit of revenge that would annihilate freedom and individuality. Specifically, he feared that mass democracy and popular rule would result in a new kind of despotism - not direct rule by the masses themselves, but a dictatorship of unscrupulous leaders who would enhance and justify their power on the basis that they alone could serve the will of the people. Burckhardt foresaw a new

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 9 'Caesarism' - a form of rule that arises from lack of genuine authority and from mass willingness to be led by anyone, even by the most violent usurpers and demagogues (characters he famously dubbed 'terribles simplificateurs'). Like Alexis de Tocqueville and J.S. Mill, Burckhardt saw in the drive towards greater equality and political participation a serious threat to individual liberty and cultural freedom. But unlike them, he saw no redeeming features in the liberal and democratic spirit of the age. Burckhardt was so struck by the magnitude of the changes brought about by modernity, including those in his own city, that he turned his scholarly attention towards the phenomena of political-cultural crisis and societal change. Indeed, these themes pervade his historical and philosophical work. This desire to understand the forces behind great historical change informs his most famous published studies The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). In each work he examined profound historical change - the transition from antiquity to Christianity and the replacement of the Middle Ages with modernity, respectively - in a manner that also encourages readers to reconsider certain social and political aspects of Europe in his present day. After the appearance of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy in 1860, Burckhardt refused to publish any more books and concentrated on his lectures for his students and for the wider Basel public. Therefore his current reputation as an original philosopher of history and an astute political writer rests largely on the posthumous books that derived from notes and manuscript fragments of his lectures and from his private correspondence. Still powerful today, his words there paint visual pictures that continue to stimulate and challenge readers. More than the histories that came out during his lifetime, they make for profoundly 'counter-cultural' books.14 In them, he counters a number of accepted political ideas of his own time, and of ours: the goodness of human nature, the inevitability of human progress and enlightenment, the sovereignty of human reason, the advantages of a materialist consumer culture, the merits of untrammelled capitalism, the superiority of popular egalitarian democracy, and the benefits of the welfare state. Probably the best known, and most important, of these books comes from his popular course on the general study of world history. First published as Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen in German in 1905, it was

10 Introduction first published in English in 1941 as Force and Freedom: Reflections on History. It begins with a critique of the political implications of Hegel's philosophy of history and offers a complex theory of the interaction between three great historical forces [Potenzen]: state, religion, and culture. Burckhardt's lectures on "The Age of Revolution/ published as Historische Fmgmente (1929; English translation, Judgements on History and Historians, 1959), include his most uncompromising critique of his own society - its culture, its institutions, and the type of individual that it has brought into prominence. And the course on Greek cultural history, Griechische Kulturgeschichte (1898-1902; English translation, History of Greek Culture, 1963 and The Greeks and Greek Civilization, 1999),15 begins with a long section on the 'State and the Polis' and analyses the social function of culture and the pivotal role of Greek political philosophy. Finally, his now-famous private correspondence, particularly a series of letters to his friend Friedrich von Preen, a Prussian civil servant, contains his most unguarded political commentary. The central theme of all these political reflections is the tension between power, in the form of the state or the church, and culture (Kultur or Bildung), especially at times of historical crisis. For Burckhardt, the modern state in particular emerges as a coercive apparatus of power, which is in all cases an opponent of human individuality and creativity. He was repulsed by the 'modern centralized state, dominating and determining culture, worshipped as a god and ruling like a sultan/16 Distrust of state power and resistance to any form of permanent centralizing administrative authority run like a thread throughout his books, lectures, and private letters. His combined anti-modernism and anti-statism are now legendary, and he repeatedly commented on the deplorable condition of culture in his 'power-drunk century.' But while Burckhardt was a product of an era in which powerful nation-states were on the rise and ruthless demogogues poised to take power, he was also profoundly influenced by his own vantage point in Basel. That is, his social and political views were highly determined by the unique culture and heritage of his own little place within the larger world - namely, the independent city-state of Basel. Jacob Burckhardt was a loyal son of Basel, and he made a conscious decision to return home in 1843. He moved to Zurich in 1855 and returned to Basel for good in 1858, despite numerous opportunities to teach elsewhere - including an offer in 1872 from the University of Berlin to succeed his teacher Leopold von Ranke in Europe's most prestigious

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 11 chair in history. While this fact probably does not get the attention that it deserves, it is very important to note 'that Burckhardt felt dutybound to serve the city, its university, and its proud, independent cultural heritage, and not Berlin, the capital of a powerful, new Empire.'17 In this regard, Burckhardt's decision to remain at home was at once highly personal (that was where his family and friends were, that was where he felt he 'belonged') and clearly political (he was a faithful proponent of the small, independent republic and an opponent of the large power-state). Burckhardt was born into the patrician class which for generations had dominated the upper levels of Basel's mercantile enterprises and civic institutions. In Burckhardt's case, indeed, city and family were very much intertwined. Members of both his father's and his mother's families (the Schorndorfs) had long distinguished themselves as Biirgermeisters, businessmen, professors, and clergymen. The Burckhardts long wielded such influence that Isaac Iselin, a leading figure in the Basel Enlightenment, once referred to them as the 'Medicis' of Basel.18 Jacob's father was not among the more prominent in this illustrious family. Still he rose to become Antistes of Basel's main church, the Miinster, and was thus the highest-ranking Protestant clergyman in the canton. One of the oldest intellectual centres of Europe, Basel in the nineteenth century was characterized by its highly distinctive mixture of parochialism and cosmopolitanism. Small and fiercely independent, it was also very much open to the international influences afforded by its location at the crossroads of France, Germany, and the rest of Switzerland.19 Basel merchants and manufacturers had always been active international traders, and for centuries the city had attracted leading artists, scholars, and teachers from surrounding countries. The heart of Basel's intellectual community was its university, founded in 1460 with the assistance of the humanist pope, Pius II. Basel's reputation for greatness in culture went at least as far back as its 'golden age' in the first half of the sixteenth century, when renowned humanists and Reformation thinkers helped make it a hub of learning and art. Erasmus established himself there, and Basel was home briefly to both Johannes Reuchlin and John Calvin, who completed his Institutes of Christian Religion in the city. Among other hallmarks of scholarship was the printing in Basel in 1516, by Johannes Froben, of the Greek New Testament, edited and translated into Latin by Erasmus. Froben produced

12 Introduction many wonderful works in Basel, and he also employed the thenunknown Holbein the Younger as a designer. Holbein went on to paint numerous public buildings in Basel, including the Town Hall, and to showcase his diverse talents by designing woodcuts and glass paintings, illustrating books, and painting portraits and altarpieces. Basel accepted the Reformation in 1523 and developed a reputation for pietist religiosity.20 Politically, Basel was a very conservative place. Its patriciate tightly controlled political, social, and economic affairs. Basel had joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501, but its relations with the Confederation were always ambivalent. Baselers were then, and remain to this day, jealous guardians of their city's autonomy. As such, they tended to look askance at any constitutional movements towards greater centralization of authority. In addition, Basel's civic, business, and intellectual leaders fiercely resisted the progressive and democratic ideas that had spread across Europe after 1789. Nevertheless, forces at work during the nineteenth century made it increasingly difficult for the local elite to maintain the status quo. When Jacob Burckhardt was still a child, the city endured several years of violent protests - the so-called Busier Wirren ('troubles') of 1830-3. This dispute involved disenfranchised rural folk demanding greater recognition from the powerful burghers. The crisis was resolved by an intervention from the Confederation resulting in the Kantonstrennung, or division of the old canton into two half-cantons: Basel-Land, generally comprising the rural districts, and Basel-Stadt, virtually coextensive with the city and its suburbs. Most Baselers saw this move as an unwarranted intrusion by the Confederation into the local affairs of the canton. And it convinced the more conservative members of Basel's upper class that the Swiss national government was perilously sympathetic to liberalism. Yet the division of the old canton actually helped retrench the native conservatism of the city's ruling cadre, leaving Basel as the only Protestant canton in Switzerland after 1830 that did not elect a liberal administration.21 The division into two cantons did not hinder the city's prosperity. Second only to Geneva in size, Basel in the nineteenth century was Switzerland's wealthiest and most populous German-speaking city. Culturally, too, it remained prominent. In fact, there is reason to believe that the Kantonstrennung was especially positive intellectually for Basel - that the separation of city from countryside actually enhanced the cultural climate for people such as Burckhardt. This case is made most strongly by Emil Diirr:

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 13 If one considers the higher, cultural fate of the city, this separation was [Basel's] true good fortune. For it was only because of that separation that Basel and its urbane culture were spared from falling under the influence of the country districts, the peasants, and the populations of the small country towns; it was only because of that separation that it was saved from the cultural and moral centralization that was the fate of all other Swiss cities and urban cultures - with the exception of Basel and Geneva. Basel did not have to go through the process of complete democratization and rationalization until 1875 ... but in the meantime, it had consolidated, expanded and saved its urban culture. That urban and urbane culture always remained the climate that best suited Burckhardt. And so it came about that this city-state, created forcibly out of revolution, allowed Burckhardt to live as what he truly was: a cosmopolitan in that high spiritual sense and in that ideal world imagined and lived by a Schiller or a Goethe, or by the ancient Greeks themselves.22

It also helped Burckhardt that Basel's civic leaders took particular pride in the city's reputation for great achievements in art, knowledge, and erudition. The leaders of the new Basel state did not generally interfere in the cultural realm, and the university was not averse to hiring iconoclasts and critics of the mainstream. Perhaps as a result of Basel's peculiar history, its civic elite remained 'sympathetic to dissidents and heretics critical of the new world of popular democracy, the nation-state, and the mass literary market.'23 During the second half of the nineteenth century Basel enjoyed a sort of second renaissance - a 'silver age' - in which a number of writers and scholars (some well connected to the old elite, some from away) launched a trenchant attack on modern mass culture, power politics, and centralized bureaucratization.24 Along with Jacob Burckhardt, key figures in this enterprise included anthropologist J.J. Bachofen (like Burckhardt, a native of Basel from a prominent family) and theologian Franz Overbeck and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (both of whom came to Basel from Germany as young scholars in search of a temporary opportunity to make a name for themselves).25 As Gossman says of these four men: 'Though they came from different backgrounds and were by no means uniform in their style of thinking or of writing, they shared in some respects a common outlook. Their work, taken en bloc, constitutes a formidable critique not only of Wissenschaft as it was understood in the nineteenth century, especially in Germany, but of the optimistic, self-confident modernism of their time.'26

14 Introduction Outline of This Book Burckhardt none the less carved out a distinctive place for himself within the group of distinguished scholars and thinkers who flourished in Basel's welcoming intellectual climate. His original contributions to cultural history and art criticism are best known, but his teachings and writings cover a wide range of themes - from music and architecture to politics and religion. As well, he remained highly engaged with many key social and political questions, commenting on many in his lectures and letters. This book focuses primarily on the distinctiveness and significance of these social and political aspects of Burckhardt's unique worldview. As well as examining his commentary on such matters as democracy, freedom, power, and the state, my study of Burckhardt's political thinking entails a good deal of attention to his 'philosophy of history' (a term that Burckhardt would reject, since he was not 'philosophical'). Most telling in this regard are his analyses of the intricate relationships between history and philosophy and between culture and politics. Finally, any discussion of Burckhardt's politics leads to the question of his relationship to Nietzsche, who looms so large in modern political philosophy. Hence the plan for the rest of this book is as follows: Part I, 'Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History,' contains the first three chapters. In chapter 1 I argue, contrary to many Burckhardt scholars, that Burckhardt's political reflections are neither frivolous nor irrelevant. More specifically, this chapter combines biographical information about Burckhardt with an analysis of his major writings in order to challenge the notion that Burckhardt was simply a cultural historian and not a serious political thinker. Chapter 2 examines the confrontation between Burckhardt's 'cultural history' (Kulturgeschichte) and modern 'political history,' especially as it is represented by Ranke and the nationalist historians of the Prussian-German school. Chapter 3 traces the foundations of Burckhardt's cultural history in response to Schopenhauer and reaction to Hegel and explains its methods - contemplation, the search for aristocratic style, and poetic history - and its implications for politics and culture. Chapters 4 to 6 make up Part II, 'Burckhardt's Political Analysis.' Chapter 4 begins a more focused discussion of the specifics of Burckhardt's politics. Its key organizing principles are Burckhardt's pessimism and scepticism, his organicism, his view of human nature, and his concept of historical greatness. Chapter 5 explores the interconnections between Burckhardt's con-

A New Dimension to Burckhardt? 15 cepts of freedom, the state, and society, including a critical analysis of his relations to thinkers such as Tocqueville, Mill, Humboldt, and Burke. The final chapter examines the crucial issue of Burckhardt's relation to Friedrich Nietzsche, including an analysis of the political importance of the similarities and the profound differences in their social and political thinking, which confirm Burckhardt's ultimate humanism.

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PART ONE BURCKHARDT AND THE BIRTH OF CULTURAL HISTORY

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CHAPTER ONE

A Historian in Troubled Times

1 Learning the Craft (1830s-40s) From Religion to History (1830s)

His family expected that Jacob Burckhardt would follow in his father's - and grandfather's1 - footsteps and enter the ministry. He studied Protestant theology in Basel from 1837 to 1839. However, his religious studies ended abruptly when he realized that he lacked sufficient faith in the doctrines of revelation and the divinity of Christ to pursue a career as a pastor. The key influence in this matter was Wilhelm de Wette, Burckhardt's theology professor.2 De Wette was a radical scholar who had come to Basel under unusual circumstances. He had been suspended from his post at the University of Berlin for holding unorthodox religious and political views. The authorities in Basel, who were rebuilding the university faculty, were quick to offer him a position, in part perhaps as a way of spiting the arrogant Berliners.3 De Wette's lectures had an overwhelming effect on the young man. In an emotional letter, Burckhardt confessed that they had convinced him that the life of Christ was a myth. He said that, in his eyes, de Wette's system had become unassailable, so much so that 'one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional Doctrine melts away under his hand.' Given this conclusion, Burckhardt could see no future for himself except apostasy. From that time on, he was to consider himself an 'honest heretic' (ehrlicher Ketzer). He still had prayer, but there was no revelation.4

20 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History This sudden loss of faith is generally regarded as a turning point in Burckhardt's intellectual career. He spoke of this experience as a 'crisis' that initiated a significant 'transition period' in his life.5 More graphically, he told a friend that he had been 'living in a state of inner conflict [innere Zwiespalt]regarding the highest questions of life' and that he found himself 'grubbing in the ruins of [his] former view of life, trying to discover what is still usable in the old foundations/ The only 'remedy' he finds against this inner conflict is his new vocation, the study of history, which he described as a shock to his system, something to help unseat his fatalism and the view of life that he had based on it.6 Thomas Howard points out the significance of these statements. He contends that they show that Burckhardt came to view his own religious change as more than an isolated phenomenon: it was 'paradigmatic of a much larger secularizing process rooted in the main currents of modern history.'7 Indeed, Burckhardt came to develop an idea similar to Max Weber's view that the key feature of modern intellectual life is 'disenchantment.' In this regard, he extrapolated from his personal experience to inquire about the character and future of religion in modern Western society. Although he never announced it as boldly as did Nietzsche, Burckhardt similarly concluded that 'God is dead' in the contemporary world. Therefore, it became crucial to consider what sort of moral and cultural regime would replace Christianity in the advanced modernity of the West. Burckhardt stopped short of adopting a Nietzschean vision of a future race of Ubermenschen, but he did at times ponder the rise of a new spiritual power out of the dreary irreligious and materialistic culture unfolding in Europe.8 Berlin and Basel (1840s)

Burckhardt's immediate response to his crisis of faith was to turn away from Protestant theology and to throw himself into the study of history and art. He left little Basel in September 1839 for the larger and more cosmopolitan Berlin, where he could work with Leopold von Ranke, the leading exponent of a new scientific and secular method of historical research. In Berlin, Burckhardt studied also with the liberal historian J.G. Droysen (who left for Kiel the following semester), the art historian Franz Kugler, and the classicist August Bockh. In addition, he spent a semester doing advanced work in Bonn, where he met

A Historian in Troubled Times 21 and became intimate with Gottfried Kinkel, a radical theologian, poetphilosopher, and political activist. Berlin was the fulcrum of German intellectual and cultural life and home to the country's most prestigious new university. Young Jacob Burckhardt was enthralled. 'My eyes/ he wrote to a friend, 'were wide with astonishment at the first lectures that I heard by Ranke, Droysen and Bockh. I realised that the same thing had befallen me as befell the knight in Don Quixote: I had loved my science on hearsay, and suddenly here it was appearing before me in giant form - and I had to lower my eyes.'9 Burckhardt now encountered at first hand the positivist brand of historicism promoted by the then-dominant German Historical School. And he was also exposed to a much more diverse and dynamic society than he had known in Basel. His circle of friends came to include intellectuals with many diverse ideas and opinions; but they tended to espouse views that were politically liberal, nationalist, and often even radical. At least for a while, Burckhardt was won over by many of these convictions, occasionally sharing in the prevalent spirit of German nationalistic boosterism. For a time, he seemed convinced that the ascension of Germany as a political power would usher in a bright new era of cultural flowering.10 Nevertheless, there is some dispute about just how closely Burckhardt identified with the liberalism of Droysen, Kinkel, and Kugler or with the liberal radicalism of some of his new student friends. Felix Gilbert, arguing one side of the case, sees the young Burckhardt as inclined towards liberalism and an optimistic vision of a new Europe under the direction of Germany (positions from which Burckhardt would later withdraw).11 Gilbert points out that Burckhardt frequently criticized the authoritarianism of the Prussian government and shared many of the political views of the Vormarz liberals. Moreover, he appears to have taken great delight in his increased contacts with people such as Bettina von Arnim, a well-known liberal intellectual whom he met through Gottfried Kinkel. The sister of one famous Romanticist (Clemens Bretano) and wife of another (Achim von Arnim), Bettina hosted the most famous Romantic salon in Germany.12 The young Burckhardt was proud to be a small part of Bettina's prestigious salon crowd and 'was clearly in awe of the great woman.'13 For many commentators, Burckhardt's association with her is proof of his liberalism during his student days.14 Bettina 'developed and encouraged viewpoints which attracted liberal thinkers/ and her salon became not only

22 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History an intellectual meeting place but a focus of liberal political opposition.15 It was at her salon that Burckhardt was introduced to many liberal issues and causes with which he would not otherwise have been in contact, even at the university. Other evidence suggests that Burckhardt adopted the popular stance of the political liberalism of the day. For instance, he favoured the calling of a Prussian national assembly and criticized King Friedrich Wilhelm IV for not taking seriously the demands for such a measure. He went so far as to accuse the King of absolutism and the Prussian leadership of authoritarianism. (However, his critique of Prussia may be seen as illustrative more of his instinctual distrust of state power and centralized bureaucracy than of his support for liberal political remedies.) Burckhardt was never attracted to political radicalism of any kind, but that does not rule out an attraction to moderate Vormarz liberalism, which also abhorred the notion of violent revolution. Hence, one might conclude that the stability of a moderate, monarchical constitutionalism such as was advocated by Vormarz liberalism appealed to Burckhardt as a reasonable modern analogue to the traditions of city-state republicanism which he so admired.16 After 1848, however, it is doubtful that he believed that any simple constitutional reform could control the passions for power-politics unleashed in an era of democratic mass politics. On the other side, there is strong evidence that even early on Burckhardt inclined towards political conservatism. John Hinde is surely correct to point out that 'Burckhardt did not feel truly at home in the liberal camp. While he may have sympathized with liberalism on an intellectual level, his experience of the realities of social and political conflict during these years reinforced his conservative instincts, not his liberal convictions/17 Burckhardt clearly stated this political preference in a letter to his sister in 1841, saying that he finally had 'the courage to be a conservative and not to give in. (The easiest thing of all is to be liberal.)'18 In this statement, he indicates his faithfulness to his Basel roots but also places himself close ideologically to his teacher Ranke, regardless of what he thought about him as a person. The exact nature of Ranke's influence on Burckhardt is not easy to ascertain, and it has been clouded by the fact that Burckhardt made many derogatory comments about his mentor's personality and character.19 At a minimum, it is certain that Burckhardt was greatly impressed by Ranke in terms of historical scholarship, even if he was dismissive of his professor's civil service career. As a serious student,

A Historian in Troubled Times 23 Burckhardt was grateful for the opportunity to learn historical method in Ranke's renowned seminar, where he was trained to master archival research, to savour the well-chosen source, and to proffer the fruits of his scholarship in an engaging literary form. Although he never comfortably accepted Ranke's credo that the historian simply writes history 'as it really happened' (wie es eigentlich gewesen), he was full of respect for his teacher. Of special interest, given Burckhardt's later development as an excellent lecturer, the young student admired Ranke's mastery of the teaching craft. Although he was disappointed that Ranke never lectured on ancient history, his first love, he was still determined to attend all of Ranke's lectures, 'for even if one learns nothing else from him, one can at least learn the art of presenting material.'20 To his sister he wrote: 'No one has ever heard anything frivolous pass his lips; ... when he speaks of great things the seriousness with which he treats history becomes clearly, almost frighteningly evident in his expression/21 Early on, however, Burckhardt rejected as pure ideology the fawning adoration of the modern Machtstaat that he found manifest in Ranke's 'political history/ Ranke, and most others in the German Historical School, including the national liberals, regarded nation-states as spiritual entities with the purpose of civilizing humankind. Thus the emergence of the modern nation-state was to them the summit of political evolution. Burckhardt witnessed up close how Ranke began his lectures on German history, 'Gentleman, nations are God's thoughts!' And he had seen how Droysen and other pro-Prussian historians tended to judge every historical event according to the standard of what they considered historically necessary: namely, the building of a German nation-state led by Prussia. It was against this idealization of the nation-state (and specifically the German-Prussian state) that Burckhardt rebelled. Coming from Basel, with its deep traditions of humanism and localism, Burckhardt always preferred the political culture of the Kleinstaat. As he matured as a thinker, Burckhardt would become increasingly intolerant of the nationalistic orientation of German historical research and more and more fearful of the consequences of nationalist politics - liberal, conservative, or otherwise. For Burckhardt, the foundation for our sense of humanity, and the source of our civilization, lie not in our membership in an impressive nation-state, but rather in our sharing of a vibrant culture. Moreover, the centralization of power into vast and expanding national governments was to him a disaster, since

24 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History it tended to destroy culture and, with it, any hope for a fulfilling human life. Consequently, any philosophy of history that glorifies, as the crowning achievement of world history, the coercive powers of the modern industrial-bureaucratic state is, for Burckhardt, an absurdity. There could be no justification for 'history as progress/ with or without Divine Providence. There were no 'laws' of history, no teleology, no universal reason guiding humanity, and no continuous progression towards increasingly superior forms of human liberty and state organization.22 As he developed his own orientation to history and politics, Burckhardt rejected entirely the normative thrust of German historicism, which sought historical insight in order to inform political praxis. In addition to the conservatism of Ranke and the nationalism of the German Historical School, Burckhardt was exposed to a politics of quite a different sort when he went to Bonn and became friends with Gottfried Kinkel. Though short in duration, his relationship with Kinkel profoundly affected his political maturation. When Jacob Burckhardt met them in 1841, Kinkel and his wife, Johanna, were at the centre of a group of liberal intellectuals in Bonn. They had founded a poetry club, which also put on musical evenings and sponsored plays. For a time, Kinkel lectured in theology at the university, preached at a church in Cologne, and taught in a girl's school. But his relationship with Johanna scandalized Protestant Bonn (she had not yet divorced her husband when they began living together, and she was Catholic). Although Johanna became a Protestant in order to marry him, Kinkel lost his congregation and his teaching job, and he narrowly escaped dismissal at the most liberal of the three institutions, the university (he had to transfer from the theological to the philosophical faculty). During the 1840s, Kinkel's anti-establishment attitudes turned increasingly political, especially regarding the struggle of his native Rhinelanders against Prussia. He was wounded in a republican uprising in the Palatinate in 1848 and imprisoned by the Prussian authorities. Condemned to hang in 1849, he later had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment. Somehow Johanna managed to arrange his outright release, on the condition that Kinkel leave Germany. So the Kinkels and their three children were exiled to England, where Gottfried remained active in radical politics within the German emigre community. Sadly, Johanna suffered severe psychological illness under the strain and eventually took her own life.

A Historian in Troubled Times 25 Burckhardt was at first quite close to the couple, even serving as the best man at their wedding. He was especially fond of Johanna (he called her 'Frau Directrix/ referring to her role as leader of their musical evenings), and it appears that he never forgave Kinkel for her death. Yet he and Kinkel had parted ways over political matters long before her demise. The radical politics espoused by his friend struck the young Burckhardt as foolish and dangerous, and he returned to Berlin after his exposure to radicalism with his naturally conservative political convictions intact. In 1846, with Kinkel continuing to rant about the Rhineland in his poetic works, Burckhardt chastised his older friend for being immature, insensitive to those who loved him, and politically naive.23 He also made it clear to Kinkel that as a Rhinelander himself he could not support Kinkel's cause, nor could he abide by his violent politics. In a moving letter, he condemned Kinkel's political foolishness but vowed to continue to love him as a human being.24 Later, Burckhardt commented to others about the dangers of Kinkel's political radicalism. 'Kinkel/ he wrote to their mutual friend Hermann Schauenburg in 1848, 'is bound to fall between two stools in the most disgraceful way. He is utterly lacking in the prudence, thoughtfulness and inner balance which, as everyone knows, even a Republican needs. It is bound to end badly.'25 With these words, Burckhardt does not necessarily condemn all leftist politics, although that may be the implied message. Schauenburg was himself an activist more deeply absorbed in socialist politics than the often-dilettantish Kinkel. Burckhardt, however, thought him 'one of the sensible ones/ whose actions were tempered by 'a considerable degree of resignation' in the face of historical necessity. Kinkel, in contrast, seemed always to Burckhardt to be at the forefront of irresponsible action. In the words of one commentator, Kinkel 'proved to be all that Burckhardt most disliked, a left-wing don who meddled in politics without an elementary understanding of the practical questions, or a real grasp of the deeper problems involved.'26 In 1849, when news of Kinkel's imprisonment reached him, Burckhardt wrote to Schauenburg that, just as he had foreseen, his friend was destined to 'run his head against the wall' because he lacked a basic understanding of the concrete historical problems facing modern Europe. Specifically, Kinkel misunderstood the dynamics of power and underestimated the ruthlessness of those who wielded it. Here Burckhardt's prophetic and pessimistic nature took over. He

26 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History lamented that Kinkel could not see, as he himself clearly did, that all democrats and proletarians would have to yield to an increasingly violent despotism, since 'our charming century is made for anything rather than genuine democracy/ Moreover, Burckhardt's analysis of Kinkel's radicalism revealed his insight into political and socio-psychological matters. Using language that now appears somewhat Nietzschean, Burckhardt concluded that Kinkel's revolutionary rhetoric and his reckless involvement in the uprisings were expressions of 'resentment/ Kinkel, like so many radicals of various kinds, simply 'wanted revenge/ Yet, since this spirit of revenge was not grounded in any comprehensive analysis of politics or economics, it could not amount to anything more than 'a point of view of causing a stir/ To Burckhardt, then, Kinkel was symptomatic of the illnesses of a liberal society that could not diagnose its own nihilism. As an alternative (and here he no longer sounds like Nietzsche), Burckhardt preached prudence and caution as necessary for the times. For his own part, Burckhardt had 'grown so prudent that I now know that the philistines are not the worst; misplaced genius, however, is the very devil/ Like Kinkel, he truly longed for a cultural rebirth of Europe, but he had no hope that such a renaissance would be the product of the deliberate human action of cultural revolutionaries. Although he was not very much at home in the present, Burckhardt vowed nevertheless to 'try to learn to meet it affectionately and gently/27 Burckhardt's doubts about any practical political role for the critical intellectual in mass society intensified during his own brief involvement in partisan affairs. After completing his studies in Berlin, he returned home to Basel, where, for eighteen months in 1844-5, while hoping that a position at the university would become vacant, he supported himself as the political editor of the conservative newspaper, the Busier Zeitung. He announced to a friend that the object of his editorials would be to carve out a middle ground between 'absolutism' and 'radicalism,' but he soon discovered that such a balance was difficult to achieve in the context of the religious, economic, and regional schisms that rippled across the Swiss Confederation.28 The liberal and Protestant cantons supported a more centralized federal state, with increased powers for the national government. The Catholic cantons favoured maximum cantonal autonomy and feared an expansion of powers for the Confederation. Basel was in a precarious position: it was Protestant but conservative and decentralist by nature.

A Historian in Troubled Times 27 One of Burckhardt's newspaper articles about an ongoing constitutional imbroglio involving the Protestant cantons and the Jesuits landed him in the middle of the combat between Switzerland's liberal and conservative factions. The context of the crisis dated back to 1840, when the Protestant canton of Aargau, in breach of the Federal Pact of 1815, expelled the Jesuits. Other liberal-dominated Protestant cantons represented in the Diet refused to challenge the decision in Aargau, despite its indisputable unconstitutionality. To many liberals, the Jesuits were a reactionary force that should not be allowed to use the outdated constitution as a means of preventing reform. Swiss Catholics, of course, were outraged. Meanwhile, conservative-dominated Protestant cantons sided with the Jesuits against the liberals (for example, the newly elected conservative government in Lucerne invited the Jesuits to participate in that canton's educational program). Eventually, the liberal democrats raised the stakes by encouraging the creation of a volunteer corps to overthrow the legal governments in the conservative and Catholic cantons.29 Like many conservative Protestants, Burckhardt wanted to attack the radical democrats for their unlawful behaviour, but he was also uncomfortable about siding with ultramontanism (he regarded the Jesuits as 'a curse on all lands and individuals into whose hands they fall').30 Thus he condemned the volunteer corps and praised the conservative cantons for supporting the Jesuits and constitutional law. This position earned him the wrath of the liberal press, which branded him an enemy of Swiss liberalism. However, Burckhardt's passing criticism of the Jesuits as a 'curse' and a 'plague' landed him in hot water with his own publisher, Andreas Heussler, who had been secretly arranging an alliance with the Catholic conservative leader, Philip Segesser.31 The publisher reduced Burckhardt's responsibility for the paper's political editorials, a punishment that Burckhardt originally resisted. In the months that followed, Burckhardt continued to write political reports for the Rhenish newspaper the Kolnische Zeitung. There Burckhardt held to a consistently conservative line, following Heussler's lead.32 His favourite theme was the importance of constitutionalism and the rule of law and the foolishness of radicalism and anarchy. In the real world of politics, Burckhardt's efforts at cool-headed commentary were doomed from the start. The long-simmering Swiss conflict eventually led in the precise direction that he had foreseen to a civil war, the so-called Sonderbundkrieg of 1847. Having pre-

28 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History dieted this turn of events, Burckhardt was not around to witness it. Fighting broke out shortly after he had resigned his editorial post and escaped to the calm of Italy's museums. In his last days as a political publicist, Burckhardt stressed public order, respect for authority, maintenance of the rule of law, and a hard line against tyranny. He was not unbiased in his assessment, however, as he appeared to take special pleasure in exaggerating the defeats of the radicals and providing comfort for the government. In any case, Burckhardt's editorials did not appear to have much influence over the participants in the struggles. That his newspaper writing did not lead public opinion in this affair was not surprising he had little talent as a pamphleteer and no feeling for, nor sympathy with, the concerns of the mass public. But what is interesting, for our purposes, is the way that he tried to convince the Basel bourgeoisie to take a longer view of the immediate crisis. 'What alone can help?/ he asked. 'Not direct attacks, nor even the merely indirect mass rule of governments, but only a wahre Bildung will do it, genuine toleration, consistency, loyalty/33 Burckhardt here strikes a chord that will echo throughout his life's work - that education and development of the civilized individual, rather than mass political action, provides the only salvation for strife-prone modern societies. Thus, for Burckhardt, intellectuals in mass society should embrace a form of 'civic humanism' extolling the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral cultivation of the individual as a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement for worthwhile community life in a free society.34 Education, cultivation, and the development of decency, good taste, and sound judgment provide the only antidote to social and political ills. Flight to Italy (1846)

Burckhardt's unpleasant experience with the sordid entanglement of religion and politics in Switzerland left him with a profound distaste for the modern manifestations of both. It had long been clear to him that modern Christianity had lost its entitlement to dominion of the world and that its present-day defenders could lay no claim to the highest of moral values.35 What is more, the events of the 1840s led Burckhardt to think more critically about the role of the masses in politics: 'Conditions in Switzerland - so disgusting and barbarous have spoilt everything for me ... The word freedom sounds rich and beautiful, but no one should talk about it who has not seen and expe-

A Historian in Troubled Times 29 rienced slavery under the loud-mouthed masses ... I know too much history to expect anything from the despotism of the masses but a future tyranny, which will mean the end of history ... Believe me, 'the political people' to whom certain ones boastfully appeal do not yet exist ... ; instead, there are only masses, and among them a number of splendid still undeveloped characters, ripe to fall into the hands of the first swine who comes along, and to behave like beasts/36 Burckhardt reacted with characteristic petulance to the demands of democratic and egalitarian political movements. Though a partisan of intellectual freedom and creative individuality, he was not an enthusiast of political liberty and individual rights. In fact, he recoiled in horror at what he perceived as the barbarism inherent in modern mass political movements, such as socialism, communism, and nationalism. At the same time, he criticized the dehumanizing spirit of capitalist industrialization and its false gods, science and technology. When the radicals in his home town began to agitate for the closure of the 'elitist' university - and its replacement by, of all things, a technical school - Burckhardt declared peevishly: 'I do not want to produce a family in these infamous times, no proletarian will teach my children morals!'37 In the face of the turmoil of the 1840s, Burckhardt determined to take no further part in political affairs, conservative or otherwise. There was, he felt, no question of active political participation by the cultural elite, because in a matter where means, end and starting point are beyond control, one is bound to compromise oneself.'38 So he committed himself to a life of scholarship, contemplation, and teaching. He consistently abstained from further direct political involvement: 'Politics are dead as far as I am concerned; I do what I do as a human being.'39 Burckhardt's notorious 'flight from the present' has received much attention over the years. Most commentators have been critical of his self-imposed exile. Beneath this decision they see a 'deeply rooted unwillingness to acknowledge the social changes tied to the economic developments of the nineteenth century.' Thus his escape to Italy was a matter not only of going to a better part of the world but of 'living outside of the contemporary world.'40 Burckhardt's own explanation of his actions does little to rehabilitate him in the eyes of those inclined to condemn his abdication of political responsibility. In two oftquoted letters to Hermann Schauenburg, then his most politically minded friend, Burckhardt explained his break from politics, in somewhat romanticized language, as a 'flight to Italy.' 'You weather-wise

30 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History fellows vie with each other in getting deeper and deeper into this wretched age - I on the other hand have secretly fallen out with it entirely, and for that reason am escaping from it to the beautiful, lazy south ... Yes, I want to get away from them all, from the radicals, the communists, the industrialists ... the state fanatics, the idealists, the "ists" and "isms" of every kind.'41 Statements such as these have led commentators to consider Burckhardt's attitude as yet another example of that apolitical aestheticism of the educated European man that Thomas Mann once described as an 'inwardness protected by power' (machtgeschutzte Innerlichkeit)*2 Hayden White, for instance, believes that, for Burckhardt, 'historical knowledge is definitely separated from any relevance to the social and cultural problems of its own time and place.' He therefore castigates Burckhardt for complicity in the age of chaos that followed, since his withdrawal 'merely reflected that failure of nerve in the European man of culture which in the end left unopposed the forces that would ultimately plunge European civilization into the abyss of totalitarian terror.'43 Schauenburg, too, like so many later critics, apparently reproached his friend for taking off in search of 'southern debauchery' while things in the north were going to pieces. Yet Burckhardt himself understood this southern sojourn as a necessary preparation for future service. Perhaps he had the image of Goethe's own Italienische Reise in mind, when an exhausted Goethe resigned his court position in 1786 with little more than a perfunctory announcement and fled to the south for a journey that turned out to be a necessary period of rejuvenation for his intellectual career.44 Burckhardt in 1847 appeared to believe that, if he were to serve the community with prudence and sound judgment, he had to cultivate his inner qualities away from the turmoil of the day. He would later explain that the critical historian must attain 'an Archimedean point outside events' in order to 'overcome in the spirit' the prejudices of his contemporaries.45 This is not, however, tantamount to wanton irresponsibility: the historian does indeed have obligations to society, Burckhardt suggested, but these do not translate into a compulsion to direct action, especially when circumstances do not warrant it. 'Good heavens/ he wrote, 'I can't after all alter things, and before universal barbarism breaks in (and for the moment I can foresee nothing else) I want to debauch myself with a real eyeful of aristocratic culture, so that, when the social revolution has exhausted itself for a moment, I shall be able to take an active

A Historian in Troubled Times 31 part in the inevitable restoration ... I want to help to save things, as far as my humble position allows ... Out of the storm a new existence will arise, formed, that is, upon old and new foundations; ... Our destiny is to help build anew when the crisis is past/46

Rather than being a politically disinterested or unconcerned aesthete, Burckhardt was a sensitive and loyal citizen who looked forward to playing a positive role in the cultural rebirth of European society. Yet he had grave misgivings about the efficacy of activism and so made no attempt to influence the political agenda of the future. Still, he realized that if there was any hope of addressing the serious problems of modernity, it lay with educators, not with politicians or publicists. For his part, Burckhardt devoted himself entirely to education: in order to prepare young people for service to the community he wanted to show them how to think critically and profoundly; he refused simply to 'train' them to become cogs in the huge commercial and industrial machinery of modern technological society.47 The events of 1848 and their consequences across Europe further convinced Burckhardt that only the ideals of Bildung and Kultur could counteract the spirit of radicalism, violence, and state tyranny that detonated the revolutions of 1848-9. He came to associate liberalism with the position of those politicians and writers who condoned revolutionary activity and pandered to the desires of the masses. In response, Burckhardt formulated a distinctive critique of radical liberal politics, which he described as conservative. He accused political liberalism of unleashing the immoral propensities in human nature and argued that liberal policies led only to the justification of illegitimate rule by popular tyrants. For his part, Burckhardt was resigned to the fact that active political participation in these dark times was pointless. But while modern man is 'cut off in a thousand ways from action/ he can still profit from the 'freedomof this century/ which allows for an 'objective contemplation of all things, from cabbages to kings.'48 It was to the objective analysis of politics, morality, and culture that Burckhardt turned in the 1850s. Above all, he became fascinated with the concept of historical change, which he was determined to describe without applying any preconceived laws of social change or relying on any providential patterns in history. Partly out of a desire to demonstrate that there has been no uniform progress in history, Burckhardt expanded his conception of cultural history beyond high art and architecture to involve the study of the general 'culture' of a people or a

32 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History period as a whole, including its art, politics, religion, literature, and dress. His published books from this period - The Age of Constantine the Great (1852), Cicerone (1854), and his magnum opus, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) - are a testament to his elaboration of his method of cultural history, but they are also closely linked to his ideological outlook. 'One of the reasons for Burckhardt's insistence on taking a worldwide view of history/ according to Woodruff Smith, 'was to deflate the claim of many radicals that modern social and political changes were, in terms of what really mattered, something new that was going to alter the nature of human life. And one of his reasons for the treatment of politics and high culture as embedded in the general culture of an era was Burckhardt's goal of indicating the complex and morally problematic nature of conscious attempts to create novelty.'49 All of these elements of Burckhardt's thought can be seen as a reaction to the emerging modern and secular tendencies prominent within European liberalism in the 1840s. The Great Books (1850s) Politics and Culture in 'The Age of Constantine the Great' (1852)

Burckhardt's first book, The Age of Constantine the Great, dealt with the political crisis of the transition from the ancient to the medieval world, when one order was crumbling and another taking hold. Although less famous than his subsequent book on the Italian Renaissance, Constantine is a touchstone to an art of politics practised by so-called great men of history. In this sense it has much in common, both in theme and content, with Machiavelli's reflections on one-man rule in The Life ofCastruccio Castracannia, his depiction of the art of politics in The Prince, his description of the struggles for power in The History of Florence, and his analysis of the foundations and operations of republican government in the Discourses. At the very least, Burckhardt's work demonstrates an affinity to Machiavelli's method of portraying the exercise of power using the most shocking of illustrations. However, the link between the two appears to be more than incidental. In The Civilization of the Renaissance (1860), Burckhardt commends Machiavelli for his acumen and realism. Unlike many professional historians, Burckhardt refused to reproach the Italian for 'doing violence to history,' even when it is obvious that he has done just that. Machiavelli's writings, he says, describe so well the rule of the nobility, the tyran-

A Historian in Troubled Times 33 nies, the struggles of the middle class and proletariat, the democracies, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the despotism of the Medicis that 'the inmost motives of the actors are laid bare to the light.' Burckhardt is not greatly bothered by the fact that Machiavelli relies on dubious sources to construct his general principles of political action. Instead, he applauds Machiavelli's history of Florence because it so faithfully 'represents his native city as a living organism and its development as a natural and individual process.' He therefore concludes: 'We might find something to say against every line of the Istorie Florentine, and yet the great and unique value of the whole would remain unaffected.'50 Werner Kaegi has observed astutely that we can learn much about Burckhardt's own method from his comments about Machiavelli.51 He reads Burckhardt's account of Machiavelli almost as a self-portrait. He was referring specifically to the following passage from Civilization: But of all who thought it was possible to construct a state the greatest beyond all comparison was Machiavelli. He treats existing forces as living and active, takes a large and an accurate view of alternative possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor others. No man could be freer from vanity or ostentation; indeed, he does not write for the public, but either for princes and administrators or personal friends. The danger for him does not lie in an affectation of genius or in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful imagination which he evidently controls with difficulty. The objectivity of his political judgement is sometimes appalling in its sincerity; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril when it was a hard matter to believe in right, or to credit others with just dealing. Virtuous indignation at his expense is thrown away upon us who have seen in what sense political morality is understood by the statesmen of our own century.52 Kaegi suggests that Burckhardt's imagination was as powerful and difficult to control as Machiavelli's appeared to be. One gets early glimpses of this imaginative flair in The Age of Constantine the Great, published eight years before Civilization. Early church historians had immortalized Constantine as a devout convert and Christian hero (although they had obvious difficulty explaining his many acts of barbarism and depravity). Like many subsequent historians, Burckhardt tends to see Constantine in purely secular terms as a political genius, expediently using Christianity to unify his em-

34 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History pire. Indeed, the emperor emerges from Burckhardt's book as a man of extraordinary virtu: he was audacious, ambitious, ruthless, and entirely amoral. It has been well noted that Burckhardt seems to take special pleasure in painting this picture of 'Constantine as Machiavel.' Some critics have been quick to reprimand him on just this point. Reviewers of his day argued that he had lost his objectivity, going too far in his profanation of the period. Moreover, they charged that his open hostility towards church writers - Lactantius and Eusebius in particular - is evidence that he was incapable of giving a balanced assessment of Constantine or of other leading religious figures.53 Yet a close reading suggests that Burckhardt's attitude towards Constantine was profoundly ambivalent: he admired the political skill of a man who could manipulate the spiritual instincts of great masses of people, but he lamented the death of classical antiquity and hated the base and evil Constantine for uniting church and state in an unholy alliance against the noble forces of culture. Burckhardt's primary concern was to analyse the transitional period between late antiquity and early Christianity. Some readers, such as Thomas Howard, interpret his book within the context of his reaction to the religious-cultural crisis of his own day and also in the light of his personal experience with religious crisis: 'In order to understand contemporary secularization Burckhardt turned to the Christian secularization of history in the period of late antiquity.'54 This view rests on the contention that Burckhardt, inspired by Kinkel's lectures on the subject, regarded the conditions of late paganism in the Roman Empire as a 'reverse situation of our days.' Felix Gilbert makes a similar point, noting that the age of Constantine's rise to power 'seemed a mirror image of the recent German past, when a new attitude toward life and ethics based on philosophy and neoclassicism was undermining the validity of traditional church doctrines.'55 Burckhardt wanted to show that the rise of Christianity as an institutional force in Constantine's day was as much a historical necessity, rather than a providential one, as was its decline in the contemporary era. For Burckhardt personally, one can assume, the process of thinking through the politics of transition was therapeutic during his own period of inner conflict. Thus, as Peter Gay sees it, the Constantine book is 'Burckhardt's final reckoning with Christianity, a personal debate with a personal adversary. It stands against piety, edification, and hypocrisy. It is the last reverberation of a private struggle that Burckhardt had fought out years before in his correspondence and in family discussions.'56

A Historian in Troubled Times 35 In historical style, Constantine is most remarkable for its attempt to present a grand outline of the life of the age as a whole, as a 'totality of being.' Consequently, Burckhardt simply omitted those elements that could not be 'woven as a living element into the texture of the whole.' As in his subsequent histories, he dealt only with topics and themes that appealed to him personally. Therefore we get no account of the role of property, wealth, economics, trade, or state finance in Rome or in Constantinople. Burckhardt was well aware that his method left him open to criticism from more conventional scholars. As he was careful to comment, his treatment of events might 'be impugned as being subjective/ Yet he refused to take what he described as a safer route: that is, composing a critical appraisal of existing works on the period, complete with 'an appropriate quantity of citations of sources/ For Burckhardt, 'such an enterprise could not have exerted the inward attraction which is alone capable of repaying every effort/57 Burckhardt's 'inward attraction' was to the beauty and splendour of the continuity of culture. In this case, he was puzzled by how one epoch gives way to another. Thus, as Hugh Trevor-Roper suggests, Constantine may be read as a sequel (or a rejoinder) to Droysen's History of Alexander the Great. In Droysen's narrative, Alexander is the hero, the agent of a great world plan, the demiurge who prepares the ground for the predestined spread of Christianity. Constantine would then figure as the 'second demiurge' who actually established the church on this well-tilled soil. However, Burckhardt's hero was not Constantine (nor a triumphant Christianity) but the process of historical transition itself. The historical problem for Burckhardt was what happens when there is a 'replacement of one millennial culture by another/ He did not view this replacement as a necessary stage in a predestined process, as might a Christian, a Rankean historicist, a Hegelian, or a Marxist. 'No Providence, no Theodicy, could be discerned behind it, ' Trevor-Roper rightly adds. 'Nor was it necessarily an improvement/58 Burckhardt argues that there was an essential continuity of political authority from the old order to the new; the Christian rulers proved to be no different, no more moral, than the pagans. But there was a discontinuity in the sphere of culture. Here Burckhardt the art historian casts a critical eye on the decadent and lacklustre culture of antiquity in its senility. In a brilliant chapter on The Senescence of Ancient Life and Culture/ we witness the degradation of ancient civilization, especially evident in a decline in poetry and representational art. Burckhardt goes so far as to suggest that, along with their dress and

36 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History their furnishings, the people themselves got uglier. Consequently artists were unable to preserve, even superficially, classic ideals of beauty, since the world about them 'supplied no points of contact with such ideals.'59 Burckhardt implies that the decline of culture was the sad measure of a whole people in political decline. But must that happen inevitably, he asks? Is the end of beauty and freedom' linked to a people's national decline as well? Or might not the decay of sublime poetry and inspired works of art be necessary for the subsequent rise of science and technology? As Burckhardt himself wonders, 'cannot the true take the place of the beautiful, the useful of the agreeable?' Without answering himself definitively, he declares solemnly that 'between such alternatives ... there can be no solution. But anyone who has encountered classical antiquity, if only in its twilight, feels that with beauty and freedom there departed also the genuine antique life, the better part of the national genius, and that the rhetorizing orthodoxy which was left to the Greek world can only be regarded as a lifeless precipitate of a once wonderful totality of being.'60 Burckhardt's lament for the 'once wonderful totality of being' that was classical antiquity is characteristic of his broader judgments on history - he was convinced that the epochal moments in history were linked in a great continuum and that as representations of the highest human achievement they could continue to inspire future generations in distant historical periods. He was therefore totally unconcerned with praising the victors or justifying the successful development of his own historical culture. It was quite true, for instance, that the senescent pagan culture proved no match for the forces of Constantine's church-state, but this does not mean that we have to applaud the victor. In fact, there was no real contest. Christianity did not challenge, and then defeat, paganism; 'it merely entered into the spiritual vacuum left by the death of paganism.'61 No matter how inevitable, the passing of such human greatness, the demise of great beauty and freedom, is a cause for sadness. In the end, the paganism of late antiquity had become too complex and unwieldy to provide compelling answers to the pressing moral and spiritual questions of the day. The Christian worldview was therefore l3ound to conquer in the end because it provided answers which were incomparably simpler, and which were articulated in an impressive and convincing whole, to all the questions for which that period of ferment was so deeply concerned to find solutions.'62 The Christian

A Historian in Troubled Times 37 religion offered explanations for the sufferings and hardships of a sick and weakly people. Christianity thus effected a paradigm shift because it provided justifications for life that were far superior - superior aesthetically, not intellectually - to those demanded within the pagan frame of reference. Constantine's great achievement was the unification of this new worldview with the old universal state. Under Constantine's leadership, Christians founded a new society, distinguished their own doctrine from all competing ideas as orthodox, and then imposed on the community an over-mighty state church. In his lectures on world history, Burckhardt calls what followed 'an infection of the Church by the state/ This 'inward decay' of Christianity was inevitably associated with the rise of its secular power, 'if only because quite other men come to the fore at the time of the ecclesia pressa (persecuted church).' In the new political church, therefore, 'power and possessions' filled the sanctuary with men who had no call to be there. And, as Burckhardt here saw fit to remind us, 'power is of its very nature evil.'63 Constantine exemplifies these 'quite other men/ Motivated by power and glory, he relied on crime and deception to attain his personal and public goals. He nevertheless qualifies as 'great/ according to Burckhardt, but not in the moral sense, and not, as the Christians would have it, because of his inspirational religious conversion. 'In a genius driven without surcease by ambition and lust for power there can be no question of Christianity or paganism/ Burckhardt concludes. A man such as Constantine is 'essentially unreligious ... all of his energies, spiritual as well as physical, are devoted to the great goal of dominion, and if he ever pauses to think of his convictions, he finds they are true fatalism/64 Burckhardt's analysis of the rise of Constantine reminds us of Machiavelli's accounts of great founders. Not only is the successful leader depicted as one who repeatedly commits cruel and inhuman deeds as a matter of 'necessity/ but this success depends on a unique combination of fortune and skill: 'In an age less unusual Constantine similarly endowed would hardly have attained such historical significance; ... But since "the power of fate" placed him at the border of two world epochs and in addition granted him a long reign, it was possible for his qualities as a leader to manifest themselves in much greater variety/65 Both Burckhardt and Machiavelli emphasize the special role in history of great men who alone seem to capture the spirit of an era and through whom a whole people suddenly passes from one stage of

38 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History culture to another.66 Nietzsche's writings on history also accentuate those events that display the greatness of individual men. And in his philosophy he went further still, determining that only the rise of a new superhuman type, the Ubermensch, would enable the realization of his vision of revolutionary change in society. While Nietzsche went well beyond Burckhardt's intentions on this issue, he was encouraged by what he found in the older man's presentation of the problem. Nietzsche had attended Burckhardt's public lecture in Basel on 'Great Men of History' and recorded to a friend its positive impact on him, including his impression that he alone among the audience understood the speaker's 'profound train of thought.'67 Burckhardt had argued that great men are necessary in order that 'the movement of history may periodically wrest itself free of antiquated forms of life and empty argument.'68 Constantine was, of course, just such a man: through him, a whole people moved from paganism to Christianity. And ultimately, the key to this transformation was political, not religious. Like Machiavelli's Numa, Burckhardt's Constantine demonstrated his qualities as a leader by creatively exploiting religion as a political tool. Constantine 'possessed the great merit of having conceived of Christianity as a world power and of having acted accordingly.'69 Finally, Burckhardt's attitude sometimes seems to suggest that like other 'Great Men of History' Constantine is partly exempt from the ordinary moral code. Burckhardt's justification for this exemption appears to be a recognition that, although 'no power has ever yet been founded without crime,' the greatest spiritual and material possessions of nations and whole civilizations 'can only grow when existence is safeguarded by power.'70 Hence the utter ruthlessness of political founders is condoned for the sake of their services to humanity. As Machiavelli would put it, 'when the act accuses him, the result should excuse him; and when the result is good ... it will always absolve him from blame' (Discourses, Bk. 1, Ch. IX). In line with this thinking, Pete Gay recognizes in the pages of Constantine an 'unvarying admiration for what Machiavelli called virtu - that peculiar mixture of versatility, energy and ruthlessness we tend to associate, especially after reading Burckhardt, with the Gewaltmenschen of the Renaissance.'71 On closer inspection, however, we see that, despite Burckhardt's respect for the great man's political acumen and his recognition that he was an essential vehicle for historical change, he portrays Constantine as distinctly unworthy of moral praise. Indeed he rebukes Eusebius and other spokesmen of the church for failing to reveal

A Historian in Troubled Times 39 Constantine's true position - they 'uttered no word of displeasure against the murderous egoist.' Although he can easily imagine the joy of the Christians in having obtained a firm guarantee against persecution, Burckhardt adds that 'we are not obliged to share in that elation after a millennium and a half.'72 Burckhardt's criticism of the church's version of Constantine is consistent with his later views concerning what he calls the 'deadly enemies of true historical insight' - onesided judgments about the past, motivated by the prejudices of modern historians.73 In this case, the Christian historians are guilty of 'judgement by greatness/ since they ennoble the character of the ruler, even though his power was 'bought at the cost of untold sufferings to others,' and since they attribute to him 'the prophetic vision of all the great and good results which later came of his work.' In order to pass such a judgment, one must be willing coolly to dismiss the sufferings of the multitude and to point to the subsequent favourable conditions as justification for all the 'temporary misfortune' of those sacrificed during the great man's acquisition of power. Burckhardt was notoriously reluctant to give political rulers any such benefit of the doubt. The striving for political power, no matter how great its consequences, always appears to him as 'the most unfathomable human egoism, which must of necessity subdue others to its will and find its satisfaction in their obedience.' For Burckhardt, moreover, power-lust is insatiable in its thirst for obedience and admiration and in its claims to the right to use force at any time.74 Force is always evil, and even though 'evil on earth is assuredly a part of the great economy of world history/ its political manifestation is simply the right of the stronger over the weaker, claimed by murder and robbery, by eviction, or by extermination or enslavement of weaker races or of weaker peoples within the same race, of weaker states, or of weaker social classes within the same state or people.75 Unlike a true Machiavellian (or a committed Nietzschean), Burckhardt felt that 'the stronger, as such, is far from being the better.' In particular, the defeat of the noble simply because it is in the minority is a terrible thing. The victors will inevitably arrogate to themselves the rights of the majority and argue that history is on their side or that natural selection determined that they should emerge victorious. Yet the forces that have succumbed might have been nobler and better, just as the victorious, even though their only motive was ambition, might nevertheless 'inaugurate a future of which they themselves have no inkling.' So even when good does follow from evil, and rela-

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tive happiness from misery, we cannot forget that evil and misery were what they were: 'Every successful act of violence is evil, and at the very least a dangerous example/76 Burckhardt was unshakable on this point; he was convinced, for example, that contemporary German victories in France were not only completely unpraiseworthy from the point of view of culture, but were harbingers of more horrible military conflicts to come. In the end, Burckhardt rejects as a fallacy Machiavelli's notion of a praiseworthy or necessary political crime. And he does so partly because he objects to the theory of the state that underpins it. Such a theory would have us believe that the advantage of the whole, of the people or the community, is equivalent to a powerful and glorious state; the interests of the nation-state are thus inalienable and may not be prejudiced by anything whatever. According to this view, we should be willing to excuse the violence of great rulers who have accomplished political goals that meet our approval. But here everything depends on success: 'The same man, endowed with the same personality would find no such condonation for crimes which entailed no results. Only because he has achieved great things does he find indulgence even for his private crimes/ Such an exemption of great political figures from the ordinary moral code would be justified only, Burckhardt argues, 'if nations were really absolute entities, entitled a priori to permanent and powerful existence/ But they are not. Nationstates are artificially constructed institutions, and their supposed right to security cannot be used to justify blatant attacks on freedom and individuality. Burckhardt's assessment of Constantine as a political figure is thus far from uncritical adulation. Nevertheless, he sends a mixed signal to his readers. Constantine embodies the consummate skills of an audacious prince; so for those who respect political success above all else there is much to admire in this portrait of the masterful Machiavellian politician. Burckhardt is quick to undercut, however, both those who praise Constantine for his skill and those who worship him as a founder of the Christian state. In Burckhardt's rendering, Constantine was a ruthless and power-hungry despot who deserves blame rather than praise for helping to bury a once-magnificent cultural age. 'The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' (1860)

This tendency towards moral-political ambivalence is evident in Burckhardt's most famous historical study, The Civilization of the Re-

A Historian in Troubled Times 41 naissance in Italy (1860). Burckhardt both admired and scorned the Gewaltmenschen of the Renaissance. Consequently, his book is for some commentators a loving tribute to Renaissance individualism and its achievements, while to others it is a condemnation of unfettered subjectivity and a profound critique of the modern age ushered in by the individualistic Italians of the quatrocento. In part one of Civilization, provocatively entitled "The State as a Work of Art,' we find the pivotal argument that beginning with the Renaissance political life would be determined no longer by traditional patterns of government behaviour but by the conscious knowledge of political practitioners that theirs is an art (or science) of politics, learned and perfected by application and contemplation. In this book, Burckhardt advances the famous thesis that in Renaissance Italy one finds, for the first time, the development of the modern spirit of reflection and rational calculation in politics. This takes many forms: the deliberate and ruthless seizure of power by petty despots and powerful tyrants; the painstaking collection of social statistics in Venice and the introduction of public institutions and intricate governmental agencies in Florence; the establishment of resident ambassadors and innovation in diplomatic practices; and a mercenary organization of militia that was a product of cool reflection.77 Politics as an art work: this is the key metaphor that unites Burckhardt's disparate stories and anecdotes about the politics of the age. Government is an art form, and skilful practitioners of the political art - those who can command the means needed to shape their subject matter as they wish - get to enjoy the rewards of power and authority. In this context, political authority loses its traditional legitimacy and has to rely solely on the skills of the rational individual. Once again Burckhardt's analysis here reminds us of Machiavelli. As many commentators have recognized, Machiavelli's central subject is individualistic political success as a work of art.78 Indeed, as has been forcefully argued in an excellent discussion of the 'idea of the Renaissance/ Machiavelli, though seldom mentioned in Civilization, 'is the ultimate source for Burckhardt's opening thesis/79 The Prince, for instance, includes the famous trope that unifies Burckhardt's conception of individualistic politics as art work: 'I say then that in new dominions, where there is a new prince, it is more or less easy to hold them according to the greater or lesser ability of him who acquires them ... But to come to those who have become princes through there own merits and not by fortune, I regard as the greatest, Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus and their like ... And in examining their life and

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deeds it will be seen that they owed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into what form they thought fit' (Ch. VI, my emphasis). Thus Machiavelli's skilled prince is Burckhardt's famous Renaissance Man, 'addressing his surroundings with a new freedom from preconception, and exploiting that freedom to secure for himself a new level of power over his world/80 Under Burckhardt's scrutiny, this type of man emerges as a much more complex, many-sided figure than the one exalted in the Prince. And we find, most strikingly, that Civilization fully exposes the dark side of the Renaissance spirit - painting its excesses and immorality with the same bold strokes as its greatest cultural achievements. Renaissance man was a victim of his own unbridled subjectivity: 'The fundamental vice of this character was at the same time a condition of its greatness, namely, excessive individualism.'81 Since individualism was most advanced in the Italian city states, the men of these states were the most free but also the most wicked of the time. Even though it appeared first in Italy, this egoism soon spread to all of Europe. Such a subjective egoism not only allows for the understanding of the state as being a result of rational calculation and deliberate planning, but it forms the basis of modernity's new and distinctive ethos of individual moral responsibility. Thus while the Renaissance Italian was the first to celebrate the notion of the state as a conscious creation and to bear the burden of selfhood, these traits become constitutive elements of modernity. To read Civilization is therefore to recognize something about ourselves and our own societies as it is reflected in Burckhardt's analysis of the pathology of political individualism.82 Lectures from Basel Politics and Culture After returning to Basel in 1858 from Zurich, where he had served at the new polytechnic university since 1855, Burckhardt taught history and art history at his beloved university until his retirement almost four decades later. For most of this period, Burckhardt, a lifelong bachelor, lived modestly above a baker's shop, leaving Basel only occasionally to do research, to collect material for his art history class, and to refresh his spirit on the wonders of human creativity on display in Italian galleries or British museums. A famous image of Burckhardt portrays him as 'ce vieux monsieur au portefeuille/ for he was a familiar

A Historian in Troubled Times 43 sight trudging across the Miinsterplatz, his large portfolio of art reproductions and photographs tucked under his arm, off to deliver another lecture.83 After the publication of his Renaissance work, Burckhardt forswore all scholarly ambition, devoting himself almost solely to the preparation and presentation of lectures to his students and to the wider Basel public. He refused all invitations to lecture elsewhere but was always willing to do his civic duty by lecturing to interested businessmen, physicians, lawyers, administrators, and clergymen in Basel. He said that he felt a 'sort of moral duty' to educate willing members of his own community.84 By all accounts, Burckhardt was highly devoted to his students, many of whom became lifelong friends and colleagues. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, Burckhardt spent a good deal of time with young students, often having them visit in his rooms at 64 St. Alban-Vorstaadt after he had put away his books for the evening. Many of his former students went on to successful academic careers, but he was just as happy to know that he had helped educate influential members of the Swiss bourgeoisie. When ill health forced him to stop teaching his art history course in 1893, his successor was his former pupil Heinrich Wolfflin, a Burckhardt devotee who went on to become one of the most influential art historians and critics of the early twentieth century.85 In his capacity as educator, Burckhardt challenged his students to question the accepted opinions and attitudes of the day. He criticized Protestantism and Catholicism, capitalism and socialism, Hegel's rationalism and Plato's utopianism. As Charles O'Brien has emphasized, he tried not to impose his own views on students, instead 'allowing his critique to find its own way to fertile ground/86 He wanted only to help them contemplate the highest things, to appreciate the beautiful, to think critically and for themselves. The need to speak about historical things, rather than simply to write about them, fixes them in one's memory, Burckhardt believed. And speaking without notes, painting verbal pictures, was crucial to his method as a historian.87 There are many first-hand reports of Burckhardt's lectures, all of which remark on his forceful delivery, visual clarity, and profound erudition. A large, powerfully built man with a short haircut and threadbare, almost shabby clothes, Burckhardt would stride into the lecture hall in the fire of thought and immediately launch into a lecture - delivered always without notes - that was sure to captivate his listeners. 'The Professor came in hurriedly/ an anonymous student

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recalled, "took up his stand in front of the desk - without a scrap of paper, said "Gentlemen," and began ... Never sought for words, never hesitated, never corrected himself. Simple and masterly. The whole lecture one religious experience, a prayer to history.'88 Recalled another former student, 'Burckhardt in his portrayals did not address the hearers directly. He literally plunged into it. Not just historical figures, the artist and his work - everything found in him speech, movement, a dialogual life. This was just one of the most artful means of shaping the ideas all the more intensely for us!'89 Nietzsche, then a colleague at Basel, was moved to write to a friend, after hearing Burckhardt lecture for the first time the previous evening, that it was the only time in his life that he had actually enjoyed a lecture; he added that it was just the sort of lecture he hoped to deliver some day.90 Years later, in Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche complained that 'Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions ... One of the rarest exceptions is my venerable friend, Jacob Burckhardt in Basel: it is primarily to him that Basel owes its preeminence in humaneness.'91 And in one of his last letters before his mental collapse, Nietzsche wrote to Burckhardt, 'you are - thou art our great, our greatest teacher.'92 Burckhardt remained modest about his influence, always insisting that his task was simply 'to put people in possession of the scaffolding which is indispensable if their future studies of whatever kind were not to be aimless. I have done everything I possibly could to lead them on to acquire personal possession of the past ... I wanted them to be capable of picking the fruits for themselves; I never dreamt of training scholars and disciples in the narrower sense, but only wanted to make every member of my audience feel and know that everyone may and must appropriate those aspects of the past which appeal to him personally, and that there might be happiness in so doing.'93 This is quintessential Burckhardt: modest, demure, unconcerned with fame and fortune. For the students, however, Burckhardt did more than simply furnish them with the 'scaffolding' to construct their own pleasant pictures of the past - Burckhardt was clearly 'the master/ a contemporary representative of a heroic worldview, and they were indeed his 'followers.' As one student recalled, 'just as the master rejected all pedantry almost passionately and sought to stimulate only our individual interest in the subject, so we his followers tried to clarify our taste for art completely personally. And yet we, of course only the more inspired among us, saw only through his eyes/94

A Historian in Troubled Times 45 Burckhardt from the 1860s on devoted his attention to teaching and to the teaching of cultural history in particular. But just what he meant by 'culture' was notoriously vague, especially for a man renowned as the founder of 'cultural history.' His meaning depends largely on the context. He used the term in at least two different ways. First, Kultur often meant 'higher' culture: painting, opera, sculpture, architecture, and so on. Burckhardt was, after all, an art historian and author of Cicerone, a popular guide book of Italian art for northern visitors.95 He published work on the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance in the architecture volume of Franz Kugler's Geschichte der Baukunst (1867).96 He also wrote a wonderful little book, unpublished during his lifetime, on Rubens, the Flemish painter.97 In these works and elsewhere, Burckhardt often uses the words Kunst or Bildung when speaking of high culture. His theory of great works of art implies the elitist notion that only a few outstanding individuals will be able to participate in and comprehend fully the world of true artistic and cultural splendour. Yet he also suggests that a general education in art history serves the public purposes of civic humanism, ennobling us as persons and making of us better citizens. Wolfflin put the matter this way: 'What mattered for Burckhardt was essentially this: to plant the belief that art is one of the major powers in human history and that it is worthwhile to study it not as a scholar but as a human being/98 But Kultur also refers to the general conditions, the shared way of life in an epoch or locality (for example, the Kultur of the Renaissance). Like Hegel, whom he repudiated in his lectures on world history, Burckhardt treats each distinct period as a complete and articulate whole, expressing its Zeitgeist through the various life forms of its customs and morals, its literature and philosophy, its art and science, as well as through the character of its leading individuals. Understood in this manner, culture 'is the sum of all that has spontaneously arisen for the advancement of material life and as an expression of spiritual and moral life - all social intercourse, technologies, arts, literatures, and sciences. It is the realm of the variable, free, not necessarily universal, of all that cannot lay claim to compulsive authority.'99 In the strictest sense, this definition would exclude religion and the state, both of which rely on their coercive power over individuals (or groups of individuals) in order to satisfy metaphysical and political needs. In practice, however, Burckhardt's cultural histories of ancient Greece or the Italian Renaissance covered all three historical Potenzen. As he stated in the introduction to Griechische Kulturgeschichte, his method is

46 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

intended to 'bring about a feeling of sympathy for the whole, an understanding of Hellenism in general/100 The result is a vibrant image of the intricate balance between the political, cultural, and moral realms, capturing beautifully the spirit and substance of a civilization as a totality. In his lectures on the study of history, however, Burckhardt treated the three Potenzen as theoretically distinct in order to demonstrate that Kultur, 'which meets material and spiritual needs in the narrower sense/ is uniquely defined by the absence of compulsive authority. Cultural life and political-religious authority are therefore natural antagonists - neither state nor church can tolerate the 'free marketplace of ideas' (freier geistiger Tauschplatz)out of which culture arises. Burckhardt makes no bones about which side he is on: Tower is of its nature evil, whoever wields it. It is not stability but a lust, and ipso facto insatiable, therefore unhappy in itself and doomed to make others unhappy/101 Although people are constrained by the base necessities of human existence (by psychological-religious needs and by material economic-political ones), they can transcend this realm of necessity through their human capacity to create and to appreciate great cultural achievements. This tension between politics and culture informs Burckhardt's further distinction between the state and society: the former is an instrument of repression and domination, while the latter is the rightful repository of the ethical values of a people. In this vein he espouses some familiar classical liberal doctrines: he argues in favour of religious toleration and intellectual freedom within a minimalist state; and he rejects against compulsory state education and any attempt to legislate ethical or moral conduct. Yet unlike the liberals of his time, he favoured the radical decentralization of state power and its dispersal among several smaller, independent local states. His attitude in this regard is in character for a Baseler. He was always highly suspicious of centralized authority and fearful of the power of mighty nation-states. While Burckhardt clearly recognizes that some structure of power is needed, at the very least to provide the material foundation and physical protection for a space in which culture can flourish, he sees a great danger for human freedom in the omnipotent 'dynamic central will' of national power-states. Moreover, Burckhardt ventured that the politics of the power-state would profoundly harm the spiritual and psychological lives of its citizens. Modern citizens, he feared, can no longer find satisfaction in

A Historian in Troubled Times 47 their local communities, but rather desire to participate vicariously in the achievements of great nation-states. In such a political circumstance, sheer power is necessarily the primary objective, and culture is a very secondary goal.102 While Burckhardt believed that there can be a realm of personal freedom and community well-being within small, autonomous, and self-regulating civil societies, he did not see this as possible in the era of huge national governments. On the contrary, the historical processes of industrialization, modernization, bureaucratization, and democratization were dangerously eroding the small state societies that were common in western Europe. These smaller organizations of political power were, by Burckhardt's time, largely supplanted by huge, militarized states, each in competition with the others for expansion and extension of state power. Unlike most nineteenthcentury German-speaking political analysts, Burckhardt did not look on the development of a community of powerful nations as a proud achievement of the West. For him, rather, this was the saddest legacy of the great social revolutions of the previous century. The Age of Revolution Burckhardt's analysis of world history becomes clear in the lectures he delivered at the University of Basel between 1865 and 1885, and in the letters he wrote to his friends, particularly to Friedrich von Preen, in the 1870s and 1880s. His diagnosis culminated in his ringing denunciation of his own times, 'the Age of Revolution.' Here Burckhardt stressed two main themes: first, that the developments of modernity have ruptured the 'spiritual continuum' of European history (this accounts for the rise of 'mass society'), and, second, that the present age has managed to institutionalize its chief characteristic, the rapidity of change, in all its social and political institutions (this accounts for industrial capitalism and the power-state). Despite understanding his own age as one of radical discontinuity, Burckhardt clung to the notion of the cultural unity of Western civilization. Thus, by seeing history through a series of self-constructed ideal types, Burckhardt could regard history as both change and continuity, each historical configuration being both unique and universal in some respects.103 His subject is 'the past which is clearly connected to the present.' His emphasis is on 'those historical realities from which threads run to our own period and culture.' His work traces many of these threads and helps demonstrate that 'the continuum is magnificent.'104

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For Burckhardt, in fact, it is consciousness of this historical continuum that separates civilized man from barbarian: 'We shall never be rid of antiquity as long as we do not become barbarians again. Barbarians and modern American men of culture live without consciousness of history/105 Burckhardt employed a common term of derision for those who lacked culture and devoted themselves instead to the materialistic ethos of modern society: the philistine (der Philister). This suggestive word was popular among German Romantic writers (for example, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Schleiermacher) who criticized the materialism and egoism of the emerging economic society in Europe. The Romantics concluded that philistinism was the inevitable result of the modern capitalist economy.106 Burckhardt used the term in much the same way. Even with all his material possessions and the widespread availability of the products of contemporary cultural industries, the modern philistine, from Burckhardt's point of view, still lacked the very human dignity associated with cultured human life. Unlike the Romantics, however, Burckhardt emphasized the edifying role of history as a corrective for philistinism. Only by becoming conscious of the process of history can we distinguish ourselves as human, apart from nature. According to Burckhardt, then, the catastrophe of the modern age is that the cultural continuum is being severed. The modern world is cutting itself off from its spiritual heritage by moving wholeheartedly in the direction of a fully rationalized technological-industrial society. Humankind is slowly losing its capacity for cultural expression, and thus it endangers that very characteristic which distinguishes it from nature. The type of human that such a society produces is a civilized (i.e., materially advanced) barbarian. Burckhardt's attitude towards the philistinism of economic society is integral to his critique of mass society. It is crucial to an understanding of his political thought that we consider closely his depiction of the masses of his day. Unlike the pre-modern, pre-industrial masses, as David Gross explains, the 'new' masses had no connection with traditional ways of life, beliefs, and values.107 They had cut themselves off from the historical continuum and defined themselves in terms of the materialistic ethos of modern capitalism rather than by the poetic or artistic ideals of their spiritual heritage. However, this was not simply a shortcoming of the poor, uneducated classes in modern society. Burckhardt's target is the smug, proudly modern, thoroughly bourgeois man, rather than the stolid, dull-witted peasant or proletarian ridiculed by many other nineteenth-century critics of mass democ-

A Historian in Troubled Times 49 racy. Mass man, according to Burckhardt, is wholly present-minded, obsessed with the speed and hustle of urban life, optimistic, pragmatic, acquisitive, impressed by the achievements of science and technology, nationalistic, militaristic, and aggressive. "Thus it appears that when Burckhardt attacked the spirit of mass society he was, perhaps without knowing it, attacking the spirit of the bourgeoisie/108 This point has not been lost on Marxist commentators, particularly those in the former East German republic where Burckhardt's work received close attention. Jiirgen Kuczynski, for example, argued that Marxist historiography, insofar as it brands Burckhardt as an apologist for the propertied Swiss patrician class, has been unjust to him.109 Kuczynski claims that while Burckhardt 'thought as an idealist and preached idealism/ he gained such deep insights into the class struggle, and perceived certain features of capitalism in the nineteenth century so sharply, that it was impossible for him not to have employed, at least partly, the methods of historical materialism. Even if we are reluctant to accept his vision of Burckhardt as a proto-Marxist, Kuczynski's approach is insightful. He shows us that Burckhardt's work is important as modern social and political thinking and is not just another example of the apolitical tradition of German-language aestheticism. Moreover, Kuczynski argues effectively that we should not let his class position prevent Burckhardt from teaching us valuable lessons about the problems of modernity. To be sure, Burckhardt's highly aesthetic perspective can be criticized from a Marxist point of view for ignoring certain material and economic factors; yet its critical lucidity exposes the fundamental relationship between modern capitalism and cultural life. It is because he can orient himself towards the past that Burckhardt can analyse present socio-economic relations with such acumen. In this regard, his conservative anti-capitalism allows him to see what more liberal historians of the nineteenth century fail to see: the realities of class struggle, the inevitability of militarism in a reactionary capitalist state, and the direct relationship between the rise of capitalism and the distortion and corruption of true culture.110 Western writers have also recognized 'that Burckhardt's high conservatism converged with extreme leftist views about the nature of the capitalist system which allegedly subjected mankind to a new servitude/111 Yet we must not overestimate this link with subsequent leftwing cultural criticism. In fact, he warned repeatedly of the dangers inherent in modern socialist radicalism, including its threat to European culture. As he once put it, he was seriously aware of the possibil-

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ity that a 'tyranny is going to be exercised on the spirit on the pretext that culture is the secret ally of capital, that must be destroyed/112 Though critical of modern capitalist production, and of the bourgeois society that it propagated, Burckhardt did not disavow private property or denounce the private ownership of the means of production. Moreover, he never accepted the wisdom of collectivism or of social democracy. Instead, he feared mobocracy and insisted on the need for elite rule. The major object of Burckhardt's concern with modern economic conditions was the negative cultural and social consequences of industrial society, which he evaluated according to the humanist standards of Bildung. It has often been remarked that although Burckhardt felt attached to Germany as his spiritual fatherland, 'his Germany was that of Goethe, Schiller, Kant and Humboldt, not that of Bismarck - a Germany in which literature and philosophy flourished, not the military.'113 The German humanist tradition to which he was indebted is most perfectly represented by those figures associated with the remarkable coming together of creative spirits in Goethe's Weimar and in Jena. Goethe, Herder, Schiller, and Wieland elaborated a humanistic critique of German civil society that greatly influenced later generations of German intellectuals, including Burckhardt. Extolling the virtues of Bildung, and calling up the spirits of classical antiquity, the Weimar humanists attempted to link culture and politics in the form of an idealized 'aesthetic state.'114 In Jena as well, an extraordinary group of artists, poets, and philosophers established new modes of thinking about social and political life, including the idea of the state as artwork. Fichte, Hegel, Holderin, Schelling, and Schiller worked within the parameters set by Weimar aesthetic humanism and pursued a similar dream of recuperating the ideal of the classical polis. But they were also touched by the world of revolutionary politics and expanded on the theme of linking the aesthetic dimension with the advancement of individual and communal freedom. In company with the Jena group, Wilhelm von Humboldt advocated individual liberty and the full development of all human powers. Humboldt advocated a minimal state with a maximum of individual freedom. However, he did not support democracy, which he feared would be unable to protect liberty as effectively as could monarchy or aristocracy. Finally, Humboldt criticized the emerging industrial society and laissez-faire capitalist system, anticipating their negative impact on creative human individuality.

A Historian in Troubled Times 51 Clearly, Burckhardt's own favourite themes were deeply embedded in this humanist tradition of German thought. Thus, Burckhardt's critique of modernity must be related to the intellectual environment created by the aesthetic humanists, classicists, idealists, and liberal humanists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But Burckhardt's specific cultural criticism of bourgeois society and industrial democracy has most in common, thematically and stylistically, with similar critiques of the emerging industrial economy and of 'civil society' (burgerliche Gessellschaft) found in the works of the various Romantic writers, especially those who mounted a conservative attack on post-revolutionary European society. From the standpoint of political thought, the most important thinkers of the Romantic school were Holderlin, Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, and Schleiermacher. Herder, though not a member of this circle, shared many of their views and played an important role in the development of Romantic political thought.115 Though primarily a literary movement, German Romanticism contributed to modern political theory. Its chief aim was the rebirth of German culture and public life through the power of art. It spearheaded the critique of modern bourgeois society and questioned the basic assumptions of the emerging industrial democracy. In its later stages, German political Romanticism became increasingly conservative, and Romantics such as Adam Miiller developed a theory of the state opposed to the legacy of French revolutionary thought in all its particulars. The Romantics denied the doctrine of political and moral progress, opposed the modern theory of the social contract, and objected to materialism and unlimited free enterprise in production and business transactions. Burckhardt shared many of the attitudes of these thinkers, especially in his anti-statism, anti-consumerism, and distaste for industrial capitalism; his glorification of Kultur and aesthetic sensibility; his repudiation of Hegel, reason, and progress in history; his mistrust of democracy, egalitarianism, and liberalism; his fear of technology and homogenization; and his anti-mass society (or anti-bourgeois) orientation. Like the Romantics, as well, Burckhardt has been dismissed as politically irrelevant because of his subordination of social and political matters to cultural and aesthetic ends. The Romantics were often accused of attempting to create an ideal world of the imagination where they could retreat from the world of politics. Burckhardt, too, has often been excluded from political consideration and relegated to the camp of apolitical aestheticism.116 Such criticism wrongly assumes that

52 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

aestheticism is always apolitical, entirely unmotivated by social and political concerns. It discounts the possibility that the cultural criticism of the modern period can be dictated by social and political objectives, including the desire to prepare modern citizens for responsible participation through further education and refinement. For Romantic thinkers, as well as for many others on the fringes of the movement, the primary matter for political consideration in the nineteenth century was the implications for politics and culture posed by the French Revolution and its aftermath in the Napoleonic era. And if the revolution in France tells us anything, the German Romantic political thinkers agreed, it is that popular insurrection unaided by contemplative education can lead to uncontrollable discord and strife. The main danger with popular political action, according to many nineteenthcentury critics, lies with the agents of change: the people themselves do not have the wisdom and virtue required to exercise political authority. Consequently, most German Romantics, even those sympathetic to the French Revolution, did not feel that popular rebellion was feasible or desirable in Germany, given the slow emergence of an enlightened populace in the territories of the empire. So they regarded their primary task as preparing the people for a republic through further education and enlightenment. 'In devoting themselves to the world of Bildung,' as Frederick Beiser argues, the German Romantics 'were not escaping from the political world but simply engaging in their reformist strategy/117 Burckhardt, in concordance with the Romantics, placed enormous stress on art because he saw it as the chief instrument of Bildung, and hence as the key to any positive social and political change. Unlike most Romantics, however, he did not expect that any amount of enlightenment would prepare the common people to take over the reins of social and political leadership. In this regard, he was closest to traditional conservatism and its distrust of popular sovereignty and its condemnation of egalitarianism. Like many conservatives, Burckhardt took a pessimistic view of human nature and therefore rejected the notion that the people as a whole could be trusted to govern for the good of the community. And while he was ready to concede that all citizens of a modern state should enjoy legal equality equal protection under the law and an equal right to benefit from the activities of the state - he was not prepared to extend this provision to include an equal right to participate in the government. Even less

A Historian in Troubled Times 53 appealing to Burckhardt was the contemporary demand for social equality. He was repelled by the notion that everyone is due an equal social standing regardless of merit or character. The drive for social equality, in fact, was more pernicious for him than the desire for political equality. Most of the common people had no time, interest, or ability to participate actively in politics. So even when given the opportunity, they may not manage to dislodge their superiors in most instances. But modern civilization is plagued by the levelling tendencies of an egalitarian social culture that discourages excellence and drives everyone down to the level of the common people. Moreover, social equality raises the possibility of a tyranny of an unenlightened majority. The will of the people, in this case, can easily run roughshod over the rights of individuals. Again, these ideas were not uncommon among members of the intellectual classes of Burckhardt's day, including the more conservative German Romantics. But nineteenth-century liberals were also often suspicious of popular participation. As Alan Kahan persuasively argues, Burckhardt shared many of the attitudes and assumptions of the 'aristocratic liberals' of his century, including Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill.118 With Tocqueville, Burckhardt feared that the dissolution of the old order would usher in an age of mass democracy far more threatening to individual freedom and cultural creativity that anything that had come before. He was especially concerned about the consequences for intellectual life in an age of mass public opinion. Therefore he defended individual liberty from the coercive pressures of mass opinion in a manner somewhat similar to Mill's famous argument in On Liberty. (Or more accurately, he defended liberty in a manner similar to Humboldt, on whom Mill relied heavily for the style and direction of his argument in On Liberty.)119 Burckhardt's passionate defence of the freedom to know and to think and to say what one wants was not supplemented, however, with an equally vigorous defence of political liberty. He often suggested that the political problems of modern Europe stemmed from an excess of unbridled individualism and political freedom. He was thus more in concert with many contemporary conservatives in his attack on the revolution in France, which he thought was ultimately to blame for the triumph of mass democracy. Utterly pessimistic on this score, Burckhardt thought it futile to attempt to soften the blow of democracy, as Tocqueville proposed, or to seek protection against state interference, as Mill sug-

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gested. Unable or unwilling to accept the possibility of reconciling democratic participation by the masses with the protection of individuality, Burckhardt could see nothing but darkness ahead. Pessimism and Prophecy Historians are usually renowned for an expertise in explaining the past, but Burckhardt is equally acclaimed for his clairvoyance regarding the political developments of the twentieth century. His prophecy is unremittingly pessimistic. Specifically, he foresaw mass society and the rise of totalitarianism. His reputation in this regard rests largely on his analysis of contemporary European politics and society. Despite modern advances in intellectual and material life, despite increased political freedom and equality, Burckhardt remained 'doubtful whether the world has on the average become happier for all this/ Why? Because the improvements in the conditions of living have not resulted in a corresponding increase in our satisfaction with those conditions. In modernity, the chief psychological phenomenon is the 'sense of the provisional' - i.e., in addition to our uncertainty about our own individual fate, 'we are confronted with a colossal problem of existence/120 This novel existential-psychological problem is at the same time intensely political: 'Belief in invisible, immemorial foundations of existence, politico-religious mysticism is gone/121 The state, thus deprived of any justifications beyond itself, becomes a naked tool of power for whomever happens to seize its control. The people, moreover, believe that control of this powerful tool will allow them to refashion a new existence out of nothing but their own ceaseless wants and desires. The modern age, in other words, 'provokes calculations and constructions about the future/ with little or no attention paid to the lessons of the past.122 The spirit of revolution - initiated in France in 1789 and continued throughout Europe in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 - encouraged and legitimized this rupture of the spiritual continuum by redefining change as progress.123 The most representative principle of post-revolutionary Western civilization, that which differentiates it from all earlier ages of rapid historical change, is the idea of 'eternal revision/ Explained Burckhardt: "The decisive new thing that has come into the world through the French Revolution is the permission and the will to change things, with public welfare as the goal/124 Behind and beneath this spirit of institutionalized revision - this 'terrible spirit of novelty'

A Historian in Troubled Times 55 and 'blind will to change' - Burckhardt perceived the insidious belief that the human will was perfectly capable of effecting any and all social reconstruction necessary to increase human well-being. He blamed Rousseau and his overly optimistic conception of human nature for the propagation of this idea. For Burckhardt, the incorrigible disposition of people to satisfy their material desires proved that humanity is anything but perfectible. Thus Rousseauian optimism about the nature of man and the related idea that the state can play a positive social engineering role are sadly misplaced. Regardless of its form, government cannot be expected to serve as a vehicle for human perfection. The demands for egalitarian social reform should be understood simply in socio-economic terms as the clamour for increased material benefits by particular social classes.125 The reforms desired by the disadvantaged classes cannot and will not lead to any general moral rebirth, since 'the overwhelming majority of the desires are material in nature ... for by far the greatest number of people have no other conception of happiness/126 And if material desires are in themselves absolutely insatiable, the satisfaction promised by technology and industrialization is also illusive. From Burckhardt's perspective, the modern industrial economy contributes only to the creation of new needs and wants within a populace turned into omnivorous commodity consumers. Using terminology that is still relevant today, Burckhardt noted the high spiritual cost of increased materialism. Fuelled by unprecedented advances in science and technology, he explained, the pace of change in modern capitalist society accelerated at a dangerous pace. 'Hurry and worry are spoiling life,' Burckhardt moaned. 'Through universal competition everything is forced to the greatest speed and struggle for minimum differences.' In cultural as well as in social life, Burckhardt detected an unwelcome encroachment of calculating economic rationality: 'intellect and culture are appreciated to be sure,' but only insofar as they serve the interests of commerce or the nation-state. Literature, the arts, even academic research become 'industries' in the market economy. Even the individual writer, artist, or academic becomes a 'manufacturer' of cultural products: Today very few things are still produced out of inner necessity.'127 Politically, this spirit of rational calculation transformed attitudes towards the state and justified the brutal and aggressive pursuit of national interests. Burckhardt observed with disgust the rise of Germany as a world power and believed strongly that the results of the

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Franco-Prussian War meant the final blow to decent, old-European cultural life.128 With modernity there arises in political thought a new concept of the extent of the state's powers, associated with the secularization of the church and the disenchantment of traditional political authority. The state becomes the sole guardian of rights and public welfare; it even usurps the proper function of society by imposing its own moral principles on the community. The consequences of this situation include: an immeasurable increase in militarism, with huge standing armies usable both at home and abroad, and disbelief in any overriding political principles, but a concomitant increased belief in saviours ('a voluntary servitude under individual leaders and usurpers'). Furthermore, nationalism ceases to be an honest love of one's own and becomes 'a further means of agglomeration'; a homogeneous (mass) intellectual atmosphere dominates in all classes because of the rapidity of communication technology and the levelling effects of a popular daily press; and finally progressive industrialization obliterates rural and urban landscapes and alters the worker's relation to the means of production, and money becomes and remains the great measure of things.129 Burckhardt, as many have reported, was often remarkably correct about the tendencies and consequences of the industrial system emerging in his day. In private correspondence and in his later lecture courses, he made a direct link between the mass society and the coming of new forms of dictatorship backed by a 'Caesarist' state. By promising the mass public that it will provide the desired goods and services, the state raises expectations that it cannot keep.130 But it must perpetuate the illusion that it is indeed the indispensable service mechanism by making the people more and more dependent on its rapidly growing, brutally efficient, administrative bureaucracy. At this point, the state becomes a sort of thing-in-itself, with a 'dynamic central will.' The principal forms of modern state organization cannot, however, cope with the newly created demands to satisfy all of its members' desires. The weaknesses of democratic governments in particular will lead to 'confusion by acts of violence, until finally a real Power emerges based upon sheer, unlimited violence, and it will take precious little account of the right to vote, the sovereignty of the people, material prosperity, industry, etc.'131 The state mechanism will be periodically seized by one 'saviour' or another - Burckhardt called these dictators 'terribles simplificateurs' - who will operate the industrial-state apparatus in a more-or-less paramilitary fashion. Burckhardt pondered the likely

A Historian in Troubled Times 57 consequences for society in a letter to Friedrich von Preen: 'It will be most interesting for you, my dear Sir, to observe how the machinery of state and administration is transformed and militarized; for me - how schools and education are put through the cure, etc. Of all classes the workers are going to have the strangest time; I have a suspicion that, for the time being, sounds completely mad, and yet I cannot get rid of it: that the military state will have to turn "industrialist." The accumulation of beings, the mounds of men in the yards and factories cannot be left in all eternity in their need and thirst for riches; a planned and controlled degree of poverty, with promotion and uniforms, starting and ending daily to the roll of drums, that is what ought to come logically/132 The fact that the twentieth century did see the rise of the totalitarian state, in conformity, however vaguely, to Burckhardt's prophetic vision, has earned him the reputation for a special prescience regarding modern forms of tyranny. No one, according to Reinhold Niebuhr, 'predicted the modern totalitarian state more accurately. He was certain that its secularized power would be more vexatious than the sacred power of ancient states ... He believed that modern tyrants would use methods which even the most terrible despots of the past would not have had the heart to do ... Burckhardt even predicted fairly accurately to what degree a liberal culture in totalitarian countries would capitulate to tyranny through failure to understand the foe/133 Conclusion: Civic and Cosmopolitan

Cultural pessimism was not at all uncommon in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Many thinkers had a deep foreboding about the coming new age of democracy, industrialization, and militarization. In Germany, Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy found many adherents, including Nietzsche. In England, a sense of disillusionment with politics and a suspicion that forces in favour of change were out of control inspired pessimism among various writers and artists.134 This despondent view of culture was largely the earmark of an uppermiddle-class intelligentsia that regarded itself as a 'natural' intellectual aristocracy. The failure of mass democratic parties to defer to its authority, its loss of influence over what it thought should be in the best interests of all in society, and the rise of an aggressive philistinism of public taste seemed to members of this self-described elite a dangerous rejection of the lessons of the past, but also a personal repudia-

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tion of their own wisdom and guidance. This situation produced a variety of responses, ranging from withdrawal from public affairs, as in Burckhardt's case, to a politics of reaction. Burckhardt's response had been to retreat to his teaching and to his analysis of the relationship between culture and politics in modern society. However, this was not an entirely self-centred reaction to a world he could no longer abide. As Carl Schorske points out, Burckhardt's scholarly vocation was both 'narrowly civic and broadly cosmopolitan.' On the one hand, he served his own city by making its citizens aware, through art and history, of the plurality of cultures and ideas available to them. He prepared members of the educated public to live rich and meaningful lives in a modern world that they cannot expect fully to control. On the other hand, 'his work was dedicated to the Europeans as a whole, to preserve and defend their inherited culture as a value in itself against the terrible simplifiers and power brokers of modern society.'135 In this regard, his cultural history was both personally redemptive - by the act of remembrance in dark times the cultural historian keeps the faith with his spiritual heritage - and socially constructive - the cultural historian can 'overcome his time in himself by attaining an 'Archimedean point outside of events' and thus act as a counterweight against the destructive forces of modernity. In his own quiet way, Burckhardt struggled to keep alive the memories of the past, in all of its grandeur and its horror; and publicly he served his community as an active member of society and as a representative of the historical consciousness.

CHAPTER TWO

Cultural versus Political History: Burckhardt and Ranke

Burckhardt has been celebrated as a founder of modern 'cultural history' (Kulturgeschichte). His stress on art and culture, rather than on politics as it is conventionally defined, is an indisputably Burckhardtian moment in the German historiography of the nineteenth century, an era otherwise obsessed with a nationalistic and historicist vision of power and the state. But what did Burckhardt understand by cultural history? How is cultural history distinguished from political history? And to what extent, if at all, can we argue that Burckhardt qualifies as a political thinker, given his overriding preoccupation with culture? In order to resolve these issues, we need to return to his intellectual relationship with his teacher, the great political and diplomatic historian Leopold von Ranke. What exactly is the nature of this relationship? This has been a particularly vexing question within the history of historiography for more than a century. And at least since Friedrich Meinecke's famous 1948 address on the subject,1 it has been an intellectual controversy with definite political overtones: that is, the debate between Ranke and Burckhardt now serves as a case study of the political implications of German historical thinking and the political role of German intellectuals. To be sure, a strong case can be made that the distinction between Ranke's political history and Burckhardt's cultural history is misleading, since both men express typical nineteenth-century German historicist views.2 In addition to being a product of a similar time and place, Burckhardt was Ranke's student, and his teacher undoubtedly influenced his historical vision. Thus it should not surprise us that they share a great deal of common ground.3 And there is no doubt, I admit, that the stark Ranke-Burckhardt dichotomy is often misused in

60 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

order to score easy polemical points (usually at Ranke's expense) against German nationalism or the doctrine of Machtpolitik. Nevertheless, I insist that Burckhardt does offer a novel cultural approach to the study of the past and that this distinguishes him not only from Ranke but from most other nineteenth-century German historical thinkers. Burckhardt's historiography can be read as a defence of the 'cultured man' and 'cultural history' against the German idealization of the 'political man' and 'political history.' But Burckhardt's method also calls for a re-evaluation of the definition of the 'political.' Thus by breaking with Ranke and other proponents of state-oriented historiography, Burckhardt does not simply retreat from politics. On the contrary, he contends that culture needs to receive more weight in social and political theory, since it is culture that carries or expresses the discourses and interpretations of social and political life in any given period. By extension, we can argue that students of political science should take a closer interest in culture. Through culture, as Burckhardt understands it, people acquire and articulate their sense of human and political identity, they express their emotional lives, which are intimately connected to their political goals and aspirations, and they explore and give voice to their moral values. With his cultural historical method, Burckhardt provides a humanistic philosophical alternative to the power politics privileged in most nineteenth-century German political theory. To explain the emergence of Burckhardt's cultural history, this chapter examines Ranke, the German Historical School, and its practitioners; the apparent dichotomy between Berlin (i.e., Ranke) and Basel (i.e., Burckhardt); and Burckhardt's relationship to historicism and cultural history. Ranke and the German Historical School As a student in Berlin from 1839 to 1843, Burckhardt was trained in the methods of the ruling German Historical School, and, at least for a while, he shared in its affection for the German national movement. To his sister he wrote: T often want to kneel down before the sacred soil of Germany and thank God that my mother tongue is German. I have Germany to thank for everything. My best teachers have been German, I was nourished at the breast of German culture and learning, and I shall always draw my best powers from this land. What a people! What a wonderful youth! What a land - a paradise!'4 And to

Burckhardt and Ranke 61 Kinkel he explained that 'it is not this or that amenity which ties me to Germany, not this or that beautiful region; it is the cheerful conviction that I too am a member of the tribe into whose hands providence has placed the golden and rich future, the fate and culture of the world ... Only he who has worked in German history can have an idea of this great and heavenly Volksgeist.'5 Burckhardt would eventually repudiate this Germanophilia, but there remained an important connection between his conceptions of Kultur and Bildung and the Germany of Winckelmann, Herder, and Goethe. That is to say, Burckhardt was attracted to the doctrine of Germany as a Kulturvolk, an organic community tied together not by politics but by culture. He became increasingly uncomfortable, however, with the attempt to wed this organic conception of a cultural community with the notion of the power-state.6 What Burckhardt denied, then, was the possibility of the Kulturstaat and the political goals of the Kulturkampf. For him, the 'culture-state' was a contradiction in terms: culture and the state were natural antagonists. Yet it was precisely this notion of a Kulturstaat that became the hallmark of German historical thinking and research. Its proponents virtually dominated German historical scholarship from the time of the earliest writings of Ranke in 1825 to Meinecke's reappraisal of the tradition at the end of the Second World War.7 These historians were prominent participants in the nation-building project, promoting national values and sanctioning the power of the nation-state.8 They agreed with Herder that history was the history of national culture and that each culture must be treated on its own terms. But they developed an ardent attachment to the idea of the power-state as a protective shield of culture. If each national culture was to be treated as equally valid (if, as Ranke put it, all periods were equidistant to God), well, so too each national state must be treated as a valid expression of an inherent national spirit. A nation-state merely following its 'reason of state' could not be criticized by any absolute standards of morality or natural law. Ranke is the key figure in the national tradition in German historiography. When he died in 1886, at the age of ninety-one, he was widely celebrated as the 'father of historical science/9 He was well respected for his methodological innovations and his promotion of a quasi-positivist or scientific historiography. His exalted place in the history of historiography rests on a combination of the productive use that he made of original documents and the critical approach that he brought to his task. Ranke pioneered the use of state documents and

62 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

other archival material, and he insisted on an elaborate critical scrutiny of these sources. In order to get the facts straight, he believed, one must 'return to the most pristine sources/ which then give rise to 'pure perception/10 So he searched for vital documents in archives throughout Europe, and he sent students such as the young Burckhardt to do the same.11 Once the sources had been compiled, he urged his students to interpret them carefully, as would a philologist, by checking all sources for trustworthiness and against their own context. Ranke revealed his view of the historian's mandate in this, perhaps the most famous statement in all historiography: 'History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of ages to come. The present study does not assume such a high office; it wants to show only what actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen).'12 Objectivity is thus the central task, the aim and goal that the historian must set for himself or herself. As Ranke explained, 'the ideal of historical education would consist in training the subject to make himself wholly into the organ of the object, that is of science (Wissenschaft) itself, without being hindered from knowing and presenting the complete truth by the natural or fortuitous limits of human existence/13 Given its emphasis on state documents, Rankean history is primarily political history. Ranke's own works are largely accounts of war, diplomacy, and the deeds of great statesmen. He was also a political partisan. For almost five years - from late 1831 to 1836 - he edited an official Prussian magazine, the Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift, which employed historical arguments to show that Germany did not require revolutionary change and that the will of the individual was subordinate to the greater purposes of the state.14 Later, as a well-respected professor, he was sent on a few minor diplomatic missions as a Prussian representative.15 Throughout this career as professor, political publicist, and part-time diplomat, Ranke, in the words of one biographer, 'condoned and even idealized state power/ He staunchly defended absolutist Prussia against the challenge of liberalism, especially the French version, and in so doing made historicism into a political ideology.16 By asserting that every nation has a right to follow its own logic in politics, in defiance of the standards of individual liberty, Ranke's historicism justified the ruthless and autocratic methods of the emerging modern state. This message appears most emphatically in his 1836 essay, 'A Dialogue on Polities' (Politisches Gesprach), and in an article from 1833,

'The Great Powers' (Die Grossen Machte).17 In these essays he insists

Burckhardt and Ranke 63 that nation-states are spiritual forces ordained by God [Gedanken Gottes] and that 'the idea of the state permeates every citizen' to such an extent that 'autonomous private life no longer exists.'18 While others, especially the socialists, were also acknowledging the role of a powerful state, Ranke's was a conservative view of the modern state. There is no need for popular participation, he argues, since the natural rulers arise spontaneously from the spirit of the nation itself and instinctively care for the common advantage. The role of the citizen in this scheme is to be loyal and patriotic, to help create the 'moral cement' that holds the state together.19 The devotion demanded by Ranke is complete: 'Compulsion will be transformed on a higher level into voluntary individual initiative. Duty will become liberty/20 What is most striking about Ranke's political theory is its naive assumption that there is no conflict between the individual and the state. Government is described as 'benevolent'; it has nothing but the welfare of the citizen at heart. Internal civil strife is hardly acknowledged. There is little mention of the conflicting interests of social classes, parties, or religions. Nor is much said of the different needs and demands of, for example, businessmen, farmers, workers, or civil servants when it comes to the role of the state. Ranke sees rather an 'inner harmony' between the demands of the state and the interests of all its members. When, in the 'Dialogue,' Carl, the proponent of rationalist liberalism, suggests that politics are essentially conflict between parties, Friedrich, Ranke's mouthpiece, insists that the state is a morally supreme force and that it must rule out all independent public life. Liberty is subordinate to order. The absolutist Prussian state, led by well-intentioned experts, is therefore fully within its rights to exclude all alternative forms of political activity in the name of unity. The state must therefore protect the public interest at home by demanding loyalty and obedience. Yet the mechanisms for ensuring such devotion are of little concern to Ranke. Still, he recognizes two great conflicting forces at work in modern politics: the principles of monarchy and revolutionary popular sovereignty. In his old age (on his ninetieth birthday in 1885), he could look back with satisfaction on the period of Bismarck and the defeat of radical popular movements: Tn the events we have experienced, we may see principally a defeat of the revolutionary forces which make impossible regular continued development of world history. If these forces had stood their ground, there would have been no question of continued creation of historical forces, or even of an unpartisan examination of them. World history in

64 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

the objective sense would have become impossible. In my littleness, I would not have thought of writing a world history had not the general problem of the two great world forces been decided for me after long struggles and changes, so that it is possible to look back over the earlier centuries in an unpartisan way/21 This bold assertion shows just how closely Ranke tied the triumph of the old monarchical principle to the very possibility of the 'regular continued development of world history/ A victory for the popular revolutionary forces would mean, for him, an end to the well-ordered historical process, and thus the impossibility of remaining objective and non-judgmental. Ranke, of course, was a partisan of only one of the two antagonistic principles. But in his mind, he was on the side of the world spirit and could therefore consider his observations entirely objective. The above passage amounts to a Rankean version of the Hegelian notion that the spirit cannot be fully understood until it takes an objective form - in this case, the form of the state. In his political thought, Ranke postulates different spiritual essences, informed by specific national 'Ideas,' which alone infuse life into all varieties of constitutions and societies.22 Moreover, the creation of new historical forces, new power formations (for example, nation-states), is the result of 'good fortune' - i.e., the verdict of events, victory.23 And this is as it should be, since the happiness, prosperity, and virtue of the populace depend entirely on the power of the state. What matters most in his historical and political thought is the way states comport themselves on the world stage. For Ranke, the highest form of civilized existence in a national community corresponds always to its moment of greatest political or military triumph. Thus primacy should be granted to foreign relations rather than to domestic politics: 'The position of a state in the world depends upon the degree of independence it has attained. It is obliged, therefore to organize all its internal resources for the purpose of self-preservation. This is the supreme law of the state/24 The implication for historiography is that nation-states form the basic units of study. Indeed, they are to be treated as discrete 'individualities, analogous one to another, but basically more independent of each other/25 The implication for power politics is equally self-evident. Germany must follow its own course, resisting both the trend towards internal democratization and the possibility of a more pacifist external policy: "The world as we know it has been parcelled out. To be somebody, you have to rise by your own

Burckhardt and Ranke 65 efforts. You must achieve genuine independence. Your rights will not be voluntarily ceded to you. You must fight for them.'26 The crude nationalism of this approach was balanced in Ranke's historiography with a vision of a grand community of European power under God's providential governance. He saw in the European system of nation-states the correct operation of a principle of 'diversity-inunity/ a self-regulating balance of power as the logical consequence of national differentiation.27 Ranke was optimistic that wars and other political conflict would rejuvenate the 'Great Powers' of Europe and thus renew the 'fundamental principle of all states, that is, religion and law.'28 Moreover, he saw in world history a great divine plan: 'World history does not present such a chaotic tumult, warring, and planless succession of states and peoples as appear at first sight ... There are forces and indeed spiritual, life-giving, creative forces, nay life itself, and there are moral energies, whose development we see ... They unfold, capture the world, appear in manifold expressions, dispute with and check and overpower one another. In their interaction and succession, in their life, in their decline and rejuvenation, which then encompasses an ever greater fullness, higher importance, and wider extent, lies the secret of world history.'29 Ranke's history thus accentuates process, the rise and fall of individual national entities; but it also perceives within change the hidden hand of God, a progressive development towards the undisclosed goal of a balance of power between great states. Gradual historical evolution was part of God's will. This attitude was conservative in that it was directed against radical change and designed to promote order and authority. Nevertheless, Ranke was not an early convert to German unification, and even when he accepted the need for an enlarged national state after 1871 he did not tend to employ his historical writing as a way of taking sides in the battles between emerging European nation-states. His objectivity and detachment as a historian kept his nationalism in check. The larger intention of Ranke's historiography - his religious and philosophical ambition to grasp the divine design behind universal history - was soon rejected by a new generation of secular German historians. What endured was, first, his scientific-historical method and, second, his nation-centred German political historiography. However, a narrower view of 'political history' - one stressing Machtpolitik, military supremacy, and national chauvinism to the exclusion of cul-

66 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

tural cosmopolitanism - overtook Ranke's balance between nationalism and internationalism. Building on Ranke's spiritualization of power, the power-state, and power politics, the so-called Prussian School of Friedrich Dahlmann, J.G. Droysen, Heinrich von Sybel, and Heinrich von Treitschke demanded that the historical profession be pressed into service for the unification of Germany and the glorification of its stature as a nation-state.30 While in many respects remaining true to Rankean critical ideals, these historians strengthened the political mandate of political history. Historians, they argued, had to find answers to contemporary problems. Indeed, they had to engage in political affairs, taking sides in the major ideological battles of the century. They occasionally criticized Ranke, who was less inclined to take such a view, for his 'excessive' and 'irresponsible' objectivity.31 Dahlmann exemplifies the moderate liberal view among German historians at this time. In 1835 he wrote a classic treatise on German liberalism in which he argued that the state was the most integral institution of human life.32 He respected historical institutions as embodying the seeds of a transcendent ideal of the state, and he held that progress towards the ideal state required the preservation of governmental authority. He admired the British system and thought that a constitutional monarchy was the most effective way to guarantee order and individual liberties. Like most Vormarzliberals, however, he opposed popular sovereignty and feared the rule of the masses. Yet Dahlmann was a staunch defender of constitutionalism and liberty, ideals that he proclaimed as the leader of the 'Gottingen Seven' seven professors (including the brothers Grimm) who in 1837 were dismissed from the university by the new ruler Ernst Augustus because they had protested the prince's arbitrary abrogation of the Staatsgrundgesetz (a quasi-constitution that Dahlmann had helped to write). Dahlmann found a new position at the Prussian University of Bonn in 1843 and became active in the movement to unite Germany, which he felt would be the best way to guarantee a constitution to all citizens and to reform the corruption of the existing political system. He looked to Prussia to lead the German state and pressed this cause as one of the moderate liberals at Frankfurt during 1848. But he became greatly disillusioned by politics when his dream of a Prussiandominated German state ruled by a liberal constitution failed, and he withdrew from politics to his teaching and research.33 Droysen was also a member of the Frankfurt Parliament ('the parliament of the professors') and a leading proponent of German unifi-

Burckhardt and Ranke 67 cation under the leadership of his native Prussia. For him, good nations had to rest on ethical foundations, and he argued that the Prussian state embodied just such an ideal state: it was the perfect compromise between the radicalism of the French Revolution and the absolutism of the old order. Droysen's multi-volume Geschichte der preussischen Politik (1855-86) presents the goal of German unification as the dominant theme of Prussian history since the sixteenth century. For him, as for Dahlmann, history provided a broad knowledge of society and politics (rather than the will of God, as in Ranke), thus allowing correct social and political decisions. By this means, history could directly serve liberal political ends. Another active contemporary German historian who combined the vocations of history and politics was Heinrich von Sybel, a former student of Ranke's and a passionate advocate of German-Prussianism. Sybel once called himself four-sevenths a professor and three-sevenths a politician, but he always strived to conform to Rankean ideals in his professional work.34 Sybel is distinguished as the editor of many volumes of Prussian documents, founder of the German Historical Institute in Rome, and founding editor in 1849 of the famous Historische Zeitschrift - the first scholarly journal devoted to the new scientific historiography in the Rankean manner. Sybel and others in the Prussian School had their prophecies fulfilled with German unification in 1871. The primary historical-political conclusion to be drawn by Sybel from Bismarck's victory was that success justified historical action. The post-1871 Prussian historians tended to affirm that success in history conferred value, a doctrine that would leave future German historians vulnerable to criticisms that they stood by defencelessly during the rise of fascism. To be sure, some elements of a 'historiography of victors' can be found in Ranke's providential history or in Hegel's philosophy of reason in history, but the Prussian School went farther than they did in divorcing historical judgments from moral criteria. Thus Sybel could justify 'historically' the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 and regard violent war as a legitimate means for founding powerful nation-states.35 And by narrowing the scope and context of Ranke's universal notion of providence or Hegel's worldhistorical progress to the destiny of Prussian-German national unity, Sybel and other liberal historians prepared the ground for a virulently nationalistic and close-minded historiography in the work of Treitschke. Treitschke was Dahlmann's most prominent student and admirer, and his teacher's emphasis on state power was not lost on him.

68 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

Treitschke succeeded Ranke in his chair at Berlin in 1874, and became the official historian of Prussia in 1886. Though now seldom read, his massive German History in the Nineteenth Century (1879-94) appealed directly to a self-centred and arrogant nationalist movement.36 The book is an extended sermon on power as the essence of the state, on the notion that Prussia is the embodiment of power, on the heroic virtues instilled by war, and on the superiority of political over social life. Treitschke saw it as his duty to awaken in his readers 'the joy of having a fatherland/37 In international affairs, Treitschke perceived a battle of the fittest in which only the most deserving nation-states would emerge triumphant. His praise of power politics was often intermingled with views that were anti-Semitic, anglophobic, antisocialist, and anti-democratic. In his lectures on politics, Treitschke is most candid. At one point, he argues strenuously in favour of a fullscale colonial policy on the grounds that 'the whole position of Germany depends upon the number of German-speaking millions in the future/38 And in a lecture on 'Races, Tribes and Nations/ he observes that the Jews have always been 'an element of national decomposition' and concludes that once 'Aryan races learnt how to manage their own finances themselves ... there is no place left for the cosmopolitanism of the Semites/ The solution to the Jewish problem is to 'arouse an energy of national pride, so real that it becomes a second nature to repel involuntarily everything which is foreign to the German nature/ This principle, Treitschke maintains, must be carried into everything theatre, music, art, and the press. There is no room for compromise: 'Whenever he finds his life sullied by the filth of Judaism the German must turn from it, and learn to speak the truth boldly/39 Treitschke promulgated the view that a 'healthy' nation-state depends on its ethnic homogeneity and will to power. Treitschke's histories and lectures had great impact on the younger generation of German students and scholars and continued to carry weight in academic circles in the early twentieth century. But Treitschke's histories, stirring and trenchant and admirable in workmanship, are nevertheless seen today as too distorted by his fanatic nationalism and his pernicious biases to be of much use. In the words of one leading commentator: 'When the future with its doubts and problems arrived, Treitschke's work had little to offer and it faded from ongoing discourse, while historical scholarship in the Rankean manner continued to exert a profound influence around the world/40

Burckhardt and Ranke 69 Berlin and Basel: Meinecke on the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem Although Treitschke is an extreme example of the nationalist implications of the German Historical School's attitude to power and the state, there is a logical continuum of state-oriented political thinking that runs to him from Ranke. Many writers have examined the confrontation between this German 'political' history and Burckhardt's 'cultural' history.41 Fittingly, it was Friedrich Meinecke, the twentieth century's doyen of German historians and himself a lifelong devotee of Ranke, who was the first to dramatize this opposition in overtly political terms. In a now-famous address to the German Academy of Sciences in 1948, the eighty-eight-year-old Meinecke, in his last scholarly utterance, portrayed Berlin and Basel, personified by Ranke and Burckhardt, as great antagonists: 'One extolled the enhancement of German national power, the other criticized, mistrusted and felt anxiety at that very enhancement. Droysen, Treitschke and Dilthey joined their voices with Ranke's, the young Nietzsche, Overbeck and Bachofen joined theirs with Burckhardt's.'42 The Berlin-Basel dispute is not, however, a conflict between two 'national' interests opposed to one another, even though Burckhardt and Bachofen are Swiss and the others in their camp were expatriates who settled in Basel. Rather, this is an intra-German dispute over the proper relationship between the state and society in a modern Europe dominated by Germany. As Meinecke notes, both views were based on a deep concern with German intellectual and political life as a whole. But representatives of these two German-speaking cities - Berlin and Basel - saw matters from quite opposite perspectives: the Berliners understood state power as the basis of their splendid culture, while the Baselers bemoaned Germany's aspiration of becoming the leading European political power and wished for it to return to the peaceful arts that had distinguished it during the creative period of Goethe. At the same time, as we have seen, Basel had its own, specifically German-Swiss, intellectual climate and cultural heritage. Baselers tended towards political conservatism and anti-modernism, and they were not much impressed by the latest intellectual fads or trends, regardless of whether they came from Berlin, London, or Paris. Various representatives of the Basel worldview differed in many ways, but their thinking coalesced around a set of shared assumptions and

70

Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

expectations that reflected the ideological and socio-cultural attitudes of the local elite. Thus the intellectuals of Basel served the interests of the city fathers by providing an ideological defence of the status quo (wrapped up as a defence of old Europe and the cultural continuum) against the forces of modernization, economic restructuring, and sociopolitical reform. They also presented, as Meinecke pointed out, an impressive counterpoint to the ideological developments initiated in Berlin. This Basel political culture, with its implicit critique of the PrussianGerman nation-state, was well entrenched when the young Nietzsche first arrived in Basel in 1869. During his years there, as biographer Peter Bergmann remarks, Nietzsche began to use the word 'Berlin' as a code word for 'the scholarly scientism of men like Wilamowitz, and the soullessness of an instant metropolis; Berlin embodied the pretensions of an imperial style blind to the dangers lurking in the hubris of a lopsided military victory.'43 Nietzsche even played a minor role in this contest between Basel and Berlin. When his polemical David Strauss, Writer and Confessor (1873), was attacked by the German critics as no more than whining from the 'cubbyhole university' (Winkeluniversitat) of Basel, Nietzsche became something of a local hero for having so irritated Prussian sensibilities. He apparently counted over nine favourable articles in local newspapers.44 Bergmann adds, however, that while the Swiss position exploited the ancient quarrel between the city-state and the empire, this dichotomy was not without its artificiality: 'Basel was, after all, a small city disguising itself as a citystate with the pretensions of being a half canton, and Berlin was also playing a part, that of the Prussian capital now pretending to be the capital of a nation-state with pretensions of being an empire.'45 Nevertheless, the symbolism of the Berlin-Basel dichotomy was real enough at the time and was further dramatized in 1872 when Burckhardt was offered, and then refused, Ranke's chair at the University of Berlin. This was the most prestigious academic position in the discipline, and by refusing it Burckhardt was widely regarded as having turned his back on the Germany that he had once so loved. The political significance of his decision was highlighted in 1874 when the arch-nationalist Treitschke assumed the chair (at a slightly lower salary than was offered to Burckhardt, as Baselers always remind us). Treitschke, of course, embodied all that Burckhardt most despised in German political thinking. And he fulfilled all expectations. From his

Burckhardt and Ranke 71 chair in Berlin, Treitschke taught young Germans the blind devotion and earnest attachment to the state necessary for the realization of his most fervent hopes and wishes for Prussian-German military supremacy. Meanwhile, from his chair in Basel, Burckhardt taught young Swiss the exact opposite lessons. When the Berlin offer became the talk of the town, Burckhardt remained modest, as usual, about the affair. At first, as the rumour of the proposed appointment spread, he 'denied it to three quarters of the students, so as not to have to acknowledge any visible compliments.' To his friends he confessed that he would never have gone to Berlin at any price - 'to have left Basel would have brought a malediction on me ... Had I accepted, I should be in a suicidal mood, instead of which people here are really grateful to me and here and there quietly shake me by the hand.'46 Burckhardt had long since settled his personal accounts with ambition and decided against any return to Germany. He had refused several offers to teach or to serve as a resident scholar in its universities, including the possibility of teaching in Berlin when Ranke was still there. In any event, by ceasing to publish he had broken his ties with the German public as well. For whatever reasons, he could never bring himself to abandon his comfortable existence in Basel for the fame and academic honours that might come with a German professorship. There is a strong temptation to follow Meinecke's lead and accentuate the differences between Ranke and Burckhardt, especially given the historical fate of their two views. But throughout his academic career Burckhardt remained 'a disciple of Ranke in the fullest sense.'47 He greatly admired Ranke as a historian and teacher. Hence in his autobiographical sketch, read at his funeral in accordance with the customs of Basel, Burckhardt wrote: T had the good fortune to present two substantial studies in Ranke's seminar and to be rewarded with the approval of the great teacher.' He also shared Ranke's love and admiration for the spectacular continuity of world history, from its origins in the ancient Near East to its flowering in the Romanic-German West.48 And even in his historical method, where he diverged so sharply from Ranke's choice of subject matter, he remained a Rankean in his devotion to original sources ('our mind can enter into a real, chemical combination, in the full sense of the word, only with the original source')49 and his faith in the objectivity of historical research

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('there is a friendship between science and history ... because these two branches of learning are alone capable of a detached, disinterested participation in the life of things')-50 Nevertheless, the personal and political differences between the two men were great, their significance took on a new dimension in the twentieth century, especially after the Second World War. From his vantage point within the ruins of postwar Germany, Meinecke, who had despaired at the fate of the fatherland with the Fuhrer at the helm (but none the less remained in Germany throughout the war), conceded that 'today we are beginning to ask whether, in the end, Burckhardt will have a greater impact than Ranke for us as well as for other historians/ Burckhardt, he continued, 'saw more deeply and acutely into the essential historical character of his time. As a result, he was able to see the future, too, more definitely and certainly than Ranke could.'51 This seems to have been a major change of heart for Meinecke, who, forty-three years earlier, had chastised Burckhardt as a pessimist and admonished German historians not to take their cues from a man who never had to fight for his nation and therefore had no right to pass judgment against nationalistic German historiography.52 In this 1906 review of Burckhardt's recently published Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (1905), Meinecke made a firm distinction between the historical-political systems of Ranke and of Burckhardt. He reads the latter as a defender of cultural man and cultural history against the German idealization of political man and political history. Yet in Burckhardt's remarks about modern culture and politics Meinecke finds a deep pessimism and distrust for power of any kind that he simply cannot accept.53 At this earlier stage in his career, before either of the twentieth century's great wars, Meinecke was inclined to follow his German mentors in holding that power is the just and fundamental characteristic of the state. He accounted for Burckhardt's divergence from this view on the grounds that neutral Switzerland afforded Burckhardt a place outside the great political conflicts of the day from which he could have a 'free view' of the past and present. Meinecke, in contrast, was no more free than was Ranke from their schooling in the political and social struggles of a powerful nation. 'We are all/ Meinecke says, 'more collective in our thoughts than [Burckhardt]/54 As products of their socio-political surroundings, in other words, German historians were not at liberty to take a personal approach to politics and history,

Burckhardt and Ranke 73 to decide for themselves, through pure contemplation of world events, what is right or wrong. They could not enjoy the advantage of disinterestedness, as could the isolated Swiss. Such an interpretation of the difference between Ranke and Burckhardt cannot be sustained, however, in the face of evidence that Burckhardt was not at all isolated from enthusiastic German political historiography and from the general political climate of nineteenth-century Europe. Carl Neumann's writings on Burckhardt first provided the evidence to Meinecke that Burckhardt was well aware of social and political issues. So in 1928, Meinecke revised his interpretation somewhat to put more emphasis on the peculiarities of Burckhardt's cultural-historical method rather than on the peculiarities of his personality or surroundings.55 By 1948, however, having just lived through one era of totalitarian dictatorship and the start of another, Meinecke returned to the distinction between political and cultural history as represented by Ranke and Burckhardt. He was now most impressed with Burckhardt's predictions about the direction of modern mass movements in the West and thus reconsidered his evaluation of Burckhardt as a strictly cultural historian with little to teach the German public about politics. Though still unwilling to share the Baseler's uneasiness about the power of a democratic state, Meinecke now believed that 'we can be assured that Burckhardt felt the pulse of his own time more strongly than Ranke, with his safety and security in Prussia-Germany.'56 He then outlined the specific differences between the two men's historiographies and explained 'Burckhardt's greater excellence in the judgement of the present and the future.'57 First, Meinecke cites Ranke's lectures to King Maximilian II of Bavaria in 1854, in which Ranke declares that 'it is a happy thing to live in these times,' when the balance of power between absolutist monarchy and the revolutionary movement secures continuity in the development of historical forces. He also recalls Ranke's comments on his ninetieth birthday, when he said how glad he was that the old monarchical principle in Germany triumphed over mass political movements and thus made possible an unpartisan assessment of world history. In 1948, there was now no doubt that Ranke was neither unpartisan nor correct about the finality of Bismarck's defeat of the revolutionary movement. In contrast to Ranke's optimism, Meinecke notes that Burckhardt's 'deep-rooted pessimism kept reminding him of the perishability of earthly things. This pessimism prevented him from forming any such ideal image of regular continued development of world

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history as that which Ranke carried with hope and belief in his heart.'58 And Burckhardt never accepted Ranke's view that states, as spiritual forces, played a special part in God's divine plan. The state for Burckhardt is merely a 'necessary institution/ a 'negative mantelet.' Burckhardt's ideal state, according to Meinecke, 'would be limited to protection of law, order and quiet in the land. It is, therefore, the nightwatchman state.'59 In addition, Meinecke pointed out that Burckhardt's distrust of power and abhorrence of state violence restrained him from applauding Bismarck's political achievement, in spite of its conservative result. For him, Bismarck's method of violence was merely 'revolution from above.' As early as 1872 Burckhardt concluded: 'Bismarck has only taken into his own hands that which would have happened in due course without him and in opposition to him. He saw that the growing wave of social democracy would somehow or other bring about a state of naked power, whether through the democrats themselves or though the Government, and said: Ipsefadam (I myself will do it) and embarked on three wars, 1864, 1866, 1870.'60 Once this revolutionary step is taken, moreover, once law has been violated and old institutions have been overthrown, there is no turning back. The state is itself now susceptible to illegal methods and violent overthrow. Meinecke approvingly quotes Burckhardt in this regard: 'One does not become more secure by driving out one's peers and inheriting their lands.'61 The work of Bismarck does not put an end to the 'Age of Revolution,' but rather fuels the very mentality from which it arose the spirit of continuous change and 'eternal revision.' Writing as he did after the collapse of Bismarck's 'handiwork/ Meinecke recognizes the historian's 'difficult and painful task to investigate more precisely the internal cleavages and seeds of danger present from the outset.' He could now arrive at the supremely unRankean conclusion that it is the intellectual's task to 'pass judgement, justly but sternly, and not to shy from breaking with old conventions. In this task, Burckhardt's critique shows us the way.'62 Thus Meinecke sees in Burckhardt's cultural history the same standard as proposed by Goethe's famous dictum: 'Only man can do the impossible; he distinguishes, chooses and passes judgement.'63 In The German Catastrophe (1946), a poignant and self-critical examination of the social and political forces that led to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, Meinecke passes judgment on his own intellectual heritage. He begins this moving little book with yet another tribute to

Burckhardt and Ranke 75 Burckhardt's political insight: 'Burckhardt, more clear sighted than any other thinker of his time, gives the first answers to our problem, which he understood at its first appearance. In the optimistic illusions of the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution he had already perceived the germ of the great disease - the mistaken striving after the unattainable happiness of the masses of mankind, which then shifted into a desire for profits, power, and a general striving for living well. So there came about, Burckhardt further observes, the loosening of old social ties and ultimately the creation of new but very powerful ties by those men of violence, those terribles simplificateurs, who, supported by military organizations, forced the masses back again into discipline and obedience and a renunciation of all their former longings for freedom.'64 Although Meinecke had previously made an implicit judgment in favour of his own political-cultural inheritance, he now makes an explicit judgment against it.65 The undeniable relationship between the Nazi state and the traditions of German political thinking forced him to re-evaluate the main tenets of German political culture. He concludes that the internal enemy 'clamps upon the soul much more tightly than the external foreign rule, because it is able to work so much more effectively with lies and frauds/66Thus Meinecke abandoned his long-held Rankean doctrine of the primacy of foreign relations, and he urged Germans to renounce the insidious belief in their nation's destiny as a supreme military power in order to choose instead the path of cultural freedom and individuality. Nevertheless, Meinecke remained hopeful that German history had not led inevitably to Nazism. He believed that Burckhardt was wrong about the origins of German unification and its relation to the 'blind striving of the masses to whom culture meant nothing.' German unity and strength were rather borne along, he liked to think, by a 'great idea of an inner union of spirit and power, by humanity and nationality.' The turn towards Nazism was a horrible disruption of this process, to be sure, but Meinecke was still convinced that such a perverse ideological turn was not the only conceivable outcome of German national feeling. In fact, nationalism might instead have led where Meinecke in the 1940s hoped it still might go - namely, in the direction of a highly developed 'spiritual' culture, especially art, poetry, and science.67 Two years later, Meinecke found some hints of encouragement in Burckhardt's belief that humankind may not yet be doomed to destruction. Tt is possible,' Burckhardt wrote, 'that by this blind

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will to change ... there is intended something permanent (that is, relatively so), that something stronger and higher is exerting some will in and with us.'68 For Meinecke in 1948, Burckhardt's pessimistic vision of the future, "aware of its own blindness and yet with a quiet hope/ compared favourably with Ranke's "bright-eyed trust' that the national genius of European states would never succumb to despotism. Meinecke found that both historians were well attuned to the political antagonism between the old authority and the new mass politics. But he regarded as superior Burckhardt's insight into the essential character of his times precisely because 'he viewed the material development of the nineteenth century basically with greater profundity and skepticism/69 Burckhardt recognized that humankind in general had been transformed since the French Revolution. This was partly because of the force of Rousseau's ideas about progress and the goodness of human nature, but it was also largely the result of the success of industrial capitalism. The introduction of new machinery, the creation of huge factories, the expansion of coal and iron production, and the general cult of Technik were to Burckhardt unfortunate, even hateful developments. As Meinecke put it, Burckhardt saw that 'lust for power, money and self-indulgence had broken forth mightily and would drive men to their destruction.'70 Although Meinecke does not pursue the point, one could argue that Burckhardt's cultural history was better able than German political history to appreciate the material factors at work in modern Europe, since it included 'all that has spontaneously arisen for the advancement of material life and as an expression of spiritual and moral life all social intercourse, technologies, arts, literatures, and sciences.'71 The political theory of German national historicism assumed that power is the essence of the state, and it thus tended to focus exclusively on the external relations between states. Its analysis of the social and cultural implications of economic development remained seriously underdeveloped. Ranke, for instance, seemed satisfied with his belief that public welfare and private welfare were complementary. He saw no need to explore further the paradox of freedom and duty in the modern power-state. As Von Laue explains, Ranke's uncritical attitude towards material development simply favoured the status quo of industrial capitalism: 'Rich subjects made a rich state. And vice versa, the political course of a prosperous benevolent state helped its citizens to greater individual prosperity. In short, serving themselves, the citizens also

Burckhardt and Ranke 77 served the state; and serving the state, they again served their own interests.'72 In 1948, Meinecke believed that Ranke and Burckhardt represented two opposing resolutions to the eternal debate about how to reconcile the conflicting demands of Geist and Macht. He saw behind the vast disparities in the two men's political judgments two entirely distinct ideological systems and attitudes towards life. Yet these two separate Weltanschauungen stem from the same root, the philosophy of German idealism and humanism. Meinecke was struck by the fact that the same tradition of German thought could produce two such entirely different standards of judgment about the philosophical problems of power and of the power-state in general. To explain this divergence, Meinecke relies on Wilhelm Dilthey's distinction between two types of Weltanschauung - objective and subjective ('an idealism of freedom').73 Ranke, like Hegel, represents of the sort of idealism that proceeds from the belief that the world as it is, and the power formations within it, have a rational sense, which we can perceive through objective or scientific thought. Thus 'an immense dynamism of creative forces, with ever new antitheses, syntheses and polarities surges through Ranke's history; everywhere in it reality is elevated to the heights of the spiritual. Thus he came to exalt power, the power-state and power politics. Thus, they too were given too bright a sheen of spirituality.'74 From his standpoint in the mid-twentieth century, Meinecke no longer thought that the idea of power and the institutions of the power-state should deserve to shine so brightly. Ranke had looked on the process of world history and on all that exists within it (all supra-personal entities such as states, peoples, ideas, and institutions) as a manifestation of the will of God, so it was difficult for him to carve out a place for this kind of human judgment. After all, if everything that exists does so because it is God's will, who are we to say that things are not as they should be? And what difference would such a suggestion make anyway? Burckhardt's attitude was entirely otherwise. While Ranke tended to combine political and cultural history into one objective study of a divinely ordered world history, Burckhardt insisted on the heterogeneity of religion, the state, and culture. In this separation of the cultural from the political and religious realms, we glimpse what Meinecke regards as 'the innermost Burckhardt, this individual in himself wholly sovereign and yearning for liberty.'75 Meinecke explains that, for Ranke,

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'the light in world history came from above - for Burckhardt, it came from within, from the spontaneity of the productive men who create culture. In this connection, culture as a result and power as a means do not work so harmoniously, so willed of God, as with Ranke; they only form a remarkable and exciting combination of forces working alongside, against and within each other.'76 This 'idealism of freedom' allows for, even demands, the exercise of the purely human faculty of judgment. According to Burckhardt, we must make personal judgments about the past and present, and our histories should revolve around a consideration of the individual and the eternal struggle with coercive external forces. Yet if this were all that Burckhardt represented, Meinecke points out, it would leave us with 'a conception of history as moralization, so that at every step we would have to condemn the principle of evil.' Burckhardt, fortunately, was not an unwavering moralist. And in historical method, he did not break from the tradition of German aesthetic humanism. He insisted that the proper exercise of aesthetic-moral judgment required background training and experience, education and cultivation. He took infinite pleasure in the multiplicity and diversity of the historical, and he learned to appreciate all that was available for historical contemplation. 'As a result,' Meinecke explains, 'he wove together most wonderfully the aesthetic and moral elements in his judgement, making them almost inseparable.'77 Burckhardt rejected the spiritualization of the state in Rankean historicism and, as we see more clearly in the next chapter, he criticized as mere abstraction 'the philosophy of history' (Hegel's was always meant) with its oppressive systematizing and its presumption that history is the progress of reason throughout the ages. Like many of the early humanists and Romantic thinkers, he rejected the notion that philosophical understanding is to be considered only within the terms of the concept, rational argument, and the principles of scientific evidence. Instead, he gave primacy to poetry, myth, imagination, memory, observation, sense perception, and historical consciousness. It is in the promotion of this constellation of interests, as much as in his rejection of Ranke's emphasis on politics narrowly defined, that one finds the core of cultural as apart from political history. Indeed, Joseph Mali has suggested, in a detailed re-examination of Meinecke's famous 1948 address, that the actual conflict between Ranke and Burckhardt, and of the schools of thought that they represent, has to do mainly with their different attitudes towards myth in history.

Burckhardt and Ranke 79 Ranke, who wrote his dissertation on Thucydides, followed him in opposing myth; Burckhardt, an admirer of Herodotus, followed him in believing that the historian must take myth seriously in order to understand fully what the culture of a people really is. On the basis of this teaching, Burckhardt formulated a historiography that was sensitive to myth. Indeed, his 'most significant contribution to the formation of modern German historiography was his realization that human reality was largely made up of myths and must be interpreted in terms of myths.'78 Ranke could not accept such a conception of history, but his view was not the one that came to predominate in the twentieth century. Instead, the direction of change in historiography went away from Rankean political history towards an insurgent cultural history, first expressed by Burckhardt and then, in its more extreme version, articulated by Nietzsche and his postmodern adherents. Burckhardt, Historicism, and Cultural History Burckhardt, as we have seen, rejected the dominant historicist approach established by Ranke and carried forward by the Prussian School. And his emphasis on myth, memory, and imagination further separates him from this tradition. Yet Burckhardt's cultural history tapped into an alternative stream of German historicist thinking, one stretching from the early humanists through Herder to the later Romantics. Principal among the themes identified with this tradition are anti-rationalism, a suspicion of the idea of progress, an interest in myth and poetry as indicators of a civilization's true nature, a pronounced cultural relativism, and a general tendency to emphasize sociocultural rather than political-institutional forces. The most striking similarity between these disparate ways of thinking about human history and Burckhardt's cultural history is their shared method of historical interpretation, particularly a commitment to cultural holism and to the idea that various phases of the historical-cultural process are directly related to the organic whole. A thinker who epitomized many of these trends in German historical and political thinking was the philosopher J.G. Herder. In order to comprehend the organic whole of any given period, Herder believed, one must attend to all manifestations of human activity and must not be restricted to the so-called scientific method of research. For instance, it was clear to Herder that myth provides an essential key to the understanding of human culture. For most professional historians

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of Ranke's ilk, however, such a claim was nonsense. A historiography that assumes the primacy of myth, they said, cannot pass methodological muster because its sources are inherently suspect. To the cultural historian, in contrast, every civilization, every 'way of life,' has its own particular customs, its own unique 'centre of gravity' - its Schwerpunkt, as Herder calls it. According to Herder, moreover, this essence can be grasped not by means of abstract 'reason' but only by means of what he called Einfiihlung('feeling into'). Thus Herder early groped his way towards an articulation of a particular method of interpretation - the anschauende Erkenntnis ('the intuitive grasping of insights'), later called, by Dilthey and others, Verstehen ('understanding') - that is characteristic of cultural history in general. Herder's central motif was individuality. He insisted that every historical entity is more than a means to an end, that every age is its own justification. As a result, no one should judge a preceding age according to present-day standards. What we need to do, on the contrary, is to appreciate the diversity of cultural things, to experience them in a manner free from compulsion and prejudice. One way to do this is to employ imagination and memory to help bridge the gap between one's own culture and the vibrant cultures of times past. It is only through these mental powers that we can maintain our links with our ancestors, thus avoiding the barbarism of a people cut off from its cultural heritage. Hence, there must be a historical method that keeps alive the diverse manifestations of human creativity by offering a feast of great cultural experiences, rather than a monotonous litany of political and military events. This conviction informed Herder's view that a history that merely narrates the glorious deeds of kings and generals provides no useful example for youth. On the priority of culture and on the role of sympathetic imagining in historical work, Burckhardt was in full agreement with Herder. Some commentators therefore classify Burckhardt's work as a form of 'mythistory.'79 In Burckhardt's work, as well, we find Herder's emphasis on historical individuality - i.e., on the fundamental plurality of cultures and on the diversity of human cultural expression. Yet, as Meinecke explained in his seminal study of historical thinking, historicism rests on an understanding of things in both their individuality and their development.80 This latter notion underpins Herder's concept of the Volk, a continually developing organic whole that unites diverse individuals in a given environment through a common language, shared values, customs, arts, sciences, and social and political institu-

Burckhardt and Ranke 81 tions. Herder thus linked organicism and development, and he employed a biological metaphor to identify historical development with organic growth, with the natural unfolding of the traits implicit in the origins of a historical culture. Burckhardt, in contrast, was interested much less in development than in individuality. Although he was fascinated by periods of crisis and transition, he tended to highlight how one whole and unique period gave way to another whole and unique period. Moreover, his intention in comparing epochs was not to highlight historical development so much as to demonstrate the 'constant and recurring' aspects of human creative activity. Indeed, the fact that development features little in his work clearly separates him from most historicists. For Benedetto Croce, Burckhardt's substitution of the typical, constant, and recurring for the traditional historicist conception of history as 'a process of continuously novel actions' is proof that Burckhardt's thought is essentially anti-historical. This substitution, Croce avers, 'gets rid of history altogether, for history is history just because it does not recur and because every one of its actions enjoys its own private individuality.'81 Croce is correct to suggest that Burckhardt is not, strictly speaking, an ordinary historicist. Not only did he denigrate the idea of progress or a universal development of humankind, but he also criticized as vacuous the narrative historiography of his contemporary historicists and belittled their attempts to influence political praxis on the basis of their specialized knowledge of the process of historical development. Nevertheless, Burckhardt did treat distinct periods in history as individual entities and cannot be considered, for this reason, anti-historical. Unlike some blatantly anti-historical philosophers (Schopenhauer comes to mind), he did not repudiate the principle of individuality when he looked for typical patterns of human action in the various temporal civilizations that he studied. He made the essential novelty of the expressions of freedom and creativity in each era the focal point of his historical analysis. How then does Burckhardt fit into the European tradition of historicism? Pietro Rossi has revealed three general elements to the historicist philosophy that flourished throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: first, the replacement of a 'generalizing' by an 'individualizing' approach to human affairs; second, a developmental or dynamic-evolutionary conception of history that stands in

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opposition to a static conception of human nature and to the assumption that there is an unchanging structure underlying the historical process; and third, a relativizing conception of history that contradicts any philosophy based on the existence of absolute values.82 Burckhardt's standpoint regarding each of these propositions is highly ambivalent. First, as I have suggested, he had sympathy for the historicist emphasis on individuality, on treating each epoch as a distinct and coherent whole. Nevertheless, he persisted in seeing an overall unity to historical life, which he understood as a grand continuity of human experience. This continuity did not, however, imply any specific teleology. Whatever links exist from one era to the next are not predetermined by God or nature. On the contrary, what persists throughout time, and creates a continuous historical world, is humanly created cultural artefacts - words, ideas, art, deeds, and so on. And since this cultural continuum has been created by human beings, it can also be interrupted or permanently destroyed by them. The threat of discontinuity, of an irrevocable rupture between past and present, was one of Burckhardt's greatest concerns. Second, as for the principle that history should be conceived in dynamic rather than in static terms, Burckhardt was again sympathetic to the historicist emphasis on change and the repudiation of any underlying meaning to our ceaselessly shifting historical existence. Yet he insisted that there was no development and no evolution either, since that would imply progress and improvement. For most historicists, of course, the denial of any static norms extends to a denial of a fixed human nature. In Yet Another Philosophy of History, for instance, Herder's starting point was the denial of the rationalist conception of an immutable human nature. Human nature, according to Herder, is a 'pliant clay which assumes a different shape under different circumstances.' He accordingly balked at Voltaire's claim that 'man in general has always been what he is' and maintained instead that there are no timeless standards of human perfection against which we can praise one people and find another wanting. 'Each form of human perfection is, in a sense, national and time-bound and, considered most specifically, individual.'83 Burckhardt adopted a sceptical but rather static view regarding human nature. He repudiated, above all, the notion that he associated with Rousseau and the French revolutionaries - namely, that human beings are naturally good and that their evil behaviour is the result of imperfect social circumstances. He also denied that human nature is malleable, easily moulded by con-

Burckhardt and Ranke 83 scious government action. Thus he utterly rejected any hint that there have been, or will be in the future, any 'golden ages/ during which human nature is somehow improved on by positive social, economic, or political forces. When he does talk of human nature at all, he seems to assume the worst. For example, he says, 'Men as a whole are unsure of themselves, confused in mind and glad to run with the herd, or else they are envious or totally indifferent.'84 On this score, he is sympathetic to traditional conservatism and its belief in the radical intellectual and moral imperfection of humankind. At the same time, his cultural history presupposes that culture is in many important ways intrinsic to the good life. In a sense, he grudgingly embraces a teleological conception of human nature, seeing the satisfaction of certain kinds of needs as a necessary criterion for an individual's attainment of his or her full human potential. To make such a claim, of course, Burckhardt must subscribe to some idea of what it means, in essence, to be human. For him, the ability to create and to appreciate culture is the fundamentally human attribute - that which makes people most fulfilled as human beings. To the extent that an individual is unable or unwilling to experience the grandeur of the whole cultural continuum of humanity, he or she is therefore less than human. This priority of culture - a logical extension of his theory of cultural history - distinguishes Burckhardt from other thinkers who might regard, for example, political participation as a fundamental need that must be satisfied for a person to qualify as having experienced a fully human existence.85 Third, a propos of Rossi's final point, that European historicism promotes a relativizing conception of history over one based on absolute principles, Burckhardt could be relativistic too, especially vis-avis shifting human values. He says, for instance, that the 'true and the good are in manifold ways coloured and conditioned by time; even conscience, for instance, is conditioned by time.' But he adds that the 'devotion to the true and the good in their temporal form, especially when it involves danger and self-sacrifice, is splendid in the absolute sense.' And even more important for him, 'the beautiful,' he says, 'is truly transcendent and should be "exalted over time and its changes."' Hence 'Homer and Pheidias are still beautiful, while the good and the true of their time are no longer in all respects ours.' While to some readers this may appear unduly relativistic, Burckhardt preferred to regard his position as one of prudent scepticism. True scepticism, he reasoned, 'has its indisputable place in a world where beginnings and

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end are all unknown, and the middle in constant flux, for the amelioration offered by religion is here beyond our scope.' Of this kind of scepticism, Burckhardt felt that there could never be enough.86 Burckhardt's relation to historicism is thus complicated and uncertain. It is tempting, but unsatisfying, to regard his work as in some ways a fulfilment of the project initiated by Herder, one of the founders of modern historicism.87 Herder's enemies were not Burckhardt's, however, and the social and political motives underlying their cultural and historical theories were quite dissimilar. For Herder, the main targets of wrath include Enlightenment philosophy, unquestioning faith in the principles of reason, the doctrine of natural rights, and the preconceptions of orthodox theology. Behind Herder's historicism could be found the following powerful social and political motives: the countering of a complacent optimism that condoned the politics of the status quo; the defence of national cultures and of cultural diversity; and the combating of religious orthodoxy.88 But Burckhardt was writing in an age already dominated by historicism and a new commitment to historical consciousness based on a scientific approach to history. His enemies included the purveyors of 'the philosophy of history,' who, like Hegel, subordinated the facts of history to a preconceived idea and asserted dogmatically that there is an ultimate goal towards which everything historical necessarily strives. And he was also at odds with Ranke, and the German Historical School in general, over both the significance of the scientific character of Ranke's model of historical study and the insistence that by 'world history' we mean the history of political events. Moreover, Burckhardt's political motives were different from those of Herder or the Romantics, especially the Romantic writers who originally supported the French Revolution. Like Herder, Burckhardt objected to contemporary historiography based on a naive and complacent optimism, which reflexively endorsed the status quo. But in late-nineteenth-century Europe, the status quo was liberal, capitalist, increasingly democratic, and materialistic. Advocates of a progressive historical consciousness, according to Burckhardt, wrongly regarded this contemporary era as civilization par excellence. They saw only progress in history, so far as it endorsed their own values, and were blind to the spiritual and cultural crises of the day. They praised increased production, growth in trade and commerce, advances in science and technology, and the wider distribution of material goods, but they ignored the increased centralization of power, the growth of

Burckhardt and Ranke 85 militarism, rising nationalism, spreading homogeneity, and the decline in culture and the arts. Unlike for Herder's, the political motivation for Burckhardt's historicist repudiation of the cult of progress in history was conservative in nature. Likewise, when Burckhardt championed individuality in history he did so in order to demonstrate that the diversity of human cultures stands as a repudiation of contemporary social and political institutions, which are merely products of their time and not the realization of reason in the organization of human society. Finally, Burckhardt relied on a historicist approach to dismiss rather than to advocate wholesale attempts to change society. Any discussion of historicist theory must address the fact that it might end in relativism. Burckhardt's work at times veers in this direction. For him, however, relativism does not extend to all aspects of human life. For instance, he says that 'the true and the good are in manifold ways coloured and conditioned by time,' but he stops short of saying the same for the beautiful, which 'may certainly be exalted above time and its changes.' He is sceptical about claims of grand philosophical absolutes but regards certain personal or moral traits as absolutely good. Hence he was convinced that his scepticism did no damage to the true and the good, because he believed that devotion to the true and the good, in whatever their temporal form, remains a timeless value and 'is splendid in the absolute sense.'89 Methodologically this scepticism is directed primarily against the scientific approach to human affairs. Burckhardt shared Herder's doubts about the efficacy of scientific reason, and therefore his break with Ranke stemmed in part from his reluctance to base the objectivity of historical knowledge on the scientific character of the way it is acquired that is, on the method of dispassionately scrutinizing and criticizing original sources. Burckhardt valued historical memory and the powers of imagination, and his cultural-historical method placed great stress on the concrete, graphic, observable manifestations of human creativity. Yet Burckhardt had no fear of the charge of subjectivism. For him, historical and political judgments, if they are of any value, are anything but arbitrary - a shared set of meanings and understandings passed on through education and tradition allows the cultured individual to exercise sound historical judgments. Lying behind all these historical judgments by Burckhardt is a political point of view. Indeed, we miss a major element of his culturalhistorical approach if we fail to acknowledge its overtly political purpose. Burckhardt deliberately employed cultural history as an instru-

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ment of social and political critique. For him, the present age was not the embodiment of perfection, and it was not a violation of his historical principles to say so. Indeed, Burckhardt characterized the modern rational-technological age as one of cultural decadence. The creative and imaginative powers of the human mind decline as the realm of the state and its rational calculus of power subordinate culture and religion to the interests of the expansionist nation-state. In the shift to a world dominated by science and technology, the forces of society become fragmented and individualized, and our common culture becomes increasingly sterile and uniform. In Burckhardt, cultural history became conscious of itself as a unique discipline in conflict with both the overbearing rationalism of the philosophy of history and the unsettling political implications of the dominant practices of German political history.

CHAPTER THREE

Burckhardt's Cultural History: Philosophy, Style, and Poetry

Burckhardt depicts himself as an opponent not only of Hegel's philosophy of history, but of all philosophy. Yet despite his numerous disclaimers that he is not a philosopher, it is obvious to many that he 'thinks philosophically about history.'1 Moreover, the result of Burckhardt's philosophical-historical reflection - his 'method' of Kulturgeschichte - is widely recognized as an original and very impressive approach to the study of human affairs, if not a philosophy per se. Burckhardt's rejection of philosophy is thus a reaction against the ascendancy of speculative reason and the consequent decline of imagination, perception, artistic expression, and historical memory. Burckhardt offers a return to these modes of cognition in order to generate philosophical understanding from the concrete image rather than from the abstract. This approach is philosophical, although it rejects the traditional Western philosophical attitude towards reason and favours Anschauung (intuitive perception or contemplation) as the best 'method' of philosophical thought. Burckhardt's rejection of progressive rationalist philosophy springs directly from his culture-critique of modernity. His distrust of the state and his rejection of the optimistic goals of German political history led him to seek an alternative source of freedom as far away as possible from the compulsive authority of the state. Inspired by Schopenhauer's assertion that art provides an escape from the necessity of the Will, he formulated a model of cultural history that provides the historian with the opportunity to become both artist and connoisseur. Thus the historian can appreciate the past aesthetically in a manner that resists the compulsive authority of church- or state-oriented historiography.

88

Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History

Burckhardt held that the cultural world, since it is freely created by the human mind, is more valuable as a source of knowledge than the static world of eternal verities. Human freedom is thus to be found in the history of the cultural world. So unlike Schopenhauer, with whom he had many affinities, Burckhardt insists that historical contemplation is an indispensable medium for the attainment of genuine knowledge about humanity. The abstractions of Absolute Idealism cannot disclose the true meaning of the inescapably concrete realities of human existence. Freedom is simply incomprehensible as an abstract concept. It is realized only within the specific conditions of a particular time and place, and it is the result of long and painful human effort. Culture - manifest as art, myth, poetry, and so on - is the most concrete expression of this human freedom. In works of art, from whatever time and whatever place, we can experience the essential liberty of the human spirit. And in our own lives we can escape the oppressive rationalization and technocratization of modern existence through the appreciation of art. But more than that, we can become artistic through the exercise of our creative and imaginative powers of historical memory. Thus while the freedom of the thinker in the modern world is systematically limited by the overwhelming influence of coercive theologies or rationalist theories of the state, cultural history as art, as the expression of the personality of its authors, represents freedom in a world of necessity. Still, freedom is not licence. The true artist creates within certain traditions and is restricted to the use of available material. Moreover, the skill of artistic creation presupposes discipline, training, and sound judgment. The master craftsperson learns to forge a harmonious style out of the disorder and disharmony of unorganized reality. Burckhardt therefore advocates the remembrance of the past enhanced by an artist's perspective, the contemplation of the greatest human achievements won only through intellectual effort, and the critical evaluation of the present informed by a historical consciousness. And on a larger scale, he admires most the societies of great culture - ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence because in them all people, not just the elite, had the chance to express a unity and harmony of style in their own lives. It is in this way that a unified culture formed by a spirit of individual self-cultivation can become an effective social force, positively influencing both the political and religious realms.

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 89 For political theorists, Burckhardt's philosophy of history is of further significance because he develops a novel variation of the modernist thesis that the present age marks a complete break with the past. Consequently, he sees ours as an age of radical discontinuity in which the values and imperatives of past ages no longer hold. And beyond simply asserting this claim, he recognizes that the crisis of modernity must be the point of departure for new theories of society and the state. He defends theoretically an interpretation of history that is specifically designed to respond to the needs of the modern condition. In this modern phase of world history, Burckhardt suggests, all the traditional metaphysical, moral, or otherwise supra-historical justifications for political and social institutions have been undermined by a ruthless rationalism. This new rationalist world view does not, however, offer any firm foundation for a coherent set of values. It leads rather to a pervasive nihilism. In the modern world, moreover, wealth and culture are all that remain as a basis for measurement and distinction in human affairs. Burckhardt sees material and economic pursuits as devoid of philosophical import; they tell us nothing about the ultimate human realities. And so, for him, the only meaningful philosophical justification in this nihilistic age of secular power is an aesthetic one. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Burckhardt championed the values of culture and of 'cultural man' over those of wealth and of 'economic man.' He did so because he understood the capacity for cultural creativity to be the very essence of human freedom. For Marx, on the contrary, the key to understanding any phase in human history lies in the way human beings produce their lives in common. Hence material productive activity was fundamental, and the ideas, values, and concepts (the 'culture') employed to make sense of that productive activity were secondary. While Burckhardt did not deny that the satisfaction of purely material desires through production is a basic need, he regarded it as a vulgar need, one common to barbarian and civilized man alike. Culture, in contrast, is the expression of humanity's sovereign individuality; its development and refinement separate civilized humans from barbarians. It is thus that culture becomes the normative standard in Burckhardt's social and political philosophy. Accordingly, this chapter looks at the emergence of Burckhardt's cultural history - his rejection of philosophical history a la Hegel in favour of Schopenhauer's contemplative methods developed in rela-

90 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History tion to art; his concept of aristocratic style as a historic tool; and his poetic method of writing history. Contemplation and Burckhardt's Cultural History Philosophy and Cultural History

Burckhardt proclaimed early and often that he was ill-equipped for philosophy. As a student, he had said of himself that he was 'altogether incapable of speculation' and that he did not 'apply himself to abstract thought for a single minute in the whole year/ Even at this early age, he was not swayed by the most popular contemporary philosophical systems (although he was later to become quite enamoured of the ideas of Schopenhauer, whom he took to calling The Philosopher'), and he remained sceptical about the very possibility of a philosophy of history. When a friend suggested to him that some sort of philosophical system (preferably Hegel's) should play a greater part in his historical work, he responded: 'Leave me to experience and feel history on this lower level instead of understanding it from the standpoint of first principles/2 Burckhardt was equally unconvinced that history could be understood from the standpoint of final ends. He did not search for the overall purpose or goal of history, nor did he feel compelled to solve the riddle of God's divine design of historical development. He did not wish that philosophy be used to make sense of history nor that history should serve as a basis for philosophy; he tended to regard historical contemplation as an end in itself. In this sense, history is analogous to art,3 particularly to the poetic expression of the essence of the human condition: To me history is poetry on the grandest scale; don't misunderstand me, I do not regard it romantically or fantastically, all of which is quite worthless, but as a wonderful process of chrysalis-like transformations, of ever new disclosures and revelations of the spirit ... history to me is sheer poetry, that can be mastered through contemplation. You philosophers go further, your system penetrates into the depths of the secrets of the world, and to you history is a source of knowledge, a science, because you see, or think you see, the primum agens where I only see mystery and poetry/4 Burckhardt sides quite naturally with the poets against the philosophers. The bright lights of rational inquiry, he suggests, attempt to illuminate all the shadowy regions of human intellect, but this endeavour robs human-

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 91 ity of its richness and diversity. For him, there is no one true reality, no single legitimate perspective that only the methods of speculative reason can bring to light. Burckhardt does not intend, however, simply to discredit scientific thought or intellectual research. What he most objects to is the oppressive assertion that only speculative reason can grasp the essence of reality and the nature of the human soul. In his lectures on Greek cultural history, for instance, a mature Burckhardt, discussing the animosity between philosophy and the arts, could barely hide his contempt for the arrogant view that the artistic representation of the external world cannot serve as a reliable expression of the soul. He singles out Socratic-Platonic philosophy, in particular, for taking direct aim at poetry and art in its attempt to obliterate their influence on the Greek mind: 'Philosophic thought was hostile to the beautiful and the highly imaginative ... the Platonic state allowed no art or poesy or anything else that would make for individual development, except perhaps for that of the philosophers who were to rule the state.' This attitude, he believed, condemned art and reduced it to an external shabbiness. And if Plato had his way, 'he would not have shrunk from using force to quell its inner development as well/ Yet had Plato consulted the sculptors and painters of his day, Burckhardt continues, 'they might have taught him the lesson that the essence of intelligence consists in the highest development of individual capacities/5 Plato was not alone among the Greek philosophers in undervaluing the free development of the inner spirit. Partly for this reason, Burckhardt dismisses the claim that the Greeks are distinguished primarily by their philosophy ('if a modern thinker had no more to offer than some of the Greeks, no one would pay any attention to him'). The great inherent limitation of Greek philosophy was its inability to come to grips with freedom and necessity in human behaviour. Greek philosophers either were inconsistent on this matter or left it to the fluctuations of public opinion. For Burckhardt, the unique, unattainable genius of the Greeks lies not in their philosophy, but in their body of myths: 'Later people might have evolved something like Greek philosophy, but never their myths/6 The myths were the bonding element in Greek society, providing the foundations not only for culture but for the state and religion as well. In the patterns of thought and imagery in Greek myths Burckhardt finds an original and distinctive expression of heroic and imaginative human traits. Although later Greeks lost touch with their poetic fac-

92 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History ulty, they continued to draw inspiration from mythic-poetic modes of thought, and so the understanding of the life world of the Greek myths provides a key to the creative foundations of the more sophisticated later ages. Burckhardt claims, moreover, that the classical rationalism of the philosophers was won at the expense of valuable human powers: creativity, spirituality, imagination, and memory. The political consequences of the triumph of rationalism are equally disturbing: it is only when the mythic vision of the world breaks down that the state takes over as the dominant force in Greek life and the noble forces of society - held together by a common language, shared values, customs, ideals - begin to erode. Nevertheless, Burckhardt freely acknowledges the great debt that all later intellectual activity owes to Greek philosophy: 'Untrammelled freedom of thought won by philosophy benefited not only all fields of scientific inquiry, but even in external life it aided greatly in developing the free personality which adorns the researcher.'7 The remarkable and decisive contribution of Greek philosophy Burckhardt took to be its encouragement of a 'free and independent class of people in the midst of the despotic polis/8 Philosophers withdrew from the polis and pursued various specialized forms of intellectual enterprise. And so, to the extent that philosophy resisted the temptation to serve the interest of the state, it served the interests of culture. Yet the development of 'free personalities' - the people who took a rational view of the world rather than a mythical one - helped break down a unified way of life. As Benjamin Sax explains: 'Rationality dissolved the basis of this once harmonious civilization, breaking down the elements which created a unified existence and founding the more reflective, more specialized, forms of life which were characteristic of Hellenistic civilization/9 In the later period in ancient Athens, as in modern Europe, the dominant compulsive force was the state. As he does in his Renaissance book, in his lectures on Greek cultural history Burckhardt treats the state as a deliberate 'work of art.' His analysis of the polis was one of his chief contributions to the study of politics. While he did not invent the polis, 'he uncovered its significance, and brought it to the centre of discussion.'10 He sees the polis as necessarily hostile to the other powers in society - religion and culture. In spite of the incomparability of Greek religion, it was the omnipotence of the polis that Burckhardt identified as the distinguishing feature of Greek life. The polis, as he states, 'was completely inescapable.' Religion, the myths,

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 93 cultural life in general - 'all these were nationalized, so that the state was at the same time a church, empowered to try charges of impiety, and against this total power the individual was helpless/11 The polis imposed a form of political rationality on society that is unparalleled in human history. However, modern society comes closest to that situation: that is, the state dominates the other essential forces in society. Thus Burckhardt can empathize with the countercultural figures from the Hellenistic period, especially the cynics and sceptics. He draws a direct parallel between their experiences and his own. As Arnoldo Momigliano observes, Burckhardt turns to these characters because 'they too derive a basically pessimistic conclusion from their own conflicts.'12 Most telling are his depictions of Diogenes the Cynic and Epicurus. The former ('the mad Socrates/ as Plato called him) was admired for his sharp wit, his ascetic life, and his serene pessimism ('he died to escape from the remainder of his life'). The latter 'strove extremely hard to be a man genuinely free' and was to be praised for his 'serious and independent mind/ which rejected rhetoric in favour of simplicity. Burckhardt felt a solidarity with the pessimism of Greek ethics and praxis, and he respected the seriousness of Greek dispassionate contemplation. Throughout his writings Burckhardt consistently exalts this contemplative life. He resists 'speculation' about first causes and final ends, preferring instead his own idealism of freedom, characterized simply as a desire for Anschauung. Burckhardt spoke of Anschauung as a 'surrogate' for speculation, and he used this word to denote his process of deriving knowledge from reflection, contemplation, and active viewing of the world. Goethe used the word, which has no direct English equivalent, in much the same sense, and it suggests looking, seeing, intuition, graphic perception, vision, insight, and so on. This active viewing of the world defined Burckhardt's approaches both to his discipline and to life in general: My whole life long I have never yet thought philosophically, and never had any thought at all that was not connected with something external. I can do nothing unless I start out from contemplation. And of course I include in contemplation spiritual contemplation, e.g. historical contemplation issues from the impressions we receive from sources. What I build up historically is not the result of criticism and Speculation, but on the contrary, of imagination, which fills up the lacunae of contemplation. History, to me, is always poetry for the greater part; a series of the most

94 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History beautiful artistic compositions. Accordingly I simply don't believe in an a priori standpoint; that is a matter for the World Spirit, not for the man of history ... My entire historical work, like my passion for travel, my mania for landscape painting and my preoccupation with art, springs from an enormous thirst for contemplation [enormen Durst nach Anschauung].'13

An enormen Durst nach Anschauung - this more than any other phrase defines Burckhardt's intellectual life. Still, this is not a thirst for any ultimate meaning in history that might replace one's lost faith; it is rather a desire for the recognition and contemplation of the sublime as it was manifest throughout the history of the human cultural world.14 Thus Burckhardt did not need to rely on philosophy to satisfy his existential cravings. He merely clung 'by nature to the concrete, to visible nature, and to history.'15 Burckhardt insisted on his inability to philosophize most graphically in the letters that he wrote to Nietzsche. After receiving a copy of The Use and Abuse of History, he told his friend that 'my poor head has never been capable of reflecting, even at a distance, as you are able to do, upon final causes, the aims and desirability of history.'16 And after being sent Human, All too Human, he wrote back: 'I have never penetrated into the Temple of genuine thought, but have all my life taken delight in the halls and forecourt of the Peribolos, where the image, in the widest sense of the word, reigns.'17 With the Gay Science in hand, he lamented that 'all too much of what you write (and, I fear, the best of it) is far above my poor old head; but where I can follow along, I am exhilarated by a feeling of admiration for the immense riches no less than for the concentrated form, and can clearly see what an advantage it would be for our science if one could see with your eyes.'18 Finally, Beyond Good and Evil drew this familiar response: 'Alas, you overestimate my capacities too much ... I have never been capable of pursuing problems such as yours, nor even of understanding the premises clearly. I have never, my whole life long, been philosophically minded, and even the past history of philosophy is more or less a closed book to me.'19 These sentiments were largely a ploy to escape commenting on Nietzsche's disturbing books. Nevertheless, there are so many other examples of Burckhardt's denial of speculative skill that we can accept him as at least partly sincere on this subject. What we need to grasp is just what Burckhardt means by 'philosophy' and what precisely he intends to replace it with in his own work. Above all, he rejected

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 95 Hegel and his philosophical system. Hence we should examine his reaction to Hegel or, more specifically, his agreement with Schopenhauer, Hegel's most vitriolic opponent. Schopenhauer's Critique of Hegel

As a young professor, Burckhardt counselled a student friend to forget about Hegelian philosophy ('he is a drug on the market, let him lie where he is') and to write instead in the spirit of poetic expression ('the unconscious which breaks forth in conscious form'). Burckhardt could not hide his impatience with his friend's endless Hegelian philosophizing: 'When you philosophize, I listen till it's over, as at a sermon, and make no comment. I have nothing against that way of passing the time, if you will only promise me one thing, namely, at moments of high philosophical emotion (and they will not be wanting) to repeat three times under your breath: "I am, after all, only a miserable atom vis-a-vis the powers of the external world." And "All this is not worth one drop of real contemplation and feeling." And "Personality is, after all, the highest thing there is." And after mumbling these three sayings, you can go on philosophizing in peace.'20 With these words, Burckhardt scorns 'philosophy,' yet his debt to 'The Philosopher' is unmistakable. The first saying in the above quotation reflects Schopenhauer's insistence on dispelling the illusion of an individual personal identity. Our personal 'acts of will' are mere illusions, he tells us, manifestations of the one universal Will within us, and therefore in no sense are they the result of our free choice. The second saying seems to refer to Schopenhauer's personal antidote to pessimism - that is, to the idea that art and philosophy can provide a temporary escape from the dictates of the Will. Aesthetic experience, according to him, offers a disinterested appreciation of external objects through which one can become 'contemplative' and effect a metaphysical shift that takes one to genuine knowledge of the real world. Finally, it is in art, according to Schopenhauer, that we come to appreciate 'character' or 'personality' (alluded to in the third saying). Such a phenomenon is most significant in the case of the isolated 'genius.' In the contemplation of art, we remove ourselves from our normal subjective perspective and are able to 'see' objective truths. Genius is the rare ability to adopt this pure aesthetic stance.21 Genius, moreover, is the power, not only of comprehension of the Ideas, but of the reproduction of them in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, or music,

96 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History and is thus equivalent to the power of the great artist.22 Nevertheless, even the non-genius can attain a temporary release from striving and suffering, an escape from the life of the Will, through the enjoyment of art. For Schopenhauer, as Israel Knox explains: 'Art is an escape, an interlude of peace; it is a transition from will to vision, from desire to contemplation.'23 Burckhardt found in Schopenhauer an impressive philosophical confirmation of his own pessimistic critique of progress, of Ranke's optimistic historicism, and of Absolute Idealism. Consequently, what Burckhardt understands as 'philosophy' has been supplied for him by Schopenhauer, who assimilated Plato's Ideas and Kant's Ding an sich into a conception of philosophy as genuine knowledge of the world in itself, of the eternal and true reality that lies behind and beyond the phenomenal world. In willingly accepting this definition of philosophical knowledge, Burckhardt realized that his own intellectual enterprise - namely, history - cannot meet the strict requirements of genuine philosophical knowledge, since it does not have as its object 'that which always exists and constantly in the same manner, not something which now is and now is not, now is thus and now otherwise.'24 It is in this sense that Burckhardt insists that his commitment to history renders him unfit for philosophy. History remains on the surface, on the level of the multiplicity, individuality, and particularity of the phenomenal world. And thus history cannot penetrate the principium individuationis - the principle of individuation (what Schopenhauer calls the 'veil of maya') - and comprehend the one true essence of the real world. The key text for this conclusion is the famous chapter 38 of the second volume of The World as Will and Idea, entitled 'On History.'25 There Schopenhauer denies that history can be a science, and he introduces the distinction that Burckhardt later draws between 'subordination,' which is a fundamental characteristic of any science, and 'coordination,' which is all that history can hope to offer. Although he insists that science cannot explain everything (indeed, he regards many questions that science could not answer as more significant than those it could), Schopenhauer asserts that within the realm of empirical phenomena the claims of science must be respected. The sciences, taken together, organize facts about the real world and thus open a path to the true knowledge of the general and the particular attained through philosophy. But history lacks the systematic quality necessary to scientific endeavour. History therefore is 'certainly rational knowledge,

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 97 but it is not a science. For it never knows the particular by means of the general, but must comprehend the particular directly, and so, as it were, creeps along the ground of experience; while the true sciences move above it, because they have obtained comprehensive conceptions by means of which they command the particular, and at least within certain limits, anticipate the possibility of things within their sphere, so that they can be at ease even about what may yet have to come. The sciences, since they are systems of conceptions, speak always of species; history speaks of individuals. It would accordingly be a science of individuals, which is a contradiction.'26 To the objection that a new scientific historiography might yet attain a comprehensive and general view of historical development, Schopenhauer responds that 'the general in history here referred to is merely subjective, i.e., its generality springs merely from the inadequacy of the individual knowledge of things, but not objective, i.e., a conception in which the things would actually already be thought together.'27 History is thus unscientific because it can know only the individual and not the general, and its method is subjective and not objective. When Schopenhauer attacks the placement of history among the sciences he does damage to the pretensions of both Hegel and Ranke but has little effect on Burckhardt's estimation of history. Burckhardt never claimed to be scientific and readily identified his work as a series of subjective portraits of historical individualities. In this regard, as we have seen, he was out of step with his own discipline. By the mid-nineteenth century, the academic study of history had succumbed to an overwhelming pressure to be scientific. Even a historical method divorced from Hegel's philosophy of history, as was Ranke's, prided itself on its objective and scientific understanding of each separate historical individuality and its development throughout the historical process. Individuality and development, moreover, were the twin pillars of the historicist worldview, and Schopenhauer denied or deprecated them both. He simply had no interest in individuality and no appreciation of its value. He was even more dismissive of development, which he regarded as impossible: any flux or change is superficial, and reality begins only when change comes to a halt. Schopenhauer thus repudiated the central goal of most nineteenth-century philosophies of history - that is, the objective comprehension of individual events within a greater process of development. Hegel and Ranke shared this goal. Both saw individual events as objectively meaningful insofar as they serve humanity's task of achiev-

98 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History ing and explaining the 'World Spirit' inherent in the whole process of history. In addition, they were both full of optimism about the political implications of historical development. Hegel (and to a lesser extent Marx) looked with hope towards the march of freedom through history, evident in progressively higher, more rational forms of state organization in each stage of history. Ranke's optimism shines through in his faith that the great powers will protect and preserve traditions and maintain the continuity of the world historical process. Unlike Burckhardt, he appears not at all troubled by fears that modernity threatens to rupture this continuity. There are, of course, critical differences between these systems, especially regarding their views on the nature and meaning of development. Hegel (and more especially Marx) laid stress on dramatic movement and dynamic change. Ranke, in contrast, put an accent on continuity, on the slow and orderly progress of history under God's divine guidance. And he was far more sensitive than Hegel to the creed of individuality: earlier phases are not mere means to an end, for each epoch is equally 'immediate to God.' These differences further resulted in disputes over which was the most 'historically significant' class and which were the most 'historically significant' events - debates that meant nothing to Schopenhauer. In Hegel's view, world history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Despite its cruel and often absurd moments, world history as a whole allows for objective analysis ('to him who looks with a rational eye, history in turn presents its rational aspect'). Thus the philosopher-historian can perceive in various individual states different stages in the progressive development of the consciousness of Right. And he or she can trace the line of development, the unfolding of the 'State-Idea/ that connects each phase, one to the other, and gives meaning to the whole. This philosopher-historian is, moreover, a theodicist, one who believes in the plan of the World Spirit and can come to see precisely what new state of political consciousness events are producing and just who the World-historical individuals are through whom the Cunning of Reason is at work. It was Schopenhauer's mission to discredit this philosophy. Writing as he did before historicism had embedded itself as the dominant characteristic of European intellectual culture, he was concerned less with exposing the dangers of the historical consciousness as a general ruling ideology (as was Nietzsche in The Use and Abuse of History) than

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 99 with attacking Hegel's Idealist historical speculation in particular.28 And, as usual, Schopenhauer laced his philosophical argument with vicious polemics aimed at the 'pseudo-philosophy' of his arch-enemy. As Stephen Houlgate points out, three main points recur in his relentless diatribes against Hegel: 'Firstly, that Hegel is philosophically in error; secondly, that he is a charlatan; and thirdly, that his influence on German culture is pernicious.'29 Burckhardt was most concerned with the last of these, since he connected the decline of German culture to the rise of state power. In this regard, he was in agreement with one of Schopenhauer's genuine philosophical reasons for disagreeing with Hegel - namely, that Hegel's attempt to discern a grand plan in history serves not the interests of philosophical truth, but rather the ignoble interests of the state. Schopenhauer accuses Hegel of being guided by 'a crude and positive realism' and 'a positive optimism.' First, he is a crude realist because he takes as real that which is merely apparent - i.e., the phenomenal world and its forms and events. The unity of history, alleged by Hegel, is a false one, since only the individual has 'actual, immediate unity of consciousness.' Hegel fails to appreciate Schopenhauer's teaching that only the Will within human beings is the valid 'thing-initself.' Second, Hegel constructs a preconceived plan of history that culminates, conveniently, in the modern power-state. For Schopenhauer, it is no accident that such 'constructive histories, guided by a positive optimism, always ultimately end in a comfortable, rich, fat state, with a well-regulated constitution, good justice and police, useful arts and industries, and, at the most, in intellectual perfection.'30 Finally, Schopenhauer exposes Hegel as a crass eudaemonist who takes the world as perfectly real and places the end of it in human perfection and 'poor earthly happiness.' Schopenhauer, of course, knows better. The incidents of our inner moral life are the only real and actual events; as such, they remain essentially unaltered and admit to no perfection throughout the course of history. And happiness, no matter how much it may be 'fostered by men and favoured by fate, is a hollow, deceptive, decaying and sad thing, out of which neither constitutions and legal systems nor steam-engines and telegraphs can ever make anything that is essentially better.' Hence Hegelian glorifiers of history are 'simple realists, also optimists and eudaemonists, consequently dull fellows and incarnate philistines; and besides are really bad Christians, for the true spirit and kernel of Christianity ... is

100 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History the knowledge of the vanity of earthly happiness, the complete contempt for it, and the turning away from it to an existence of another, nay, an opposite, kind.'31 The only sort of history that Schopenhauer might condone is one that is fully aware that 'history is mendacious.' A genuine philosophy of history would share his insight that, in all the endless change and confusion of events, 'we have before us only the same, even, unchanging nature, which today acts in the same way as yesterday and always; thus it ought to recognize the identical in all events ... and, in spite of all difference of the special circumstances ... to see everywhere the same humanity.' This 'identical element,' which persists amid all change, consists in 'the fundamental qualities of the heart and head many bad, few good.' We need therefore look no further than the histories of Herotodus if we wish to study history philosophically, since everything is already there that makes up the subsequent history of the world: 'the efforts, action, sufferings, and fate of the human race as it proceeds from the qualities referred to, and the physical earthly lot.'32 Having said all this, Schopenhauer yet concedes a noble role for the historical consciousness: 'What reason is to the individual that is history to the human race.' Only through history does a nation become completely conscious of itself; and only a race possessed of a historical consciousness can become whole, truly human. Just as the exercise of reflected and connected consciousness distinguishes humans from brutes, so the exercise of historical consciousness separates civilized humans from barbarians. History fills in the gaps of our recollective self-consciousness. Without it, 'we stand as senseless and stupid as the brute in the presence of the action of man, in which it is implicated in his service; or as a man before something written in an old cipher of his own, the key to which he has forgotten; nay, like a somnambulist who finds before him in the morning what he has done in his sleep.'33 While Schopenhauer here adopts a position very close to others in the nineteenth century in determining the positive value of history, what distinguishes him from Hegel or the Historical School 'is the rejection of the thesis that humanity in its historical self-consciousness at the same time knows what it essentially is; man is not merged in his historical reality, because all spatio-temporal reality according to Schopenhauer is merely an appearance of a being which does not itself appear, that is, of the Will.'34 Historical self-consciousness is therefore only a 'subjective universal' and cannot reveal the true essence of objective reality.

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 101 Schopenhauer's thesis in the chapter 'On History' is built on his contention that art achieves more for our knowledge of humankind than does history. Schopenhauer assigns to art a moral function - aesthetic experience helps us to escape desire and the restlessness of our individual wills - and also a cognitive function - it offers a comprehensive vision of the 'Idea/ which is the highest grade of the objectivity of Will. The purpose of an art object is to inspire in us the aesthetic attitude. In the appreciation of art, according to one commentator, we are not 'identifying, classifying, organizing pigeonholing, and systematizing for the sake of some one or the other of our will's fleeting desires. As long as we are submerged in the object's beauty, these pressures relax their grip and we are free.'35 It is precisely because the historian is caught up in the practical task of classification and organization into various and tangled chains of connections and consequences that he or she cannot be free to experience anything in and for itself, in its essential character and expression. Consequently, Schopenhauer agrees with Aristotle that 'poetry is more philosophical and profound than history, for poetry states rather the universals, history however states the singulars' (Poetics 1451a36-bll). The basis of the historian's inferiority is that he or she is limited to dealing with given and specific individuals (individual people, cities, kingdoms, or regimes), while the poet, like the philosopher, can show us what is universal in individual events. This is possible because of the greater freedom inherent in poetic art: 'The poet from deliberate choice represents significant characters in significant situations; the historian takes both as they come.' The poet is at liberty to visualize the Idea and then to articulate, 'in the mirror of his mind, the Idea pure and distinct.' True poetic expression is not a self-centred and indulgent venting of one's innermost feelings and desires, however. The delineation of the Idea in its objectivity means that poetic images, down to their minutest particulars, are 'true as life itself.'36 Schopenhauer adds that the great ancient historians Herodotus and Thucydides are, in those particulars where their data fail them - for example, in the speeches of their heroes - poets.37 So it is precisely where their histories are farthest from empirical truth that the historians' aesthetic representations gain a true unity, thus allowing them to attain to an 'inner truth' similar to the truth of the poets. It seems that Schopenhauer's real complaint is with modern, politically oriented historians, who give us 'a dust-bin and a lumber-room, and at the most a chronicle of the principal political events.'38 It is this sort of empirical political historiography that, according to Schopenhauer, con-

102 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History sistently fails to capture the essence of the individual in his or her inner nature. Yet, in the lyrics of true poets, 'the inner nature of all mankind is reflected, and all that millions of past, present and future men have found, or will find, in the same situations, which are constantly recurring, finds its exact expression in them.' The poet is always the 'universal man' or 'mirror of mankind,' through whom speaks the universal language of the human heart. Hence 'no one has the right to prescribe to the poet what he ought to be - noble and sublime, moral, pious, Christian, one thing or another, still less to reproach him because he is one thing and not the other.'39 Not surprisingly, Schopenhauer regards tragedy as the highest poetic art, since its end is the representation of the terrible side of life: 'The unspeakable pain, the wail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the scornful mastery of chance, and the irretrievable fall of the just and innocent, is here presented to us; and in this lies a significant hint of the nature of the world and of existence.'40 Tragedy is realized in human suffering and the pervasiveness of evil in the world. And it is also in tragedy that we can catch a rare glimpse of the noblest in humanity: self-renunciation, mortification of the will, asceticism, resignation, and the denial of the possibility of reform. Human beings are to Schopenhauer fallen creatures; sin and evil consequently are essential and ineradicable elements of human history. Schopenhauer's worldview is unremittingly pessimistic. Several commentators have assigned special value to precisely this aspect of his vision. Like Burckhardt, he has been heralded as a 'clairvoyant pessimist.' Max Horkheimer, for instance, says that, in the years since Schopenhauer's death, 'history has had to admit that he saw straight into its heart.' Since this time, Horkheimer explains, 'history has entered a new phase, progressing from a balance of powers to ruthless competition among nations. Stiffer competition spurred technology, and the armaments race began. Rulers and ministers of state were in uniform. The anarchy of nations and of the arms race led to the age of world wars, which in turn eventually resulted in the frantic urge for power in all nations of the world. This was Schopenhauer's prognosis. Struggles among individuals and social groups, domestic competition and concentration of power are supplemented and outdistanced by competition and concentration of power abroad. Schopenhauer shows what it is all about. Material interests, the struggle for existence, prosperity, and power are the motor; history is the result.'41 For Horkheimer, Schopenhauer therefore is 'the teacher of modern times,' since what he

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 103 said about individuals (that they are the expression of a blind will to existence and self-assertion) has become apparent in the behaviour of social, political, and national groups throughout the modern world. Schopenhauer's philosophical thought, in contrast to most twentiethcentury systems, is a 'match for reality.' As such, it is especially needed in these times of utter hopelessness. By confronting reality with a freedom from illusion, his philosophy encourages an enlightened politics based on knowledge and insight entirely unobscured by nationalistic fanaticism, theories of transcendental justice, or any other doctrine of blind hope.42 Though not interested in Schopenhauer's usefulness in forging a new 'enlightened' political attitude, Burckhardt too respected 'The Philosopher' for his intellectual honesty and the spiritual strength and vitality that allowed him to persevere despite his intense pessimism. Moreover, Schopenhauer's system suggested to Burckhardt new possibilities for a secular humanist ethics in a post-religious world. In place of religion, one has spiritual satisfaction through art, morality, and asceticism. It is already clear that Burckhardt shared Schopenhauer's notion that pure aesthetic contemplation is a release from the misery and evil that constitute human life, but he was also open to the idea that a proper political response to the decadence of modernity should be based on morality and self-redemption of the will. He was thus interested in the conclusion that resignation, self-conquest, true dispassion, and utter will-lessness are conducive to the social practice of an ethic of love and compassion. Burckhardt, Schopenhauer, and Hegel

Having looked at Schopenhauer's philosophy of history and worldview, we could echo Erich Heller's sentiment that a fixed number of specified passages from The World as Will and Idea 'contain almost all that is needed for an understanding of Burckhardt's philosophy/ Indeed, as Heller says, the introduction to Burckhardt's Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen 'is in part a precis of what Schopenhauer has to say on the subject, and, above all, about Hegel's hypostasis of history.'43 In spite of his repeated claims not to have a 'philosophy of history/ Burckhardt perhaps ingested uncritically all that Schopenhauer wrote about the matter. We need to take into consideration the political context of nineteenth-century Europe in order to understand Burckhardt's reaction to

104 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History both Schopenhauer and Hegel. As Felix Gilbert reminds us, the French Revolution and the reign and conquests of Napoleon I had deeply shaken and changed social structures and political institutions across the continent. Moreover, they had an overpowering effect on the evolution of historical thinking, especially in Germany.44 Burckhardt, like Ranke and Droysen and Sybel, was preoccupied with several questions posed by the rise of the new revolutionary era. If the French Revolution ushered in a new epoch, did knowledge of the past still matter? What was the relationship between the post-revolutionary age and previous stages of world history? And what did the emergence of this new era mean for the immediate future of European society and culture? For Burckhardt, the French Revolution had created a permanent crisis in the modern world. In addition, Napoleon had promoted the growth of the modern state through his administrative and legal reforms, and his use of ruthless measures to suppress all opposition set an ominous precedent for the new era. Like most historians, but not all philosophers, Burckhardt did not regard the modern revolutionary era as having undermined the need for history. In fact, the modern age required a historical consciousness more than had any preceding period, since only 'the study of the past can provide us with a standard by which to measure the rapidity and strength of the particular movement in which we live/45 But unlike Ranke, and especially unlike Droysen or Sybel, Burckhardt saw no redeeming features in the march of history towards fewer but greater power-states. Prussia/ Germany's wars of the 1860s and 1870s confirmed Burckhardt's fears in this regard. Burckhardt's view was clearly not the prevailing one in German historiography. As we have seen, the triumph of Prussian militarism appeared to nationalist historians to corroborate their view that power is the determining force in history and that history is virtually equivalent to the story of the rise and fall of great powers. The optimism of some German historians, such as Droysen, reflected the continued influence of Hegel's philosophy of history, which had been almost unquestioned in its authority during the first half of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, pessimistic attitudes towards politics and culture became increasingly evident among intellectuals during the later nineteenth century, and they were to continue to gain popularity during the early decades of the twentieth. After the events of the FrancoPrussian War, Burckhardt began referring to Schopenhauer frequently in correspondence dealing primarily with social and political events

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 105 (and not with any specifically philosophical debates in which he may have been engaged). In letters to Friedrich von Preen, in particular, Burckhardt depicts Schopenhauer as the thinker who saw most clearly the direction of things to come. For instance, at the end of 1870, Burckhardt predicted that once the horrible cultural costs of the war became clear, intellectual interest in Schopenhauer would rise dramatically, whereas, he believed, for Hegel that year's jubilee publications would mark his definitive retirement. To me, as a teacher of history/ he added, 'a very curious phenomenon has become clear: the sudden devaluation of all mere "events" in the past. From now on in my lectures, I shall only emphasize cultural history, and retain nothing else but the quite indispensable external scaffolding/46 For Burckhardt, a cultural approach to history (rather than a stateoriented one) became necessary because of the cultural crisis of the modern age brought on by the legacy of the revolutionary era. The break with the past established in 1789 had thrown into doubt the legitimacy of justifying a historical interpretation on the basis of humankind's march towards some preconceived ideal, be it Christian teleology, which had lost its moral authority; or Hegelian philosophy, which had lost its claim to knowledge of the 'eternal wisdom' guiding humanity; or Rankean historicism, which had lost faith in progress as history. As well, the crisis of modernity had undermined the methodological foundation of Abstract Idealism. Consequently, Burckhardt strenuously resisted Hegel's will to systematize: 'I lay no claim to be "scientific" and have no method, at least none shared by other scholars.'47 In his insistence that he would not organize historical data by means of a preconceived philosophical system, Burckhardt was not denying that he conceptualized and ordered his material according to certain criteria. He did have a 'system' of sorts - his own method based on Anschauung borrowed from the visual artists and cultural philosophers and justified philosophically by a Schopenhauerian notion that only the artistic world offered a means of spiritual salvation in an irreligious age. Thus Burckhardt found much to his liking in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Primarily, he took from it many well-known criticisms of Hegel, including one that Hegel is a shallow historical optimist and a glorifier of the state. But his treatment of Hegel is different from Schopenhauer's on a number of key points, and their estimations of the role and value of history are also dissimilar. For one thing, Burckhardt is much less concerned than was Schopenhauer with the

106 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History alleged falsity and charlatanism of Hegel's philosophical system. Burckhardt focuses predominately on the adverse cultural effects of Hegel's philosophy on later generations of Europeans. Of course he was writing many years later than Schopenhauer and was not dealing directly with Hegel; but his overriding preoccupation was always more with cultural and political revival than with philosophical veracity. For him, the 'Hegel problem' is essentially political rather than philosophical: that is, the foremost danger in Hegel's theory of progress through history is its deification of the state. Burckhardt's stress on the 'pathological' human being as the central force in history, and his emphasis on the recurrent, constant, and typical sets him apart from Hegel, Ranke, and most German historians and puts him very close to Schopenhauer. The fact that development does not have much importance in his work separates him from most nineteenth-century historians and allies him with Schopenhauer. Not only did he denigrate the idea of progress or a universal development of humankind, but he also criticized as vacuous the narrative historiography of his contemporaries and belittled their attempts to influence political praxis via their specialized knowledge of the process of historical development. Nevertheless, it is surely wrong to imply that Burckhardt refused to treat distinct periods in history as individual entities or that he was for this reason anti-historical. Unlike Schopenhauer, he did not repudiate the principle of individuality when he looked for typical patterns of human action and suffering in the various temporal civilizations that he studied. Instead, the novelty of the expressions of freedom and creativity in each epoch were for him the very focal point of historical analysis. He could not take seriously Schopenhauer's demand for a purely ahistorical metaphysics, since he did not share Schopenhauer's repudiation of what Nietzsche termed 'the historical sense.' Above all else, it is this historical sense of humanity's problems that separates both Burckhardt and Nietzsche from Schopenhauer and allows them to speak of a crisis specific to modern individuals and institutions.48 Burckhardt certainly shared Schopenhauer's pessimistic conviction that pain and suffering are the unavoidable realities of life. Among his last-known remarks was a request of fate for anything 'but another life like that on earth.'49 Yet, like Diogenes the Cynic or Epicurus, his was a serene and gentle acceptance of human frailty and mortality rather than a terrible anguish over humanity's cruelty and stupidity. There is not a touch of misanthropy in Burckhardt: as the saying goes,

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 107 he despises the world, but he loves humankind. And although he was deeply pessimistic about the weaknesses of mortals, he was also a consoler in a manner completely foreign to Schopenhauer. To a melancholy young friend he once wrote: 'You don't yet know what beggars we men are at the gates of fortune, how little can be got by pertinacity or wrung by force, or how the greatest gifts and genius itself hammer vainly on those doors, trying to break in. Denn ach, die Menschen lieben lernen, es ist das einzige zvahre Gliick [to learn to love men is indeed the one true happiness]/50 Consequently, Charles O'Brien concludes that Schopenhauer's pessimism is substantially different from Burckhardt's. Schopenhauer's position is 'metaphysical, systematically denying any worth to human existence; he is basically anti-humanist.' In contrast, Burckhardt's pessimism is 'existential' or 'realist.'51 We can describe his position as 'pessimistic humanism': humanity is firmly at the centre of the historical universe (not God or any Hegelian Weltgeist). To Burckhardt, the world of human action and human suffering is no mere illusion, as it is for Schopenhauer: it is rather the very essence of reality. In his introductory lectures on history he says, 'We shall start out from the one point accessible to us, the one eternal centre of all things - man, suffering, striving, doing, as he is and was and ever shall be.' Still he adds: 'Hence our study will, in a certain sense, be pathological.'52 Humans are 'pathological' creatures, inclined always to seek satisfaction of their desires, which unfortunately are insatiable. Humans are, moreover, suffering and striving animals who can redeem their suffering through resignation, abnegation, and a self-conquest that is sometimes rewarded in the creation and contemplation of wonderful works of art, literature, philosophy, or music. Humanist pessimism was evident in Burckhardt long before he first read Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea in 1870. Thus reading this book did not occasion any radical change of mind or redirection of his life's plans (as it did for Nietzsche when he first read Schopenhauer in 1865). In 1838, for instance, the twenty-year-old Jacob Burckhardt enthusiastically explained his 'home-made little System' to a friend. It runs as follows: "The end which Providence has set before mankind is the conquest of selfishness and the sacrifice of the individual to the universal. Hence man's most necessary attribute is resignation; each hour preaches abnegation, and our dearest wishes remain unfulfilled ... Man grows old fighting his desires; his highest aim is to forgo his wishes lovingly, never to yield to misanthropy for a

108 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History single moment, and to die at peace with the world ... My life has not been so altogether cloudless as it seems to you; / would exchange my life against never having been, at any moment, and, were it possible, return to the womb ... I now see that the aim of life is to bear existence as best one can, and to try to do as much as possible for others/53 This passage has a distinctly Schopenhauerian ring to it. What is also striking is the young man's candour, especially about his desire never to have been born. This gloomy sentiment may be connected to the most significant sorrowful event in Burckhardt's childhood - the death of his mother when he was twelve. In his autobiographical sketch, read at his funeral, Burckhardt reveals that her death left him with an indelible sense of the 'great caducity and uncertainty of everything terrestrial, despite a temperament given to serenity and probably inherited from his dear mother.'54 It was this sensitivity for the provisional that helped steer the young man towards history as a vocation. At twenty-five he wrote: 'I think that a man of my age can rarely have experienced such a vivid sense of the insignificance and frailty of human things, in so far as they relate merely to the individual. But my respect for the universal, for the spirit of nations of the past, increases correspondingly/ He thus abandoned poetry (his first love) for the study of the concrete, empirical existence, as it is manifest in history. 'Pictures, Tableaux - that is what I want/55 As he explained much later in his university lectures: 'In our problematical and wonderful existence we cling involuntarily to the knowledge of man as such, of mankind, empirical, as we meet it in life, and as it is revealed in history. The contemplation of Nature does not suffice us, does not console or instruct us enough/56 So unlike Schopenhauer, his philosophical mentor, Burckhardt sought knowledge and understanding in the phenomenal historical world rather than in the eternal realm of the Ideas. In contrast to his historicist colleagues, however, he studied mostly what is typical, general, and lasting in world history according to the standard of 'what moves the world, and what is of penetrating influence/ Meaningful knowledge of the human condition is possible, he felt, only if one follows the cultural-historical method of attempting to comprehend the more sensational events of the moment within a broader perspective of each epoch's 'general conditions' [Zustanden] rather than its particular political configurations.57 Most clearly it is his persistent commitment to history that sets Burckhardt apart from Schopenhauer. As Albert Salomon notes, 'Burckhardt's idea of history is tied up with his idea of man; history

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 109 becomes a category of human existence, an ontological category/58 While Schopenhauer remained a metaphysician and a Platonist-Kantian concerning the possibility of finding truth in the world of 'becoming/ Burckhardt found truth and meaning in the flow of historical events. The practice of history produces tangible knowledge even if its method of obtaining it is not generally regarded as scientific. 'History is actually the most unscientific of all the sciences/ he said, 'although it communicates so much that is worth knowing [Wissenswurdiges].'59 Burckhardt appreciated the value and meaning of the signal moments in history, and he articulated them brilliantly in his lectures and books. What is more, he felt a deep obligation to the past as a magnificent spiritual continuum that constitutes our own spiritual heritage. There is a close kinship in this regard, some say, between Burckhardt's philosophy of historical contemplation and traditional religious experience: that is, in the contemplation of the past Burckhardt attempts to make contact with the divinity or supreme spirit. James Hastings Nichols captures this aspect of Burckhardt's historiography when he writes: In fact when Burckhardt speaks of the value of historical insight to personal culture, his tone becomes very nearly religious. The significance of history is for him not the undeniable rise and fall of civilizations, but the enduring and permanent tradition of those values created by men in a thousand situations and carried onward in the collective memory of the race as a guide and inspiration ... And historical tradition to him meant especially the body of the aspirations of men, a summation of the intrusions of the eternal into time, as delineated in art and literature in every generation ... Through historical knowledge we become members of this fellowship of mankind and can perhaps draw on this treasury of merits against our own imperfections. The greatest works of art and literature had a veritable sacramental character to Burckhardt, and the maintenance of this continuing tradition in general was his tradition.60

Needless to say, Schopenhauer never shared this feeling. For Burckhardt, historical contemplation substitutes for what "The Philosopher' describes as pure aesthetic experience - it is an escape, an interlude of peace; it is a transition from vain striving to pure seeing, from desire to self-knowledge. More important still, this sophisticated historical sense enabled Burckhardt to formulate a coherent social and political theory of modernity. Schopenhauer did not share this historical sense and so never

110 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History spoke of a crisis of modernity. Meanwhile, the very substance of Burckhardt's political thought is precisely its culture critique of modernity. Along with Nietzsche, he saw the modern phase of history as a decisive and sharp break with the past, as a rupture of the historical continuum, leading ultimately to catastrophe in the modern stage of history. This catastrophe consists largely in the destruction of those values in Western civilization that make possible the highest expressions of human freedom and creativity. Burckhardt warned against trusting the optimistic liberals in historical matters; the truth, he told his friend Hermann Schauenburg, 'is a long story ... the spread of culture and the decrease of originality and individuality, of will and of capacity; and the world will suffocate and decay one day in the very dung of its own philistinism/61 Thus Burckhardt, together with Nietzsche, developed a bold new method of fundamentally criticizing modernity along with its processes of industrialization, democratization, and rationalization. Jorn Riisen, among others, identifies this as a 'postmodernist' culture critique,62 but it is also a critique of his own age from a perspective fully within modernity. Although this sense of a special historical role for modernity is alien to Schopenhauer's way of thinking, Burckhardt's notion of the value of history is none the less in complete agreement with Schopenhauer's grudging recognition that through history a society can become completely conscious of itself and that only a race possessed of a historical consciousness can become whole, truly human. Like Schopenhauer, he insists that the exercise of historical consciousness separates civilized humans from barbarians ('Geschichtslosigkeit ist Barbarei'). But unlike 'The Philosopher,' he considers failure to respect the past a constitutive element of decadent modern culture. He feared that an age dominated by cultural philistines - by lovers of machines and technology and by slaves to mass public opinion - would forget the price paid by former generations for their precious freedoms of the present. And he sensed that the prevailing ideology of progress undermined the task of securing true culture through a conscious retrieval in contemplation of those moments in history that to him constituted genuine human freedom. It is this ideology, of course, that is perpetrated in the shallow optimism and state-glorification of Hegel's political philosophy. So Burckhardt castigates Hegel for misrepresenting history as a logically ordered progress towards an ever-improving future and for anointing the present institutions of the German nation-state the ratio-

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 111 nal goal of historical development. He criticizes too the Hegelian dialectic, although he does not pursue this matter in any great detail. 'The movement of life/ he says, 'does not always take place through diametrical, great antitheses, but also breaks through disintegration/63 What is more, Burckhardt virtually paraphrases Schopenhauer when he damns speculative philosophy of history as a 'centaur, a contradiction of terms, for history coordinates, and hence is unphilosophical, while philosophy subordinates, and hence is unhistorical/ He even rejects the chronological approach in favour of taking 'transverse sections of history' (Querdurchschnitte durch die Geschichte) that can be pursued in whatever direction seems fruitful. He denounces the orthodox method of taking longitudinal sections and proceeding chronologically, because in this way 'it sought to elicit a general scheme of world development, generally in a highly optimistic sense.' And he concludes that all chronologically arranged philosophies of history either degenerate into mere narrative - 'histories of civilizations' (Weltkulturgeschichten) - or are 'coloured by preconceived ideas which the philosophers have imbibed since their infancy/64 The prime example of the latter philosophy is obviously the Hegelian notion of reason in history. In the introduction to Lectures on the Phi losophy of History, Hegel tells us, The sole thought which philosophy brings to the treatment of history is the simple concept of Reason: that Reason is the law of the world and that, therefore, in world history, things have come about rationally/65 The concept of reason is thus an a priori construction to which historical material is then subjected and subordinated. Hegel's philosophy of history - his theodicy - offers an ultimate goal towards which past ages are mere stepping stones. This view must be rejected for reasons that Schopenhauer enumerates in his chapter 'On History/ But in addition, as a working historian, Burckhardt found that Hegel greatly offended his sense of historical individuality. Consequently, he rejects Hegel's general scheme of world development, in which history is the process of mind becoming increasingly aware of its own significance. For Burckhardt, the idea that there is progress towards freedom in Hegel's sense is untenable; it is yet another form of the old doctrine of perfectibility. 'We are not, however, privy to the purposes of eternal wisdom/ he says: 'they are beyond our ken. This bold assumption of a world plan leads to fallacies because it starts out from false premises/66 Burckhardt's specific relationship to Hegel is complex, but he objected above all to the political implications of Hegelian historiography. Hegel had elevated the state to the highest status in historical

112 Burckhardt arid the Birth of Cultural History inquiry well before Ranke or Treitschke entered the scene. The state, he says in his introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 'is the realization of Freedom, of the absolute, final purpose, and exists for its own sake. All the value man has, all spiritual reality, he has only through the state ... The state is the divine Idea as it exists on earth/67 This glorification of the state, as Ernst Cassirer remarked in his 1944 review of Force and Freedom (the 1941 English translation of Burckhardt's lectures on world history), was 'in sharp contrast to all Burckhardt's personal ideals and to his conception of the meaning and value of human culture. He could not share this adoration of the omnipotent state. To say that man possesses his whole spiritual reality only through the state was to him blasphemy. He regarded this Hegelian deification of the state as sheer idolatry, which he resisted with all his intellectual and moral power.'68 A final concern that Burckhardt has with Hegelian political philosophy is its implied link between theory and praxis, which writers such as Marx, inspired by Hegel, were elaborating in their own fashion and which the Prussian historians were confidently espousing in their historiography of victors. To Burckhardt, it was highly dangerous to believe that freedom could be secured only through sheer state power. He was always uneasy about the idea that the acting human being could somehow determine the fate of his or her own life, let alone that of the whole society, especially by means of such a lethal weapon as the modern power-state. And he was suspicious of those political theories that suggest, first, that the laws of history are knowable and, second, that this historical knowledge must be put to the service of this or that cause. Historical changes, he felt, were the result of complex and often unknown factors. A historical ethos, moreover, was not equivalent to the ethos of the state, nor was it something that could be produced by a conscious act of the will. The historical world, though made by the actions of humans, was not an object of production in this sense. Indeed, one of the central teachings of Burckhardt's political thinking is that historical theory does not lead to political praxis; the experience of history should make us 'not shrewder (for the next time), but wiser (for ever).'69 Burckhardt's Concept of Aristocratic Style But what kind of history could serve to make us wiser? And what sort of justification can we claim for the authority of our historical inter-

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 113 pretations? For Burckhardt, only cultural history can serve the vital task of realistically envisioning humanity in its completeness, of portraying the wealth and strength of the human personality at its highest and lowest. It has been argued that the emphasis on the power of realistic vision evident in Burckhardt is a trait common to many 'conservative liberal' thinkers, including Edmund Burke, Friedrich Gentz, Joseph Gorres, Adam Miiller, and Tocqueville.70 Moreover, Burckhardt insisted that it is only an aesthetic justification of our historical interpretations that is valid in the contemporary world. He believed that the 'historian must bring to his study not only industry, intelligence and honesty, but also something of the sensibility and intuition of the artist/71 There are obvious parallels between Burckhardt's aesthetic approach to politics and the ideas of German humanists and Romantic political thinkers, including Gentz, Miiller, Novalis, Schiller, and Friedrich Schlegel, who variously depict modern culture as lacking unity and modern man as a disharmonious being. Similar to this approach, too, is Nietzsche's concept of unity of style within individuals and cultures, which he employed in his criticism of modern German culture, politics, philosophy, and art. Burckhardt was an art historian as well as a cultural historian. And although he strove to keep the two completely separate, the concepts and methods of Kunstgeschichte invariably overlapped with those of Kulturgeschichte.72 That is, even though, as a good student of Ranke, he warned against passing judgments on past ages, he could not resist applying the critical standards of art history to his interpretation of the political culture of historical societies. Consequently, his praise for a sense of measure and balance, for unity forged from diversity, and for internal harmony in art finds its correspondence in his praise for similar values in active and vital political and social organizations (for instance, ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence) and in the personality types that they foster (for example, the 'agonistic' Greek and the 'universal man' of the Renaissance).73 It is in this light, as well, that Burckhardt assesses the impact of the disorder and decadence of modern culture and its progeny, 'mass man/ and identifies the problem of the scarcity in modern times of creative, freely self-disciplined individuals. The concept of 'style/ borrowed from his Kunstgeschichte, plays a valuable evaluative role in his political analysis of civilizations and individuals. The concept of style helps to demonstrate that 'culture' serves as the key normative criterion in Burckhardt's social and politi-

114 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History cal thought. In his aesthetically re-created images of past civilizations, Burckhardt chose to study those higher cultures that most clearly exhibit a unified style of life, ones that allow individuals to develop an internally unified self, a distinctive personal style. By 'style' is meant, first, 'a unifying principle which delineates the total configuration of a period.'74 In this sense, it is a precept in terms of which all cultural phenomena can be comprehended as related to one another and possessing a unity. Like Hegel, Burckhardt held that every people or culture embodies a necessary and individual spirit - a Volksgeist - that is represented in the various concrete manifestations of its religion, constitution, morality, customs, sciences, art, and technology.75 This concept applies as well to any given school, group, or class (for example, styles of art and styles of life) in which there is a unity of diverse expression that constitutes a particular harmony. But the concept also applies to truly cultured individuals, to those who exhibit a unity of style in life in accordance with the principle of Bildung. Disunity of style, in contrast, is the mark of the cultural philistine. Thus by 'style' Burckhardt also indicates a measure of the dignity and integrity of an individual or a group and its writing, artistic production, thinking, acting, and so on. In this sense, style is a principle of evaluation. Within any given school or period, individuals exhibit a certain mastery, they attain a personal style, that makes them stand out as, for example, exceptional expressionists or cubists or deconstructionists. Thus an individual gives style to his or her life by integrating the various conflicting aspects of existence into a single whole, which none the less preserves many-sidedness. Burckhardt's concept of style in cultures, civilizations, and individuals involves a normative evaluation according to the ideal of the unity of style. There are striking parallels between his idea of the unity of style and Nietzsche's use of it in his analysis of contemporary German culture and society, especially in his early writings. For example, in David Strauss, Writer and Confessor, written in Basel and published in 1873, Nietzsche argued, as Burckhardt had done, that the recent German victory over France was sure to harm both culture and politics. He denied the then-popular assumption that German military success was an indication of superior cultivation and culture. He uncovered instead a disunity of style in social life and in culture and the arts. Nietzsche defines 'culture' in a purely Burckhardtian manner: it is 'a unity of artistic style that manifests itself throughout all the vital selfexpression of a people.' The opposite of culture is 'barbarism' - that is,

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 115 'absence of style or the chaotic hodgepodge of all styles.'76 According to Nietzsche, the Germans of his day, despite their learnedness, lived in just such a chaotic mishmash of styles. But what is worse, the German people are unable to fathom that their public and private lives do not bear the stamp of a productive and stylistically coherent culture. On the contrary, they assume that they are the most 'cultured' people in the world, especially since they have been able to prevail politically and militarily over other cultures in Europe. The 'cultivated philistines' who have risen to the top in German society confuse homogeneity of culture with true unity of style. But the fact that 'this systematic and ruling philistinism has a system does not suffice to make it a culture - not even a bad culture; instead, it is always only the opposite of culture, namely, barbarism built to last/ Nietzsche concludes that the prevailing cultural philistinism is hostile to 'all who are creative and powerful/ to all who pursue higher aims, and to all who seek to rediscover the true German spirit.77 Nietzsche also employs the concept of unity of style in a Burckhardtian fashion in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), where he depicts the unity of style in ancient Greece as an ideal for German culture. Furthermore, both men's emphasis on style in culture and in individuals can be compared to the similar approach by the early German Romantics. As Thomas Leddy points out, Nietzsche's commitment to organicism, selftranscendence, and the German spirit are linked to Romanticism. Moreover, the idea of the unity of style draws from the Romantic tradition of valuing certain things, particularly works of art, for being organic wholes. 'This means, first, that for a true culture the parts should reflect a commonality and unity of purpose, and second, the parts themselves should have an organic character - there should be unity of style in the culture and its individual parts/78 Nietzsche's use of such a value-laden instrument of analysis as the concept of style is hardly surprising. Commentators have long noticed his 'unremitting insistence on evaluation: every mode and aspect of human life, it seems, is to be weighed in the balance/ and the mere accident of pertaining to a past culture in no way serves to exclude any facet of life from similar scrutiny.79 Burckhardt's use of a concept such as the unity of style was a contradiction of the prevailing credo that the historian not judge the past but simply describe it in its individuality and development. He himself repeated this prohibition when discussing judgments that he found particularly wrong-headed or odious.80 And in the introduction to Griechische Kulturgeschichte (1888-92)

116 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History he says that we should not 'set out to glorify, and will not allow enthusiasm to colour our judgement.'81 But as for evaluating societies in a comparative manner, Burckhardt readily passed judgments according to the criteria of Bildung and Kultur. He defended the opinion that material progress through the advancement of 'civilization' was worthless if it was not grounded in Bildung, in the harmonious development of those qualities and faculties that best characterize humanity. And he considered Kultur the essential value to be promoted and defended in society. For him, culture is positively expressed as a unity of style collectively and individually. The opposite of culture is disunity and disorientation, decline in cultural standards, and gradual barbarization. He frequently applies the concept of disunity in his culture critique of modernity. A key feature of his cultural histories is his deliberate juxtaposition of the image of an outstanding culture, epoch, or people with the modern democratic, industrial-commercial age. Burckhardt deliberately contrasts portraits of past cultures that to him epitomize the highest achievements with the depressing images of modernity, with its erosion in quality and integrity of intellectual and artistic production. As an art historian, Burckhardt employed the concepts of that discipline to enlarge on his Schopenhauerian dictum that 'personality is, after all, the highest thing there is.' He emphasized the style or character of the dominant personality types produced by an age in order to express the sum of the various and complex forces at work within the period as a whole. In the Italian Renaissance, for example, we witness the creation of the famous 'spiritual individual' (geistiges Individuum), which, as Benjamin Sax correctly notes, is less a 'free individual' in the typical political sense 'than an internally unified self.'82 When the drive to the highest possible individual development was combined with a 'powerful and varied nature/ there arose the 'all-sided man' (I'uomo universale) who belonged to Italy alone. The development of such distinctive 'self-standing individuals,' as Burckhardt calls them, became a significant social and political force, especially in the Florence of the Medicis and the Milan of the Sforzas, where the drive to internal consistency, the striving to achieve a personal style, led to the emergence of new cultural forms.83 Culture became such an active force that political success came to depend largely on the cultivation of taste, appreciation for the arts and sciences, knowledge of language, and so on.

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 117 Perhaps the most striking example of a unified style of life is found among the privileged individuals in the ancient Greek aristocracies. Their supreme legacy is the ideal of kalogathia, the unity of nobility, wealth, and excellence. Burckhardt describes kalogathia as 'that wholly individual fusion of moral, aesthetic, and material dedication to an idea which we today can only intimate and not define sharply.' The urban aristocracy therefore constitutes the ideal of Greek life: 'a common government in the state, skill in warfare, splendour in competitive sports, and noble leisure for all these.'84 The aristocrats were able to develop their whole being in harmonious balance because they did not have to work or to specialize in any one field. Originating in the urban aristocratic class, a profoundly antibanausic attitude - a principled disdain for work - became characteristic of social and political thought. Sparta was the most completely antibanausic political community; it was a source of pride there that no Spartan ever did anything except in the service of the state. But elsewhere, too, the attitude prevailed, at least in theory. Citizenship was defined in terms of service to the state, and it was commitment to the public life rather than to the private world of commerce that became the goal of life. Thus Aristotle excludes from citizenship anyone who has to earn money, either by physical labour or by business enterprise. Essential to Burckhardt's praise of the aristocratic way of life is his assertion that it is primarily among this class that one finds the manysided human being. The Greek ideal was 'the harmonious combination of all qualities with none predominating; if at all possible, the Greek desired to be a whole man, and could be one if he devoted himself to public life, gymnastics and noble culture - and good fortune.'85 Indicative of this way of life was the unique Greek ideal of the agon - the contest without strictly utilitarian motives. This agonal spirit was especially pronounced in the archaic era but continued to influence social and political life throughout ancient times. Burckhardt was one of the first writers to stress the centrality of the agonal, competitive aspect of Greek life: 'While on the one hand the polis was the driving force in the rise and development of the individual, the agon was a motivating power known to no other people - the generally leavening element that, given the essential condition of freedom, proved capable of working on the will and the potentialities of every individual.'86 Burckhardt showed how education instilled the value of the agon in the aristocratic personality type by the training of both a sound

118 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History mind and a healthy body. The agonal spirit expressed itself in its purest form in the atmosphere of competition among equals that was fostered among members of the aristocratic class. In such an environment, the 'full development of the individual depended upon his constantly measuring himself against others in exercises devoid of any direct practical use/87 The agonal spirit was evident throughout Greek social, cultural, and political institutions: in sporting events, in artistic and literary contests, and even in the later practice of democratic political competition. Burckhardt admired the character and style of the aristocratic way of life, which he identified as the striving within established norms towards a noble excellence in all human endeavours. Greek aristocrats were particularly gifted, he felt, not because of any genetic advantage, but because the leisure and freedom of their way of life permitted the education of the whole personality, in contrast to the mere training in professional skill that characterizes democratic education in a commercial society. As was characteristic of Burckhardt's method, he would use the example of the noble Greeks to criticize present-day civil society. In particular, he set the agonal spirit against the egoism and materialism of European bourgeois society: 'If we look at the role of competition in our own world we are instantly struck by the chief difference, which is that the Greek agon always had the entire population as its audience and witness; while today ... it is the audience or the public that decides, purchasing or not purchasing, paying an entrance fee or staying away. But mostly our modern form of competition is determined by quite different aims. If in our schools some degree of competition exists, usually slight apart from a few unusually ambitious types, the "longing for fame" in adult life has been replaced by something very remote from it, which is business competition. Men of today are far more likely to want to win financial success than rapid recognition of their talents, and they know perfectly well why the success they seek is of a material kind; life requires it.'88 What is more, the modern world, in contrast to the Greek model, requires specialization. This leads to one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness. The Greeks, like the people of the Italian Renaissance, were fully developed human beings, many-sided and multi-talented. For Burckhardt, the ancient Greeks as an 'ideal type' continue to provide for moderns an enriching and instructive example of the highest development of human potential. The decisive role of Greek intel-

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 119 lectual history must be made clear, because what the Greeks 'did and suffered, they appear to have done and suffered/reefy, and thus differently from all other races/ While moderns are ruled by a 'mere mindless necessity/ the Greeks were original and spontaneous. This is why 'in their creativeness and their potentialities they seem the representatives of genius on earth, with all the failings and sufferings that this entails.' The Greeks pushed themselves to the limit of achievement, which feat humankind must not fail to appreciate and aspire to, even if it cannot equal. Greek accomplishments were such that posterity has had no choice but to study the Hellenic way of life. Those who withdraw from this endeavour will be stranded in the backwaters of culture. If we ignore the Greeks, says Burckhardt, 'we are simply accepting our own decline.'89 The intellectual indispensability of studying ancient Greece was one of Burckhardt's favourite themes, but he was by no means alone among German writers in this regard. As one commentator famously concluded, the hold that Greece had over German writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries amounted to a 'tyranny' over intellectual life.90 Burckhardt himself remarked on the feeling in Germany of an uncommon bond, a 'sacred marriage' (hieros gamos), between the spirit of Greece and the spirit of Germany, 'a special relationship and sympathy shared by no other Western people in modern times.'91 The key figure in the rise of this 'German Hellenism' was Winkelmann, who inspired later generations of German intellectuals to love Greece as much as he did. Other German poets, philosophers, and artists fell equally under the spell of Hellenism. Lessing, Herder, Wieland, Humboldt, Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin: all were 'classical' in spirit, and all turned to the Greeks for inspiration and guidance. To the Romantics, as well, the ancient Greeks were a shining example that could lead German culture to a new and incomparably higher stage of development. We see this most clearly in the thought of Friedrich Schlegel, who was convinced that humanity could realize itself only under specific social and political circumstances, such as those that produced the condition of freedom and Bildung in ancient Greece.92 He was deeply influenced in this regard by Schiller, who offered to Germans the vision of an 'aesthetic state' modelled on ancient Greece and promising a political community in which the aesthetic individual would be in harmony with the whole.93 German Hellenism finds its most fervent spokesperson in Nietzsche, especially in his early work written in Basel.94 For him, Hellenic cul-

120 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History ture, particularly the Greek culture of the archaic age, represent the highest point of Western civilization. The Greeks serve as an 'ideal type' in Nietzsche's thought, an unsurpassed standard and paramount source of value, against which to judge every other culture. Like many of his contemporaries, Nietzsche believed that the 'German Spirit' shared close affinities with archaic Hellenism. And like earlier Romantic Hellenists, he wanted to revive the spirit of Hellenic antiquity as a dynamic cultural, political, and spiritual force. For Nietzsche, the Greeks were not merely of intellectual or professional interest: he loved them deeply and felt a special personal kinship with them. While he always admired Winkelmann as the founder of German Hellenism, he expanded on the traditional portrait of the simple serenity and quiet grandeur of Greek art and culture. In addition to this 'Apollonian' element of the Greek experience, Nietzsche drew attention to its 'Dionysian' tendencies, expressed mainly in music and in pre-Socratic philosophy. He found contemporary parallels, and agents of the German cultural rebirth that he so desired, in Wagner's music and Schopenhauer's philosophy. Burckhardt did not celebrate the Dionysian as exuberantly as did Nietzsche, but he did acknowledge its existence and recognize its importance. Like Nietzsche, too, he was an admirer of Schopenhauer, who helped him to discern in Greek life and literature a profound suffering and an inner struggle. Nevertheless, ancient Greece attracted him most as a symbol of the Apollonian power to create apportioned and harmonious beauty. Moreover, it was representative of the individual strength of character and will required for a personality to shape itself in a unified way. According to Burckhardt, ancient Athens in particular offered a 'unique paradigm' that made possible the highest levels of unity or style and of creative individuality. In Athens creative forces and individuals were greater, and monuments more numerous, where knowledge flowed most freely - in short, where one can observe an 'existence in which humanity is expressed in more manifold forms' than anywhere else.95 Athenian society, moreover, displayed more clearly than any other place the proper interaction between the individual and the community: although the Greek concept of the state subordinated the individual to the general polity, the freedom of society tended to push the individual onward towards the highest self-development.96 The Greeks demanded the greatest degree of commitment to the community, while they also valued and encouraged individual perfor-

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 121 mance more than any other people. Athens always sought its highest in individuals, Burckhardt noticed, and it was the supreme ambition of its citizens to distinguish themselves. This creative competitiveness and free play of active social forces together produced a unique spirit of public life. Thus Athens stands out as a paradigm of the appropriate relation between the state and society. Indeed, as a 'free marketplace of ideas/ Athens better exemplifies a truly free society than do modern communities, with all their economic freedom. In Athens, 'People had time and taste for the highest and best because mind was not drowned in moneymaking, social distinction and false decencies. There was comprehension for the sublime, sensitiveness for the subtlest allusions and appreciation for the crassest wit/97 There was a correspondence too between political culture as a whole and the values expressed in art and architecture. The Greek spirit was most beautifully symbolized in visual art. And the cardinal value expressed in Greek art, according to Burckhardt, was sophrosyne - tact, self-control, prudence. The compelling factor here is the 'combination of freedom and moderation that alone was able to create a living ideal/ In art, as in politics, this fusion exhibited itself as 'obedience in connection with strong individual development... The subjective element never predominated; sensationalism, caprice, violent individualism, sudden flashes of genius are totally absent.'98 So, as Karl Weintraub recognizes, sophrosyne is a virtue as much aesthetic as 'moral/99 It represents the inner sense of measure and balance that Burckhardt so respected and involves the striving within limits that he associates with freely self-disciplined personalities. There exists a close connection between Burckhardt's socio-political ideal of a harmonious cultural existence, possible only in aristocratic civilizations, and his idea of a unified style of life. As Weintraub points out in his discussion of Burckhardt's art criticism, 'it appears that styles of life, like styles of art, involve the acceptance of tradition ... The "titan," who breaks loose from all inheritance and seeks to create a unique existence out of nothing but his own inner resources, rarely is great enough to give a harmonious style to either his life or his art/100 This is consistent with Burckhardt's depiction of the paradox of modern 'mass man': the break with history has created a seemingly boundless freedom, which renders people impotent. Without traditional forms of proven quality - in politics and religion, as well as in culture - modern people are incapable of significant cultural achievement, condemned to a life that is less than human. Even the most

122 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History technologically advanced, materially and culturally affluent society, without its past, is barbarian. Human life is bearable only in relation to the cultural continuum. When seen in this light, the cultural historian's role takes on a special social or political significance. More than being a simple escape into a private realm of historical or aesthetic contemplation, his or her activity provides a vital link with the lost tradition. The task of the educated elite in mass society was clear: 'Anything which can in the remotest way serve our knowledge of [the spiritual continuum] must be collected, whatever toil it might cost and with all the resources at our disposal, until we are able to reconstruct whole spiritual horizons of the past/101 This historical labour is certainly not the simple antiquarian research that is commonly associated with classical scholarship, philology, or traditional historiography. Nor is Burckhardt suggesting employing historical scholarship as a brake, as a means of slowing down the deterioration of culture and somehow 'managing' the historical crisis.102 The break with the cultural heritage of the past renders these measures superfluous, just as it renders useless all conservative political proposals.103 Historical work is a creative re-imposition of a cultural frame of reference within which a genuine culture might be rebuilt. Whether such a project might be possible in future depends on an aestheticized restructuring of historical practice, such as Burckhardt proposed. The new forms of historical thought that he had in mind came surprisingly close to poetry. Poetry and History in Burckhardt In 1844 Burckhardt explained that he had abandoned poetry for the concrete realities of historical science.104 But did he actually forsake poetry? Not quite. He remained, like Thucydides, a poet-historian who sought to show us the universal in the particular historical events portrayed in his aesthetically recollected pictures of the past. He was, to be sure, a faithful disciple of Ranke's new scientific approach to history. Exhaustive research, extensive documentation, careful use of sources, and a critical process of verification are all indispensable to a legitimate re-creation of the past. But they are not enough. For Burckhardt, the precise temper of the human condition cannot be grasped by means of abstract reason or empirical historical method. The cultural historian needs an intuitive approach based on Anschauung, aimed at comprehending the complex intertwining of

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 123 forces as dynamic wholes to obtain an adequate idea of the 'totality of being.' History for Burckhardt was not the mere re-presentation of events as they really did occur. The cultural historian, much like a visual artist, paints historical pictures of whole ages viewed from a particular point of view. 'After all,' he says, 'our historical pictures are, for the most part, pure constructions' - 'mere reflections of ourselves.'105 He notes, for instance, that Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is an 'essay in the strictest sense/ and he realizes: 'To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a given civilization present a different picture ... In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead also to essentially different conclusions.'106 Still, Burckhardt was willing to match his outline of the age against any other, and a series of graphic images illustrates his reasons for seeing this or that event in the manner that he does. His cultural method and his conception of history writing as a work of art, according to Hayden White, helped him avoid the twin threats to accuracy: 'allegory and symbolization - the drawing of moral implications from historical facts on the one hand and the sublimation of concrete reality into intimations of timeless spiritual forces on the other/107 The first threat, according to Burckhardt, is represented by Christian authors under the spell of religion. Hegel represents the second threat - excessive symbolization - since he reduced all historical events to their status within a formal metaphysical system. In contrast, a poetic form of historical thought deals realistically with the inner reality of discrete and separate periods of the historical process. Burckhardt's method is to re-create a picture of each society as a 'totality of being' by imaginatively reconstructing the formal relationships between the elements that together possess a certain harmony and unity. By viewing his task in this way, as John Hinde puts it, 'Burckhardt was not just trying to dephilosophize history; he wanted to aestheticize it in order to capture the whole of human society and history as an aesthetic product in which art and free spiritual creativity have worldmaking significance.'108 Despite being poetic and hence 'unscientific/ Burckhardt's artistic re-creations of coherent historical periods are still as historically valid as Ranke's positivist accounts of the great achievements and roles of world powers. As Hugh Trevor-Roper gladly points out, 'the "scien-

124 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History tific," "factual" history of Ranke has now run nearly dry and the unscientific "cultural" history of Burckhardt still excites us.'109 Why? For one thing, Burckhardt had an exceptional knack for evoking the feeling, the flavour, even the smell of an age (if not the fact of it, his critics would add). His method is reminiscent of Herder's Einfuhlung, since it attempts to apply Herder's anschauende Erkenntnis to cultural, religious, and political events. Yet his is not a 'technique' that can be learned and passed easily from teacher to student, as might Ranke's critical and scientific method. It is more of a 'creative sympathy' that is acquired only through the most subtle cultivation of taste and sensibility.110 The skills required are difficult to describe and harder yet to master. Thus Burckhardt's very method is more elitist than that of the empirical historian. But it has a more lasting effect, since new discoveries of scholarship do not immediately make it outdated. Their poetic force allows Theodor Mommsen to predict accurately that Burckhardt's 'works would still be read and still be true though every sentence in them should stand in need of correction by advancing research.'111 In the case of the Civilization of the Renaissance, for example, its scholarship has been criticized and questioned for over a century and a half; but to date, none of the competing interpretations of the Italian Renaissance has been able to topple the Burckhardtian tradition. As Kerrigan and Braden put it, 'Burckhardt's thesis receives news like the sea the rain.'112 Burckhardt serves up glorious panoramic views of whole societies using a method later applied to art history by his pupil and successor, Heinrich Wolfflin. He surveyed the cardinal mannerisms of a period in order to show 'not the individual products of an age, but the fundamental temper [Grundstimmung] which produces them.'113 To generalization from the observable facts of history he added close analyses of myth, poetry, and representational art. According to him, these provide invaluable data about not only the artistic styles of an age but also, and more important, its characteristic socio-political relationships. Consequently, he often visualized historical epochs through the media of its works of art. Not surprisingly, poetry is the most instructive, although all arts share its two-fold philosophical-historical significance: they provide insight into the nature of humankind as a whole and into particular times and peoples.114 From this angle, Burckhardt attempted to build up specific pictures, graphic images, of the social life, politics, religion, and culture of fleeting moments in past ages. Commentators never fail to emphasize this

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 125 graphic aspect of his method. As Michael Ann Holly tells us, the 'imagistic quality' of his work is undeniable: 'Its anecdotal style reads like a series of pictures.'115 Benjamin Sax explains how 'Burckhardt employed more of a "graphic" than a logical mode of presentation. By means of this Anschauung-based method, he hoped that his readers would come to an immediate understanding of the past through a large number of specific images and detailed illustrations.'116 John Hinde notes that anecdotes 'served independently of facts - indeed, they flaunted facticity - in order to provide an overall view of the past and of historiography. They awakened in the reader a sense not just of the ideas or mentalities of the historical subject, but also of the reader's own active, participatory role in the past.'117 Peter Gay also emphasizes Burckhardt's special fondness for archetypal anecdotes, like the one about the citizens of Siena who were debating the proper compensation for their condottiere after he freed them from foreign aggression. Their solution: 'Let us kill him and then worship him as our patron saint/ Of course, Burckhardt is careful to introduce this as 'an old story - one of those which are true and not true, everywhere and nowhere.'118 Still, Gay puzzles over the fact that such a 'mature and responsible scholar' would so freely employ such a 'tainted, or at least undependable' anecdote.119 And yet this one chilling story, even if untrue, offers a sudden and horrifying glimpse into the mental world of the Italian city fathers and their condottieri - one that rivals even many of Machiavelli's most shocking illustrations of the exercise of power. Burckhardt valued the capacity to see things from many perspectives, and he strove, not always successfully, to be objective about the politics of the societies that he studied, just as he tried to be honest and forthright about the political developments of his own age. It was this same trait that he so admired in Machiavelli. Many commentators of course have remarked on Machiavelli's objectivity and detachment from his subject. Some see this as a symptom of his freedom from any apparent commitment to a cause.120 Burckhardt too esteemed his predecessor's impartiality but thought that this unflinching objectivity was all the more admirable given the man's patriotism. Burckhardt recognized the sincerity of his attachment to a particular cause yet respected the fact that despite his commitment he could restrain his enthusiasm and investigate Italy's political ills with a free and independent mind. 'In truth,' says Burckhardt, 'although his writings, with the exception of very few words, are altogether destitute of enthusi-

126 Burckhardt and the Birth of Cultural History asm, and although the Florentines themselves treated him at last as a criminal, he was a patriot in the fullest sense. But free as he was, like most of his contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the state was yet his first and last thought.'121 Burckhardt had a soft spot in his heart for this older and more genuine form of patriotism, and he remained a staunchly loyal son of the city-state of Basel throughout his long life. Civic pride and loyalty were honourable virtues just so long as they did not let patriotism interfere with the pursuit of true knowledge. Burckhardt notes sadly that since the French Revolution the noble virtue of a patriotic love of one's own has given way to a mean-spirited nationalism that poses a constant threat to intellectual freedom. So while he encouraged people to continue to study the history of their own countries - one's Ijounden duty' - he insisted that they balance this activity with some other line of interest, 'if only because it is so intimately interwoven with our desires and fears, and because the bias it imparts to our mind is always toward intentions and away from knowledge.' The danger to be avoided is the sort of patriotism that is merely arrogance towards other peoples or, even worse, a blind partisanship that consists simply in causing pain to others. Nationalism of this kind is an enemy of knowledge, and nationalistic history is mere 'journalism,' he says, with obvious disdain.122 Burckhardt scrupulously avoided the tendency of Herder to link reverence for the past with the demand that contemporary peoples must remain faithful to their fixed national spirit. He did not succumb to a Romantic attitude towards the past, but rather oriented himself critically towards the present. Of course he did give in to the pleasures of contemplating the most vitally creative and happily self-fashioned cultures and personalities. And his enthusiastic observations on these matters stuck Nietzsche, among others, as a suggestion about the desirability of following cultural criticism to its logical conclusion in the form of a creative affirmation and imposition of new meanings and new social values. But Burckhardt's modest historical scepticism restrained him from actively encouraging Nietzsche's goal of a heightened and improved human individual, an enlarged and increased human type, that might come to dominance after the intensification and radicalization of the problem of modernity. Instead he preferred to remain a quiet and sober scholar and to accommodate himself to a status quo that did not offer any visible possibilities for the transformation out of the crisis of the modern age and into an epoch, of which

Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 127 he sometimes dreamed, of a renewed and vital European culture. Only rarely did Burckhardt allow himself to contemplate a life beyond the present crisis of modernity. It is therefore difficult to assess his understanding of the role that his cultural-historical project might play in a culturally reborn Europe. At one point he wrote to Hermann Schauenburg that 'our destiny is to build anew when the crisis is over' and that he would be prepared to 'take an active part in the inevitable restoration.'123 And he assumed that for every historical power that comes into being there will eventually follow, either by revolution or decay, its downfall: 'all the time the spirit is building a new house whose outward casing will, in time, suffer the same fate.'124 In the same paragraph, however, he says that the breakdown of a great power might be extraordinarily severe, 'even the end of the world.' So putting an end to the current configuration of power will not necessarily usher in an era of superior culture and brighter possibilities for freedom and individuality. It is unclear from this evidence whether Burckhardt thinks of the modern catastrophe as one that will mark the 'end of the world' or as one that will serve rather 'as a demolition squad, so that a very different type should be able to build on the cleanly swept ground/ In either case, he was reasonably sure, he 'shall at the most only see the beginnings of that, and certainly have no great longing to assist in the work.'125 Unlike his admirer Nietzsche, he did not see his own work as in any way contributing to either the destruction of the existing structures or the construction of a new set of values. Yet despite his oftendeep pessimism and his claims to have no connection with the future, his cultural historiography was ultimately oriented towards the reconstruction of an acceptable historical identity for humanity in an age characterized by the loss of culture. The irremediable break with the past makes possible an aesthetic re-creation of historical images of whole, healthy, and spontaneous forms of cultural existence. These historical pictures, especially ones of ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy, are deliberate contrasts with all that his age holds most dear: the principles of modernization, rationality, progress, and enlightenment, as well as the strictly political ideals of freedom, equality, and the rights of man. Historical thought of this sort does become politically subversive of the ruling order, at least to the extent that it carries out a consistent and thorough-going culture critique of contemporary politics and society. Consequently, Burckhardt's political reflections, no less than Nietzsche's, were 'untimely meditations.' He wrote against the spirit of his age and did not, as so many suggest, escape outside it.126

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PART TWO

BURCKHARDT'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT

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CHAPTER FOUR

Elements: Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature

Burckhardt makes the individual the hub of his political analysis. He insists on starting from 'the one point accessible to us, the one eternal centre of all things - man, suffering, striving, doing, as he is and was and ever shall be.'1 As Wolfgang Mommsen recognizes, the sequence of items in this sentence should be duly noted: enduring or suffering comes first, doing or acting comes last. It is clear that Burckhardt shared Schopenhauer's view that human life consists largely of suffering and misery and that the acting human being could not easily escape from this anguish. Like 'The Philosopher' too, Burckhardt discounted those thinkers who saw the appropriate goal of life as human perfection understood as earthy happiness. First, perfection is impossible, and, second, happiness is an 'optical illusion.' In fact, Burckhardt campaigned to expunge the word 'happiness' from historical writing. Because our desires are blind and insatiable, he argued, sheer happiness should be replaced simply by 'knowledge' as the goal of the ablest minds.2 And yet such knowledge must include the recognition of the human mind's limited capacity to know origins, purposes, destinies, and so on. Knowledge of such things, as he puts it, 'is beyond our ken.'3 Scepticism is a central feature of Burckhardt's political thought. He was guided, as Mommsen suggests, 'by fundamental misgivings as to the notion of the ability of man consciously to determine his own future, on however small a scale, or to reconstruct society in such a way as to effect genuine progress and a greater degree of freedom for the individual.'4 Burckhardt's political scepticism is a direct result of his certainty that human individuals are by nature intellectually im-

132 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought perfect creatures who cannot possibly master the theoretical knowledge needed to manage the schemes and programs dreamed up by isolated abstract thinkers. Above all, he was sceptical about the capacity of the human mind to grasp the intricacies of living societies that take centuries of complex development to come into being. Burckhardt believed that a certain humility was required of anyone attempting to make sense of the mysteries of the human world. There are certain characteristics universally common to human beings, although intellectual perfectibility and moral goodness are not among them. These universal traits reveal themselves to those who reflect carefully on social and political affairs. Burckhardt emphasizes this point when he makes it clear that he will study only 'the recurrent, constant, and typical as echoing in us and intelligible through us.' The subject of Burckhardtian reflection is thus the concrete human being, the eternal human individual identical in its various costumes. And yet, seen in another way, the diversity of human personalities in their different situations is more than just a testament to the variety of disguises that the same actor can don. All material, intellectual, and even spiritual things have a concrete (i.e., historical) aspect, while all historical or empirical entities have a spiritual side through which they 'partake of immortality.' Since mind, like matter, is mutable, and the changes of time bear away ceaselessly the 'forms which are the vesture of material as of spiritual life, the task of history as a whole is to show its twin aspects, distinctive yet identical, proceeding from the fact that, first, the spiritual, in whatever domain it is perceived, has a historical aspect under which it appears as change, as the contingent, as a passing moment which forms part of a vast whole beyond our power to divine, and that, second, every event has a spiritual aspect by which it partakes of immortality. For the spirit knows change but not mortality.'5 Thus for Burckhardt human existence knows not only multiplicity and mutability but also immortality, and the role of history is to articulate this two-sided human condition. Burckhardt's philosophical position attempts to overcome the presupposition of positivist science that there is a radical division between the human and the physical worlds. In this way he hopes also to escape the radically relativist conclusions of historicism that result from the recognition of constant change in human history. For Burckhardt, as Salomon explains, 'There is no gap between the human world and the surrounding world. We ourselves are the wave, the

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 133 element of the universal sea. There is no basic distinction between man and environmental world, both are aspects of the world as a whole shifting and interacting according to the destructive or creative powers inherent in any human situation.'6 Burckhardt takes the world to be a unitary, living, natural whole. And so human society is more than a mere agglomeration of isolated and abstract beings, and humans are more than mere cogs in a mechanical device. Burckhardt thus rejected the 'mechanical concept of the state' associated with the German Aufklarung. But this does not mean that he advocated an 'organic conception of the state,' since he did not use the organic metaphor to incorporate political institutions into the list of things naturally constitutive of human social identity. In this regard, he did not agree with many German conservatives who viewed the state as a natural and organic entity. For Burckhardt, on the contrary, the state remained an artificial, external, humanly fabricated institution. But he did endorse an organic conception of society. Society is to him a complex whole in which individuals are related by social bonds of inheritance, custom, culture, and tradition. His organicism is not as explicit as Herder's, but he shares with him and with German Romantic writers an organic understanding of human society.7 The organic metaphor sustained Burckhardt's distinction between society and the state. Society, as the repository of the cultural ideals of a people, has a natural and organic essence not associated with the state, which is an artificial instrument intended as a guarantor of a people's security. Organicism also serves to advance several key normative principles evident in Burckhardt's thought. First, society should be a community where people co-operate and do not compete with each other for material benefits. Instead of the pursuit of individual self-interest, Burckhardt valued the development of individuality through interaction with others. For him the purpose of social life is not the maximization of utility, but the cultivation of the individual and the achievement of individual self-realization. These goals presume a level of interdependence within society, with each individual seeking his or her identity within the whole. Second, society is held together not by good laws but by a common culture - traditions, customs, values, and ways of life. The bonds of society, unlike those of the state, are not externally imposed by force and violence but reflect the spirit or culture of the people as a whole. For Burckhardt, however, this did not imply the ethnonational homogeneity proposed by

134 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought nationalists, especially proponents of the German Kulturnation. He had a more cosmopolitan notion of political community than did contemporary German nationalists, at least insofar as he held to a pan-European mission to preserve (and perhaps to revive) the highest standards of Western culture. Finally, Burckhardt, like many conservatives, was convinced that society should be the product of a gradual historical evolution rather than of an imposed rational plan. Like any organism, society cannot be constructed by an external force according to some grand blueprint. On the contrary, it must develop gradually from within by slowly adapting to changing circumstances. But how can we best be guided in our attempts to determine collectively our society's requirements for adaptation, growth, and reform? Burckhardt's answer is that we need to reflect on history, to pay our passive tribute to historical life by approaching it in a spirit of contemplation. We must rely on history to gain comprehension of the eternity of a human condition in its great multiplicity of historical forms. "The human mind/ Burckhardt says, 'must transmute into a possession the remembrance of its passage through the ages of the world. What was once joy and sorrow must now become knowledge, as it must in the life of the individual.'8 This reverence for historical life is the basis of Burckhardt's staunch traditionalism. The mystery, grandeur, and tragedy of human history are our surest guide to wisdom and virtue, he thought. In this respect, he was a typical continental European conservative. Burckhardt had a great respect for custom and inheritance, for that which has been passed on to us from our ancestors. And his belief in the fallibility and limited reach of human reason led him to doubt the propriety of using rationality alone to reform political institutions in a manner consistent with the demands of communist, socialist, or even liberal versions of democratic egalitarianism. But in contradistinction to most conservatives, he was convinced that political conservatism as such was doomed, since all attempts to move backwards or significantly to arrest change are useless in an age when 'only disintegrating and levelling ideas have any real power.'9 And anyway, Burckhardt 'knew too much history,' as he liked to comment, to be sanguine about the merits of preserving the specific political institutions of old Europe. His traditionalism rests less on the conventional conservative's respect for established institutions and practices than on reverence for the magnificence of the spiritual continuum itself. This continuum serves as our

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 135 most reliable intellectual guide throughout the ages; it is 'the single truth behind the course and flow of all that is transitory.'10 Lesser but valuable truths inform his political views, as this chapter shows, and these involve human nature and politics, equality and democracy, the metaphysical need, the idea of historical greatness, and excellence and human nature. Throughout, Burckhardt's scepticism, his organicism, and his views on human nature play varying roles. Human Nature and Politics The lessons that he learned from history led Burckhardt to offer an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of human nature. Humans, as we saw above, are constantly 'suffering, striving and doing/ Based on his reading of the evidence of human behaviour throughout history, Burckhardt rejects all suggestions, ancient or modern, that human nature is essentially good but that for whatever reason humans have become estranged from their essential goodness. This means that he dismisses both the ancient myths about a long-lost golden age - a 'Reign of Saturn' - and the modern visions of a natural state of goodness and happiness. He also repudiates, as we have seen, the modern notion of progress, which sees the present or the future as a golden age in comparison to the supposedly darker ages of the past. Notions of an original state of happiness abound in the history of political thought. Hesiod spoke of the age of iron as a deterioration from past splendour, Zeno the Stoic described an ideal world-society of peace and harmony, and Seneca in his Ninetieth Letter told of a golden age of goodness and blissful ignorance that was destroyed when humans were corrupted by greed and lust for property and power. Likewise, St Augustine's hypothesis of a natural human goodness created by God from which we have become sadly estranged because of original sin has been an influential source of inspiration for those who imagine that the first society was the best and most perfect one.11 But what we do know about human history suggests to Burckhardt that existence in any prehistorical epoch was probably 'spent in profound torpor, half-animal fear, cannibalism, etc.'12 Modern times too have contributed an array of golden-age hypotheses. Rousseau, according to Burckhardt's reading, promoted the notion of an original human goodness that was subsequently corrupted by imperfect social and political institutions. For Rousseau, Burckhardt

136 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought acknowledges, the idea of a golden age is more a heuristic device than an article of faith. So while he again mentions that our natural human origins are beyond our ken, he points out that most state-of-nature theories promote an ideal vision of humanity's present or future. These theories serve the political function of familiarizing people with 'the idea of a leap into faith.' Since people were once free and happy and equal, the argument runs, there is no theoretical reason to doubt that these conditions can be reproduced by social tinkering. Yet these theories do not really give us any firm idea about what is constitutive of human nature, Burckhardt charges, since they are not founded on any empirical evidence of historical life. He accuses Rousseau in particular of creating his version of natural man without making use of 'the real, concrete life and sorrows of the French common man whom he must have known so well.' Perhaps he did this, Burckhardt suggests, 'so as not to scare away his only possible readership at the time/13 Burckhardt also relentlessly attacked the promoters of the 'ideology of progress.' He felt that their presumption of a steady improvement in the quality and capabilities of human beings was highly ideological and historically inaccurate. For him, the bias in favour of one's own time and one's own civilization is a 'ridiculous vanity' that ranks as one of the most 'deadly enemies of historical insight.'14 For the same reason, he had little time for Utopian theorists who projected into the future the outlines of a golden age to come. Again, proponents of the theory of progress are hampered by their ideological predisposition against the past in favour of the idealized present or the hypothetical future. At the same time, Burckhardt rebuked nostalgic conservative thinkers who were wont to idealize some past age as the pinnacle of human achievement. A genuine inquiry into the human condition, according to Burckhardt, must recognize all the mutations and metamorphoses of an acting and suffering humankind. It must therefore 'abandon any partiality for specific ages (it is all right to have a predilection, for that is a matter of taste), and it will do this all the sooner the livelier the feeling for human inadequacy in general is. Once it is understood that there never were, nor ever will be, any happy, golden ages in a fanciful sense, one will remain free from the foolish over-evaluation of some past, from senseless despair of the present or fatuous hope for the future, but one will recognize in the contemplation of historical ages one of the noblest undertakings. It is the story of the life and suffering of mankind viewed as a whole.'15

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 137 Thus the truth about human nature is that humans are imperfect, inadequate creatures and that this fact has not changed over time. In fact, Burckhardt insists that people today are no more or less moral than people at any other time: 'Neither the spirit nor the brain of man has visibly developed in historical times, and his faculties were in any case complete long before then. Hence our assumption that we live in an age of moral progress is supremely ridiculous ... What we are wont to regard as moral progress is the domestication of individuality brought about by (a) the versatility and wealth of culture and (b) by the vast increase in the power of the state over the individual. Morality as a power, however, stands no higher, nor is there more of it, than in so-called barbarous times. We may be sure that even among the lake dwellers men gave their lives for each other. Good and evil, perhaps even fortune and misfortune, may have kept a roughly even balance throughout all the various epochs and cultures.'16 Despite an increase in technical and material greatness, there has been no corresponding increase in human goodness or happiness. It was a key article of faith for Burckhardt that the capacity of the human intellect has not expanded at all over the course of known history. We should therefore be wary of the tendency to confuse technical improvements in education and culture with moral or intellectual progress.17 Burckhardt takes special care to avoid labelling certain past peoples as 'barbaric' just because their practices run counter to current ethics. The Greeks, he points out, might be called barbaric because they kept slaves, the Romans because they sacrificed human beings in their amphitheatres, and the people of the Middle Ages because they engaged in wholesale religious persecution and execution. But might not these or even more primitive peoples find some things in our civilization barbaric? Burckhardt considered it barbaric to keep birds in cages.18 He wants us to recognize that 'chronic, late wickedness may be connected with advanced civilization [and] may degenerate into pure barbarism.'19 His historical reading and his experience with politics overwhelmed Burckhardt with the powerful evidence of humankind's moral corruption. And yet he was not consistently pessimistic about the natural qualities of men and women. Human nature, he said, is not naturally good, but it is not naturally bad either; it is 'a mixture of good and evil.'20 Yet his analysis seems to dwell more on the negative than on the positive aspects of the human personality. For example, his clearest statement on human nature is probably this one from his lecture on

138 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought 'Great Men in History': 'Men as a whole are unsure of themselves, confused in mind and glad to run with the herd, or else they are envious or totally indifferent/21 The tendency to 'run with the herd/ in particular, has important political consequences for modernity, Burckhardt believed, since an erosion of natural authority and legitimate social hierarchies leaves the slavish multitude in the hands of greedy demagogues and other unscrupulous manipulators of mass opinion. But while he freely uses the term 'barbaric' to characterize these mass men of the modern day, he does not mean to say that the modern world is overrun by savages and degenerates. Rather, he suggests that it is dominated largely by bourgeois cultural philistines who are oblivious to the treasures and wisdom of the past. Thus he employs the term 'barbarism' in a unique and specific way - it means simply living in the present, devoid of history. Culture, in contrast, means living in the past and the present, aware of differentiating comparisons. In sharp contrast to his younger colleague Nietzsche, who complained that his contemporaries were cursed with an overbearing historical consciousness and consequently preached selective forgetfulness as an antidote for modern helplessness, Burckhardt griped about the lack of historical awareness in his day and consequently encouraged remembrance as the antidote to modern restlessness. Burckhardt had become sadly aware that the general run of people in his day were in his special sense of the word 'barbaric.' Modern people had cut themselves off from their own customs and traditions, thus becoming a Bestia Triumphans, ready and willing to attempt any new scheme that promises even the most fleeting happiness. Burckhardt had no qualms about referring to these people as 'masses' or 'plebeians.' Nevertheless, as David Gross shows, Burckhardt's by no means restricted his repeated use of such words as Massen, Pobel, Brullmasse, and Lumpenpack to the lower classes, as writers so often did in nineteenth-century social commentary.22 More often than not, he applied these terms to ordinary men and women, to members of his own class, or to leading public figures and opinion leaders.23 Burckhardt saw this massification of all classes in modern society as directly linked to advances in technology and to the expansion of capitalism. Technological change has a levelling effect on society, and it contributes to the sense of nervousness and to the feeling of rootlessness that are so pervasive in mass society. Distinctions between people blur as the popular mass media sell their single vision of the

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139

world to all buyers, proletariat and bourgeoisie alike. Innovations in transportation and communication jumble and mix various classes and ranks. Instead of increasing diversity and plurality, these developments help homogenize culture. Technological advances in communication and industry destroy traditional and unique ways of doing things, as a 'spirit of uniformity' spreads throughout Europe (and later around the globe). Small centres of culture cannot exist side by side with larger commercial ones. Thus distinct local culture is sucked into the vortex of a dynamic yet largely homogenizing and centralizing mass culture. This transformation ruins cultural life since, as Burckhardt put it, 'the chief consequence of centralization is spiritual mediocrity.'24 Cultural uniformity and rational centralization were required in an expanding industrial economic system, Burckhardt realized. But he did not approve of the extent to which material considerations were overriding cultural concerns. He was certainly not an opponent of private property and the private ownership of the means of production. Yet neither was he a promoter of the emerging industrial and entrepreneurial spirit, and he assessed its negative impact on the cultural heritage of old Europe. From his home town of Basel, which had been turned into a main hub of the railway system in Europe, he spoke with the greatest conviction about the deleterious consequences of industrialization. He warned of the environmental disaster that faced the industrializing world, and he bemoaned the fact that the most beautiful historical cities in Europe were being scarred mercilessly by railways, factories, warehouses, bridges, and the massive construction of what he regarded as architecturally obscene buildings. Burckhardt worried as well about the relationship between the masses and culture in the modern industrialized world. On the one hand, he was concerned that the greatest achievements and treasures of the past would be disregarded in the age of blind change, radical innovation, mass rule, and extremist political violence.25 Along with everything else of intrinsic worth in society, high culture, he feared, would now be preserved and promoted only so long as it proved useful or profitable to either the material or the national interests of the new masses. He had no illusions about modern man's attachment to his inheritance. The people of today, he concluded, 'would readily give up all their individual literatures and cultures, if it had to be so, for the sake of "through sleeping cars."'26 On the other hand, he was equally concerned about the potential danger of the bourgeois cultural

140 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought

philistines, who professed to love objets d'art but wanted them only in order to show them off to their envious friends. As Gross points out, Burckhardt wrote about the bourgeois 'accumulation of heterogeneous objects/ which was causing their 'mutual murder through bedazzlement' long before Veblen talked of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous display.27 Burckhardt's complaints about the crassness and materialism of the nouveau riche were typical of members of the older, well-established patrician class to which he belonged. His antibanausic attitude informs his insistence on the need for an aristocratic Bildung and Kultur. It also helps explain his condescension towards the more technical training of the polytechnic university. The same antibanausic attitude was evident in his praise for high culture and his disdain for the more universally accessible cultural goods produced in commercial society. Like many other cultural critics of his time, Burckhardt questioned the human cost of the materialistic ethos in capitalist society. He condemned the life of commerce, yet generally approved of those who serve the public interest in careers such as education or the civil service. He upheld an ideal of the well-informed, well-educated, uppermiddle-class administrator, who could balance the requirements of the business owners with the needs of the public, as represented by the guardians of cultural and social institutions. For him, the role of the educator was in part to prepare the sons of the elite to assume their public responsibilities with grace and good spirit. There was something special, he thought, about an active citizen who is 'armed with a culture and a life of the mind independent of one's business/ That is why he believed that the older and more venerable profession of government service was superior in virtue to a career in business. As he observed, 'the latter consumes a man entirely and hardens him to all else/28 He pondered the spiritual vacuity of the hectic business life in one of his characteristically frank letters to his friend Friedrich von Preen: 'Now and then I get an inside view of the life of men in "big business", of the perpetual rush they live in, always standing at attention ready to telegraph, and with their utter inability to stop talking shop even in the evening or - were that possible - to free themselves from the whole business. Now and then one of them says to me: you teachers are lucky, you get holidays. To which I answer: With three or four partners in your business you too could make time for holidays, in rotation; but it's within you, in your souls, that there are no holidays/29 Such a remark could, with a few alterations (for

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 141 example, replacing 'telegraph' with 'fax' or 'e-mail'), apply to the twenty-first-century world of business. The devaluation of those who are occupied entirely by the world of profit and loss occurs in any historical age. Aristotle made a similar complaint against the preoccupation with matters of the household and excluded those who had to labour or to run a business from full participation as citizens. Like Aristotle, Burckhardt was disdainful of the banausic life of men of commerce. And like the Greeks, he regarded moderation as the primary virtue in matters of capital accumulation. He felt that it was quite natural to want to acquire enough wealth to support one's pursuit of the good life - in his case, to be supplied with books, trips to Italy, good wine, and cigars. But since the amount needed for a comfortable life was limited, he regarded it as a perversion to seek to accumulate wealth and property for their own sake. Burckhardt's distaste for industrial production and for business activity, like Aristotle's antipathy towards the commercial or mercantile life, perhaps reflects the prejudice of his own class. Intellectuals of all ages have often adopted positions antipathetic to commerce. There is snobbery among many who want to elevate the life of the mind above that of the pocketbook. But there is more to it than this. For instance, Burckhardt draws a distinction between 'economic man' and 'cultural man' in order to advance an ethical or political claim about the ends of human community. The former he sees as a producer and consumer of disposable goods, whose activity is necessarily self-interested (even though its products may be of benefit to the wider community). The latter, he says, engages in the type of spontaneous and essentially free activity - thinking, speaking, creating, writing, teaching - that is longer lasting and ultimately more beneficial to the public good (in addition to a private one). Thus we cannot explain Burckhardt's view entirely in terms of class or personal bias, since he grounds it in the philosophical notion of what is the best life, the highest pursuits that aims at producing good social arrangements. He saw political and moral constraints on economic activity as necessary in order to place economics at the service of the higher human activities, especially moral and cultural ones. Again like Aristotle, Burckhardt was repulsed by the prospect of the complete victory of material over spiritual objectives in society because of its inevitable deterrence of pursuit of the good life. He believed that there was a crucial spiritual element in human nature, a

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profound metaphysical need that all humans seek to satisfy. A world wholly driven by commercial and material interests suppresses this spiritual aspect and makes people's inner lives narrow, distorted, and disharmonious. Individuals lose their natural sense of mystery and wonder at the world and start to believe that all things are possible, that all their wants and desires can be satisfied. Burckhardt linked the rise of this worldview with the wholehearted acceptance by all social classes of the theoretical musings of Rousseau and other optimistic thinkers: 'the idea of the natural goodness of man has turned, among the intelligent strata of Europe, into the idea of progress, i.e. undisturbed money-making and modern comforts, with philanthropy as a sop to conscience.'30 Equality and Democracy Burckhardt's critique of the bourgeois ethos was intertwined with his dread of social and economic egalitarianism. Like most conservatives (and many nineteenth-century liberals), he had little faith in the doctrine of human equality. Although he includes all economic classes in his sweeping denunciations of modern crassness and vulgarity, he was especially harsh on members of the lower orders. For this reason, he has been accused of being little more than an ideologue for the privileged patrician class, of being a rhetorician for the conservative interests rather than a conservative philosopher.31 Yet his defenders would say that his assumptions are grounded on evidence more solid than the prejudices of his class. When he assumes that the chief characteristic of mass man is a desire for material comfort and satisfaction and that we should expect no limit to these demands, since these desires are in themselves absolutely insatiable, he is making a serious claim about the imperfection of all humans and about the implications of a social order that values material success to the near exclusion of other human qualities. Nevertheless, Burckhardt's willingness to condemn lower classes to roles that do not include full participation in the decision-making processes is clearly undemocratic. He holds that the central virtue for political leadership is a knowledge of the scope and limits of purposive action. The working classes, he insists, lack the time and the inclination to gain such knowledge, which requires careful study of the past and lived experience at statecraft. Left to themselves, the poorer masses are bound to make a terrible mess of things because they are

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 143 not equipped to make sound political judgments. Moreover, they are too closely tied to current economic interests to take a longer view, one that is culturally sensitive, and are therefore utterly incapable of dealing with major societal problems in a way that does not harm the interests of culture and limit the free individuality that culture requires. To Burckhardt it makes sense that a group long disadvantaged will attempt to govern without the support of those institutions that it accuses of perpetuating an imbalance of power. Yet he was convinced that the masses need guidance and direction from established laws, customs, and institutions of authority, even if these institutions are flawed.32 The discouraging fact, as he sees it, is that this guidance, which politicians require in order to make ethical judgments about the public interest, is precisely what radical political leaders disavow. Based on his pessimistic view of human nature and couched within his general critique of modernity, Burckhardt's thoughts regarding current developments culminate in a series of four largely unoriginal claims about the inherent weaknesses of democratic government: namely, that it is madness to extend the franchise to the lowest classes because they are selfish and indecisive, that the lack of social distinctions means that the constitution is designed to promote the interests of the base and common rather than those of persons of quality, that democratic government is bound to become bogged down in red tape, and that in a democracy governments are irresponsible. Burckhardt notes that the laisser-aller spirit of industrial society reinforces and exacerbates the 'limitless, bottomless irresponsibility' of the masses. The ascendancy of democratic political institutions, including universal suffrage and equal participation in all matters of state ('and finally any desired sphere of existence'), also highlights modern society's chief illness - namely, 'the leadership of the masses, who are so easily led, and the utter lack of respect shown by radicalism - not for the old, conservative political forms (since I don't expect piety from it on that score), but for the laws and regulations that are their own creation.'33 According to Burckhardt's thesis, popular democracy is hopelessly insecure and unstable and may well lead to the unintended consequences of rule by the most highly undemocratic strongmen. How so? First, democratically elected parliamentary bodies are wont to reach the most unexpected majority decisions from one day to the next because the bulk of the people are fickle, insecure, and unsure of themselves. Consequently, the people will be led by their own sense of confusion and incompetence to seek out leaders who appear to be

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more confident and sure than they are themselves. This explains the common flaw of popular democracy, according to Burckhardt - the people's desire for a charismatic political saviour. The people, swayed by the demagogue's superior claims to know their own true needs and wants, are easily deceived into granting power to a totalitarian dictator, in accordance with fully constitutional and democratic practices. The newly ensconced servant of the people will then rule by sheer power, in complete disregard of constitutional laws and regulations.34 One can certainly quarrel with Burckhardt's dark predictions. Yet the twentieth century offers ample evidence that under certain conditions the development of party politics can reach such a stage of perverted democratization. Extremist parties can arise with agendas that focus exclusively on the need to address some particular evil of modern society. Such a party tends to emerge from within disciplined movements with messianic visions and a devoted mass following. The National Socialists in Germany and other fascist parties in early twentieth-century Europe are leading examples, but so too is the Communist party. This type of party is something of a cross between a church and an army: it demands devotion, discipline, the total commitment and loyalty of the individual to the collective goal. In most cases, these parties adapt to parliamentary and democratic systems and in turn force liberal and conservative parties to appeal to the masses and to become more sympathetic to the economic and social concerns of the working classes and lower middle classes. In other cases, the mass potential of the party organization is exploited, through the imitation of the communist model, and fascist parties overthrow democratic governments, institute one-party rule, crush all opposition, make the state a mere appendage of the party itself, and rule by sheer power alone. For having predicted these worst-case scenarios, Burckhardt has been recognized by some as an especially insightful political thinker. In particular, he has been praised for having predicted the emergence of circumstances necessary for the rise of a petit-bourgeois dictator such as Hitler.35 Yet Burckhardt's theory of mass democracy fails to distinguish between the sorts of circumstances that give rise to extreme cases of totalitarianism and those that result in the rule of more moderate liberal democrats. It is not enough to say that both cases are equally distasteful because they both involve rule by the base elements of society over the more noble. Surely we need a more precise hypothesis - the Federal Republic differs vastly from the Third Reich. Burckhardt's total critique of democracy leaves him without the

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 145 theoretical tools to separate extreme abuses from more pedestrian versions. Moreover, while Burckhardt warned against unintended authoritarian consequences, he was not promoting a liberal regime as an antidote to tyranny. What he feared most about democracy - more than illiberal dictators - was the tyranny of the majority over the minority. Like many other conservative and liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century, he simply assumed that democratic rule would mean the rule of the working class. Once in power, he assumed, the proletariat will naturally rule in accordance with its own material interests, to the detriment of those who are more cultured and well-bred. He did not oppose in principle liberal institutions of representation or processes ensuring a separation of power between an executive and a legislative branch in a constitutional system, so long as participation in these institutions was restricted to the upper classes. To him, universal suffrage, rather than parliamentarianism, was the decisive move in latenineteenth-century politics that was placing in danger all that was good and high in European society and culture. What Burckhardt did not anticipate was that the situation that he feared was to be the exception rather than the rule in the advanced capitalist societies of the West. Universal suffrage did not lead to class rule by the proletariat. In more than a century of democratic elections, Western political systems have demonstrated that enfranchising the working classes does not necessarily lead to tyranny of the majority via the ballot box. While Burckhardt and other nineteenth-century conservatives and liberals feared that the masses would use the political party as an instrument to gain total control and to press for the satisfaction of their own material interests, they did not comprehend fully the relationship between socio-economic power and political dominance that was to keep working-class organizations from effective political power. Universal suffrage does not in itself alter the character of capitalism or the political balance of power. Thus the new social classes spawned by the industrial revolution, though increasingly solicited to vote, were routinely left out of the leadership positions. Political battles generally remained limited to parties representing the upper middle classes and the aristocracy. Working-class parties tended to advocate a gradual amelioration of class inequalities rather than the violent overturning of existing class relationships. Nevertheless, Burckhardt was antagonistic towards even moderate forms of democratic liberalism and social democracy. He tended to link all such progressive political movements as related manifesta-

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tions of the general rebellion against privilege and power that began with the French Revolution. He worried that the doctrine of equality would allow the masses, in their resentment and anger, to destroy the conditions necessary for the flowering of human excellence. He was especially troubled that the majority would use the modern nationstate to advance its goals. His position sometimes comes out as a rhetorical objection to the 'proletarianization' of society, with its general levelling of standards and reduction of cultural quality to meet the lowest common denominator. Yet he objected equally strenuously to the bourgeoisie, similarly philistine and unable to value excellence. Burckhardt was therefore thoroughly dismayed by the prospects of modernity, seeing real trouble ahead as the various interests battled in the political, cultural, and social realms. He tried to confront these impending problems with an ironical and sceptical attitude. Nevertheless, while he assumes a hierarchy of excellence based on the ability to create and appreciate artistic culture, he is extremely vague and sometimes contradictory about what this might mean in real life. How exactly is excellence to become manifest in society? Burckhardt explicitly rejects the free-market view, which envisions the best people rising to the top through unfettered competition. He predicts that an age in which such a method predominates will be mediocre, lack visible cultural or spiritual distinction, and produce leaders without political strength and judgment via popularity contests. An alternative method for the determination of excellence might involve public rather than private arenas of competition in which leaders might emerge. Yet anything involving the state is suspect to Burckhardt. He objects to a state-controlled method of letting the most qualified candidates rise to the top of the public service, largely because of his fear that the state has already become too powerful. He envisions a host of problems that will be inherent with large, corrupt, inefficient, and unwieldy bureaucracies. In the end, it is an ideal of a self-chosen elite, where the superior few would recognize the excellence of others, that he prefers. He seems to have in mind pre-democratic Athens. He offers little hint as to how this could be implemented in the present, although he understands the social and political consequences that follow from modern attacks on excellence. In modernity, Burckhardt asserts, the traditional standards of human excellence have been displaced. All that we have to differentiate individuals is the categories of wealth or culture. Since Burckhardt concludes that financial success is not a reliable indicator of human

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 147 excellence, he relies entirely on the more subjective measure of a person's level of 'culture/ But in putting such great store in 'culture/ defined only in Eurocentric terms, he fails to follow Herder's lead in regarding 'culture' as something belonging to all peoples, regardless of their level of development. He often uses it instead to designate achievements of a predetermined kind and to denote humanity's 'higher' capacities in general. Too many times, his comments and judgments about the relative level of refinement among 'other' peoples reveal only his narrow racial and cultural prejudices. For instance, he excludes from his analysis of the religious-metaphysical temper of various nations the religions of 'lesser races, those of the Negro people, etc., of the savages and semi-savages ... For such peoples are from the outset a prey to everlasting fear; their religions do not even give us standard for the first signs of the birth of the spirit, because among them the spirit is destined never to come to spontaneous birth.'36 In addition, Burckhardt deservedly stands accused of anti-Semitism, based on evidence from several passages in his private correspondence.37 Of course, anti-Semitism was widespread in the nineteenth century, and Burckhardt's malicious criticism of Jews follows closely the conventional prejudices of the European upper classes. However, there is no excusing his callous attitude towards Jews, even if it is grounded more in his anti-modernism than in racism. As Gossman puts it, 'Burckhardt often associated the new middle class culture with Jews, who served for so many critics of liberalism and democracy at the time as emblems of modernity - the quintessential nuova gente in their alleged rootlessness, intellectualism, commercialism, and parasitism, their inability to produce an authentic, original culture/ 38 Burckhardt's anti-Semitism was therefore tied up with his anti-modernism, rather than with a racially based theory of Jewish inferiority.39 He equated the Jews, and their increased presence in European life, with the general trend towards a more bourgeois, democratic, capitalist, and modern Europe. He also associated them with modern journalism and the mass media, which ultimately levelled down culture and politics. He saw Jewish influence as a threat to the values and culture of old Europe. In particular, he, like Marx, saw the spirit of dreaded capitalism embodied in Jews, and he ridiculed them for what he regarded as their parvenu tastes and their ostentatious displays of wealth. During a trip to Frankfurt, for example, he observed a 'furious building of Palaces by Jews and other company promoters' and complained about the 'clumsy ornamentation' and mishmash of architec-

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tural styles - fake Renaissance mansions and classical buildings with obscene caryatids meant to 'show up to good advantage when Kalle and Schickselchen and Papa with their famous noses, appear on the balcony between females borrowed from the Pandroseion.'40 As Peter Gay solemnly notes, Burckhardt's cruel anti-Semitic remarks, 'though intended to stigmatize one supposed version of modern barbarity, actually served the cause of another, far more terrible barbarity/41 While these anti-Semitic utterances taint his assessments, Burckhardt in his political analysis explicitly condemns the rise of anti-Semitism among the European masses. He uses the case of anti-Semitism in the mass population as an indication that he is basically correct to regard human nature as essentially base. He sees the racism of the masses as directly related to the naturally fearful, envious, and ignorant characteristics of ordinary human beings. And he was alive to the menacing political implications of anti-Semitism, given that the masses were increasingly involved in political affairs. In a letter written at the beginning of 1880, when Switzerland and Germany were in the midst of an economic crisis, he sounds an ominous warning about the coming increase of anti-Semitic agitation. He links a worsening of the general treatment of Jews with the severity of the financial crisis, especially with the tightening of credit. He says that the German people had created their own financial troubles through greed and ignorance but warns that they will not see things this way. Instead, they will look for someone else to blame. As the crisis deepens, he predicts, there will be an irresistible urge among the masses to make scapegoats of the Jews. Yet his proposed reaction was never to counter-attack against antiSemitism or to support civil rights for Jews. On the contrary, Burckhardt, who had opposed the emancipation of the Jews in Switzerland,42 urged prudence, quietism, and moderation on Germany's Jewish leaders. In the face of increased anti-Semitic activity, he advises them to lie low and accept their secondary status. He came to this conclusion partly because he correctly predicted that in times of crisis the Jews could not rely on support from the German liberals - their traditional allies - to guarantee their freedom. He foresaw that the liberals 'will not be able to look on for long while Conservatives and Catholics hold the most popular trump that exists [anti-Semitism] and play it against them.' He also predicted that once it is safe and acceptable for the state to step in and violate the rights of Jews, because of a heightened sense of panic or crisis, the German-Prussian authorities will be glad to do just that. Editors of newspapers too, he predicted,

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 149 would join the attack. Full of insecurity and greed, the masses and their spokespersons would have no qualms about making the Jews pay penance for their supposed success in the midst of dismal economic opportunities afforded to the average German.43 In the light of these mixed observations, it is clear that Burckhardt shared in the anti-Semitic sentiment so palpable in Europe at the time. Although he was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Germany, he was not willing to support any specific measures to secure equality and rights for the Jewish minority. But it is also apparent that he had no faith in the majority either. He laughed at the very idea of the general goodness or fairness of the masses or of their bourgeois liberal leaders. We can thus see why he felt it foolish to think that in a political system in which decisions are made by a show of hands people will arrive naturally at tolerant, liberal-minded conclusions about the rights and entitlements of others in society. In a complete democracy, Burckhardt warned, things will be very insecure: 'the good liberals and even those in the radical way of business, may fall on their knees before the leaders of the people and beseech them not to commit any follies. But in order to be re-elected, the leaders of the people, the demagogues, must have the masses on their side, and they in turn demand that something should always be happening, otherwise they don't believe "progress" is going on. One cannot possibly escape from that cercle vicieux as long as universal suffrage lasts. One thing after another will have to be sacrificed: positions, possessions, religion, civilized manners, pure scholarship - as long as the masses can put pressure on their Meneurs, and as long as some power doesn't shout: Shut up! - and there is not the slightest sign of that for the time being. And ... that power can really only emerge from the depth of evil, and the effect will be hair-raising.'44 Here we have Burckhardt's most sober and starkly pessimistic vision of the near future, which he expressed again a few months later as 'the alternative between complete democracy and absolute, lawless despotism.' The latter, as we have seen, may arise out of (and because of the shortcomings of) the former. But in any event, this new despotism 'would certainly not be run by the dynasties, who are too softhearted, but by supposedly republican Military Commands. Only people do not like to imagine a world whose rulers utterly ignore law, prosperity, enriching work, and industry, credit, etc., and who would rule with utter brutality. But those are the people into whose hands the world is being driven by the competition among parties for the

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participation of the masses on any and every question. The ultima ratio of many conservatives has been familiar here for a long time: "It's bound to come", as you put it, "and useless to resist," referring to complete democratization/45 Burckhardt appears here to be utterly without faith or hope: regardless of what we do, democratization will continue apace and will result in either the tyranny of the majority in a radicalized democracy or, what is worse, absolute rule in a fierce new form of military despotism. It is his pronouncements of this nature that earned Burckhardt his reputation for political pessimism. The Metaphysical Need Burckhardt took seriously the possibility that the mass age might mean the end of history. He feared that a complete severance of the modern world from the cultural inheritance of the past would trap individuals in an ever-changing present with no recourse to past experience as a guide. At other times, however, he held out some hope, though faint, for a positive restructuring of European society. He suggests that history after all never ends and that the human spirit is forever building its new house, soaring above, yet closely bound up with, the problems of the present.46 A new order will eventually replace this one, he hopes, and it may well be an age of greater spiritual health. When Burckhardt is in this latter mood of relative optimism he relies on his belief in an essentially spiritual aspect to human nature that will demand satisfaction after a long period of spiritual depravity. Religion, as one of the three great historical forces, is a constant, invariable, eternal human drive. It may be more or less suppressed or resplendent, depending on the historical circumstances, but it is constitutive of the human personality none the less.47 While particular forms of religious experience vary according to time and place, they are evidence of that eternal human quest for the meaning of the world that is at the root of all civilization: 'All peoples and all ages feel the metaphysical need, and all cling to a religion once adopted.'48 The rise of any religion, Burckhardt speculates, depends on the 'crystallization and radiation' of the ancient, previously unconscious metaphysical need by a 'great and terrible moment, or a man endowed with the qualities of the founder of a religion, [who] brings that need to consciousness/49 Still, every religion originates in history and, as Albert Salomon puts it, 'is subject to the destiny of historical phenom-

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 151 ena to harden in its institutions and to lose contact with human reality.'50 This happens particularly when religions are too closely united with the state. True religions best preserve their idealism, Burckhardt says, 'when their attitude toward the state is one of suffering and protest ... Every contact with the secular, however, reacts strongly upon religion. An inward decay is inevitably associated with the rise of its secular power.'51 Burckhardt offers a sociology of world religions that sees the various manifestations of the inherent metaphysical need as determining the specific characteristics of the ruling elites. The masses, he says, follow blindly and 'cling most tenaciously to the external form and rites of the religion concerned, and maintain them (for the heart of any religion is a sealed book to them) until they are subjected by some stronger power which has acquired a carapace for them to cling to, whereupon they cling to that.'52 Like Marx, he felt that religion could be a sort of 'opiate of the masses'; but he believed also that religion could be a manifestation of freedom and of the expression of higher human qualities. In order for it to be emancipatory, however, it must be free from the modern spirit of unrestricted worldliness. Contemporary organized religion, however, is incapable of escaping the 'infection of the church by the state.' Burckhardt sees both religion and culture as totally subservient to the power of the state. Moreover, the modern democratic ideal of equality and the materialist ethos of modern industrialism are both essentially hostile to any form of true spirituality. All that can be tolerated is an empty religiosity that serves the political and economic needs of the ruling class. Consequently, political conditions wholly determine the relative power of the church, and of religion itself. For the time being, Burckhardt concludes, religion still stands under the physical protection of the state, but there is no telling how long this situation will last. In fact, he believed that in late modernity the close association with an organized church would become an unnecessary nuisance for the modern nation-state. Burckhardt was a strong believer in the necessity of church-state separation. He believed that adherence to this doctrine was crucial for the guarantee of individual freedom and of cultural autonomy within modern societies. His opposition to any form of state interference in religious matters, for instance, encouraged him to be sympathetic to the plight of persecuted Catholics under Bismarck. And while he generally dismissed the United States for its popular democracy, materialism, and philistinism, he admired its firm resolution to separate church

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from state. There, he pointed out, it was a matter of utter indifference to governments how 'ultramontane' or 'modernist' the Catholic bishops were.53 Separation of church and state was for Burckhardt 'the only real solution' to the corruption of spiritual by political issues. This is a good example of those points where Burckhardt's views overlap with positions held by liberals of his day. It is also an example of his trust that 'society/ left to its own resources without state interference, can somehow spontaneously and appropriately arrange social forces. In practice, however, Burckhardt realized that true religious freedom was difficult to realize, since so many governments still feared a religion and a church genuinely independent of its authority. It would have come as no surprise to him that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century attempted to eradicate the church's influence whenever they could. Burckhardt took pleasure in noting that even in his own day the Swiss Radical Democrats, who in theory favoured religious freedom, feared the kinds of strict moral and social influence that an independent church can bring to bear on major issues.54 Despite these practical obstacles, however, he believed that only an emancipation from politics and the state could help to re-establish the genuine and integral metaphysical spirit of religion. Burckhardt himself lacked personal faith and refused to make any public statement of a religious nature, yet the existence of the spiritual need in human beings opened up to him a hope that transcended pessimism. As a young man, he explained to his sister that even though he had lost confidence in Christianity he still believed in a general Providence as his personal God.55 'Mankind is not destined to perish yet,' he writes elsewhere, 'and nature creates as liberally as before. But if happiness is to be found in the midst of our misfortunes, it can only be a spiritual one: to be turned facing the past so as to save the culture of former times, and facing the future so as to give an example of the spiritual in an age which might otherwise succumb entirely to the material.'56 Burckhardt felt that 'something great, new and liberating must come out of Germany, and what is more in opposition to power, wealth and business.'57 Hence emancipation from the nihilism of modernity must emerge from a spiritual power, 'for we will never get rid of the whole militaristic and economic business without a transcendental superworldly orientation.'58 As one commentator points out, Burckhardt's words here evoke Karl Jaspers's claim that 'without transcendence existence is for all that sterile and lifeless.'59 For Burckhardt, however, this transcendence

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is less a religious than an intellectual-aesthetic experience. As Erich Heller explains it, if life on this earth is the self-willed deception, misery, and continuous drudgery of a fallen creature, then surely the desire will be strong to 'emancipate oneself from it, and seek reward in the sublimity of a self-detached vision, not of God, but for Burckhardt of history.'60 Burckhardt once said that the 'unfulfilled longing for the lost/ which keeps alive in our minds the continuity of the intellectual tradition, is an expression of our fundamental metaphysical need. And worship of the souvenirs of artistic creation and the relics of history forms part of the religion of the modern age. Our capacity to worship, he said, is as important as the objects that we venerate,61 and as long as we do not lose this capacity altogether, there will be reason to hope that modernity will not be the end of history. Constructive change, however, cannot come from the vain-glorious or self-interested. Nor can it come at the hands of a Nietzschean Ubermensch who forces his will on humanity. 'Things can only be changed by ascetics/ Burckhardt concludes, "by men who are independent of the enormously expensive life of the great cities, far from the atmosphere of company promoting and from the horrific luxury to which official literature and art are falling victim, by men, that is, who will be able to help the national spirit and the popular soul to express itself.'62 A spiritual renaissance may be on the way, but for the time being Burckhardt counsels genuine intellectuals to remain free spirits by preserving in their minds the images from the past of the true and the beautiful. The independent thinker can in this fashion remain unsullied by the corrupting influences of the modern metropolis and the great marketplace. Burckhardt's advice: 'let us attend assiduously, and where we are concerned, learn and learn till we bust/63 On Great Men in History These gentle sentiments are sometimes at odds with the image of Burckhardt as a thinker who was genuinely captivated by the deeds and achievements of the so-called Great Men of History. Burckhardt, like Machiavelli and Nietzsche, was fascinated by superhuman figures in history - by superior artists and poets, by the great ascetics and philosophers, by founders and reformers of religions and states. While he does not condone or justify as historically necessary the actions of all the great figures in world history, he does dwell on their peculiar role within human society.

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Burckhardt begins with a psychological explanation for the origin of the concept of greatness. The concept arises, he speculates, from our all-too-human feeling of smallness and inadequacy. 'Greatness is all that we are not.' Historical greatness arises as a category of thought, as a way to acknowledge our own insignificance and imperfection in comparison with exceptional individuals. It is a psychological category that must be delimited in the most subtle and careful manner, since it is not something that is easily measured. Greatness is simply not susceptible to scientific definition; it must remain a relative term. Nevertheless, Burckhardt ventures a tentative analysis of its political role in history. Characteristically, he begins with warnings about how we might get it wrong. He notes that we are prone to make numerous errors in our assessments of powerful figures. First, we are likely to change our minds with age and natural mental development. Hence we must be sure that our verdict on greatness is the product of mature and sound judgment. Second, we are so 'small' and inconsequential in the drama of history that we are prone to 'drug ourselves with some seemingly majestic impression, and to give our imagination full play/ This holds especially true for our experience of the great men of politics and war: 'Whole peoples may justify their humiliation in this way, risking the danger that other peoples and cultures will come to show them that they have worshipped false idols.' Finally, we are prone to call past figures great if their actions seem to have made possible the conditions of our own lives. In this way, we often confuse mere power with greatness.64 What then is the proper test of greatness? The key factor for Burckhardt is that the great person be unique and irreplaceable: "The great man is a man of that kind, a man without whom the world would seem to us incomplete because certain great achievements only became possible through him in his time and place and are otherwise unimaginable.'65 Most inventors and discoverers (except for Columbus, who ranks with the philosophers because he staked his life on a hypothesis) do not belong in the pantheon, Burckhardt concludes, because someone else would probably have provided their service to humanity even if they had not lived. The creative arts are a different matter, of course: 'If Raphael had died in his cradle, theTransformation would assuredly never have been painted.'66 Still, the great man cannot become successful by skill alone. The time must be right for true greatness to shine through. As Burckhardt puts it, Time and the man

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 155 enter into a great, mysterious covenant.' While nature provides the gifts of grace to the talented political actor, 'History' must provide the opportunity for genuine talent to become manifest (in other words, he follows Machiavelli's formula: skill + fortune = greatness). However, 'not every age finds its great man, and not every great endowment finds its time. There may now exist great men for things that do not yet exist/67 But who are these great men in history? First, there are the outstanding artists, poets, and philosophers. (No 'great' historians, economists, or political scientists have ever graced the world stage, however, since they deal with the formulation of laws about parts of the world and not with the creation or discovery of the primary laws of life. Likewise, there are no 'great' businessmen or industrialists because 'the man who merely improves the revenue of a region is not, in the fullest sense of the word, a benefactor of humanity.')68 That Burckhardt would consider as great the many renowned artists, poets, and philosophers is hardly surprising. Nor is it that he treats them in much the same fashion as Schopenhauer deals with the artistic Genius; for both thinkers the capacity to comprehend the Idea, the ideal, constitutes greatness. 'Artists, poets and philosophers have a dual function/ Burckhardt says, 'to give ideal form to the inner content of time and the world and to transmit it to posterity as an imperishable heritage.'69 To perform this last function does not require that contemporaries recognize the great individual as such. A case in point is Shakespeare, whom Burckhardt regards as great and irreplaceable. 'Shakespeare is a veritable windfall for England,' he once said; but if he had never existed, 'his age would not have missed him. Soon he was completely forgotten and was not revived until much later.'70 What is most important for our purposes is the great men of action.71 Burckhardt sketches the following outline of political greatness. First, the great man has outstanding natural faculties of mind (intelligence, organizational brilliance, and so on). He has the capacity, for instance, to concentrate at will on one issue at a time, while he still sees every connection as a whole and masters every detail according to cause and effect. Second, he has great practical knowledge: he can see clearly without being blinded by appearances, and he knows in advance the moment when to act. This sort of knowledge is quite distinct from contemplation, which is incompatible with such a nature. The great man of action has a genuine will to master the situation and an exceptional 'strength of will.' Finally, his most stunning

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and necessary characteristic is his tremendous 'strength of soul' - that is, 'the power of one exceptional individual to endure certain acute stresses at certain times.' Burckhardt marvels at the capacity of a William the Silent or a Count Richelieu to endure constant menace, such as the threat of assassination, even while straining the mind to the utmost. This kind of extraordinary political expertise and strength of soul cannot be replicated by the combination of the skills of many less talented people within democratic or collective forums of decisionmaking: 'No sum of ordinary minds and hearts can replace that power.'72 While these extraordinary political figures qualify as great in Burckhardt's estimation, he reserves his full praise for those very few who display the rarest thing in human beings throughout history: 'greatness of soul.' This is a quality far more exceptional than the 'strength of soul' mentioned above, and it is not to be found in most political great men. It seems, on the contrary, to reside in a Burckhardtian version of Schopenhauer's saint or holy ascetic. Greatness of soul, Burckhardt explains, 'resides in the power to forgo benefits in the name of morality, in voluntary self-denial, not merely from motives of prudence but from goodness of heart, while the political great man must be an egoist, out to exploit every advantage.' True grandeur of the soul therefore is possible only when inner grace and goodness combine with sound knowledge of one's moral responsibilities and obligations. Here Burckhardt explicitly rejects the Machiavellian notion of greatness and denies that the effective use of power requires the violation of traditional moral law. Burckhardt's concept of genuine greatness of soul not only contradicts Machiavelli but also puts him at odds with his friend and colleague Nietzsche, who insists that the legislator of the future must abandon all thoughts of doing what is good in order to succeed in creating a new social order. For Nietzsche, the models to follow in political life include the notorious Cesare Borgia and Napoleon. For Burckhardt, however, grandeur of soul is largely an attribute of saints rather than of politicians. The rarest occasion is the supreme quality of genius in a great political man. Such a man, according to Burckhardt, was Julius Caesar: 'all things are fulfilled when to these qualities [of political greatness] there are added personal grace, an hourly contempt of death, and, as in Caesar too, the wish to win and reconcile, a grain of goodness! At the very least, a passionate soul, like Alexander's!'73

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 157 In this case at least there is reason to link Burckhardt with Nietzsche, who listened to Burckhardt lecture on historical greatness and declared his enthusiasm for the thesis presented. In one of his notes, he remarks that his true ideal is not simply Caesar but, echoing Burckhardt, 'the Roman Caesar with Christ's soul.'74 In another note from the same period he paraphrases Burckhardt and elaborates: 'Greatness of soul is inseparable from greatness of spirit. For it involves independence; but in the absence of spiritual greatness, independence ought not to be allowed, it causes mischief, even through its desire to do good and practice "justice". Small spirits must obey - hence cannot possess greatness.'75 In published work written a year later Nietzsche returns to greatness and follows Burckhardt: 'precisely strength of the will, hardness, and the capacity for long-range decisions' must belong to this concept. But he then provides a unique addition: 'He shall be greatest who can be loneliest, the most concealed, the most deviant, the human being beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will. Precisely this shall be called greatness: being capable of being as manifold as whole, as ample as full.' 76 Inspired perhaps by Burckhardt's lectures on greatness or his depiction of Renaissance Man, this ideal, in its immoralism especially, is not to be equated with Burckhardt's. How far Burckhardt is from Nietzsche we can see in the fact that his other leading example of grandeur of the soul is Pope St Gregory I ('Gregory the Great'), a man not likely to appear on Nietzsche's list of great men. For Burckhardt, Gregory was genuinely grand and saintly because he 'really cared deeply for the salvation of Rome and Italy from the savagery of the Lombard ... He was in active touch with the bishops and laymen ... without the power or the wish to use coercion upon them. He made no serious use of excommunication and interdict, and was ingenuously convinced of the sanctity of the Roman soil and the tombs of the saints.'77 It makes no matter that Burckhardt himself was an unbeliever and a relativist when it came to notions of the true and the good. For, as he says, 'devotion to the true and the good in their temporal form, especially when it involves danger and self-sacrifice, is splendid in the absolute sense.'78 It is this sort of devotion to temporal versions of the good that is the mark of spiritual greatness. In contradistinction to greatness of soul, however, mere political greatness is based on prudential knowledge, personal power, and ruthlessness. The political man regards it as his primary duty to 'stand his

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ground and increase his power.' Thoughts of glory, fame, ambition, even the verdict of posterity, are all secondary motives for the great man: the decisive impulse is simply the sense of power. And as a rule, this goes hand in hand with 'so low an estimate of mankind that he no longer aims at that consensus of their opinion which is fame, but at their subjection and exploitation/79 Burckhardt became famous partly on the strength of his ability to describe and analyse these Gewaltmenschen - 'men of power' or 'power addicts.' Civilization, for instance, offers a veritable rogues' gallery of statesmen as despots, as soulless statisticians, as technocratic constitution builders, and as demagogues that has served as a source of admiration and inspiration for students of Italian Renaissance politics ever since.80 Burckhardt had no illusions about the moral character of these coolly calculating politicians. Tower never yet improved a man,' he liked to say. Burckhardt was not about to let the Gewaltmenschen escape criticism on the grounds that their services to the greater prosperity of the state excused their utter ruthlessness. This condoning of great criminals is harmful, Burckhardt suggests, since their misdeeds are not confined to acts that make the community great, the very delimitation of necessary crime after the fashion of Machiavelli is a fallacy, and the methods that a man uses recoil on his head, thus destroying his taste for greatness and leaving the state at the hands of other despots.81 Yet Burckhardt is not so naive as to think that power is something that we could do without ('in actual fact, no power has ever yet been founded without crime, yet the most vital spiritual and material possessions of the nations can only grow when existence itself is safeguarded by power').82 He developed a very pragmatic theory of the natural limitations of human action and the obvious requirement for legitimate authority. And he concluded sadly that in an evil world such as ours the successful politician must be selfish and inconsiderate in achieving his goals. It is for this reason that the community must insist on setting some limits on the arbitrary power of office holders. Some circumstances, however, may demand extraordinarily harsh measures to prevent chaos. Richelieu, for instance, 'was no angel, and his constitutional policy was not sound, but it was the only possible one for his time.'83 Even Bismarck, whom Burckhardt loathed, he grudgingly recognized as having defended authority in a period of disintegration and nihilism.84 Great men in history serve a valuable political function by becoming symbols of a national temperament or an inspirational personality

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 159 type. In the last analysis, Burckhardt bases his notion of greatness not exclusively on services rendered or on historical importance. The deciding factor is 'personality/ an image propagated by a sort of 'magic/85 For Burckhardt, in contrast to Machiavelli, success is not the sole criterion for political greatness. The great man may never have the opportunity to succeed, but if he possesses true historical knowledge of reality and combines a vision of his own responsibilities and goals with the strength of will and power to act, then he will inspire others and serve as a standard of the highest potentialities of humankind. Burckhardt shows how the personalities of extraordinary figures can exert a continuing influence. He rejects as banal the idea that the creative human spirit is 'unconquerable and will always be victorious.' On the contrary, he says, 'it may depend on the particular degree of strength of one man at one certain moment whether peoples or civilizations are to be lost or not. Great individuals are needed, and they need success.'86 What is more, great men set the standards and provide an enormous stimulation to the people who follow after them. Great political men and their great works of political art thus serve a purpose analogous to great works of culture: in a world of declining standards and increased barbarization, outstanding achievements by striking personality types can stimulate new creation and spontaneity. The examples of greatness help Burckhardt to depict what he takes to be, on the closest inspection, a dualistic nature of man: 'on the one hand he is but a "bird of prey/" as Wolfgang Mommsen puts it, 'on the other he is a spiritual creature and as such is capable of achieving great deeds.'87 Burckhardt therefore rejects any suggestion that the modern age has become emancipated from the need for great men. He knew that some thinkers believed that advances in universal education and the rise of egalitarian democracy might eradicate the need for great individuals. To Burckhardt this is utter nonsense: 'As if little men did not turn evil at the slightest opposition, not to speak of their greed and mutual envy!'f8 Burckhardt as always worried about the dangers of mass rule and the dictatorship of 'small-minded' or 'little men' as much as about the rule of individual tyrants. In either case, human individuality and freedom would suffer without the great man to serve as an ideal. A culture that eliminates greatness in individuals will provide only 'a general guarantee of mediocrity, the insurance of second-rate talents, and false reputations, recognized as such by the speed and noise of their rise.' Furthermore, the current lack of great individuals is partly

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a result, according to Burckhardt, of 'official suppression of all splendid spontaneity. Powerful governments have a repugnance to genius/89 Modern society, in which the state is supreme over culture and religion, has little respect for, or trust in, the truly exceptional person. Great men may be no longer wanted, but they are still very much needed. As Burckhardt explains, 'the dominating feeling of our age, the desire of the masses for a higher standard of living, cannot possibly become concentrated in one great figure. What we see before us is a general levelling down, and we might declare the rise of great individuals an impossibility if our prophetic souls did not warn us that the crisis may suddenly pass from the contemptible field of "profit and gain" and that then the "right man" may appear overnight - and all the world will follow in his train.' Great men are still necessary to free the movement of history from stagnant or antiquated forms of life and open up new lines of development. Whether this will in fact happen is still anyone's guess, but Burckhardt concludes that, for the thinking person, 'one of the few certain premises of a higher spiritual happiness is an open mind for all greatness/90 Excellence and Human Nature Burckhardt's main criticism of democracy is that it seeks to distribute power equally to individuals who are in essence unequal. By saying this, he leaves himself open to the challenge faced by other inegalitarian thinkers: namely, that what he takes to be natural inequalities are in reality simply the result of social inequalities. That is, an assessment of the evidence available to support the claim that people are unequal in skills, abilities, and capacities must look at chronic disadvantage within existing societies. Some people may appear to be naturally better than others only because of a superior education, a more secure economic situation, and greater access to opportunities for the development of talents and knowledge. In general, the argument runs, those who appear superior have simply profited from their privileged class position. So if it were possible to remove all conventional inequalities - of wealth, income, power, living conditions, educational opportunities - inequalities of essence may no longer persist. If this is the case, Burckhardt's critique of democratic rule is badly damaged. In this light, his condemnation of the masses may appear no more than a class prejudice that cannot be defended rationally. And we may also question Burckhardt's culture critique of modernity, which assumes

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 161 that the negative cultural consequences of mass society flow from levelling tendencies. Burckhardt's key argument against mass society is not that it does away with class distinctions and material inequalities - actually, it usually does not do this at all - but that it dehumanizes people, rich and poor alike. But to make that claim presupposes some sort of idea about what it is to be truly human. What is the human essence or spirit? What is human excellence? And what is it that makes some people superior and others inferior? Burckhardt does not accept the answer common in antiquity and the Middle Ages - i.e., that the best are by biological necessity found among the well born. Nor does he agree with the conclusion common to advocates of contemporary market-capitalist valuation - i.e., that the best appear among those most successful in economic competition. He instead defines human excellence in terms of the capacity for the creation and appreciation of culture, past and present. Hence to have only enough historical sensibility to live in the present, without recourse to the lessons of the past, is to be less than human. Likewise, to have only enough cultural sensitivity to be able to consume the artefacts of a mass decadent culture its kitsch - is to be less than fully human. By what right does Burckhardt pass this judgment? He does not believe that we can comprehend human nature and its value rationally or that the being and worth of humankind are revealed by God. The human essence is disclosed, if at all, through history, art, custom, and tradition. Burckhardt is here at one with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in locating the excellence of superior individuals in purely worldly categories: artistic mastery, intellectual genius, or political skill. The proof of a person's quality is in his or her demonstrated capacity for splendid achievements in thought, speech, or deed. Yet it is still not obvious that discrepancies between individuals on these points do not reflect unequal social circumstances or that human inequity in these matters makes them unequal in essence. Burckhardt seems to admit that people are equal in essence, at least in their metaphysical need. This would appear to contradict his firm stance on human inequality. He accepts the equalizing notion of original sin, albeit in a secularized, Schopenhauerian form, and a spiritual need in all people that may demand satisfaction. He had renounced his father's faith and presumably along with that the trust that we are all equal in the eyes of God, but he remained convinced of our common subjection to human limitations and desires. As well, there is in

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his pessimistic attitude a recognition of our common human misery and of our equal right to dignity in suffering. Perhaps he is a modernage Stoic, secure in the faith that the cosmos is divine. Human beings are equal in all being capable of recognizing each other as parts of the cosmic order and equally bound by its mysterious moral dictates. Burckhardt's thinking here may be rooted in Basel's conservative, religious heritage. Seen in this light, 'Burckhardt's pessimism has in fact a profoundly Christian - and explicitly premodern - pedigree. It may be described as a secularized continuation of the idea of original sin, an abiding attachment to the orthodox world of his father.'91 If this assessment is correct, it would help explain why Burckhardt cannot quite give up the concept of salvation. To him, human beings are fallen creatures - sin and evil are fundamental elements in human life - but there is still a possibility for transcendence. But rather than adopting the Christian concept, Burckhardt relies on ideas closest to Schopenhauer. In order to cope with the excruciating pain of existence people hope to escape this world, Schopenhauer says. This salvation can be found in aesthetics, morality, or the negation and renunciation of the will. Burckhardt adopts Schopenhauer's view that the most noble individuals do not exert their will to live to the exclusion of others but rather recognize themselves in the other and feel sympathy and compassion towards others' suffering. This forms the foundation among just people for an ethic of spiritual equality and the mutual observation of traditional moral limits. Many people remain ignorant or bad, of course, and this condition necessitates a state with laws and sanctions to prevent further suffering. And there are a few rare beings whose knowledge of our essential unity becomes manifest as resignation, self-denial, asceticism, and saintliness. In this way Burckhardt can reconcile his notion of an equality in essence with his determination to see inequality in the moral and aesthetic qualities of individuals. Thus he can consistently refuse to condone equality of social status, power, honour, and so on. The inequalities inherent in society are unfortunate but inevitable, he says, and social harmony depends on their preservation. Moreover, as we see in the next chapter, Burckhardt makes a rationally grounded argument that equality is simply incompatible with liberty. On the whole, Burckhardt's views on human nature are shot through with pessimism and scepticism. He sees no reliable solution to the widespread problem of living a less than fully human life in mass society and does not pretend to offer one. What he does try to do,

Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 163 however, is to illuminate our situation, thus preparing the sturdiest individuals to carry on a solitary life of resistance in order to redeem their own existence and, more important, to remain open to a future that might possibly be better than the present. But is this tenable, given Burckhardt's doubts about God and Divine Providence? If the social order is a product of humanity's will and not God's, then there is no reason not to try and construct a society that alleviates conditions that do grave and irreparable harm to many people. In view of the fact - which Burckhardt does not deny - that social inequality does affect the quality of individuals' moral and intellectual life, not to mention their happiness, and given also that social conditions are not sanctioned by God, how then can one justify the maintenance of privileges and powers of a self-chosen elite? These considerations led many modern people to try to tear down the obstacles to self-expression and self-determination posed by anachronistic political institutions. But not Burckhardt. He was lacking in the traditional religious faith of his forebears and chafed under religion's compulsive power. But, unlike many modern agnostics or atheists, he did not have the confidence in human power and virtue that arose in the Renaissance, was expressed in the fervid activity of modern industrialized states, and was vindicated in the stunning achievements of science and technology. Convinced that modern pride before the magnificent and enigmatic past is an outrage against the human essence, he argues in favour of liberty over equality and urges us to respect and obey the authority and nobility of the most splendid individuals. At the same time, his misgivings about human nature lead him to wish to restrict the power of office-holders, especially those in modern industrialized nations, where the power of the state has increased to a point where it constitutes the greatest threat to human individuality and freedom.

CHAPTER FIVE

Themes: Freedom, the State, and Society

Our discussion so far of Jacob Burckhardt's political thinking still leaves unresolved the origin, nature, and proper function of the state. Having noted that Burckhardt's anti-statism is pervasive, we must now sketch his understanding of the theoretical relationship between such concepts as freedom, culture, society, authority, power, and the state, focusing on freedom and authority, especially in the light of Edmund Burke's philosophy; the origins and nature of the state, with particular reference to ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy; and the role of society in an era of rapid change. In this chapter we examine Burckhardt's conviction that the preservation of individuality is superior to other political values in the hierarchy of human ideals and social purposes. In this regard, in his 'aristocratic liberalism,' he seems to be in league with Alexis de Tocqueville and at times with John Stuart Mill. This proposition is most fully detailed by Alan Kahan, who is persuaded by 'their distaste for the masses and the middle classes, their fear and contempt of mediocrity, [and] the primacy of individuality and diversity among their values' that all three men are aristocratic liberals.'1 Despite his commitment to individual liberty, however, Burckhardt was willing to limit freedom in certain circumstances in order to maintain harmony, unity, continuity and security in society. On these points, he is closer to Edmund Burke and to conservative German Romantic thinkers in their praise of tradition, history, and prudence than he is to Tocqueville and Mill in their praise of liberty. Burckhardt, as we see, accepts many of the tenets of moderate or 'aristocratic' liberalism while still holding on to ideas that are clearly conservative politically. Thus it is most appropri-

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ate to agree with Albert Saloman's admittedly indeterminate assertion that Burckhardt is a 'conservative-liberal, or liberal conservative/2 Freedom and Authority Burckhardt believed that human grandeur can serve as a spur to individuals to create their own style of life, to construct freely their own individuality. The essential requirement for such creative, self-disciplined action is a free marketplace of ideas within a dynamic cultural community. According to the proponents of liberal democracy, the spread of pluralistic and liberal democratic politics should result in an unprecedented level of individual freedom in the advanced capitalist world. Yet Burckhardt argues that the exact opposite has occurred. With Tocqueville and J.S. Mill, he sounded the warning that equality and liberty, the central principles of liberal democracy, may be incompatible. Like these two great critics of mass society, Burckhardt registered alarm that the institutions of democratic society place a frighteningly large amount of power into the hands of a majority that is obsessed with egalitarianism - and not just with equal rights in politics but with equality in economic, social, and cultural matters as well. The result is a levelling of all distinctions, a homogenization of tastes and pursuits. Thus the adoption of equality as the overriding goal of modern society is, according to Burckhardt, destructive to liberty. Of particular concern to all three of these thinkers is the despotic power exercised over minorities, especially intellectual minorities, by the majority. The danger here is not always power that is enforced by governments, since the pressure exerted by the force of public opinion is the most pervasive form of majority tyranny in the modern world. Hence Mill argues most strenuously for freedom of opinion as the chief deterrent to majority tyranny and sees liberty in general as the necessary precondition of human development. Tocqueville and Burckhardt have similar concerns about the power of public opinion and also fear extreme egalitarianism. In particular, they point to the attack on aristocratic privileges and power during the French Revolution that resulted in the terror of Robespierre and a few years later led to other forms of authoritarianism. Tocqueville and Burckhardt draw a further crucial connection between liberal individualism and a sort of bureaucratic state despotism. In democracies, their argument goes, equality must be enforced through

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central bureaucratic institutions that gain control over an increasingly large realm of human activity. Furthermore, individualism isolates people one from another and undermines the creation of common social bonds. Since these isolated figures cannot exercise anything more than periodic and limited political influence, the central authority can operate independently from any meaningful constraints on its power. In the name of equality and democracy the mass state is free to suppress the liberty of the exceptional individual. Tocqueville, Mill, and Burckhardt were therefore among the first observers to recognize an issue that occupied many twentieth-century writers: namely, the despotism of the masses and the danger that mass social conformity may destroy liberty. In addition, they foresaw the erosion of high culture in the mass age and its negative implications for individual human development. Mill, for example, though otherwise sensitive about the right to free choice, mistrusted the liberal dogma that each person is the best judge of his or her own best interest. He was unwilling to regard as equally valid the opinions of all persons, in particular about questions of quality. Thus from Mill's perspective, one might say today that, even if the majority prefers it as entertainment, a pop music concert is simply not as 'good' as an opera. For Burckhardt, this evaluation would be self-evident, since, as he and Mill agreed, it is only those individuals who have the moral and intellectual capability to discern genuine quality that are fully qualified to identify superior human activities. This point serves as an elaboration of Tocqueville's claim that the emphasis on equality in democratic regimes makes the tyranny of the majority all the more pervasive. In spite of their reservations about liberal democracy, however, neither Tocqueville nor Mill was entirely anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic, or illiberal.3 On the contrary, their combined critique is an aid to the search for safeguards against majority tyranny within a liberal democratic regime, including an extensive program of moral and political education for all citizens. In sum, they wanted to improve liberal democracy, not abolish it altogether. Burckhardt is sympathetic to the goal of education as a safeguard against tyranny, but his vision of free individual development, of Bildung, is quite at odds with the ideas of Tocqueville or Mill. Unlike them, he is entirely unsympathetic to the notion that equality is necessary, and he regards mass education with the same contempt that he has for mass culture. The goal of education, he presumes, is not the production of a better democrat but rather of a

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better person. And since only a few are capable of reaching the goal of true erudition, the process of education is always an elitist enterprise. Burckhardt recommends the educated, fully developed, cultured individual as the ideal citizen, one best able to serve the community in a prudent manner. Yet he does not insist that individual human development involves political participation. On the contrary, what makes us most truly fulfilled as human beings involves activities that go on as far away from politics as possible. Burckhardt advanced a theory of politics that was uncompromisingly hostile to the state. Indeed, the only positive role for the state, he believes, is as the protector of the space for cultural activity. Here, as several commentators have pointed out, he is close to the German liberal tradition associated with the Weimar Humanists.4 For instance, both Goethe and Wilhelm von Humboldt viewed the state as only an aid to individual self-cultivation, so that the individual can attain the highest possible and most harmonious personal development. Burckhardt agreed enthusiastically with the Weimar Humanist ideal of a free individual within a free society relying on the state only to safeguard the free space necessary for creative and spontaneous cultural expression. There are especially valuable connections between Burckhardt's and Humboldt's views on Bildung, culture, and the state. Humboldt's are most clearly evident in his book On the Limits of State Action.5 Like Burckhardt's, his social and political principles were grounded on the notion of the supreme importance of Bildung, informed and enriched by a sense of history and of cultural diversity. His ideal was the fullest, richest, and most harmonious development of the potentialities of the individual and of humankind.6 'The true end of Man,' he writes, 'is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole.'7 The duty, as he regarded it, to maintain one's personality as a 'complete and consistent whole' is complementary to his belief that a life dedicated to Bildung was itself a work of art. This ideal, like Burckhardt's, is available only to a cultivated elite that can make moral and cultural sense out of the modern situation. As Humboldt admits, the ideal of political virtue required in a cultured society 'is only adapted to a few classes of the political community, of those, namely, whose position enables them to devote their time and means to the process of internal development.' The state, however, must care for the majority, which is 'incapable of that higher degree of morality.'8 Thus there is a basic need for the state and for political leadership. According to Humboldt, however, the modern role

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of the state must be severely limited. The state should never become an end in itself - it is only a means towards human development. Along with his friends Schiller and Goethe, Humboldt greatly admired the standard of human individuality and freedom associated with the state of classical antiquity. He made a sharp distinction between the state of antiquity and the modern version of the state. The ancient state concerned itself primarily with the virtue of its citizens and with the harmonious development of the individual. The modern state, in contrast, is most solicitous about its citizens' material comfort, productivity, and general welfare.9 It is in this light that we need to judge Humboldt's famous attack on the state's power. He did not wish to undermine the noble objective of the state as a vehicle for the development of culture and individuality. But the fundamental prerequisite for this role is personal liberty, construed in the strictly negative sense as freedom from coercion. Hence the state must be limited in its ability to interfere with the private lives of citizens, especially in their moral choices. Humboldt's liberal theory of the state concludes that the only proper function for modern government is to provide security for members of society, so that they can engage in free activity and develop their personal culture without the fear of interference from others. Like many German liberals, he did not welcome democracy or republicanism but preferred a gradual and enlightened reform from above. Nevertheless, he called for radical social and political change in Prussia. His idea that the state should abandon its paternalistic policies and grant to its citizens greater and greater individual freedoms was radical in his day and uncharacteristically idealistic, even for a time when so many thinkers were caught up in the excitement of the revolutionary age. While Burckhardt was in broad agreement with many of Humboldt's views, especially regarding Bildung and the role of the state, he was never a champion of unlimited individual liberty. Burckhardt was committed to the aesthetic and intellectual aspects of freedom, to the notion that the freedom to think and to know and to communicate is a fundamental element of a good society. And yet the freedom that he espoused is largely an intellectual freedom to learn and to know as much as one can, rather than a political freedom to do what one wants. The liberty to act on one's freely obtained knowledge must be limited, Burckhardt says, in order to maintain peace, order, and civic harmony. On this point he largely parts company with Humboldt, Tocqueville, and especially Mill.

Freedom, the State, and Society 169 One reason for Burckhardt's lack of enthusiasm for extensive political freedom lies in what we determined above to be his profound scepticism about the abilities of individuals to determine effectively their own lives. His belief in the fallibility and limited reach of human reason, coupled with his view that tradition provides the surest guide to wisdom and virtue, led him to praise the merits of an established authority. Thus his vision of politics, though liberal in so many regards, is far more conservative in appearance than that of the Weimar Humanists. Unlike Goethe and Humboldt, who were thinking in terms of the absolutist monarchies of the late eighteenth century, Burckhardt had first-hand experience with the power-state and with mass politics. For this reason, he could not share in their optimistic goal of realizing a liberal state in contemporary Prussia or Germany. Tocqueville and Mill of course shared his historical experience of mass society's limitations; but they both remained optimistic about accommodating the inevitable spread of democracy and worked mainly to prevent its worst excesses. Burckhardt shared none of this optimism. On the contrary, for him the age of revolution ruled out the establishment of a free society for the time being.10 But what precisely are the rational grounds for seeing the crisis of the modern age in this light? Is Burckhardt pointing to some problems that really do exist, or are they a product of his poetic imagination, coloured by too much pessimism and nostalgia? After all, one could protest that his separation of freedom from equality is untenable and that the notion of a free society based on inequality is a contradiction in terms. Any society with inequality rests on the restriction of some people's liberty. How can we have freedom in an inegalitarian society? Burckhardt argued, along with many liberals and conservatives of his day, that equality actually undermines freedom by levelling society's natural differences and suppressing the active energy of its most excellent members. Again, one could disagree with this assessment on both theoretical and empirical grounds. That is, one could challenge Burckhardt to defend his assumption that providing equal opportunities to all members in society will necessarily restrict the freedom of historically advantaged classes. But one could also question him on the grounds that his fears lack any foundation in concrete reality. It appears to many critics of Western democratic societies today that there is too little equality, especially economic equality, and perhaps too much individual freedom, especially for those who have money. The equality that Tocqueville, Mill, and Burckhardt curse is

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realized in the real world of liberal democracy primarily as a formal or legal concept that coexists with a system of pronounced economic and social inequality. Freedom today protects those with social and economic power as well as those with lesser means. Liberal-democratic governments have not attempted to eradicate serious inequalities of wealth, income, power, or social standing. Hence the nineteenth century fear that even minimal formal equality will render individual freedom impossible appears in hindsight extreme and unjustifiable. However, Burckhardt is not always talking about the same sort of freedom that most modern political theorists presuppose. He argues that the experience of modernity has transformed the nature and status of human freedom. He suggests that the rise of a distinctively modern understanding of the individual and the state has altered our relationship to the concepts of freedom and authority: 'Up until now, for two hundred years, people in England have imagined that every problem could be solved through Freedom, and that one could let opposites correct one another in the free interplay of argument. But what now? The great harm was begun in the last century, mainly through Rousseau, with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. Out of this plebs and educated alike distilled the doctrine of the golden age that was to come quite infallibly, provided people were left alone. The result, as every child knows, was the complete disintegration of the idea of authority in the heads of mortals, whereupon, of course, we periodically fall victim to sheer power.'11 Given a predominant faith in human goodness and unlimited human potential, freedom seems the answer to all political problems. Yet its proponents refer to a specifically modern understanding of this word. As faith in existing authority wanes, as the traditions and customs of the old regime erode, freedom becomes defined negatively as the absence of external interference and restraint. Freedom no longer means what it did when it was defined within a social structure that presumed natural limits and rules set down by established forms of authority. ('Authority is a mystery,' Burckhardt liked to say; 'how it comes into being is dark, but how it is gambled away is plain enough.')12 It is this loss of authority that has freed individuals from certain constraints that defines the modern political world. This is a largely 'negative freedom,' a freedom fromexternal constraints, and not what Burckhardt would regard as true freedom, such as was found in ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence. To Burckhardt, genuine freedom is not licence but rather the opportunity to create within a set of self-imposed rules, freely accepted

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limits, and inherited themes and traditions. The issue is best exemplified in his contrast between Raphael and Michelangelo: the former is a 'predominantly healthy soul/ whose art displays 'tact and conscience'; the latter is a 'titanic, demonic genius/ who sacrificed harmony and balance for 'ever greater creative freedom.'13 Michelangelo 'acted independently of the rules that govern all other art' and thus stepped into the realm of subjective arbitrariness (Willkur). He was without doubt a magnificent artist, but he often exaggerated certain forms of the human body and made them 'arbitrary and sometimes monstrous.' Burckhardt says that Michelangelo 'has left out all the most beautiful emotions of the soul ... of all that makes life dear to us, there comes out little in his works.'14 This judgment is unjustifiably harsh (what about the Pietal], but Burckhardt's point is that Michelangelo represents the modern break with tradition that ultimately resulted in a wild subjectivity. 'After his death, all principle in all the different arts was overthrown; everyone strove to reach the unconditioned.'15 By contrast, Raphael and Rubens worked within their given traditions and used their talents to reinterpret, reformulate, and reinvigorate society's inherited stock of myths and customs. Their greatness and their innovation reside in their capacity to deal with traditional themes in a fresh manner. When Burckhardt speaks of freedom in his discussion of Raphael, for example, he is referring to the painter's 'freeing himself from awkwardness or mannerisms. In other words, Raphael became free not through the creation of entirely novel and arbitrary artistic forms but rather through the careful development of his own inner sense of balance and harmony. Unlike most of his contemporaries, who displayed an 'insatiable taste' for bizarre allegories and symbols of all kinds, 'Raphael kept his moderation through his own force, and selected, arranged and subordinated as he would.'16 He demonstrated the virtue of sophrosyne, which Burckhardt so admired in the Greeks: tact, prudence, inner balance and measure, knowledge of limits and ability, and hence inner restraint. And as I pointed out above, this virtue is as much moral as aesthetic. Hence his 'highest personal quality was ... not aesthetic but moral in its nature, namely, the great honesty and the strong will with which he at all times strove after the beauty which at the time he recognised as the highest. He never rested on what he had once gained, and made use of it as a convenient possession.'17 In his book on Rubens, perhaps his favourite painter, Burckhardt stresses that the great man's nobility and dignity went hand in hand with his artistic power. Of special interest to Burckhardt too is the

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painter's method of 'glorifying man in all his instincts' - a phrase that Karl Weintraub believes parallels somewhat Burckhardt's own method of cultural history.18 But for us the most intriguing aspect of Burckhardt's treatment of Rubens is his discussion of the cultural milieu of the time and its relationship to the painter's art. He first outlines the context: 'Above all, the ground from which art sprang was not that of our great cities of today, with their mobile and hence very fluctuating wealth. There was no public opinion feeding on perpetual novelty; no press to serve as the voice of that public opinion, and to cast its net even over the art of the place and make the artists subservient to it. And no novel with its programme of ceaseless invention in the terms of the day and dedicated to the representation of its peoples and events, whatever they may be. No sudden vogues to carry away the so-called "cultured" classes of the great cities, only to make way for another soon after. In a word, no public on which everything and everybody, including the artists, depended.' Rubens's sources inspired and bound him: 'What still existed to yield Rubens the matter of his art was an established stock of ideas, forming a single whole blended of the ideal world and a recognized sphere of the real world ... The Bible, vision, legend, allegory, pastoral, history, and even a piece of the everyday world, figures as well as scenes, still formed a whole ... And Rubens never really broke through this horizon ... He was no wilful dreamer of strange fantasies, but only the mightiest herald and witness of that great tradition. His vast power of invention was essentially occupied in an ever-fresh response to it and an ever-new expression of it.'19 As one of the last of the great painters who produced for patrons and for small audiences rather than for the mass public and its philistine vanguard, Rubens was free of the pressure to innovate at all costs. He was secure within an inherited framework of themes and images, and he became a master of the creative reinterpretation of these traditions of his living community. In his comments on Rubens, Burckhardt merges the methods and standards of art history with those of political analysis. He touches on some of his favourite political themes: that the unity of society rests on a natural harmony, order, and stability; that mass culture destroys artistic freedom by imposing a tyranny of public opinion; that not all innovation is an improvement; and that radical change for its own sake threatens social and cultural life by disrupting the natural order and continuity of historical communities.

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His attention to the differences between Michelangelo, Raphael, and Rubens shows that for Burckhardt the good life involves staying within the bounds of proven canons or traditions and working hard to make things better. As Weintraub concludes: 'In back of all these arguments stands Burckhardt's deep conviction that man, divorced from tradition, is too weak a creature to create greatness out of himself. Instead, Burckhardt saw man's real chance for a decent life in the attempt to build upon the accumulated wealth of generations, to add to this by constant effort guided by proven norms, and thus slowly to transform the inheritance.'20 For Burckhardt, again, the human individual divorced from the cultural continuum is a barbarian, since life without the guiding influence of tradition and continuity is spiritually unhealthy and almost unbearable. Burckhardt and Burke

Burckhardt's views here remind us of Edmund Burke and his sense of history - praise of tradition, insistence on roots, and championing of prudence as the proper guide to political behaviour in a base world. One could imagine Burckhardt nodding in approval at these words from Burke: 'A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.'21 Burckhardt's ideas parallel Burke's in other ways as well. They both felt that society and the state were perverted when made to conform to the dictates of pure reason or absolute rationality. For them, socio-political knowledge is essentially historical rather than individual; it is the result of reflection on the ideas and behaviour of previous generations and not of theories of isolated thinkers. It is therefore to history, not to abstract philosophy, that we must turn for guidance about what is politically appropriate and possible for human beings. What is more, both men share a version of historicism that emphasizes humans' inherently social nature and the determining role of society on their rights, duties, political institutions, and even their way of thinking. Therefore for Burckhardt and Burke radical change is likely to cause more harm than good, since the interrelationships in society are far more complex and mysterious than the overly zealous reformer thinks. That Burckhardt would have absorbed some of Burke's influence is not surprising. According to Reinhold Aris, one of the leading stu-

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dents of German political thought in the nineteenth century, Burke's influence over German thinkers 'can indeed hardly be overestimated/22 As Aris sees it, Burke was even more influential than Rousseau, since the latter did not found a political school in Germany while Burke became the spiritual father of the Romantic and Historical schools and was also a key inspiration for members of the conservative movement. Burke was already known in Germany before his famous attack on the French Revolution, and his reputation as a voice for the historic force that alone could re-establish order in a suffering Europe was secured with the publication and frequent reprinting of German translations of his Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). One of the earliest translators of this book, Friedrich Gentz, became Germany's most influential critic of the revolution and the foremost publicist of the conservative cause (he has been called 'the German Burke'). Gentz was horrified by the Reign of Terror and by subsequent revolutionary politics in France. As a political actor and writer, he conducted a relentless polemical campaign against the revolution and Napoleon I, advocating individual liberties and the rule of law against egalitarian autocracy and illegitimate imperialism. Burckhardt did not champion Burke or Gentz in any of his writings. Nevertheless, several of his similarities with Burke are worth exploring. These affinities are most evident in the two men's common understanding of the French Revolution as an unmitigated human disaster. The French revolutionaries attempted to impose strictly rational, a priori standards of right without any consideration for the natural needs of society or the real needs of the average French citizen. The revolutionary leadership had come to accept as true Rousseau's claim that humans are naturally free and equal and good, and they proceeded to tear down the chains of society that allegedly enslaved the masses. But in their haste to dismantle all the remnants of the hated ancien regime, they destroyed those traditional social bonds that provided the sole basis for authority. The consequence, as Burke prophesied (and as 'every child knew' by Burckhardt's time), was the increased use of raw force and cruel violence and, in the end, a resort to an all-powerful military dictatorship that cared precious little for the cherished liberal ideals of freedom and justice and equality for all. Both Burckhardt and Burke concluded that this eventuality is the only possible outcome once the older classifications, orders, and institutions that limit central power - such as classes, community groups, and religious orders - are destroyed. These decentralizing institutions

Freedom, the State, and Society 175 had an authority of their own; as long as they existed, they offset the centralizing power of the state. As Burke put it, each one of these old orders 'composes a strong barrier against the excesses of despotism/23 According to Burke, these prescriptive institutions and associations provide a buffer between central power and the individual. Their elimination sets the individual adrift, floating alone as a lonely, isolated drop in a vast sea of humanity. Thus mass society is a direct result of the desire to oppose social distinction in the name of natural rights. The revolutionary legislators, as Burke observes, 'attempted to confound all sorts of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass ... They reduce men to loose counters merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to figures whose power is to arise from their place in the table.'24 Consequently, the central power in a mass society confronts only a loose agglomeration of faceless, isolated, demoralized souls who have no source of authority or independent force strong enough to help them resist despotic measures. So while the leaders of revolutionary mass movements claim to promote individual liberty, they are at the same time, according to Burke, helping to eradicate the only social bonds and groupings that could possibly constrain the state's power over individuals.25 As we have seen above, Burckhardt too was struck by the paradox that Burke so clearly identified - that the triumph of an ideology that emphasizes individual rights brings with it a centralized tyranny that makes a mockery of individual rights. Both men felt that the eradication of the traditional sources of authority in the modern age would increase the likelihood that individuality and freedom would be sacrificed on the altar of material progress. Yet the two parted company on matters of practice. Burckhardt, who fastidiously avoided political involvement, was temperamentally unlike Burke, who by inclination and occupation was a practising politician. Burckhardt remained unconvinced that the prudent conservative statesman - one who relies on what Burke calls 'prejudice' and draws on the sense of the community in framing legislation - might somehow find an effective course of political action. In an age of rapid progress, dehumanizing technologies, and individualizing philosophies, Burckhardt concluded that a conservative political agenda cannot hold sway, since 'only disintegrating and levelling ideas have any real power.'26 Burckhardt is therefore more sensitive than Burke towards what Brian Nelson calls the 'historical problem' - that is: 'The conservative derives his political values from history, from traditional values. The

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problem is that once these values must be made explicit, once people must be told to respect their traditions, it is in most cases already too late. The power of prejudice, after all, lies precisely in its inarticulateness, its unthinkingness. That power is lost when it becomes necessary to "intellectualize" it, for this is a sure indication that prejudice is no longer viable. The moment the conservative feels it necessary to defend historically given values, history has in most cases already passed him by/27 Burckhardt was well aware of this problem; its existence forms part of the reason for his rejection of conservative political praxis, and it is at the core of his thesis of an irrevocable break between the modern age and everything that came earlier. The theoretical quandary for Burckhardt thus becomes clear: If the French Revolution created an era entirely different from that which came earlier, how could knowledge of the past have any value, and what remains to link the past with post-revolutionary experience? How can he defend the virtues of an inherited political culture in an age that has severed its ties with that cultural inheritance? How can he uphold the idea of a glorious cultural continuity in an age that he characterizes as the breakdown of that cultural continuity? For Jorn Riisen, this is a paradox that is not at all confined to conservative political thinking; rather, it 'reflects the dialectic of culture critique and its related postmodernism. How can the critic explain and justify his own critical position in a situation which denies it? How can the post-modernist explain and justify his position beyond modernity in a modern society?'28 Burckhardt seems to have experienced this phenomenon, in much the same way Nietzsche did, as the problem of untimeliness (Unzeitgemassheit). He speaks of being born too late, of being out of step with his times. But this is not just a case of being old-fashioned or antiquated. In fact, he confronts modernity and its inherent paradoxes without the presumption of a reactionary who wants to return to the past or the complicity of a politically minded conservative who wants to retain the advantageous power relationships of the status quo. Thus Riisen sees Burckhardt as a radical postmodernist: 'the only humane place of man in the face of the age of revolutions lies beyond it... It is the hope of a rebirth of culture without concrete preconditions for this future in present time, except for the contemplation of untimely historians/29 Burckhardt's concern, as always, is with cultural creativity and spontaneous individuality and with the now-suppressed spiritual forces

Freedom, the State, and Society 177 that must be preserved in historical memory so as to play a role in the age that lies beyond this one. We should turn to history, he says, for the permanent values on which to build a solid society in the future. His tentative response to the theoretical problem of untimeliness is thus to recall aesthetically the cultural manifestations of human freedom, to create in theory the bridges that might link the past to the future. In this way, Riisen explains, Burckhardt 'holds the fort for cultural life in a time of rising losses of culture. His work of memory realizes the cultural continuity of Western civilization, which has been lost in the real political and social world. The historian reconciles the disharmony of historical experience, that is the discontinuity of cultural tradition, with the harmony of aesthetic visions into the timeless duration of an internal spiritual quality of human productions in the course of time.'30 Thus the contemplative practice of the cultural historian, rather than the political practice of the prudent conservative statesman, may bring order to bear on modern disorder. As Burckhardt explains in a lecture on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century history, 'From a high and distant vantage point, such as a historian's ought to be, bells harmonize beautifully, regardless of whether they may be in disharmony when heard from close by: Discordia concors (discord becomes harmony)/31 Riisen, among others, is critical of Burckhardt's aesthetic form of historical self-understanding because it 'contributes to political theory the idea of depolitization as the only mode of a culturally acceptable form of existence. In the framework of radical culture critique, politics appears only as the business of dirty hands.'32 Hay den White voices a similar complaint: 'He looked down on politics as unsuited to the tastes of a gentleman; like business, politics distracted one from that assiduous cultivation of style in life which he admired in the ancient Greeks and the Italians of the Renaissance.'33 These are serious concerns. Is it possible to construct a coherent political philosophy on a type of thought that does not give priority to politics as the main arena for change? While Burckhardt shares a point of view with several major political thinkers of his day, he seems out of step in his reluctance to understand the world in terms of states, nations, governments, and economies. Unlike Tocqueville and Mill, for instance, Burckhardt sees no sense in reforming existing political structures; unlike Burke, he sees no point in a deliberate conservative praxis that attempts to manage change or to slow the inevitable democratization of society.

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The Origins and Nature of the State While his disdain for the state was palpable, Burckhardt did nevertheless analyse and scrutinize its role in human life. How does state power arise? How does a people become a people? At what point of growth does a people become a state? Unlike some modern historians, and more in tune with the ideas of most political scientists, Burckhardt does not consider the state a comparatively modern phenomenon. While 'states' have not always existed, they have existed since long before they were called by that name. While we may not wish to attribute state characteristics to the political organizations of primitive tribal groups, it is difficult not to regard the Greek polis as a 'state/ The idea of the state begins largely with the ancient Greeks, who pioneered both the apparatus of state organization and the philosophical orientation that regards political organization as something different from any other form of social life. Thus the history of the idea of the state or any attempt to sort out the reasons that might account for its appearance will go back at least as far as the Greeks.34 For Burckhardt, the city-states of Renaissance Italy also formed a crucial stage in history. Burckhardt, however, warns that the effort to reconstruct the origins of the state is largely in vain. Still, he offers some suggestions about the most probable theories. First, he says, we must discount as absurd the hypothesis that the state is founded on an antecedent contract. There is no reason to believe that the notion of a genuine contract, one freely entered into by all parties, sheds light on the actual or theoretical foundation of the state. There can be no such thing as an equality between partners, even in a state of nature; and there is no possibility of genuine consent by weaker groups. Second, racial origin or national character cannot explain the natural foundation of states. All such evidence is the stuff of folklore and, in any case, is very relative, since only an indeterminable part of racial or national character is 'given' by nature, the rest is 'accumulated past, the results of experience, and thus arose throughout the subsequent vicissitudes of state and people.'35 Third, what about the assumption that the need for justice led to creation of the state? 'We cannot,' Burckhardt says, 'share even that invitingly optimistic view according to which society came into being first, and the state arose as its protector, its negative aspect, its warden and defender, the state and criminal law springing from the same

Freedom, the State, and Society 179 root. Human nature is not like that/36 In fact, the state is not the sole originator of law, since law may have power even where the state is weak or non-existent.37 Finally, we must forget about gleaning anything relevant from studies of either 'primitive' peoples (the different paths taken by various races shed no light on our origins) or nonhuman communities (the ant state is far more perfect than ours, but 'the human state alone is a society, that is, a union in some way free, based on conscious reciprocity').38 What then remains of probable theories of the state's origin? There are only two: either 'force always comes first... spontaneously engendered by the inequality of human gifts' or 'an extremely violent process, particularly of fusion, must have taken place.' In either case, the birth of the state was terribly violent and costly to human life, as evidenced by the 'enormous and absolute primacy it has at all times enjoyed.' All the various forms of the state that have developed since its inception share the indisputable fact that its primacy is based on power and that its task ('and even its emotional significance') is the domination of the weak, the subservient, the conquered.39 'Every power/ as Burckhardt says later, 'aims at completion and perfection within and without, and has no regard for the rights of the weaker.'40 There is also no single template for all manifestations of the state. Indeed, states vary enormously in their disposition and experiences and in their relations to religion and culture. Burckhardt observes, for instance, that the real range of variation among states is much more vast than the well-known classification of the three Aristotelian constitutions and their degenerate subsidiary forms: kingship, aristocracy, and polity; tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. He notes in passing that the medieval monarchy is a peculiar phenomenon, as are world monarchies, the new U.S. democracy, modern colonial empires and their newly emancipating colonies, and the soon-to-emerge totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century.41Out of all this variety, Burckhardt concerns himself primarily with the difference between great and small states. It comes as no surprise of course that he prefers the latter to the former. All his studies, as well as his personal experience as a Baseler, leave him inclined towards the virtues of the limited, small state - the Kleinstaat. Yet despite his animosity towards them, great states Burckhardt admits, can sometimes achieve laudable external aims, including 'the maintenance and protection of certain cultures which would founder without it.' On the whole, however, his sympathy is obviously with the small state, which exists, he says, 'so

180 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought that there may be a spot on earth where the largest possible proportion of the inhabitants are citizens in the fullest sense of the word, a goal which the Greek city-state more nearly attained, in spite of the slavery system, than all the republics of today ... the small state possesses nothing but real, actual freedom, an ideal possession which fully balances the huge advantages of the big state, even its power/42 This attitude demonstrates the extent of Burckhardt's acceptance of an Aristotelian idea of humanity: the civic relevance of free activity, the inner harmony of human faculties, the primacy of creative human spirit over matter, the supreme importance of personal cultivation, and the fundamental worthiness of the artistic and intellectual life. These are realized in their highest form only in a small, face-to-face community. The Athenian State Aside from his own experience in Basel, the main source of Burckhardt's admiration of small states comes from his historical studies of the free city-states in the classical world and in Renaissance Italy. As I have mentioned repeatedly above, this veneration of classical antiquity and the belief in the re-emergence of its ideals in the Italian city-states of the quattrocento are a staple in the tradition of German Aesthetic Humanism. But that Burckhardt would praise the ancient Greek state is particularly striking, since he also noted that this regime so blatantly suppressed individual freedom in the name of collective interests. As he says, in these states 'culture' 'was to a high degree determined and dominated by the state, both in the positive and negative sense, since it demanded first and foremost of every man that he should be a citizen. Every individual felt that the polis lived in him. This supremacy of the polis, however, is fundamentally different from the supreme power of the modern state, which seeks only to keep its material hold on every individual, while the polis required of every man that he should serve it, and hence intervened in many concerns which are now left to individual and private judgement/43 In his lectures on Greek cultural history, Burckhardt emphasizes the key role of the agora in polis life. More than just a marketplace, the agora was where the citizens were exposed to agorazein - 'an activity not to be translated by one word of any other language. Dictionaries give to traffic in the market place, to buy, to talk, to deliberate, etc., but cannot reproduce the combination of business and conversation

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mingled with delightful loafing and standing around together.'44 It is this closeness of space and the opportunity to deliberate about common concerns that produce the distinctive polis life that Burckhardt regards as the highest accomplishment of the Greeks: "The living polis with its pride of citizenship was a much grander product than all its walls, harbors and magnificent structures.'45 Significantly, Burckhardt sees the polis as a community of free men, even though the Greeks had no concept of the 'rights of man.' The term 'liberty' in this regard means something different for the Greeks than it does for moderns. The emphasis in Greek citizenship was on the obligations and duties of the individual citizen, not on his rights. The vital matter moreover was the quality of citizens; accordingly there were limits on quantity: To administer justice and to perform their official duties with merit, citizens had to know each other and the character of the people.' The polis exerted a powerful educative force. First, it provided many-sided cultural influences affecting the whole citizenry: choral festivals, sumptuous rites of worship, works of public art and architecture, drama and public recitations by rhapsodists. Second, 'the participation in state government, either as an administrator or a concerned subject, made living in the polis a continuous educational process.'4'1 As a rule, the Athenian citizen realized all his capacities and virtues within the state or in its service; even art and poetry were created not for the enjoyment of individuals but for the public - that is, the community. How different this is from the modern relationship between the individual and the state: 'In recent times, apart from philosophical and social thought, it is essentially the individual who demands a state advantageous for his own purposes. For the most part, all that he demands really is security, so that he may freely develop his own potentialities. To this end he gladly makes well-defined sacrifices, though the less the state bothers him otherwise, the more content he is. The Greek polis, on the other hand, starts with the whole, which precedes its parts. From an inner logic we may add this: It is not only a matter of giving preference to the general over the particular but also of preferring the permanent over the momentary and transitory. The polis demanded that the individual not only take part in campaigns, but be ready to sacrifice his individual existence for it is to the whole that he owes everything, including the security of his own existence.'47 During its most glorious times, the city-state exercised powerful social controls over its citizens. It represents, as Burckhardt ex-

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plains, 'an image for the highest heroism and dedication under a collective will, forging its way out of rural beginnings by means of action, suffering and passion; hence the polis must rigorously define the requisites and obligations of its active citizens who have to be a part of this power.'48 Burckhardt goes out of his way to emphasize the violent nature of the polis and the unhappiness of its residents. In this sense, he says, the uncritical German neo-humanists have got it all wrong when they idealize the life of the happy, sun-tanned Greek who philosophizes between sessions at the gymnasium. According to Burckhardt, the ancient Greeks on the whole were pessimists, and their politics emphasized the tragic aspects of human existence. Life in the polis could be terrible, especially for someone not willing to subordinate himself to the whole. The coercive powers that were freely resorted to included imposition of death, dishonour, and exile. There was 'no appeal beyond the polis, and no escape, for the fugitive abandons all personal protection.' Hence state power curtails individual freedom in every respect: 'the individual has no security of life or property over against the polis and its interests.'49 The novelty of Burckhardt's discussion of the Greeks rests on the twin propositions that the strength of the polis was its contempt for labour and that the fatal flaw in Athenian democracy was that this anti-banausic attitude pervaded the demos as well as the aristocracy. Burckhardt of course much admired the aristocratic Greek ethos. But what was appropriate to an aristocracy and eminently desirable in itself was corrupted, he feels, when adopted by the lower classes.50 Institutions that may have been appropriate for aristocratic purposes were exploited by the people for their own ends. As Burckhardt explains: 'The Athenians who had turned from honest labour to spending their time in assemblies and court sessions suffered now from a warped and prurient imagination, like idlers who think of nothing but eating; their greed shaped their notions of booty and accruals from offerings.' In the law courts and assemblies, the most 'dreadfully commonplace fellow' could feel a tremendous sense of power and importance. The root of this sensation is what Nietzsche would later term the 'spirit of resentment.' To advance this point, Burckhardt lets Aristophanes' Philocleon tell about the delights of judgeship: 'What great fun it is to lord it over all and to be feared by the vociferating culprits and their families! ... Is this not a great power which can disdain wealth and spread fear?'51 Burckhardt sums up this theme in a

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particularly venomous account of Athenian democracy: 'In the old days of aristocratic rule, this misery was, of course, hardly known. It was equality of rights which first made inequality of condition really felt. An adjustment by means of labour (which the wealthy needed done and the poor could have done for pay) was impossible because of the general antibanausic attitude. Now the poor man discovered that as a master of the vote he could also become master of property. In Athens and elsewhere he first had himself paid for attending assemblies and law courts, then he sold his vote, especially as judge, imposed all kinds of liturgies on the rich and decreed confiscations (with exile) completely arbitrarily ... Property had lost all its sanctity, and everyone measured his rights only according to his so-called needs (that is, his desires).'52 Hence the key difference between the aristocratic age and the democratic one was the decline of the truly agonistic spirit in the latter. Although the cultural heritage of the noble contest without utilitarian purpose still served as an ideal in the fifth century BCE, the whole practice of democracy became a 'false agon/ For Burckhardt, as Ellen Meiksins Wood explains: "The spirit of the democratic age, as expressed in Pericles' Funeral Oration, was passion stimulated by endless restlessness and dissatisfaction, a wanton egoism that was reflected in cruel wars and the "false agon" of show-trials, persecution, false witness and sycophancy, all of which was made inevitable by the democratization of civic life through public payment for service in war, juries and assemblies.'53 The real stage for Athenian public life was the famous assembly. As Burckhardt says, 'The judgement we may pass on the popular assembly is really a comprehensive judgement on the history of Athens.' And his assessment here, at least in comparison to his pronouncement on democracies in other polities, is surprisingly favourable. This institution, despite its ups and downs, 'remained the living organ of the state, and whereas in other states the bloodiest crises were repeated, Athens invariably took the way of deliberations and resolutions, whatever the issue.' The Athenian polis, even in its democratic form, allowed for the serious deliberation of important matters among those few men who knew how to comport themselves with dignity.54 'The polis not only developed individuals into personalities/ Burckhardt explains, 'but it also spurred them violently onward, at the same time demanding complete self-renunciation/ In this sense, the Athenian state 'tended predominantly to make the citizens un-

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happy.' In the end, moreover, it was not the noble polls that determined policy but 'the masses who happened to gather at the assembly, not with a view to higher principles but to satisfy their greed, which unfortunately was insatiable.'55 So in spite of all its merits in comparison with other democracies, the Athenian system fell victim to the usual diseases of this form of government. Passion and caprice, according to Burckhardt, were what constituted political wisdom, and so the state made decisions resulting in truly disastrous follies and brutalities. What is more, the bellicose politics of the ancient Greek states resulted in a vicious situation that exalted victors regardless of their personal worth. Hence truly able men began to lose heart and shun political office, retreating instead to a mute private life or to purely philosophical pursuits. Why then does Burckhardt, who despised the state and promoted individuality and freedom, still praise the Greek polis over all others? The main reason, as Felix Gilbert states, is that the Greeks 'brought to the world a gift that raises them above all other peoples. They possessed and developed the faculty to look upon the world objectively as it really was. Thus they widened the outlook of man beyond the small sphere in which he lived and enabled him to extend his knowledge to other cultures.'56 A main ingredient in the rise of this spirit of objectivity was the mixture of various peoples and social classes within a 'free marketplace of ideas.' In Athens, as Burckhardt explains, 'intellect comes out free and unashamed, or at any rate can be discerned throughout as if through a light veil, owing to the simplicity of economic life, the voluntary moderation of agriculture, commerce and industry, and the great general sobriety. Citizenship, eloquence, art, poetry, and philosophy radiate from the life of the city. We find here no demarcation of classes by rank, no distinction of gentle and simple, no painful struggles to keep up with others in ostentation, no doing the same thing "for the sake of form," hence no collapse from overstrain, no Philistia in shirtsleeves one day and flashy social functions the next.'57 Thus it was possible there to develop norms of expression to direct and educate all classes and to serve as standards to evaluate new social elements and incorporate some in order to reinvigorate older cultural forms. Florence and the Renaissance City-State This same faculty for objectivity that Burckhardt admires in ancient Athens characterizes the development of the individual in the Renais-

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sance. Here again participation of a people within a vital community is a prerequisite for individual development. The supreme example occurred in Florence ('Florence is the Italy of Italy, as Athens is the Greece of Greece').58 Burckhardt spends little time discussing the actual structures and processes of government ('one could die memorizing the constitutions of Florence/ he once said) but points out that Florentine politics involves 'a supreme political consciousness as well as the participation of a large proportion of the citizens in public life and in constitutional questions.' Yet the main factor in Florence's greatness is not so much that its politics determined its civilization, but that its politics did not impede culture. This distinguishes the Renaissance example from the Athenian one. The polis life of Athens helped produce free individuals through a pervasive agonistic spirit that was combined with other ideals, primarily from the arts (such as sophroysne), which stressed that the greatest possible freedom was realized by those individuals who worked within the restrictions of society. During the Renaissance, however, individuals were thrown back on themselves and existed in a world in which the chaotic and violent conditions of political and social life demanded a direct, and in Burckhardt's terms 'objective/ view of the world. Here certain individuals fashioned a new form of self-conception that was to locate meaning entirely within their own individual lives. This personality type is the notorious geistiges Individuum that helped create a new set of social relations and a new form of European culture. Thus in the Renaissance culture emerged as a powerful rival to religion and to the state on the strength of the free and conscious striving for individuality exhibited by what Burckhardt calls 'self-standing personalities/59 Burckhardt's famous thesis has been much debated and continues to generate controversy, and we cannot do it justice here.60 Suffice it to say that his panoramic survey of Renaissance civilization marked a decisive shift in our understanding of the whole of European history. It is somewhat difficult for us today to appreciate the novelty of his approach, since we are all in a sense Burckhardtians vis-a-vis the Renaissance. The unfolding of the greatest treasures of human nature in literature and art, of the development of the 'free personality' and of the 'many-sided' Renaissance man, not to mention the very idea that the time beginning in the Italian fourteenth century somehow marks a different epoch completely separate from the Middle Ages - all of this is so familiar to us that we tend to forget that these images scarcely existed prior to Burckhardt's masterful depiction of the age. He described the emergence of modern man with his freedom, creativity,

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paganism, and diversity in such loving detail that we also tend to overlook the subtle repudiation of modernity implicit in this thesis. Burckhardt overturned the ruling classicist interpretation that the 'revival of antiquity' was the cause and distinguishing feature of the Renaissance and replaced it with the idea that the Renaissance Italian was 'the first born among the sons of modern Europe.' Gilbert counts some thirty passages in which Burckhardt identifies the Italy of the Renaissance with the modern age and the individual Italian with 'modern man.'61 It is around this notion of the self-conscious uniqueness of the modern individual that Burckhardt's portrait of the Renaissance coheres. In the opening pages of Part Two, 'The Development of the Individual/ he explains just what he means: 'In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness - that which was turned within as that which was turned without - lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation - only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things in this world became possible. The subjectiveside at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritualindividual, and recognized himself as such.'62 That these developments occur first in Italy Burckhardt attributes to the particularity of 'political circumstances' in the Italian city-states, whether republics or despotisms, which he describes in the opening section of the book. On the first page of the book, without offering any explanation or discussion of Italian constitutional history or of its political economy, Burckhardt launches into an animated, and thoroughly delightful, account of the agonistic struggles within and between city-states. The political stalemate between pope and emperor, which prevented the consolidation of a central power in Italy, allowed for the free play of agonistic competition between a multitude of smaller political units, 'whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it.'63 Here it is skill rather than pedigree that counts, and this situation marks the transition from oligarchic to one-man rule.64 One by one the northern Italian republics came under the domination of a new breed of monarchical strongmen; thus 'most of the new power the state gains in Italy is invested in individuals, to make a breathtaking new level of egotism both possible and public.'65

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187

It is in these states that we see the earliest emergence of a new spirit of rational calculation in politics, as well as the unfolding of what Burckhardt terms 'the state as a work of art.'66 As many commentators emphasize, this means not that Burckhardt sees the Renaissance state in purely aesthetic terms, only that it is a 'piece of artifice, a manmade entity which does not have to fit into a medieval vision of monarchy or a Christian image of power.'67 The political results are artistic not because they are pretty to behold, 'but because they exhibit a mastery of the means needed to gain particular ends, to secure a power like that of an artist over his creation.'68 Yet there are important interconnections between politics and art. This new political arrangement offers a wonderful new opportunity for culture. Despite their well-deserved reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness, the Italian despots did not impose excessive restrictions on culture. Moreover, they needed the artists. As Burckhardt explains: 'The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded him with constant danger; the most honorable alliance which he could form was with intellectual merit, with regard to its origin. The liberality of the northern princes of the thirteenth century was confined to the knights, to the nobility which served and sang. It was otherwise with the Italian despot. With his thirst for fame and his passion for monumental works it was talent not birth that he needed. In the company of the poet and scholar he felt himself in a new position - almost, indeed, in possession of a new legitimacy.'69 What is new in Burckhardt's discussion of despotic patronage of the arts is that he draws a subtle parallel between the activities of the artist and those of the despot (he describes tyrants as those who create the 'purely modern fiction of the omnipotence of the state'). As Kerrigan and Braden point out, 'the ruler makes possible for the artist a career analogous to his own, one enabled not by inherited assignment but by present skill. Worldly success unpredicted by the traditional roles of medieval society, an exemption from the constraints of one's station, can be won by the exercise of the creative imagination.'70 The fact that Burckhardt describes this development so brilliantly does not mean that he endorses the politics of the Gewaltmenschen of the Renaissance, whom he dubs 'power addicts' and 'power maniacs.' He subtly implies that this concept of 'the state as a work of art' is incompatible with humane politics. To his last years, Burckhardt insisted that he had never been an 'admirer of Gewaltmenschen and Outlaws in history' and had on the contrary held them to be Flagella Dei, 'Scourges of God.'71

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Like Hegel, Burckhardt believed that each unified historical epoch had in its most basic features the seeds of its own destruction.72 Unlike Hegel, however, he did not consider the geistiges Individuum as the goal of history. Thus the crisis of Renaissance culture resulted from the very individualism that was its most characteristic feature: "The fundamental vice of the [Italian] character was at the same time a condition of its greatness, namely, excessive individualism/73 The very logic of this ideal, taken to its extreme, destroyed Renaissance civilization. This becomes clearest in Burckhardt's analysis of the rise and fall of the humanists. In Part Two of Civilization, he traces the role of the humanists in their relation to the idea of fame and the refinement of wit and satire. In Part Three, 'The Revival of Antiquity/ he explains his proposition that this phenomenon alone cannot account for Renaissance culture and depicts the humanists' crucial role in the cult of antiquity that sprang up everywhere in Italy. The conclusion of Part Three relates the tragic story of the decline of rhetoric and the fall from grace of the humanists. Detached from any group identity, ambitious, competitive, conceited, profligate, and irreligious, the humanists were perfect examples of the spirit of the age. Typically, Burckhardt refuses to blame them as individuals for their wicked ways; it was not their fault that 'an age existed which idolized the ancient world and its products with an exclusive devotion/ But that this culture valued humanism so highly meant that it became a viciously competitive way of life - 'of such a kind that only the strongest characters could pass through it unscathed/ The first danger came from parents who, anticipating modern stage parents, 'sought to turn a precocious child into a miracle of learning, with an eye to his future position in that class which then was supreme/ For a youth, however, the life of a humanist was a 'perilous temptation': 'He was thus led to plunge into a life of excitement and vicissitude, in which exhausting studies, tutorships, secretaryships, professorships, offices in princely households, mortal enmities and perils, luxury and beggary, boundless admiration and boundless contempt, followed confusedly one upon the other, and in which the most solid worth and learning were often pushed aside by superficial impudence. But the worst of all was that the position of the humanist was almost incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood, or so affected the mind of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place/74 Here Burckhardt identifies the homeless independence of the humanists not as a blessing but as a

Freedom, the State, and Society 189 curse: "They are the most striking examples and victims of an unbridled subjectivity.' Consequently, his political analysis of the age exposes a 'pathology that is built into the very structure of individualism/75 When Renaissance man discarded feudalism and its hierarchical ideal, he also lost his understanding of the social bonds that obligate him to his fellows. The proud and highly individualistic humanists were talented and culturally refined, but also homeless, rootless, and unhappy. For Burckhardt they represent more than the decline of a once-great civilization - they attest to a disturbing aspect of the individualism that defines modern life. Since it serves such a crucial purpose in his culture critique of modernity, Burckhardt does nothing to cover up the dark side of the Renaissance spirit. Especially in the final section of the book - Part Six, on 'Morality and Religion' - he presents a depressing list of sins and vices unleashed by the disintegration of belief and rise of subjectivism. Gambling, infidelity, and prostitution increased. There was a general laxness of moral restraints in private and public life, including a rise in paid assassination and poisoning. While governments turned a blind eye, Renaissance Italians turned the vendetta into an art form ('After dinner he told him whose liver it was').76 Finally, the decrease in the influence of the organized church led to the inevitable increase in religious scepticism and even paganism. There arose a dynamic combination of ancient and modern superstitions, such as astrology, witchcraft, faith in relics, and alchemy. In all of this, the Renaissance was the foreshadowing of the decay of basic moral values in modernity. The culture of the age was frightening and exhilarating. It offers us a hint of what is most wrong with modernity, but in its essential festivity it stands out as a celebration of so much of what our era lacks. Overall, the age of the Renaissance was great because it provided a new vision of humankind's faculties and capacities. The discovery of the individual and of individuality opened the way for great achievements in culture while also allowing for unrestrained egoism and the institutionalization within economic, social, and political configurations of the negative aspects of modernity. Society and the Modern Theory of the State The duty of the educated person, according to Burckhardt, is to resist not only the attempt by philosophers such as Hegel to pass off the state as the realization of morality on earth but also, and more impor-

190 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought tant, to combat the practical acceptance of the enormous extent of the state's power. The central feature of modern political philosophy, according to Burckhardt, is an assumption of the need for a powerful, centralized state. This new concept of the extent of the state's power is, he tells us, the result of three factors - the political ideas of the Renaissance, with its practical examples of the unchecked power to make one's individual subjectivity law; the Reformation and its transfer of power from the two churches to whichever governments would do their dirty work for them; and the French Revolution, which initiated the mass state and also unfettered for good all decent ideals and aspirations, then all passion and selfishness. While Ranke, Treitschke, and the German Historical School tend to praise the state and to focus on a nation's external relations, Burckhardt maintains that power is evil in itself and that the modern state has become 'a mere dreary selfenjoyment of power, a pseudo-organism existing by and for itself/77 As we have seen, Burckhardt blames the ethos of the French Revolution in particular for many of modernity's political ills. He recognizes the good that allegedly came from the achievements of the modern state: equality before the law, equality of taxes and rights to inheritance, and equality to hold public office; disposability of property, reduction of mortmain and entail, and increased productive cultivation of land; freedom of industry and the replacement of fixed capital by liquid capital; equal rights of religious denominations and the separation of church from state; and the great influence of public opinion on all events through advances in education and the extension of the modern press.78 But far from seeing in these developments any progress towards a decent society, he considers them a positive curse; they tended to undermine aristocratic traditions, habits, and customs with links to the past and served only to emancipate rootless commercialism. Burckhardt's conservative anti-capitalism provides him a critical perspective from which to discern fundamental contradictions in the modern liberal theory of the democratic state. For instance, he notes that 'alongside all the other proclaimed equalities, the only kind of inequality - but the most sensitive of all - is supposed to maintain itself, namely, the inequality of property - and this precisely when it is most strongly on the increase and the entire middle class obviously on the decline.'79 Burckhardt notices that equality in the newly emerging democratic world does not appear to extend to all classes. He suggests that not only will the liberties of the intellectual and aristocratic elite suffer, but so may the rights and freedoms of the lower orders. Burckhardt

Freedom, the State, and Society 191 foresaw an increased disparity between rich and poor and predicted that the working classes would find no protection from poverty in the doctrine of economic equality. Furthermore, he complained that modern capitalism and its power-state would dissolve the smaller units of living, usher in unrestricted settlement in previously pristine rural lands, allow business establishments of all kinds in all places, and produce overpopulation and a corresponding housing crisis. Still, Burckhardt was notoriously reluctant to offer any solutions to the crisis. We have seen that there was little in conservative political praxis that he thought might be effective. Accordingly, he deemed hopeless any serious attempt at real decentralization, any Voluntary restriction of power in favour of local and civilized life/80 And he rejected out of hand the socialist alternative and its method - namely, government involvement, with public benefit as the goal. He sees the socialist parties as essentially oligarchical organizations that want to practise reform from above. They represent to him a modern form of absolutism (or 'sultanism') in that they demand an increase in state power in order to reign over the previously privileged classes, the church, regional differences, and any other special or distinct group. The socialist goal of equality would harm culture, since it must result, according to Burckhardt, in uniformity of thought and opinion. Burckhardt so opposed in principle the further use of the state, even within specified limits, that he argued in a knee-jerk fashion against most forms of government intervention. In this regard he was in tune with many German liberals, principally with those who adhered to Humboldt's theory of the state. For example, the elderly Burckhardt cheered the fact that in 1890 the voters of Basel scotched the proposed Health Insurance Act, which had been advocated by 'the most unruly demagogues and, at the same time, was calculated to promote the despotism of the state over the private life of individuals in its most extreme form (that is to say, through a Head of Department).'81 He similarly deprecated government control of schools and universities, intervention in the economy in the form of protective-tariff industries, and involvement in the private life of the individual citizen and family. He also relies on well-known liberal arguments to resist state interference in the social sphere - in intellectual life, in tastes and pursuits, and in the arts and sciences. He especially condemns the state for its frequent persecution of certain types of free cultural expression. And he was convinced that the new concept of the state - i.e., that it alone can satisfy all of the people's demands, shoulder all their bur-

192 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought dens - stifles intellectual initiative while seducing the cultural elite into depending on its largesse. He had no illusions about the personal morality of intellectuals, artists, scientists, and academics (he called them the viri doctissimi). Contemporary scholars are just as likely as they were in the days of Louis XIV to become subservient to powerful interests, thus furthering the domination of the state over culture. In the modern world, mind you, the actual relationship between the state and intellectual life is extremely complex. The idea of the sovereignty of the people emerged at the same time as the epoch of moneymaking and free commercial traffic. These material forces changed the life of the mind, Burckhardt realized, and he saw that together the interests of the state and the market came to be the governing principles of the day. What is more, technological advances went hand in hand with economic restructuring: the mass use of coal and iron, the machine in industry, breakthroughs in physics and chemistry, rapid communication via steamships and railways, the mastery of largescale distribution and consumption, the enormous expansion of credit, and so on. Meanwhile, it seemed to some that the state was simply a police force protecting the interests of industry, which required of it only the abolition of restrictions on doing business. Yet the political ideas of the French Revolution were also at work, demanding extensive constitutional and social reforms. All these factors combined to produce a great crisis in the idea of the state. Political thought did away with any special rights or divine nature for the state, yet 'claims for the state an ever-increasing and more comprehensive power of coercion, so that it may be in a position to put into practice the completely theoretical political programs which political thinkers periodically draw up/ The state is thus the ultimate expression of everyone's ideals yet merely a vesture of civic life and powerful only in an ad hoc sense. The state in modern thought, Burckhardt complains, 'should be able to do everything, yet allowed to do nothing/82 In the light of this situation, Burckhardt holds fast to his distinction between the state and society and declares his loyalty to the latter, which alone represents culture against the other two Potenzen. He seeks as well to encourage us to see the state as only a necessary arbiter of justice and a defender of the law, but not as the 'realization of ethical values on earth/ The state, according to Burckhardt, has no function in morality: 'It is a degeneration, it is a philosophical and bureaucratic arrogance, for the state to attempt to fulfill moral purposes directly, for only society can and may do that/83 Hence the best

Freedom, the State, and Society 193 possible political condition will be secured so long as we remain aware of the state's essential nature as an expedient and allow existing social institutions to help us determine in freedom our moral duties and obligations. Burckhardt argues, in effect that 'civil society' offers the preferred setting, the most supportive environment, for the good life. I use this term here as does Michael Walzer when he so names 'the space of uncoerced human association and also the set of relational networks formed for the sake of family, faith, interests, and ideology - that fill this space.'84 Like many civil society theorists of today, Burckhardt sees as wrong or inappropriate the most common modern answers to the question: What is the preferred setting for the good life? First, he rejects leftist arguments that locate freedom and the good life in the democratic state where we are all fully engaged, active citizens. For him, a citizen is not necessarily the best thing to be, and to live well does not require being politically active, collectively determining our common destiny. If one is to be free, Burckhardt assumes, matters of the state cannot take up much more than a fraction of a creative person's time and energy. Second, he does not hold that the preferred setting for the good life is a co-operative economy, where we are all workers or producers (even if this means, as it does for Marx, that we can be unalienated creators and innovators). Burckhardt certainly does not trust that the state could ever 'wither away' and thus provide an uncoercive work environment. And in any event, he does not believe that all persons are capable of engaging in truly creative activity. In addition, he rejects the notion that the good life is secured by the marketplace, where we are consumers and not producers. We have noted above his critique of the market economy and its values, including his prediction that the free market will create winners and losers on the basis of wealth alone. Third, as we saw in chapters above, Burckhardt never accepted the argument that the preferred setting is the nation-state, within which we are loyal members bound together by ties of blood and history. He rejects the idea that to live well entails participation in an organic process of national membership, where the highest value is a correspondence between an individual and his or her 'people.' Again, nations were to Burckhardt largely artificial constructs, especially in the modern world, where they commonly seek statehood and assume the right to exercise sovereign power. Against all these narrow, ideological accounts of the good life Burckhardt retorts that human society is mysterious and complex. The

194 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought good life, to the extent that there is such a thing, can be found only in civil society, the realm of autonomous individuals freely associating and communicating outside the compulsive apparatuses of state, work, or religion. Despite his preference for civil society, Burckhardt clearly sees a need for the state. Yet he is characteristically vague about just what a properly ordered state would look like in the modern age. Nevertheless, a picture does emerge of his best practical regime for his times. It involves a limited government (almost a 'nightwatchman's state') that guarantees security of person and offers some protection for fundamental freedoms (for example, he assumes that 'there is religious toleration in all civilized states/ and he values the right to freedom of thought and expression). The main benefit of the state consists in its being a guardian of the law. Individuals must be subject to certain laws and accountable to impartial judges armed with compulsive powers. Further, the state has a role in maintaining civil peace. It must use its power to 'prevent the various conceptions of civil life from coming to blows/ The state must be as neutral as possible, given that every party strives to get the state into its powers and make its own will that of the entire community. In modern societies - in which different and often-hostile religions and religious beliefs compete - the official apparatus of the state must see to it that 'not only the various egoisms but also the various metaphysics shall carry on no blood feud (a thing that would inevitably happen even today without the state, for the fanatics would begin and the others follow suit).'85 In sum, Burckhardt makes his peace with certain elements of the liberal state, but only so long as they do not impede the spontaneous generation of social forces. He warns against a concentration of power, suggests limits on the power of office-holders, and insists on preservation of the basic requirements for culture, including a free market of intellectual exchange. In no way, however, does he regard this as an ideal state, nor do these arrangements constitute an advance over what has preceded. Burckhardt's historicism is sufficient to deny the legitimacy of transplanting the ideals of past ages into our own. For better or worse, he says, we are modern people who must live out the consequences of our age. Conclusion In this chapter we have looked more closely at Burckhardt's views on freedom, the state, and society. We have found that in some regards

Freedom, the State, and Society 195 he is close to the aristocratic liberalism of Tocqueville and Mill. Along with them he argued that the modern world's obsession with equality posed a serious threat to liberty. He realized, however, that the type of equality promoted in modern society allows for the persistence, indeed the exacerbation, of economic inequality. Yet he points this out more to stick a pin into the philosophical balloon of liberal democracy than to chart the way towards redressing economic disparity. His overwhelming concern with cultural matters and his obsession with a free space for the development of the harmonious individual are reminiscent of Humboldt's liberalism. But like Humboldt, Burckhardt often leaves little room in his work for extended discussions of the economic relations in various societies and for the question of one's liberty to determine, individually or collectively, one's economic destiny. What is more, Burckhardt's concept of freedom sometimes lacks a concrete political dimension. He uses it largely in an aesthetic or cultural sense and shies away from endorsing even the level of political sovereignty enjoyed collectively by members of ancient Greek polities. On closer inspection, moreover, his support for individual liberty appears more qualified than that of Tocqueville or Mill or even Humboldt. His concept of freedom involves liberty exercised within the bounds of existing traditions and culturally determined values. It is not a licence to act without fear of external restraints, and it is not linked to any notions of universal or natural rights. While he is not an extreme relativist - there are in his view certain standards and measures that obtain regardless of the rules or values of a society - his regard for custom and tradition led him to accept moral and ethical variations among times and places. In this sense, his liberalism is overshadowed by a conservative historicism comparable to Burke's. Both men desire to preserve a cultural heritage and to maintain links with the past. Unlike Burke, however, Burckhardt believed that these goals may not be met through active conservative politics. Instead, he invested a heavy responsibility in members of the intellectual elite to preserve in memory the legacy of the past. His own cultural histories serve this purpose, especially in their attempts to preserve an untimely understanding of the most priceless treasures of human history - the examples of the free development of human faculties and possibilities in the ancient polis and in Renaissance Italy. Burckhardt hoped that there might be sufficient spiritual energy left in humankind to resist and survive the dark forces of philistinism and totalitarianism in the modern world. He further hoped that the model of development for Europe would include radical decentralization and

196 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought that this would enable modern human beings to recapture the vitality of the small states in history where culture truly influenced the state. But he insisted that the acting individual could do little to alter the course of history. The destiny of humankind, according to Burckhardt, is left to fortune. In this regard, he made an eloquent and simple statement of his highest aspirations: 'a request for a feeling of duty for what lies before us each time, submission to the inevitable, and, when the great problems of existence confront us, a clear, unambiguous statement of these; finally, a request for as much sunshine in the life of an individual as is necessary to keep him alert for the fulfilment of his duty and his contemplation of the world/86 Burckhardt believed that the intellectual has a right to withdraw from politics, to get away from the pressures of the crowd, in order to cultivate the inner spirit. In some societies, this may be the only way to deal with an oppressive, unchangeable, or hostile state. Like some of the dissidents in pre-1989 central and eastern Europe, he could envision designing a way of living alongside an intolerable state, but with 'one's back turned towards it.'87 The cultured individual has the skills and sensitivity to search out the few remaining elements of freedom, creativity, and vitality in the modern world and to preserve them for future generations. Nevertheless, as David Gross emphasizes, Burckhardt nowhere suggests that the educated person must actively protect this freedom to withdraw, since such a move would entail concrete involvement in politics. 'Even though he admitted that freedom was slipping away,' Gross notes, 'he never argued that one ought to fight to preserve what was left.'88 It is this passive acceptance of the world as it is, for better or worse, that many moderns, with their overweening confidence in human power, find so frustrating in Burckhardt's work. Even if, like Nietzsche, we find that Burckhardt has otherwise seen so clearly the problems facing contemporary humans, we may find ourselves unable to rest easy with the notion that even the best and brightest among us cannot control the course of history. For to accept this conclusion is to say that in the end politics cannot be meaningful. If our deliberations and actions do not significantly influence our collective existence, then the political sphere is, as Burckhardt asserts, less important than the cultural or artistic expressions of our human condition. In the modern consciousness there is a deeply rooted animosity to this sort of argument. We have a firm conviction that all problems have solutions, that the mastery and conquest of nature and of history are equally pos-

Freedom, the State, and Society 197 sible. Burckhardt did not share in this modern attitude, for he was a truly 'untimely' thinker. In this sense, he has much in common with Nietzsche, the author of the Unzeitgemasse Betrachtungen. However, as we see in the next chapter, Nietzsche was in many ways more in tune with the ethos of modernity than was Burckhardt. For example, Burckhardt simply could not advocate an active imposition of new cultural values in the manner of a Nietzschean philosophical legislator. Burckhardt outlined the crucial issues in modernity, but he gave few hints of how the dark age that he saw emerging in the twentieth century would give way to a 'new dawning/

CHAPTER SIX

Burckhardt and Nietzsche:

Two Critiques of Modernity

Along with his reputation as an astute cultural historian, Burckhardt is well known in intellectual history for his association with his junior colleague Friedrich Nietzsche. This relationship has been of interest to intellectual historians primarily for the light it can cast on the development of the life and thought of the much more famous Nietzsche. It is also of interest for those concerned more broadly with certain pervasive ideological themes among German-language cultural scholarship in the nineteenth century. In addition, the relationship - marked by Nietzsche's continued efforts up until his mental collapse to enlist the collaboration and friendship of the much older Burckhardt - can illuminate the nature and consequence of Burckhardt's political thinking. One way to analyse this relationship is to focus on the affinities between Burckhardt's ideas and Nietzsche's. Indeed, there is a close connection between Burckhardt's general worldview and the themes developed by Nietzsche throughout his intellectual life. When he arrived in Basel in 1869, the young Nietzsche became acquainted with Burckhardt, an established scholar whose views on various matters he found especially impressive. These ideas helped shape Nietzsche's perspective. For instance, his concept of the relationship between the state and culture, as well as his work on the political implications of the 'massification' of modern society, runs parallel to ideas and methods developed by Burckhardt. The relation between the two men's views is most clearly evident in Nietzsche's earlier works, but many of these ideas remained integral to him throughout his career. For example, Burckhardt's general outline of the key features of ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, and the age of revolution is reproduced at various stages in Nietzsche's writing career. Burckhardt's account of the de-

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 199 velopment of classical pagan political culture, its demise, and its attempted revival forms the model for his own version of a cultural rebirth after the destruction of the modern age that both he and Burckhardt so despised. Nietzsche is undoubtedly more of a 'radical' than Burckhardt, but their ideas are equally 'aristocratic' in nature.1 The affinities between their social and political thought - their shared aestheticism and their aristocratic political visions - raise questions about the direction towards which Burckhardt's views point. In particular, by propounding an elitist and inegalitarian ethic, they both tacitly endorse hierarchical, aristocratic, and authoritarian models of political society. Their correspondence on many key political themes gives pause to those who might dismiss Burckhardt's views as unconnected to the major ideas of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, while the similarities are ample, the differences are also abundant, and they are of theoretical significance. Thus, despite some striking resemblances, the two men diverge sharply in their understandings of the role of historical study itself and on the political conclusions to be drawn from their rather similar cultural criticisms of Western democratic societies. As this chapter shows, relations between these two critics of modernity were complex, the younger man's debt to the older was considerable, and the younger man pushed his critique of modernity in directions that the older, humanistic, organicist historian could hardly comprehend, let alone condone. The Burckhardt-Nietzsche Relationship The issue of Burckhardt's influence on Nietzsche receives only passing attention in much of the massive Nietzsche scholarship. For instance, the late Walter Kaufmann, at one time the highest Nietzsche authority in the English-speaking world, recognized that the question of influence between the two remains unsolved; but he decided that it hardly mattered: 'for it appears that neither of them was detracted from his own path or greatly helped by the other, and the ideas of each can be explained by his own background.'2 What the two men had most in common was a political standpoint, and since Kaufmann regarded Nietzsche as a thoroughly 'anti-political' thinker, he was not much interested in pursuing the relationship. Later scholarship on Nietzsche, especially that of the 1970s and 1980s, while more inclined to accept his credentials as a political philosopher, most often por-

200 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought trayed him as the progenitor of a particular discourse on modernity that runs from him to Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and to an assortment of poststructuralists, deconstructionists, and postmodernists.3 As a stodgy cultural historian and rank traditionalist, Burckhardt usually receives no place in this avant-garde lineage. Burckhardt scholars also deny major affinities between Burckhardt and Nietzsche, though for quite different reasons. Many jealously guard their beloved old man from any association with such an unsavoury character as Nietzsche. For example, Werner Kaegi, Burckhardt's prolific biographer, declared that while for Nietzsche his encounters with the Baseler may have been of great significance and provided an impulse for much knowledge had he chosen to follow in the older man's footsteps, Burckhardt had little good to say about, and certainly nothing to learn from, his young colleague.4 Similarly Wallace Ferguson, keeper of the flame of Burckhardtian Renaissance scholarship, went out of his way to deny that Nietzsche's views on that era are in any way consistent with Burckhardt's. He lumps Nietzsche together with another great social deviant, Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau ('a Nietzschean before Nietzsche'), as an example of a theorist who had little genuine interest in the historical understanding of the Renaissance but instead wanted to use it as a myth or a symbol of the triumph of the Ubermensch, the reign of the Antichrist. Both Gobineau and Nietzsche, Ferguson says, 'made a strong appeal to maladjusted adolescents of both the temporary and permanent varieties/ and their praise of the criminality of the age could never have been accepted by Burckhardt, 'that gentle, if melancholy, apostle of civilization.'5 This picture is often found in Burckhardt studies, which tend to highlight the humanism, conservatism, and aestheticism of a man whose self-proclaimed mission was the defence of the culture of old Europe. While this can be a useful approach, the implication that Burckhardt, unlike Nietzsche, has no relevance in an analysis of the problems of the modern world impedes our full understanding of his political thinking. This approach interprets Burckhardt's thought primarily as an escape from modernity into the realm of apolitical contemplation. Thus it contrasts his humanistic anti-modernism to Nietzsche's anti-humanistic modernism. This thesis appears in its most comprehensive and explicit form in Alfred von Martin's Nietzsche und Burckhardt: Zwei Geistige Welten im Dialog.6 Martin, a sociologist, wrote during the Nazi era and was especially careful to dissociate the thought of Burckhardt from that of

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 201 Nietzsche, whose philosophy at the time enjoyed official sanction. As a fierce opponent of the National Socialist regime, Martin resigned his university post in 1931 and continued to reject Hitler's ideas. When Nietzsche und Burckhardt first appeared in 1938 the Nazi press attacked it for its incompatibility with the accepted worldview. Martin was forbidden to continue publishing, and his manuscripts were seized. He portrays Burckhardt as a noble representative of traditional humanism, and Nietzsche as a typical revolutionary and an anti-humanist (qualities obviously associated with Nazi ideology).7 He contrasts Burckhardt's passionate opposition to the increase of state power and military technology with Nietzsche's abstract speculations about immoralism, the will to power, and the coming Ubermensch. He concludes that Burckhardt rejects Nietzsche because the latter's inclination towards cruelty and tyranny was repulsive to the decent old historian. At every turn, the two men are depicted as antagonists: Burckhardt is at home in the quiet and conservative city-state of Basel, Nietzsche is uncomfortable there; Burckhardt's nature is Classical, Nietzsche's is Romantic; Burckhardt distrusts abstract thought, Nietzsche's bent is decisively speculative; Burckhardt's attitudes are provincial, middle class, and, above all, 'healthy,' while Nietzsche's 'optic' is, by his own admission, that of a 'psychopath/ a decadent, a cripple.8 Finally, and this seems decisive, Burckhardt's defence of classical culture and the Christian ethos of Alteuropa connects him to the masses (despite his antipathy towards anything 'mass'), who shared his deeply rooted religious convictions and belief in spiritual freedom.9 It is work like this that led Peter Heller to remark that 'the topic of "Nietzsche and Burckhardt" has always provoked partisanship, perhaps because it cannot be reduced to a comfortable denominator without some simplifying prejudice.' 10 That this evaluation of the Burckhardt-Nietzsche literature is fair becomes clear in a quick glimpse at the other major entries. Just as Kaegi and Martin are opposed to Nietzsche and for Burckhardt, so Edgar Salin is vehemently for Nietzsche and against Burckhardt.11 Karl Lowith takes another view: he emphasizes the sanity and nobility of Burckhardt's contemplative style over the fervid and confused vitalism of Nietzsche.12 There are similarities, Lowith admits, but a central theoretical disagreement remained - namely, that Nietzsche saw history as justified only within the service of the powerful forces of life; while Burckhardt, more faithful to Schopenhauer and closer also to Kierkegaard, valued historical reflection as a means of gaining knowledge about the misery and

202 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought blindness of the will and therefore of achieving the only possible redemption possible to the spirit in the modern world. Salin meanwhile tended to obscure this and other crucial similarities, while claiming that Burckhardt is of interest only as a rough precursor to Nietzsche, the prophet of the great politics of the twentieth century. Burckhardt's role as precursor also appeals to Nietzsche scholar Charles Andler in the first volume of his six-volume Nietzsche: Sa vie et so. pensee.13 Though quite respectful of Burckhardt, Andler writes as someone attempting to place Nietzsche at the end of such a long line of precursors - along with Burckhardt, this first volume discusses Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Kleist, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Montaigne, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Fontenelle, Chamfort, Stendhal, and Emerson - that Burckhardt's unique contribution disappears in the presentation. Consequently, Andler is unfortunately vague about Burckhardt's role in helping to form Nietzsche's thought, although he does discuss the key example of their overlapping interest in the Greeks. On this point, however, one can turn to Felix Stahelin's introduction to Burckhardt's Griechische Kulturgeschichte for a brief yet informative survey of the discussions of any possible influence and a list of useful sources.14 Other commentators focus on Schopenhauer's role as mentor of both Burckhardt and Nietzsche. For these scholars, this link provides the best way to account for the similarities and differences between the two men. Nietzsche's friend Franz Overbeck, for instance, felt that the fact that both Burckhardt and Nietzsche were disciples of Schopenhauer explains their common attribution of the greatest achievements of the Greeks to pessimism (from an excess of suffering); but he says that Burckhardt understood this only 'empathetically' while Nietzsche's knowledge of the Greeks is 'based on a primordial relationship of his individual temperament.' In conclusion, Overbeck suggests that 'Nietzsche and Burckhardt can be said to have agreed only in their unconstrained stance toward Christianity.'15 Erich Heller too recognizes the importance of these themes and says that the contrast between Burckhardt and Nietzsche is really one between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. What, he then asks, accounts for Nietzsche's affection towards Schopenhauer and Burckhardt? First, the 'intellectual honesty' of both men impressed Nietzsche, and, second, 'the spiritual vitality which enabled them to live on, and to remain sane, in spite of their profound pessimism.' Like Overbeck, Heller sees that this is the same spirit that Nietzsche praises in the Greeks,

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 203 and indeed Heller says that his relationship with Burckhardt was solidified by their common interest and shared interpretation of the Greek worldview. At what point, however, did Nietzsche and Burckhardt part company? Ultimately, it was over religious and moral issues. Heller, in contrast to Overbeck, stresses the gap separating Nietzsche's essential unbelief and Burckhardt's faith. Burckhardt was of a 'more robust spiritual nature and more firmly rooted in the Christian tradition of Europe. He continued to eat the bread and drink the wine, and called them by the names of culture and tradition.'16 With God being 'dead' for Nietzsche, Heller explains, 'he could find no lasting spiritual satisfaction in the pure contemplation of a creation deserted by its creator.'17 Therefore history, which for him had lost its meaning, had to be abolished unless it served the principles of 'life'; the quiet hope that the fallen creatures of humanity could be somehow redeemed had to be vanquished in the name of an Ubermensch who would transcend good and evil; and Burckhardt's faith in the spiritual continuum had to be replaced by the Eternal Recurrence of a senseless world in motion. Along with the academic interpretations of their relationship, the evidence from his own correspondence shows that Nietzsche greatly admired Burckhardt and regarded him as something of a kindred spirit.18 The older man was much more noncommittal regarding his personal relations with the young Nietzsche, although he remained friendly with him for a period after his departure from Basel.19 Their exchange of letters suggests that the relationship meant more to Nietzsche than to Burckhardt, who ultimately stopped replying to Nietzsche's overtures. The correspondence illustrates Burckhardt's attempts politely to distance himself without showing any outright hostility (Salin accurately describes these letters as 'diplomatic masterworks').20 Nietzsche would send Burckhardt a copy of each new book that he published, and just as dutifully (up to and including the publication of Beyond Good and Evil in 1886) Burckhardt would respond, coolly but politely, that he could not comment on the subject because it went far above his poor old head, and then he would ask after Nietzsche's health or some such thing. One exchange stands out because it involves a discussion of their views of their common ground. Nietzsche sent Burckhardt a copy of Beyond Good and Evil, along with a note: 'I know nobody who shares with me as many prepossessions as you yourself; it seems to me that you have had the same problems in view - that you are working on

204 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought the same problems in a similar way, perhaps even more forcefully and deeply than I, because you are less loquacious ... The mysterious conditions of any growth in culture, that extremely dubious relation between what is called the "improvement" of man (or even "humanization") and the enlargement of the human type, above all, the contradiction between every moral concept and every scientific concept of life - enough, enough - here is a problem we fortunately share with not very many persons, living or dead ... My comfort is that, for the time, there are no ears for my new discoveries - excepting yours, dear and deeply respected man; and for you again the discoveries will be nothing new!'21 Burckhardt's response (his last letter to Nietzsche) includes the usual disclaimer about his ignorance - he has never been 'philosophically minded.' And he jokes that he is not accomplished enough even to have achieved the status of those 'scholars' whom Nietzsche ridicules in Part Six of the book. Burckhardt must have felt compelled, however, to respond to Nietzsche's view of their common ground. And while he does not reply directly, he explicitly restricts the area of Nietzsche's work that is of interest to him to the historical judgments in the book and to the author's views on the present age. By so doing, Burckhardt implicitly denies that the two have been working on the same problems, especially the creation of a new philosophical notion of the concept of 'life.' Yet he sees as parallel their views on the relationship between politics and culture and their criticisms of the ethos of the modern age. He lists the points that he finds most interesting in Nietzsche: 'on the will of nations, and its periodic paralysis; on the antithesis between the great security given by prosperity and the need for education through danger; on hard work as the destroyer of religious instincts; on the herd man of the present day and his claims; on democracy as the heir of Christianity; and quite specially on the powerful on earth of the future!'22 This last point he clarifies by suggesting that he agrees with Nietzsche that the fate of present-day European humanity is in jeopardy and that there may come a period in which a more noble type of human can emerge. But as Burckhardt indicates some ten years later, he never thought at the time (although it became clear to him subsequently) that Nietzsche had in mind a postmodern version of the Gewaltmenschen, the power-maniacs, rather than those who were truly noble and superior in terms of the culturally creative aspect of things.23

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 205 On a couple of earlier occasions, however, Burckhardt had already felt the need to criticize Nietzsche regarding precisely these matters. On receiving On the Use and Abuse of History, for instance, he wanted to set the record straight about his own approach to history - that is, that he never taught it for the sake of what goes under the name 'world history' but did so essentially as a 'propaedeutic study/ This implies that Nietzsche's use of history in the service of 'life' goes against what Burckhardt had been trying to teach. The old historian subtly chastises the young man for reflecting, as Burckhardt himself would never do, on 'final causes, the aims and desirability of history.'24 (Nietzsche seems to have overlooked this criticism, however, since he later wrote to Erwin Rohde that Burckhardt was much impressed by the 'History' in the book and bragged that he had received from Basel a 'very good and characteristic' letter.)25 On another occasion, having received The Gay Science, Burckhardt rebukes the young philosopher for 'leaning towards tyranny in certain circumstances' (Eine Anlage zu eventueller Tyrannei is his oblique expression). In particular he notes that he is thinking of §325 of The Gay Science, which reads: 'Who will attain anything great if he does not find in himself the strength and the will to inflict great suffering? Being able to suffer is the least thing; weak women and even slaves often achieve virtuosity in that. But not to perish of internal distress and uncertainty when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of this suffering - that is great, that belongs to greatness/ For Burckhardt, it is precisely being able to suffer that belongs to greatness, and so he must have been offended by this belittlement of what he considers an exceptional virtue. Moreover, the ability to inflict suffering is exactly what is most despicable in tyrants and other so-called great political men. For Burckhardt, the ability to inflict pain does not raise one above the mass, but rather confirms that one is no better than the common person who beats his wife, his children, or his donkey. This issue of the admiration of tyrants was also at the heart of Burckhardt's reaction in 1896 to the article in Historische-Politische Blatter that linked him with Nietzsche. By that time, as Burckhardt recognized, Nietzsche's name was 'not only in itself a sort of power, but a publicity stunt which asks for nothing more than discussions pro and contra.' On this score Burckhardt makes it clear that he is no Nietzschean. In a letter to Ludwig von Pastor mentioned above, he says that he recognized from the time of Nietzsche's appointment at

206 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought Basel that 'my relations with him could not be of any help to him in his sense, and so they remained infrequent, though serious and friendly discussions/ He says that he never spoke to Nietzsche about the role of Gewaltmenschen and asserts that he himself never admired them and actually considered them outlaws.26 In the 1890s, with Nietzsche suffering from mental degeneration, Burckhardt took to avoiding any discussions of possible connections between his colleague's views and his own. He would rebuff those who reported that they had heard Nietzsche say this or that in admiration of his former colleague. He would shake his old grey head and say: 'Tsk, tsk, poor Professor Dr. Nietzsche is sick in the mental hospital/ Nietzsche's Debt to Burckhardt What precisely did Burckhardt represent to Nietzsche? Nietzsche admired the older man's extensive historical knowledge and the high degree of objectivity and impartiality of observation demonstrated in his scholarship. Burckhardt represented to him a certain kind of intellectual greatness. "Burckhardt - himself a monumental man - was th representative of a heroic world view/ Paul Widermann recalled, 'and this especially endeared him to Nietzsche/27 The Baseler was an outstanding example to Nietzsche of the educated man who could combine in his work a historicizing scepticism and an adherence to the European tradition of culture that Nietzsche esteemed so highly. Above all, however, Burckhardt was always to him a 'great educator/ In Twilight of the Idols, one of his last books, he says, 'Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions, the very first criterion of education: hence the decline of German culture. One of the rarest exceptions is my venerable friend, Jacob Burckhardt in Basel: it is primarily to him that Basel owes its pre-eminence in humaneness/28 Burckhardt was the recipient of Nietzsche's last letter - the last of the so-called Wahnsinnszettel, the insane notes jotted down between 3 and 7 January 1889, after his collapse in the streets of Turin. It begins: 'Actually, I would much rather be a Basel professor than God; but I have not ventured to carry my private egoism so far as to omit creating the world on his account/29 A day earlier he had also written to Burckhardt saying, 'you are - thou art - our great, greatest teacher/30 But how are Burckhardt's various teachings manifest in Nietzsche's own work? There are two strands of Nietzsche's social and political thought that bear the specific imprint of Burckhardt's cultural criti-

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 207 cism. One concentrates on the dehumanizing tendencies of modern social and political institutions and uses some of Burckhardt's concepts; the other focuses on the political importance of the aristocratic and pagan spirit of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy and borrows some of Burckhardt's historical insights. In both cases, Nietzsche is inclined towards a critique of modern industrial society that is very similar to Burckhardt's own critique of modernity. Nietzsche's social criticism is now quite well known, and I can point only to certain aspects of it here. One decisive component is that he characterizes the democratic spirit of modern culture as pure decadence. He, like Burckhardt, defines the modern age as the end of Western culture, as a complete, catastrophic break in the historical continuum that tied Athens and Jerusalem to Florence and Berlin. That his version of the modernist thesis is more radical than Burckhardt's is certainly true. He conceives of this process as the unfolding of a historical problem (the problem of 'nihilism') with roots as far back into the cultural heritage as Socratic rationalism. Still, the outlines of the great cultural inheritance of the West and the normative consequences of the catastrophic break with the past are the same as indicated by Burckhardt: the loss of all historical standards of value, coherence, and meaning renders modern existence less than human. The task of historiography - of historical philosophy - is to articulate a conception of the human condition that might renew a modern culture. Nietzsche presents the problem of the dehumanizing spirit of modern culture in a manner remarkably similar to Burckhardt's. For instance, he accepts the two major political conclusions that he found in Burckhardt - that culture and the state are antagonists and that the state is inferior to culture - as well as the corollary that the modern state, which possesses in excess the qualities that make the state inferior to culture, is an especially ignoble institution. As I pointed out in chapter 3, moreover, there are striking parallels between Burckhardt's concept of the unity of style and Nietzsche's use of this idea in his analysis of contemporary German culture and society. One finds the most clearly Burckhardtian ideas in David Strauss, Writer and Confessor, where Nietzsche attacks Hegelian cultural philistinism, here personified by D.F. Strauss. Germany lacks a true culture, says Nietzsche: it has only a 'motley carnival of culture.' Even the so-called educated men like Strauss are philistines and barbarians. Modernity in general is characterized by dehumanization, by estrangement from humankind's true essence.

208 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought Nietzsche's culture critique follows from Burckhardt's premise that modernization has rapidly politicized all spheres of life, especially the cultural. Although he had originally supported the German cause in the war with the French in 1870-1, Nietzsche, under Burckhardt's influence, did an about-face on German victory and its cultural consequences. He began David Strauss, for instance, with a warning that victory is merely a political triumph that in no way marks Germany's cultural superiority over the French. To the contrary, Germans display a 'phlegmatic insensitivity to culture/ while the French have a 'genuine, productive culture ... from whom we Germans have hitherto copied everything, albeit for the most part without skill/31 And in Schopenhauer as Educator Nietzsche explicitly rejects the idea that the state is the highest purpose of humankind and that the individual has no higher duty than service to the state. Such thinking is a relapse, 'not into paganism, but into stupidity/32 As he matured, Nietzsche did not change his mind on these matters. In Twilight of the Idols, one of his later works, he argues, 'Culture and state - one should not deceive oneself about this - are antagonists: "'Kultur-Staat" is a purely modern idea. One lives off the other, one thrives at the expense of the other. All great ages of culture are ages of political decline: what is great culturally has always been unpolitical, even antipolitical ... In the history of European culture the rise of the "Reich" means one thing above all: a displacement of the centre of gravity. It is already known everywhere: in what matters most - and that always remains culture - the Germans are no longer worthy of consideration.'33 Finally, in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche criticizes the 'political history' written by Burckhardt's archenemies, the German nationalist historians, in a manner that assumes an antagonism between the state and culture and demonstrates his support for the latter. In these remarks, Burckhardt's entire trichotomy (culture-state-religion) is present: 'Not only have the German historians utterly lost the great perspective for the course and the values of culture; nor are they merely, without exception, buffoons of politics (or the church) - but they have actually proscribed this great perspective ... "German" has become an argument, Deutschland, Deutschland tiber alles a principle; the Teutons represent the "moral world order in history" ... There is now a historiography that is reichsdeutsch; there is even, I fear, an anti-Semitic one - there is a court historiography, and Herr von Treitschke is not ashamed -/34 Nietzsche often attacked the nationalist trend in historical thought. Like Burckhardt, he was a constant critic of those who adored the powerful nation-states of modern Europe.

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 209 Both men approached the critique of modernity by comparing the banality, mediocrity, and ugliness of their own time with an aesthetically recreated ideal of vital, 'authentic' cultures. This brings up another line of affinity between them: namely, their shared admiration for the societies of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy. In an 1871 essay on "The Greek State/ Nietzsche employs the trichotomy of religion-state-culture in order to demonstrate that Christianity and the modern power-state are both threats to genuine culture. Here he utters an overt Burckhardtianism when he explains that cruelty lies also in the essence of every powerful religion and in general in the essence of power, which is always evil/35 Nietzsche will in time repudiate this calumny against power, but he will retain the idea that religion, no less than politics, is a manifestation of the will to power. In this essay as well, Nietzsche, like Burckhardt, rejects all assumptions that the state has a glorious origin: Tower gives the first right, and there is no right, which at bottom is not presumption, usurpation, violence/36 The state originates in domination and can be justified only because it is necessary for humanity to arrive at society and culture. Nietzsche also makes the distinction a la Burckhardt between the state ('that conqueror with the iron hand') and society, which is the repository of the cultural instincts of humankind and ultimately the generator of genius. And again like Burckhardt, he puzzles over the strang power and attraction exercised on people by this institution ('One would indeed feel inclined to think that a man who looks into the origin of the state will henceforth seek his salvation at an awful distance from it; and where can one not see the monuments of its origin devastated lands, destroyed cities, brutalized men, devouring hatred of nations!').37 But to a greater extent than Burckhardt would, he sees the state as a potential arena for heroic action, which is especially useful for the education of the masses. While Nietzsche praises the Greek state in a manner that Burckhardt would have been reluctant to accept - namely, for its ferociousness in war and its imposition of an unconditional sacrifice of all other interests to the service of the state - he still takes his cues from Burckhardt's own depictions of the vitality and competitive spirit of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy. Nietzsche concludes, again on a Burckhardtian note, that the state's only excuse before the tribunal of eternal justice is the production of such 'flowers of blossoming womanhood' as Athenian or Florentine society. And he follows Burckhardt's method in Civilization of divining a 'mysterious connection' between 'state and art, political greed and artistic creation, battlefield and work of art/

210 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought Without the coercive powers of the state, Nietzsche says, culture would not extend beyond the private.38 Like Burckhardt, he explicitly repudiates the dominant German view of the Greek world as happy, serene, and beautiful in favour of one that emphasizes the tragic pessimism and violent politics of Greek life. The central motif in both writers' accounts of Greece is the importance of agon, the contest. Burckhardt, we should recall, likened the Greek aristocracy to the Renaissance patriciate and equated the Hellenic ideal fusing wealth, birth, and the drive for excellence with his own conception of Eildung. The key to this aristocratic style of life was the agonistic spirit that spurred individuals towards ever-greater cultural achievements. Of course, Burckhardt's account was more about the disintegration of this civilization than about its flowering. And at the end of this period of decline, Burckhardt placed Socrates, 'the gravedigger of the Attic city,' whose rationalist and disconcerting dialectical philosophizing 'educated the sons of the city, but not for the republic.' Burckhardt is critical of the proud, ironical, and obnoxious Socrates and is uncharacteristically sympathetic with the democrats who had to convict him: "The democrats were quite right, from their standpoint, when they condemned him. With his arrogant Apology and his stubbornness he ruined his own case completely.'39 For Burckhardt, Socrates was the beginning of the end for old Athens; after him genuine polis life waned, and classical Greek culture and its 'agonal man' gave way to an ersatz Hellenism and 'Hellenistic man.' For Nietzsche too, the unique spirit of the agon was at the centre of the Greek political experience. To the ancients, he explains, the aim of competitive action was greater than mere individual self-interest: the goal was the welfare of the whole. As a consequence, the Greeks needed a strong state and the discipline of the contest-conception to counter their intense destructive tendencies.40 If we were to remove the contest from Greek life, Nietzsche conjectures, we would then 'look at once into the pre-Homeric abyss of horrible savagery, hatred and pleasure in destruction.'41 Like Burckhardt, Nietzsche laments the collapse of the genuine contest of the pre-Socratic era as Athens and Sparta became too strong and too powerful to control their citizens' passionate natures and to restrain competition within their societies according to the virtue of moderation.42 In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche argues that Socrates stands at the end of the old Athenian culture. Here and elsewhere he launched an intemperate and scathing attack on the ugly, decadent old dialectician,

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 211 whom he saw as the decisive agent in the transformation of the Greek taste from its 'noble' forms of agon to a plebeian and 'false' agon, epitomized by the dialectic.43 Of course, his reaction to both Socrates and Plato is complicated, and we cannot explore it in detail here, but when discussing Plato in Beyond Good and Evil he appears to borrow a phrase from Burckhardt (who had written of Cosimo the Elder that he 'recognized in Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought')44 and asks: 'How could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease? Did the wicked Socrates corrupt him after all? Could Socrates have been the corrupter of youth after all? And did he deserve his hemlock?'45 Finally, Nietzsche explains, as did Burckhardt, how the institutions of the Greeks 'grew out of preventive measures taken to protect each other against their inner explosions.'46 And he compliments himself for his own unique contribution to this discussion: namely, the concept of the Dionysian. Adds Nietzsche: 'Whoever followed the Greeks, like that profound student of their culture in our time, Jacob Burckhardt in Basel, knew immediately that something had been accomplished thereby; and Burckhardt added a special section on this phenomenon to his Civilization of the Greeks.'47 No such section on this concept can be found, however, in either Burckhardt's lecture manuscripts or in the book published from his notes.48 Still, Nietzsche obviously attached great importance to what he believed to be Burckhardt's approval of his concept of the Dionysian. Since we know that Burckhardt read The Birth of Tragedy and praised it to some people, we could assume that the influence went in both directions. But there is another figure in this picture - Schopenhauer. Victor Ehrenberg, for one, is convinced that Burckhardt had a strong influence on Nietzsche but adds that 'their relations also resulted in some reciprocal effect of the younger on the older man, and it is certain that the picture of Greek pessimism, which arose in the two men, completely new though it was, would never have been shaped without the philosophy of Schopenhauer.'49 Another example of Nietzsche's socio-political critique exhibits Burckhardt's powerful influence: his view of the political significance of the Renaissance. It has often been noted that Nietzsche's admiration for the Renaissance was intense. As one commentator puts it, 'Nietzsche loved Columbus (according to Burckhardt the only really great explorer). Petrarch and Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Rubens, he rated second only to the Greek tragedians and artists; and there can be no doubt that Cellini's autobiography materially influenced his

212 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought own, produced as that was 'with so much of the self-glorification of antiquity'. He saw in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the dawn of a new Hellenic day.'50 Nietzsche often chose to contrast the modern age with the Renaissance to illustrate his conviction that 'progress' is an illusion perpetuated by the conceit that our modern 'soft' morals are an improvement over the 'hard' morals of the Renaissance. To Nietzsche the idea that modern man constitutes an improvement over the Renaissance is laughable: not only are we no better than the men of that period, but we may not even 'place ourselves in Renaissance conditions, not even by an act of thought: our nerves would not endure that reality, not to speak of our muscles.'51 Modern man, says Nietzsche, is incomplete and fragmentary - he is a 'synthetic man/ a 'lower man/ a prelude to the 'whole man' that appears only now and then. And in any event, there is no simple, unilinear historical advance, since 'often a type once achieved is lost again (with all the tensions of the past three hundred years, for example, we have not yet re-attained the man of the Renaissance, and the man of the Renaissance, in turn, is inferior to the man of antiquity).'52 Nietzsche's formula for evaluation is simple: every historical epoch must be measured by its positive strength and general vitality. Hence the Renaissance is the last great age, ours is a weak one. Why is this so? Largely because the Renaissance would have nothing to do with our decadent notion of human equality: 'The cleavage between man and man, status and status, the plurality of types, the will to be oneself, to stand out - what I call the pathos of distance, that is characteristic of every strong age.'53 Another test for the superiority of Renaissance man and culture over modernity is their essential criminality: Tf with us the criminal is an ill-nourished and stunted plant, this is the dishonour of our social relationships; in the age of the Renaissance the criminal throve and acquired for himself his own kind of virtue - virtue in the Renaissance style, to be sure, virtu, moraline-free virtue.'54 Of course, this view of the Renaissance as a wicked age of unbridled individualism that nevertheless outstrips all others in vitality and creativity was the standard interpretation after Burckhardt. In Nietzsche's hands, however, this notion appears shocking and aggressive. Consequently, Burckhardt himself was rather embarrassed by Nietzsche's use of his portraits of Renaissance tyrants as prototypes for the Ubermensch. Thus prominent Burckhardt supporters - for example, Wallace Ferguson55 and Alfred von Martin56 - have attempted to exonerate the old man from any guilt of association with Nietzsche's Re-

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 213 naissance ideal. Nevertheless, Burckhardt's depiction of the Renaissance is so highly ambiguous - it wavers between a horrified condemnation of unfettered subjectivism and a fascinated admiration for the vitality and creativity of even the most wicked men of that period that it can easily be read as a glamourization of those tyrants and bandits, the Gewaltmenschen, whom Nietzsche took as his model of a superhuman political type. Stylistically too, Burckhardt's Renaissance work influenced Nietzsche. As David Norbrook observes, 'Burckhardt's portrayals of the links between violence, imagination, and political coercion have been reinforced by Nietzsche's insistence in The Genealogy of Morals that we bring the body back into history, and record the violence by which it becomes inscribed with the symbols of social hierarchy ... it has become almost de rigeur to begin an essay on the Renaissance with a highly purple passage describing some grisly dismemberment, mutilation, or crucifixion.'57 Lurking in the background, his contribution simply taken for granted, is Machiavelli. As the first theorist of the secular, powerful state and its rulers, Machiavelli codified 'not merely the practical politics of these new men, but also much of what becomes the standard lore of their style: their studied ruthlessness, their thirst for fame and glory, even their patronage of the high culture.'58 And just as Burckhardt follows Machiavelli in describing in excessively gory detail the terrible misdeeds of various Renaissance despots, Nietzsche exaggerates the personal qualities that set rulers apart from their subjects. Nietzsche's intention is different from Burckhardt's, however, since he uses examples of great cruelty and ruthlessness to demonstrate the sort of grand politics that will be required in the coming new aristocracy. Burckhardt never condoned Nietzsche's dream of an aristocratic and tyrannical rule by artist philosophers. And yet Nietzsche's vision for the future flows from his understanding of Burckhardt's Renaissance. Since despotism, as Burckhardt had argued, was the essence of the Renaissance, the necessary precondition of its cultural vitality, anyone who wants to re-create such cultural vitality must endorse such forms of political agency for the future. For Nietzsche, individuals who can combine practical political will to power with an extraordinary style and virtuosity - Caesar, Cesare Borgia, Napoleon - are models of the higher type of man needed to revitalize the sick modern world. He honours these men for fitting Machiavelli's description of the artistrulers who took the 'matter' of humanity and moulded it 'into whatever form they desired' (The Prince, chap. 6).

214 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought To comprehend Nietzsche's position on this matter it is instructive to turn to his view of the Renaissance figure whom he praises most and whom he twice associates with the Ubermensch - Cesare Borgia.59 Borgia is a political 'beast of prey' par excellence, an example of the higher type of individual, and an agent of the revaluation of values. As Bruce Detwiler points out, what Nietzsche found most attractive in Borgia is the life-affirming vitality of his thoroughgoing immoralism: 'Not only in word but in deed Cesare was a consummate anti-Christian, flourishing in a realm completely beyond good and evil. Like Caesar and Napoleon, he was one of those rare political artists who "work on their marble, whatever the cost in men," needing no justification beyond the dictates of their will to power.'60 Nietzsche of course relies largely on Machiavelli for his view of Cesare Borgia. Indeed, Cesare is to Nietzsche the most superb personification of Machiavellianism, of individualistic political success as Kunstwerk. Nietzsche's Ubermensch and his infamous 'blond beast' may have been based on the blond-haired Cesare. The duke is clearly Nietzsche's favourite example of Renaissance Man - addressing his surroundings with a complete freedom from Christian preconceptions and exploiting this liberty to secure for himself a new level of power over his world. Burckhardt showed Nietzsche that the struggle for the attainment of individuality in Renaissance Italy was what produced its great cultural vitality. The tension and dynamism of the political competition between city-states were reflected in the vitality of a culture that produced some of the world's most outstanding works of art, poetry, architecture, and philosophy. By looking at what Burckhardt has to say about Cesare Borgia, for example, we can better grasp Nietzsche's view of that man and his times. According to Burckhardt, the primary political significance of the Borgias as a clan lay not in the fact they were powerful, ruthless, and immoral (traits that hardly distinguish them in Renaissance politics) but in the fact that they were a 'great, permanent and increasing danger for the Papacy.'61 This applies especially to Cesare: 'He, if anybody, could have secularized the states of the Church, and he would have been forced to do so in order to keep them. Unless we are much deceived, this is the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Machiavelli treats the great criminal; from Cesare, or from nobody, could it be hoped that he "would draw the steel from the wound"; in other words, annihilate the Papacy - the source of all foreign intervention and of all the divisions of Italy.'62 Burckhardt was convinced that Cesare plotted openly to make himself

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 215 pope and that that possibility very nearly became a reality. Had that happened, Cesare would have profoundly redirected political history ('In pursuing such an hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss').63 Burckhardt, as usual, voiced his disgust with Cesare's tactics - they were 'literally appalling.'64 Nevertheless, Nietzsche may not have been entirely mistaken in detecting a slight admiration for this greatest of Gewaltmenschen in his friend's book - not because Cesare was a tyrant, however, but because he dared to dream of destroying Christianity. This is the precise reason for Nietzsche's own respect for Cesare. Just a few lines after calling the Renaissance the 'revaluation of Christian values, the attempt ... to bring the counter values, the noble values to victory,' Nietzsche writes: 'I envisage a possibility of a perfectly supra terrestrial magic and fascination of colour: it seems to me that it glistens in all the tremors of subtle beauty, that an art is at work in it, so divine, so devilishly divine that one searches millennia in vain for a second such possibility; I envisage a spectacle so ingenious, so wonderfully paradoxical at the same time, that all the deities on Olympus would have had occasion for immortal laughter: Cesare Borgia as Pope. Am I understood? Well, then, that would have been the victory which alone I crave today: with that Christianity would have been abolished.'65 This did not happen. Instead, the duke missed his opportunity to eradicate Christianity. This failure allowed the vengeful German monk, Luther - who was outraged by the Renaissance and its noble, strong, aristocratic values - to attack the papacy. Thus 'Judea,' with its base, priestly virtues, triumphed again over 'Rome,' with its noble, aristocratic virtues. This occurred 'thanks to that thoroughly plebeian (German and English) ressentiment movement called the Reformation, and to that which was bound to arise from it, the restoration of the church.' Worse yet, the French Revolution was still to come, and Judaea triumphed once again over the classical ideal, 'and this time in an even more profound and decisive sense.'66 Burckhardt - All Too Human Burckhardtian judgments abound in Nietzsche's accounts of, and his sentiments towards, Greek antiquity and the Renaissance, on the one hand, and the ages of reformation and revolution, on the other hand. The vitality of the former ages is duly celebrated, and this helps to emphasize the disgrace and mediocrity of the latter, more recent times.

216 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought Burckhardt's pessimism and despair at what has become of modern culture are also evident in Nietzsche's general culture critique. For both men, the decadent culture of modernity deforms, perverts, and dehumanizes the individual. The spirit of modern social relations, and the conditions of modern political and economic life, militate against the rise of autonomous, self-disciplined, many-sided individuals - i.e., those who represent the genuine measure and the highest human potential. Thus Burckhardt and Nietzsche see the modern individual as almost less than human - barbarian, narrow-minded, boorish, greedy, bourgeois, arrogant, culturally philistine, mean-spirited, bigoted - in sum, a 'last man.' It should give us pause to consider that for both Nietzsche and Burckhardt the ideal cultural community is an aristocratically organized polis and that the life of the vast majority in such a society is subordinated to the promotion of great culture and perhaps also of the great individual. Every human being, Nietzsche says, 'only has dignity in so far as he is a tool of the genius, consciously or unconsciously ... only as a wholly determined being serving unconscious purposes can man excuse his existence.'67 Or, as Burckhardt puts it, 'we are irresistibly drawn to regard those figures of the past and present as great whose activity dominates our individual existence and without whose lives we could not imagine our own.'68 This is the logical conclusion of a philosophy that defines the goal of culture as the promotion of great individuals. Burckhardt felt that any great cultural or intellectual figure will by necessity find himself or herself at odds with the organized interests of politics and religion. There will always be a tension between the person of Bildung, in Burckhardt's sense, and the good citizen or reverent parishioner. Consequently, conformity under the compulsive forces of the state or the church is not celebrated as is the creativity of the artist. This sort of anti-statist, anti-clerical culture critique - demonstrated both in Burckhardt's Kulturgeschichte and in Nietzsche's genealogical historiography - tends towards elitism, to the exaggeration of the role of so-called great individuals, and to the heavy emphasis on the purported benefits of vital subjectivity in happily fashioned historical epochs. This link between cultural history and genealogy is crucial. For both Burckhardt and Nietzsche, historical knowledge helps us to see inadequacies and limitations of the present. To Nietzsche, for instance, it was only through the aesthetic reconstruction of past times and of

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 217 alternative spirits of social and political life that we can articulate the severity of modern limitations on human potential. He said that only insofar as he was a pupil of older times ('a student of more ancient times - above all, of ancient Greece') could he, as a child of his times, 'have such unfashionable experiences.' Thus he praises history because it can be 'untimely' or 'unmodern'; that is, it can serve 'to work against the time and thereby have an effect upon it, hopefully for the benefit of a future time.'69 Unlike Nietzsche, however, Burckhardt had no willingness to assume the part of destroyer of all things present, and the aristocratic liberal in him balked at the presumption of Nietzsche's desire to become the legislator of the future. While both men took a fundamentally 'aristocratic' point of view regarding mass culture and politics, Nietzsche lacked the liberal elements of Burckhardt's perspective. Moreover, Nietzsche's aristocratic viewpoint was tied up with a revolutionary ethic wholly lacking in Burckhardt's politics. To amend slightly George Brandes's splendid formulation,70 Nietzsche is a 'neo-aristocratic radical' who advocates a consciously willed hierarchical order imposed by a ruling caste of philosopher-tyrants. Nietzsche was naturally attracted to Burckhardt's nostalgic anti-modernism, to his elegiac, pessimistic critique of civilization that longs for an escape from the disorderly, sick, reflective, and irredeemably mediocre present. But, as Peter Heller has warned, such 'regressive pathos of the nostalgic critique of civilization may be radicalized to the point where it surrenders the museum-like guardianship of culture and flips over into its opposite, to break down the traditional frameworks of civilization.'71 As long as it does not flip over in such a fashion, this worldview is best represented in the historicizing scepticism of Burckhardt. When it does become radicalized, as in Nietzsche's case, it orients itself not lovingly to the past but rather destructively to the present and obsessively towards a fantasized future. Thus a conservative culture critique can give way to an all-destroying and ultimately self-destructive position, one that Burckhardt mistrusted, feared, and predicted would ascend rather than wane during the approaching twentieth century. Nietzsche regarded Burckhardt's passive politics as naive, not to mention counter-productive. Burckhardt struck him as an example of what he calls in the notebooks an 'incomplete nihilist': a person who clings to moral assumptions and their political corollaries, which depend on the existence of a God, even when God has been largely

218 Burckhardt's Social and Political Thought repudiated.72 In some ways, this may be a fair assessment. Although he agreed with Nietzsche that God is dead, that the world and history lacked meaning and a moral structure, Burckhardt was unwilling to say that philosophers are therefore needed to legislate new morals, to create new standards that are 'beyond good and evil/ He suggests instead that we can keep in touch with a long tradition of human integrity and discipline so long as we preserve in history the continuity of human self-consciousness. If we do this, then individuals will carry on with their lives, taking responsibility for their own actions and finding their own personal joy or sorrow in family, voluntary associations, friends, and work. In this sense, Burckhardt's ideas mesh with those of people who today denounce the state's enormous role in the private life of citizens and who instead promote the ideals of an autonomous civil society as the realm in which to pursue the good life. Burckhardt was clearly suspicious of any radical political solutions to current problems. While he was uncomfortable with the stifling conformity of bourgeois life and loathed the philistinism of the ruling economic elites, he continued to preach prudence and moderation. He preferred to turn his back on the sort of extremism that he found in Nietzsche's philosophy. As Peter Heller asserts, it is Nietzsche's 'fierce independence, his mental ruthlessness, an audacity that will stop at nothing, or - if you will - a lack of measure and of all moderation' that first concerns, and eventually terrifies, Burckhardt and forces him to withdraw from Nietzsche.73 This is not simply a personal defensive reaction to an overly enthusiastic friend who one suspects might be emotionally disturbed. Instead, it is an example of Burckhardt's deep mistrust of radical thought in general. As we have seen, Burckhardt had serious theoretical reasons for mistrusting the capacity of the human mind to penetrate the meaning of the world and arrive at solutions to eternal problems. His historical studies led him to conclude that we should be suspicious of the political ambitions and moral reliability of the unfettered individual and that we should turn to the historically accumulated wisdom of the whole as a means of reducing inevitable human errors. Burckhardt felt strongly about the need to limit the power of political prophets and self-appointed Messiahs. Consequently he mistrusted Nietzsche's creative, vital, constructive project even more than he did Nietzsche's claim to have penetrated the world, shaken it to its foundations, and devalued it as a source of validity and meaning. According to Heller, Burckhardt apparently suspected that Nietzsche's wild political ideas

Burckhardt and Nietzsche 219 'derive not from strength, but from weakness forced to play the role of strength.'74 In Burckhardt's mind, true strength of character and intellectual fortitude are measured by how much suffering one can endure without succumbing to the all-too-human response to become a tyrant oneself. Nietzsche, in contrast, demonstrates a tremendous resentment against everything that is allegedly responsible for the sorry state of civilization, not to mention for his own personal anguish. His response is to lash out, to destroy all accepted norms and standards, and to insist that the heightening of the human type can come about only as a result of immorality, cruelty, and hardship inflicted on the mild and weak. Such an attitude as Nietzsche's was to Burckhardt a symptom of the very disease that he diagnosed in his social and political thought - a wilful severance of the historical continuum. Moreover, his tyrannical bent seemed a symbol for troubles to come in modern Europe. As Burckhardt had said while trying to come to terms with the self-destructive radicalism of his friend Gottfried Kinkel in 1849, moderation and a degree of resignation are the necessary responses to the current social crisis: 'I have grown so prudent that I now know that the philistines are not the worst; misplaced genius, however, is the very devil.'75 Burckhardt seems to have recognized this dangerous tendency in Nietzsche and decided first to attempt to steer Nietzsche away from the tyranny implicit in his philosophizing and towards contemplation through history.76 When it became apparent that Nietzsche was following his own course by then, Burckhardt gradually distanced himself before finally cutting himself off entirely.

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Conclusion:

An Astute Political Thinker

Burckhardt is an undoubtedly important figure in intellectual history, especially in the history of historiography and of the academic analysis of European culture, art, and architecture. But he is also a noteworthy and astute political thinker. He brings to light observations and arguments about the nature of modernity that illuminate certain aspects of the human condition in its political dimension. As a commentator on the politics of his own day, he identified unfettered individualism, mass democracy, and the erosion of culture as constitutive elements of the modern age. In addition, his profound and scathing culture critique of his time reveals a critical lucidity that is not always present in nineteenth-century German-language writings on freedom, individuality, the state, and culture. It is indeed because he can orient himself to the past that he is able to criticize the present with such acumen and realism, thereby transcending the limitations of a mere rhetorician or ideologue. To the extent that he advocates a historical perspective, Burckhardt teaches us to rely on our own capacities for independent thought and judgment as a means of counterbalancing the specific trends of our own time, including the universalist and increasingly anti-historical tendencies of the late modern age. More than a mere negation of the dominant experiences of his time, Burckhardt's historical perspective provides a positive conception of the ends of human life and of human association. For instance, his central political idea - that the foundation for a sense of political community or collective identity lies not in our association as members of an artificial nation-state supported by sheer power but rather in our sharing of a common culture - affords a new basis for social and political thought that is outside positivism, Hegelianism, or other forms of optimistic rationalism.

222 Conclusion Burckhardt's cultural approach adds a unique dimension to modern political theory. His emphasis on culture, art, creativity, and self-creation stimulates a desire for freedom from crude rationality that is at the same time opposed to a simple return to the coercion of religious thought. For Burckhardt, it is always culture rather than politics or religion that allows individuals to experience genuine human freedom. This potential for freedom involves our common desire for selfcreation, for private autonomy, and for liberty from the coercion that he sees inherent in all metaphysics and theology. An admitted sceptic, Burckhardt champions culture in order to help us substitute 'freedom' (manifest most exquisitely in art and culture) for 'truth' or 'goodness' (as understood by philosophers and theologians) as the goal of thinking and acting. This scepticism extends into the political sphere. Consequently, Burckhardt says things such as, 'power is of its nature evil/ and distinguishes between the state, as a repressive instrument of brute force, and society, as the rightful repository for all those attributes that make people truly human. It is the survival of this realm of social life that Burckhardt finds endangered in modernity. According to him, ours is an age of radical discontinuity in which the values and imperatives of past ages no longer hold. It is for this reason that he defends theoretically an interpretation of history - what he calls Kulturgeschichte - that is intended as a remedial response to the perceived needs of his age. The only meaningful justification for life in this modern world, according to him, is an aesthetic one (rather than, for example, a metaphysical, moral, philosophical, or otherwise supra-historical justification). Culture thus becomes the key normative standard in his social and political thought. His cultural histories demonstrate his ideal of human life by depicting exemplary models of private excellence autonomous, self-created, freely self-disciplined, objective individuals. Though he shares many traits with a diverse group of intellectual fellow travellers, Burckhardt's social and political thought is difficult to pigeonhole. From one angle, he is a conventional conservative who distrusts human nature, is sceptical of human reason, believes in a natural inequality or hierarchy of individuals within an organic society, values order, and puts his faith in tradition and established custom to provide guidance for the future. In his historical analysis, as well, Burckhardt emphasizes habitual conservative concerns about such matters as the consequences of the French Revolution and its democratic egalitarianism. In this regard, he has much in common with

An Astute Politician 223 Edmund Burke. And like the Irishman, Burckhardt has tendencies that appear familiar to Romantic political thinking, especially in its German version. Like Schiller, Goethe, Herder, and others, he envisions an 'aesthetic state' and seeks to overcome the crass materialism and rationalism of modernity through an aestheticized stance towards collective political life. Yet he also shares many of the ideals of the socalled aristocratic liberals - thinkers such as Tocqueville and Mill, as well as Humboldt. In several dimensions, his analysis of freedom and individuality is liberal, and his prescriptions for a limited state are also classically liberal. Finally, Burckhardt's aestheticism, his advocacy of private excellence, and his attack on the spirit of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the entire modern age remind many readers of the ideas of an equally 'unseasonable' thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche. In its emphasis on the importance of genius, the redemptive powers of human creativity, the uniqueness of the individual, and the pre-eminence of culture, Nietzsche's social and political thought flows from concerns voiced by Burckhardt. And yet, as we have seen, Nietzsche had little of the older man's reserve and caution and lacked as well his refined historical sense. In the years since his death, the difficulties of categorizing Burckhardt's thought have not been eased by those who have found him inspiring. His mode of aestheticized culture critique of modernity has been attractive to some intellectuals throughout the last century. But the width and breadth of this critique allow for an eclectic following. Burckhardt is admired by those who decry the loss of tradition and lament the levelling tendencies of modern 'mass' democratic culture; his portrayal of politics as separate from, and subordinate to, 'culture' - politics as the business of dirty hands - appeals to some artists, scholars, poets, and self-chosen members of the cultural avantgarde in whatever society; and his passionate depiction of the dehumanizing spirit of contemporary politics and culture strikes an especially responsive chord in many who wish to join in the fight to overthrow repressive cultural values and institutions. At the same time, this form of culture critique shocks democratic critics who desire the deliberate creation of a more just, egalitarian, and participatory political community. These critics despair at the 'irrationalism' and 'aestheticism' of Burckhardt's approach and criticize his models of private excellence on the basis that the goal should be the training of the good citizen, not the creation of the genius or the nurturing of a cultural elite. Burckhardt's aesthetic mode of cultural

224 Conclusion historiography contributes to political theory, they say, a depoliticized and aestheticized historical self-understanding of the modern age. According to these critics, the process of culture critique from his point of view is entirely destructive of any effort to make our institutions and practices less cruel and more just. Much of this criticism is well-founded. Burckhardt could not, by virtue of his culture critique, provide much more than a preparatory service for the rebirth of culture. History might produce the desired conditions, he thought, but there is no guarantee that the breakdown of existing structures will not merely lead to increased barbarism and banality. In the meantime, the truly human being should seek individuality and differentiation away from the anti-world of the powerstate and conventional religious institutions. There is in Burckhardt a deep mistrust of humans' ability to get together and try to solve rationally the problems posed by this or that obstacle to human happiness. His answer to the question of how one should live one's life during the 'dark times' of modernity is invariably to seek a private, aesthetic pleasure in art and thought. Only if society were to become more balanced in its distribution of power between cultural, religious, and political forces would Burckhardt then urge active participation in the various aspects of one's community. Burckhardt justifies this anti-political view on the grounds that welleducated and highly cultivated individuals are best able to serve their communities in a prudent, wise, and humane fashion. In the age of industry and revolution, however, this sort of intellectual freedom can be found in just a few pockets of cultural and intellectual life that are pure only to the extent that they escape the infection of the state's influence. Freedom of the mind is constantly in danger in a society that is oriented overwhelmingly towards material and political needs rather than towards cultural and spiritual ones. Thus the rare bastions of independence must be protected, and the highest spiritual values that they represent must by preserved in thought. Unfortunately, intellectuals in mass society - those people whose proper task must include the maintenance of individuality and the remembrance of the spiritual values passed down from earlier times - either are drawn into a public life that renders them subservient to the powers of industry and the state or become so disillusioned by life that they retreat into their academic cubby-holes and pursue careers as narrow specialists. The essential goals of broad cultural sympathy, preservation of the beautiful, and remembrance of truly human achievement are lost if

An Astute Politician 225 the academic's central job is no longer to teach and to communicate to the young the importance of the cultural continuum of human history. Burckhardt, for his part, threw himself into teaching and, after a while, abstained from writing for publication. This decision was based on his pessimistic cultural analysis and on a certain philosophy of education. First, as we have just seen, he was convinced that the last glimmer of the European tradition could be kept alive only by a direct communication between a wise judge of culture and his or her audience. Second, he had a view of education somewhat similar to that of the Platonic Socrates in the Phaedrus - writing is a dangerous narcotic that distracts both writer and reader from the noble enterprise of contemplation. Thus he would work on his performance as a lecturer and attempt to demonstrate personally that despite the decadence around them there was a greater cultural spirit to which he and all his listeners were tied. The efficacy of this position within the mass world is not self-evident. Ironically, for someone who put little store in writing and publishing, it is as a writer and philosopher of history that Burckhardt now contributes to human self-understanding. His books have endured as classics in their fields, and his Renaissance thesis in particular has spawned its own academic industry. More recently, Burckhardt has been increasingly recognized as an important commentator on social and political matters. There is much to recommend, I think, in Burckhardt's hostile assessment of modernity's solutions to traditional political concerns. He points out the shortcomings of our drive for material advancement, of our faith in progress, and of our trust in technological solutions to problems that are constant and recurring throughout human history. Yet there is a danger that this hostility to a particular set of historical circumstances, to a specific form of human solidarity described in modern democratic thought, could translate into hostility towards all forms of solidarity and into lack of sympathy for the mass of humankind. In Nietzsche, for instance, we find a cultural criticism that in many ways mirrors Burckhardt's own. However, it is based on such a low overall estimation of humanity that it will stop at nothing in its desire to overcome the sickness of humans and make them anew. In his thought, the quest for the great individual renders insignificant the achievements and struggles of ordinary people living in ordinary times. Consequently, we are left to ask whether the aesthetically reconstructed ideal of a unified style of life, possible under certain forms of

226 Conclusion aristocratic social organization, can be justified by the alleged decadence of modernity. Burckhardt of course does not go as far as Nietzsche in his proposals for the positive overturning of the current situation. Burckhardt's culture critique exposes several unsolved problems of our age, and he points the way to various creative solutions that are less disturbing than Nietzsche's. But before arguing in favour of even the less radical conservative politics of Burckhardt, we might want to consider the yet-unfulfilled promises of modern politics and culture. Must the heady ideals of autonomous intellectual and cultural life be severed from the political ideals of equality, liberty, and human and civil rights? While struggling to free ourselves from the instrumental, ideological, and functional restraints on human expression in a mass society, must we forget the needs of the majority of the community while remembering so vividly the creative spirit of the few creative geniuses or 'great' individuals? What we perhaps need to do is to attempt to bring together the human requirements for private autonomy, creativity, individuality, and self-discipline, which Burckhardt articulates, with the equally important needs for justice, fair treatment, and a solidarity of human interests, which Burckhardt largely ignores. Thus our highest hopes should be for a culture that combines in a concrete fashion the as-yetunrealized aims of justice and freedom, as expressed by thinkers with a greater commitment to social justice than Burckhardt, with the goal of a civil society that allows its citizens to be as excellent, as creative, as aestheticist, and as 'irrational' as they want. The individual can be free in such a society to the extent that he or she is able to judge freely and to express himself or herself freely. In this sense, as Burckhardt insists, human freedom depends on the ability to make and shape one's own life and to create a society that is open enough to accommodate a variety of individual choices and diverse points of view.

Notes

Introduction: A New Dimension to Burckhardt 1 Acton, cited in G.P. Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Longmans, 1952), 532. 2 Partly for this reason, I have relied on English-language translations when they are available and cite the most accessible sources for English readers. Of course, there is a wider range of secondary literature in German than there is in English, so I turn to these works when necessary to elaborate particular points. 3 As late as 1983, Burckhardt easily qualified for inclusion in a series of articles on 'Neglected Political Authors.' See Wolfgang Mommsen, 'Jacob Burckhardt - Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom/ Government and Opposition 18 (1983), 458-75. Since then, however, there have been several English-language discussions of Burckhardt's political thought: Jorn Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Postmodernism/ History and Theory 24 (1985), 235-46; Benjamin C. Sax, 'State and Culture in the Thought of Jacob Burckhardt/ Annals of Scholarship 3 (1985), 1-35; Sax, 'Jacob Burckhardt and National History/ History of European Ideas 15 (1992), 845-50; John R. Hinde/The Development of Jacob Burckhardt's Early Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas (1992), 425-36; Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000); Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Richard F. Sigurdson 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Cultural Historian as Political Thinker/ Review of Politics 52 (1990), 417-40; Sigurdson, 'Jacob Burckhardt's LiberalConservatism/ History of Political Thought 13 (1992), 487-511; and Joseph

228 Notes to pages 4-5 Mali, 'Political Restoration or Cultural Renaissance? Historiographical Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt/ Tel Aviver Jahrbuchfiir dentsche Geschichte 25 (1996), 97-116. 4 A noteworthy exception appeared fifty years ago: see Albert Salomon, 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man/ Review of Politics 2 (1940), 415-37. 5 The outstanding example is the massive, seven-volume work by Werner Kaegi, Jacob Burckhardt, eine Biographic (Basel: Benno Schwabe Verlag, 1947-82) (hereafter cited as JBB). Although it goes into great detail about such matters as the various short vacations that Burckhardt took throughout his life, it does not examine sufficiently the two main sources for his mature views on politics - i.e., his lectures on the study of history and his letters to his friend in the Prussian civil service, Friedrich von Preen. Other writers have been equally dismissive of Burckhardt's political importance. J.W. Thompson describes him as an 'ardent aesthete' uninterested in social or political problems; A History of Historical Writing, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1942), 452-5. And A.W. Levi argues that his aesthetic concerns totally overwhelmed any of his moral or political feelings; Humanism and Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 192-203. 6 See his letter to Eduard Schauenburg, 5 May 1876: 'We all may perish, but at least I will choose for myself the interests for which I will perish, namely the culture of Old Europe [die Bildungs Alteuropas],' The Letters of Jacob Burckhardt, ed. and trans. Alexander Dru (New York: Pantheon, 1955), 97 (hereafter cited as Letters). For Burckhardt as an antiquarian conservative, see James Hastings Nichols's Introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Force and Freedom: Reflections on History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 3-76; Hugh Trevor-Roper's Introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Judgements on History and Historians, trans. Harry Zohn (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959), 11-19 (quotations and page numbers are from this edition and will be cited as Judgements); and Gottfried Dietze's Introduction to Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1979), 9-26 (quotations and page numbers are from this edition and are cited hereafter as Reflections). 7 See chapter 6 below for a full discussion of the Burckhardt-Nietzsche connection. 8 Letter to Burckhardt, 5 Jan. 1889, in Selected Letter of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 346 (hereafter cited as Nietzsche, Selected Letters). 9 Letter to Burckhardt, 4 Jan. 1889, ibid., 345. 10 Letter to Ludwig von Pastor, 13 Jan. 1896, Letters, 234-5.

Notes to pages 5-13 229 11 See his letter to Freidrich von Preen, 28 June 1872, Letters, 152. 12 Of note is a short review by Reinhold Niebuhr, The Historian as Prophet/ Nation 156 (10 April 1943), 530-1. 13 For example, Lionel Gossman, Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study of Unseasonable Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 14 This apt phrase is used by Alberto Coll to describe one of the books based on Burckhardt's lectures, Judgements on History and Historians. See Coil's 'Foreword' to the Liberty Fund reprint of this book (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 1999), xvii. 15 There are two English translations based on Griechische Kulturgeschichte, each providing selections largely from different parts of the manuscript: History of Greek Culture, trans. Palmer Hilty (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1963), and The Greeks and Greek Civilization, ed. Oswyn Murray and trans. Sheila Stern (New York: St Martin's Griffen, 1999). I provide citations to the appropriate volume, with modifications if required based on the Gesamtausgabe, vol. 8. 16 Reflections, 179. 17 Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity, 303. 18 Iselin quoted in JBB, I, 38; cited in Lionel Gossman, 'Basel/ in Nicolas Bouvier, Gordon Craig, and Lionel Gossman, eds., Geneva, Zurich, Basel: History, Culture and National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 78. 19 For much of this paragraph, and a good deal of the discussion of Basel throughout the book, I am indebted to the work of Lionel Gossman, the leading intellectual historian of Basel. His most thorough chronicle of that city's intellectual climate in the nineteenth century is the masterful Basel in the Age of Burckhardt; his chapter 'Basel' (ibid.) is also an excellent overview. 20 On Basel's theological traditions, see Thomas Albert Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 21 Gossman, 'Basel/ 75. 22 Emil Diirr, ed., Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist: Mil seinen Zeitungsberichten aus den fahren 1844/45 (Zurich: Fretz und Wasmuth, 1937), 40 (based on Gossman's translation, cited in Basel in the Age of Burckhardt, 103). 23 Gossman, Basel in the Age of Burckhardt, 102. 24 This phrase is Gossman's, in 'Basel/ 77; see also Gossman, 'Basle, Bachofen and the Critique of Modernity in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century/ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47 (1984),

230 Notes to pages 13-20 136-85; and Gossman, 'Antimodernism in Nineteenth Century Basle: Franz Overbeck's Antitheology and JJ. Bachofen's Antiphilology/ Interpretation 16 (1989), 359-89. 25 Overbeck went to Basel initially intending to stay only until a better position turned up in Germany. But he burned his bridges and excluded himself from a post in theology at any major German university with the publication in 1873 of a scathing critique of his discipline, How Christian Is Our Present-Day Theology? trans. Martin Henry (New York: Continuum, 2003). For more on Overbeck, see Martin Henry, Franz Overbeck: Religion and History In the Thought of Franz Overbeck (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995). Nietzsche arrived in Basel in 1869 at the age of twenty-four with similar intentions to stay only so long as it took to earn a reputation in his field. But he too became alienated from his discipline because of his eccentric writings and stayed in Basel until ill health forced him to resign from teaching in 1879. The University of Basel, in its generosity, kept him on a pension for the rest of his life. 26 Gossman, Basel in the Age ofBurckhardt, 8. 1. A Historian in Troubled Times 1 Jacob's grandfather, Johann Rudolf Burckhardt, was pastor of St Peter's Church in Basel for fifty-four years. He was also a founding member of the pietist German Christian Society (Deutsche Christentumgesellschaft), created to 'fight the godless effects of rationalism on the youths of Germany and Switzerland.' Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 115-16. 2 On de Wette, see ibid., chaps. 2-3. 3 Gossman, 'Basel,' in Nicolas Bouvier, Gordon Craig, and Lionel Gossman, eds., Geneva, Zurich, Basel: History, Culture and National Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 72-3. 4 Letter to Johannes Riggenbach, 28 Aug. 1838, Letters, 35-7 (modified translation). 5 Letter to Johannes Riggenbach, 9 Nov. 1838, ibid., 38. 6 Letter to Friedrich von Tschudi, 1 Dec. 1839, ibid., 47-8 (modified translation). 7 Thomas Albert Howard, 'Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of "Crisis" and "Transition,"' Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), 152.

Notes to pages 20-2 231 8 See especially his letter to a young student, Arnold von Salis, who had apparently remarked in a letter to Burckhardt that the contemporary era was an important 'transitional period' (the original letter to Burckhardt is missing). Burckhardt responds by drawing the student's attention to 'the worries and troubles in store for all spiritual things within the next few years, resulting from the ever-increasing emphasis on material things ... and from the fact that we are at the beginning of a series of wars, etc.' Burckhardt concludes that 'something great, new and liberating must come out of Germany, and what is more in opposition to power, wealth and business; it will have to have its martyrs; it must be something which will swim above the water and survive political, economic and other catastrophes. But what? There you out-question me. It might even be that we too should fail to recognize it if it came into the world.' 21 April 1872, Letters, 150-1. 9 Letter to Heinrich Schreiber, 15 Jan. 1840, ibid., 49. 10 See his letter to Louise Burckhardt, 15 April 1841, ibid., 61. 11 See Felix Gilbert, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years: The Road to Cultural History/ Journal of the History of Ideas 47 (1986), 255. 12 For an excellent analysis of the salon and its relation to Romantic politics, see Edith Waldstein, Bettine von Arnim and the Politics of Romantic Conversation (Columbia, SC: Random House, 1988). A series of scholarly articles on Bettina's politics and literary contribution can be found in Hike P. Frederiksen and Katherine R. Goodman, eds., Bettina Brentano-von Arnim: Gender and Politics (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995). 13 Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity (Montreal: McGillQueen's University Press, 2000), 80. 14 For example, Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 7; Gilbert, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years/ 255. 15 Waldstein, Bettine von Arnim and the Politics of Romantic Conversation, 31. 16 Wolfgang Hardtwig, Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Alteuropa und moderner Welt: Jacob Burckhardt in seiner Zeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1974), 290-8. 17 Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity, 81. 18 Letter to Louise Burckhardt, 5 April 1841, Letters, 60. 19 For example, his letter to Louise Burckhardt, 11 Aug. 1840, ibid., 56-7. Burckhardt seldom passed up a chance during his student days to ridicule 'little Ranke.' He put down his teacher's diplomatic pretensions and made fun of his overweening concern with rank and position. Felix Gilbert

232 Notes to pages 23-9 suggests that some of his most malicious stories about Ranke came from the politically liberal circle in which the young man was then moving; see Gilbert, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years/ 253 n. 17. Burckhardt's disdain for Ranke's 'civil service attitude' may also have something to do with his patrician breeding; see Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 95. Much has been written on Ranke and Burckhardt, and we return to this issue in the next chapter. 20 Letter to Heinrich Schreiber, 15 Jan. 1840, Letters, 50. 21 Letter to Louise Burckhardt, 15 Aug. 1840, ibid., 58. 22 See Jean Nurdin, 'Jacob Burckhardt et le refus de la modernite/ Revue d'Allemagne 14 (1982), 89. 23 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 12 Sept. 1846, Letters, 101. 24 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 9 Dec. 1846, ibid., 103. 25 23 Aug. 1848, ibid., 107. 26 See Alexander Dru's Introduction, ibid., 14. 27 (Before 14) Sept. 1849, ibid., 107. 28 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 21 April 1944, ibid., 91. See Dru's introduction, ibid., 14-15. 29 For more details, see Emil Diirr's explanatory introduction to his edition of Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist, 7-20. See also Hinde, The Development of Jacob Burckhardt's Early Political Thought/ 429-32. 30 Burckhardt, in Diirr, ed., Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist, 16. 31 Charles H. O'Brien, 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Historian as Socratic Humanist/ Journal of Thought 16 (1981), 55. 32 Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity, 104. 33 Burckhardt in Diirr, ed., Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist, 17. 34 Charles O'Brien refers to Burckhardt's humanistic conception of politics as 'Socratic'; that is, 'he served the community like Socrates as a teacher.' In 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Historian as Socratic Humanist/ History of European Ideas 15 (1992), 52. 35 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 28 June 1845, Letters, 94. 36 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 18 April 1845, ibid., 93; see also letter to H. Schauenburg, 5 May 1846, ibid., 97. 37 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 12 Sept. 1846, cited in Valentin Gitermann, Jacob Burckhardt als Politischer Denker (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1957), 24. 38 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 28 June 1845, Letters, 94-5. 39 Letter to Gottfried Kinkel, 10 Dec. 1846, ibid., 103. 40 Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? 66.

Notes to pages 30-6 233 41 Letter to Hermann Schauenburg, 28 Feb. 1846, Letters, 96. 42 Quoted approvingly by Jorn Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Postmodernism/ History and Theory 24 (1985), 246. 'We have to learn,' Riisen adds, 'that the culture critique from this point of view is a hidden ally of the disaster it laments.' 43 Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 236. 44 The parallel between Goethe's and Burckhardt's Italian journeys is at least worth noting. Georg Lukacs concludes about Goethe that he fled to Italy mainly 'because his attempt to reform the principality of Weimar' foundered on courtly obstinacy. Goethe and His Age (London: Merlin, 1968), 15. 45 Reflections, 37. 46 Letter to Hermann Schauenburg, 5 May 1846, Letters, 97. 47 For example, letter to Arnold von Salis, 21 April 1872, ibid., 151: Things have reached the point at which first-class minds, which ten years ago devolved to scholarship, the Church or the Civil Service are moving over in appreciable numbers to the business party!' 48 Letter to Albert Brenner, 17 October 1855, Letters, 114-15. 49 Woodruff D. Smith, Politics and the Sciences of Culture in Germany 18402920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 185. 50 The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S.G.C. Middlemore, with Introduction by Benjamin Nelson and Charles Trinkaus, 2 vols., illustrated ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), I, 102. 51 Kaegi, JBB, III, 710-11. 52 Civilization, I, 104. 53 See Kaegi, JBB, III, 415ff. 54 Thomas A. Howard, 'Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of "Crisis" and "Transition,"' Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), 155. 55 Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? 53. 56 Peter Gay, Style in History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1974), 166. 57 The Age of Constantine the Great, trans. Moses Hadas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 10-11 (emphasis added). 58 Hugh Trevor-Roper, 'Jacob Burckhardt,' Proceedings of the Royal British Academy, 70 (1984), 366. 59 The Age of Constantine the Great, 220. In his lectures on ancient Greece, Burckhardt makes a similar comment about the link between a people's actual physical appearance and its artistic production. In this case, the Greeks were believed to be more beautiful than any other people. 'A

234 Notes to pages 36-43 nation of ugly people/ he says, 'would not have been able to produce this beauty merely by longing for it, and what passed for beauty must often have been seen in reality.' Jacob Burckhardt, The Creeks and Greek Civilization, ed. Oswyn Murray, trans. Sheila Stern (New York: St Martin's Griffen Edition, 1999), 127. 60 The Age of Constantine the Great, 243. 61 Trevor-Roper, 'Jacob Burckhardt/ 366. 62 The Age of Constantine the Great, 214. 63 Reflections, 189. 64 The Age of Constantine the Great, 292. 65 Ibid., 336. 66 Reflections, 292. 67 Letter to Carl von Gersdorff, 7 Nov. 1870, Nietzsche Briefwechsel, ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari, Abt. 2, Bd. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977), 155. 68 Reflections, 315. 69 The Age of Constantine the Great, 293. 70 Reflections, 308. 71 Gay, Style in History, 167. 72 The Age of Constantine the Great, 293. 73 Reflections, 321 ff. 74 Ibid., 330. 75 Ibid., 332. 76 Ibid., 333. 77 Civilization, 1,126-42. For a commentary, see Robert M. Kingdon, 'The Continuing Utility of Burckhardt's Thought on Renaissance Politics/ in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Jacob Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later (Laurence, Kansas, 1960), 7-13. 78 See, for example, Charles S. Singleton, 'The Perspective of Art/ Kenyon Review 15 (1953), 169-89. 79 William Kerrigan and Gordon Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 55. 80 Ibid., 56. 81 Civilization, II, 442. 82 Nelson and Trinkaus, 'Introduction' to Civilization, 19. 83 One way Burckhardt himself kept faith with the historical continuum was to amass a large private collection of photographs of great painting, sculpture, and architecture, which he used for his lectures on art history. He remarked, only half-facetiously, that he did so in order to assure that there would be in the future at least some record of their existence!

Notes to pages 43-6

235

84 Letter to Eduard Schauenburg, 5 Dec. 1869, Letters, 132. 85 Wolfflin's most famous book is Principles of Art History: The Problem of Development of Style in Later Art, trans. M.D. Hottinger (New York: Dover Publications, 1949). For the relationship between the two men, see Jacob Bnrckhardt und Heinrich Wolfflin: Briefwechsel und andere Dokumente ihrer Begegnung 1882-1897, ed. Joseph von Gantner (Basel: Schwabe, 1989). 86 O'Brien, 'Jacob Burckhardt/ 67. 87 On the relation between Burckhardt's commitment to lecturing without notes and his historical method, see Jiirgen Grofie, 'Reading History: On Jacob Burckhardt as a Source-Reader/ Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), 525-47. 88 Alison Brown, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Renaissance/ History Today 38 (1988), 21. 89 Ludwig von Scheffler, summer 1876, in Sander L. Gilman, ed., Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of His Contemporaries, trans. David J. Parent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 67. 90 Letter to Carl von Gersdorff, 7 Nov. 1870, Nietzsche Briefiuechsel, 155. 91 Twilight of the Idols, 'What the Germans Lack/ §5, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), 510. 92 Letter to Burckhardt, 5 Jan. 1889, in Selected Letters ofFriedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 346. 93 Letter to Nietzsche, 25 Feb. 1872, Letters, 158. 94 Ludwig von Scheffler, summer 1876, in Gilman, ed. Conversations with Nietzsche, 71. 95 There is an English translation of the original section on painting, Burckhardt, The Cicerone: An Art Guide to Painting in Italy, trans. A.H. Clough (New York: Garland Press, 1979). 96 In English, see Burckhardt, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, trans. James Palme and ed. Peter Murray (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), and The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy, trans, and ed. Peter Humphrey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 97 First published in German in 1898; for an English translation, see Burckhardt, Recollections of Rubens, trans. M. Hottinger (New York: Garland Press, 1978). 98 Quoted in Klaus Berger, 'Jacob Burckhardt as an Art Historian/ in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Jacob Burckhardt and the Renaissance, 38. 99 Reflections.,^. 100 The Greeks and Greek Civilization, 9.

236 Notes to pages 46-50 101 Reflections, 139. 102 Ibid., 139. 103 For an exploration of this paradox, see Jorn Riisen, 'Die Uhr, der Stunde schlagt: Geschichte als Prozess der Kultur bei Jacob Burckhardt,' in KarlGeorg Faber and Christian Meier, eds., Historische Prozesse (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978), 197-215. 104 Judgments, 23. 105 Ibid., 24; cf. Reflections, 38: 'they are barbarians because they have no history, and vice versa.' 106 For a discussion of German Romantic political thought, see Frederick C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), Part II, 189-278. 107 David Gross, 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Critique of Mass Society,' European Studies Review 8 (1978), 393-410. 108 Ibid., 397. 109 Jiirgen Kuczynski, Die Muse und der Historiker (Berlin, DDR: Akademie, 1974), 20 and 26. The more orthodox Marxist line on Burckhardt appears in Johannes Wenzel, Jacob Burckhardt in der Krise seiner Zeit (Berlin, DDR: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1967). 110 Kuczynski, Die Muse und der Historiker, 20-1. Kuczynski further suggests that Burckhardt's teaching about the state and power renders him 'totally unsuitable' to the ideological requirements of the contemporary German bourgeoisie. Burckhardt would have opposed not only the Nazi regime, as numerous bourgeois commentators have indicated, but also the now-resurgent Federal Republic. He would, for instance, have aligned himself with those forces that today are against military aggression and the proliferation of atomic weapons. 111 Mommsen, 'Jacob Burckhardt - Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom,' Government and Opposition 18 (1983), 473. 112 Letter to H. Schauenburg, 5 May 1846, Letters, 97. 113 Gottfried Dietze, 'Introduction' to Reflections, 18. 114 The influence of this mode of thinking was to be profound. In a sweeping survey of German aesthetic and political thought from Winckelmann to Marcuse, Josef Chytry has demonstrated the importance to German thinkers of this quest for a social and political community that accords primacy, though not exclusiveness, to the aesthetic dimension in human consciousness and activity. The Aesthetic State: A Quest in Modern German Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

Notes to pages 51-9

237

115 On the influence of Herder on the Romantics, see P.M. Barnard, Herder's Social and Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 153-67. 116 For example, Jorn Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt.' 117 Frederick C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 229. 118 See Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism, especially 34-80. 119 Writing about the influences on his On Liberty, Mill said: The only author who preceded me of whom I thought it appropriate to say anything about was Humboldt.' Cited in Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism, 111. 120 Judgements, 204. 121 Reflections, 205. 122 Ibid., 218. 123 See letter to F. von Preen, 2 July 1871, Letters, 147. 124 Judgements, 213. 125 Reflections, 217. 126 Judgements, 214. 127 Reflections, 208. 128 See the letters to F. von Preen, July 1870 to March 1872, Letters, 139-50. 129 Judgements, 203-20. 130 Letter to Max Alioth, 10 Sept. 1881, Letters, 205. 131 Letter to F. von Preen, 1 May 1881, ibid., 202. 132 28 June 1872, ibid., 152. 133 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Historian as Prophet/ Nation 156 (10 April 1943), 531. 134 See Jeffrey Paul von Arx, Progress and Pessimism: Religion, Politics and History in Late Nineteenth Century Britain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). 135 Carl E. Schorske, 'Introduction' to Bouvier et al., Geneva, Zurich, Basel, 9. 2. Cultural versus Political History: Burckhardt and Ranke 1 Friedrich Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ in German History: Some New German Views, ed. and trans. Hans Kohn (Boston: Beacon Press, 1954), 141-56. 2 For example, Burleigh Taylor Wilkins, 'Some Notes on Burckhardt/ Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959), 124; and Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 122.

238 Notes to pages 59-62 3 See Felix Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 93-105. 4 To Louise Burckhardt, 5 April 1841, Letters, 61. 5 Letter to Kinkel, 30 Dec. 1841, cited by Gilbert in 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years: The Road to Cultural History/ Journal of the History of Ideas 47 (1986), 254. 6 See Hugh Trevor-Roper, 'Jacob Burckhardt,' Proceedings of the British Royal Academy 70 (1984), 360-1. 7 See Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, rev. ed. (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1983). 8 Today, in post-reunification Germany, historians have again become proponents of the 'normality' of the nation-state and have attempted to recreate the nineteenth-century role of history as the leading subject of political orientation. See Stefan Berger, The Search for Normality: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany since 1800 (Providence, RI: Bergahn Books, 1997). 9 Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 232. 10 Ranke, cited in Peter Gay, Style in History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974), 73. 11 Burckhardt wrote two longer works for Ranke's seminar, both commonly regarded as belonging to the Ranke school: a study of Carl Martell and another of Conrad von Hochstaden. The first essay later served as his dissertation at the University of Basel; it begins with the Rankean declaration: 'Establishment of the facts is the purpose of this work.' Burckhardt's Conrad is also usually seen as a 'typical work of the Ranke school' (Gilbert, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Year's,' Journal of the History of Ideas 47 [1986], 258). But John Hinde, in Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000), 183-6, argues persuasively that this is not the case - that this study is 'at worst an atypical, at best an early (if not entirely successful) attempt by the young scholar to write cultural history.' Hinde demonstrates his point with a shrewd comparison of Heinrich von Sybel's portrayal of Conrad von Hochstaden (with Sybel representing the Ranke-inspired 'Prussian' school view) and Burckhardt's version (which is Kugler-inspired and prototypical of cultural history). 12 Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Volker, cited in Leonard Krieger, Ranke: The Meaning of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 4.

Notes to pages 62-6

239

13 Ranke, 'Vom Einfluss der Theorie/ cited in ibid., 5. 14 Berger, The Search for Normality, 27. 15 Burckhardt never took Ranke's diplomatic role seriously. Characteristic of his attitude is his account of a chance meeting with 'little Ranke' at Versailles in 1843: 'I went up to him - I would far sooner have ignored his presence, but it was possible he had already seen me. He gave me a very superior, diplomatic smile; in that moment he was shrouded in a little stale air from the court of Versailles of long ago. I tried to pump him about what he was doing in Paris, and maliciously gave him to suppose that I was thinking of diplomatic missions. He smiled doubly as delicately as before and fell into the trap, answering: "I have found some very choice things in the archives!" I knew quite well that his diplomatic missions were of no importance, but he is flattered if one appears to believe in them.' Letter to Albrecht Welters, 20 July 1843, Letters, 82. 16 Theodore H. Von Laue, Leopold Ranke: The Formative Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950), 101. 17 'A Dialogue on Politics/ trans. Theodore H. Von Laue; The Great Powers/ trans. Hildegarde Hunt Von Laue, in ibid., 152-218. 18 Ibid., 173-4. 19 The phrase is Ranke's; see Von Laue, Leopold Ranke, 96. 20 Ranke, 'A Dialogue on Politics/ 175. 21 Ranke quoted in Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ 145. 22 Ranke, 'A Dialogue on Politics/ 163. 23 Ibid., 167. 24 Ibid., 167. 25 Ibid., 169. 26 Ibid., 67. 27 White, Metahistory, 171. 28 Ranke, The Great Powers/ 216. 29 Ibid., 217. 30 In 1886 the British historian Lord Acton called this body of militant German scholars 'the first classics of imperialism, a garrison of distinguished historians that prepared the Prussian supremacy together with their own, and now hold Berlin like a fortress/ Cited in the 'Introduction' to Heinrich von Treitschke, Politics (Harbinger Edition) ed. and trans. Hans Kohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), xi. 31 Gay, Style in History, 76; see also Berger, The Search for Normality, 28. 32 Die Politik, ed. von Wilhelm Bleek (Frankfurt: Insel, 1997). 33 Glen R. Sharfman, Triedrich Christoph Dahlmann, in Encyclopaedia of

240

Notes to pages 67-72

Revolutions of 1848 (1997), ed. James G. Chastain, internet, available online at http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/dh/dahlman.htm], 1997. 34 Breisach, Historiography, 236. 35 Berger, The Search for Normality, 26, 29. 36 See Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, vols. I-VII, trans. Edan Paul and Cedar Paul (New York: McBride, Nast and Co., 1915-19). 37 Treitschke, cited in Berger, The Search for Normality, 31. 38 Treitschke, Politics, 65. 39 Ibid., 132-4. 40 Breisach, Historiography, 238. 41 For example, J.L. Herkless, "Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem/ History and Theory 9 (1970), 290-321; Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt'; Gossman, Basel in the Age ofBurckhardt, A Study of Unseasonable Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), chap. 15; and Trevor-Roper, 'Jacob Burckhardt.' 42 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ 142. 43 Peter Bergmann, Nietzsche: The Last Antipolitical German (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 99. 44 Ibid., 97. 45 Ibid., 98-9. 46 Letter to von Preen, 28 June 1872, Letters, 152. 47 Gilbert, 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years,' 257. 48 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ 153. 49 Reflections, 52. 50 Ibid., 55. 51 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ 143-4. 52 Meinecke, "Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtnngen von Jacob Burckhardt/ in Historische Zeitschrift97 (1906), 57-62. Years later, Meinecke denied that he ever 'reproached Burckhardt for not having taken part in the struggle for the national state. No, at that time [1906] I only stated that through nonparticipation in this struggle he must arrive at an alternative historical view of things.' Letter to Walter Goetz, cited in J.L. Herkless, 'Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem/ History and Theory and Theory 9 (1970), 305. Meinecke was here responding to Carlo Antoni's analysis of his view in From History to Sociology, which in 1940 had just been translated into German; see the English translation by Hayden White (London: Merlin Press, 1959), 110. 53 Meinecke, 'Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen von Jacob Burckhardt/ 560. 54 Ibid., 561.

Notes to pages 73-82 241 55 Meinecke, 'Carl Neumann iiber Jacob Burckhardt/ Historische Zeitschrift 138 (1928), 79-83. For a full discussion, see Herkless, 'Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem.' 56 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt,' 147. 57 Ibid., 144. 58 Ibid., 146. 59 Ibid., 150. 60 Letter to F. von Preen, 26 April 1872, Letters, 151. 61 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt,' 147. 62 Ibid., 148. 63 Cited in Richard W. Sterling, Ethics in a World of Power: The Political Ideas of Friedrich Meinecke (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), 293. 64 Meinecke, The German Catastrophe, trans. Sidney B. Fay (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), 1-2. 65 Sterling, Ethics in a World of Power, 294-5. 66 Meinecke, German Catastrophe, 103. 67 Ibid., 108-21. 68 ]udgements, 215. 69 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt/ 149 (emphasis added). 70 Ibid. 71 Reflections, 60. 72 Von Laue, Leopold Ranke, 97. 73 On this point, see Herkless, 'Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem,' 316. 74 Meinecke, 'Ranke and Burckhardt,' 150. 75 Ibid., 151. 76 Ibid., 153. 77 Ibid., 150. 78 Joseph Mali, 'Political Restoration or Cultural Renaissance? Historiographical Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt/ Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fiir deutsche Geshichte 25 (1996), 106. 79 On this point, see Joseph Mali, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Myth, History and Mythistory/ History and Memory 3 (1991), 86-118. 80 Meinecke, Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook, trans. J.E. Anderson; rev. trans. H.D. Schmidt; with foreword by Sir Isaiah Berlin (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), Ivi-lviii. 81 Croce, History as the Story of Liberty, trans. Sylvia Sprigge (New York: W.W. Norton, 1941), 103. 82 Rossi, The Ideological Valences of Twentieth-Century Historicism/ History and Theory, B 14, (1975) 15-29.

242 Notes to pages 82-93 83 Herder, 'Yet Another Philosophy of History/ in Herder, J.G. Herder on Social and Political Culture, trans. P.M. Barnard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 184. 84 Reflections, 295. 85 Alan Kahan (Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992], 92) suggests that Burckhardt, Mill, and Tocqueville share an Aristotelian understanding of human nature. Their 'aristocratic liberal' thought, he says, is basically teleological, since their common values of liberty, individuality, and diversity presuppose that these values are fundamental human needs. Kahan suggests further that for these three thinkers political participation is a fundamental need and thus a good in itself. While this may be easier to see in Mill or Tocqueville, it is not a very prominent feature in Burckhardt's worldview - as we see in chapter 4, he seems rather to repudiate it. 86 Reflections, 40. 87 Weintraub, Visions of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 13. 88 Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism, 206-7. 89 Reflections, 40. 3. Burckhardt's Cultural History: Philosophy, Style, and Poetry 1 Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche/ in his The Importance of Nietzsche: Ten Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 45. 2 Letter to Karl Fresenius, 19 June 1842, Letters, 73. 3 On this point, see John R. Hinde, 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Art of History/ Storia della storiografa 30 (1996), 107-23. 4 Letter to Karl Fresenius, 19 June 1842, Letters, 73-5. 5 History of Greek Culture, 156. 6 Ibid., 305. 7 Ibid., 302. 8 Ibid., 305. 9 Benjamin C. Sax, 'State and Culture in the Thought of Jacob Burckhardt/ Annals of Scholarship 3 (1985), 15. 10 Oswyn Murray, 'Editor's Introduction' to The Greeks and Greek Civilization, xli. 11 Ibid., 57-8. 12 Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), 301.

Notes to pages 94-101 243 13 Letter to Willibald Beyschlag, 14 June 1842, Letters, 73 (modified translation; emphasis added). 14 On this point, see Weintraub, Visions of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 119; and C.V. Wedgewood, 'Jacob Burckhardt/ Encounter 13 (1959), 38. 15 Letter to Karl Fresenius, 19 June 1842, Letters, 73. 16 Letter of 25 Feb. 1874, ibid., 158. 17 Letter of 5 April 1879, Letters, 187. 18 Letter to Nietzsche, 13 Sept. 1882, ibid., 209. 19 Letter to Nietzsche, 26 Sept. 1886, ibid., 211-12. 20 Letter to Albert Brenner, 16 March 1856, ibid., 125. 21 See Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, 3 vols., trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 1890) (hereafter WWI), vol. Ill, 138. 22 On this point, see Frederick Copleston, SJ, Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism (Andover, Me.: Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd, 1946), 110. 23 'Schopenhauer's Aesthetic Theory,' in Michael Fox, ed., Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), 132. 24 Schopenhauer, WWI, III, 224. 25 Ibid., 220-30. 26 Ibid., 221. 27 Ibid., 222. 28 Herbert Schnadelbach, Philosophy in Germany: 1831-1933, trans. Eric Mathews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 62. 29 Stephen Houlgate, Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 27. 30 Schopenhauer, WWI, III, 225. 31 Ibid., 226. 32 Ibid., 226-7. 33 Ibid., 228. 34 Schnadelbach, Philosophy in Germany, 61. 35 W.T. Jones, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952), 898. 36 Schopenhauer, WWI, I, 316-17. 37 Leo Strauss makes this same point: 'Above all, Thucydides surely lets us see the universal in the individual event which he narrates and through it: it is for this reason that his work is meant to be a possession for all times. On the basis of the Aristotelian remark one is therefore compelled to say that Thucydides is not a historian simply but a historian-poet; he does in

244 Notes to pages 101-11 the element of prose what the poets do in the element of poetry.' The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1964), 143. 38 Schopenhauer, WW/, I, 318. 39 Ibid., 322. 40 Ibid., 326-8. 41 Horkheimer, 'Schopenhauer Today,' in Fox, ed., Schopenhauer, 22. 42 Ibid., 32-3. 43 Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche,' 45. See also Wilkins, 'Some Notes on Burckhardt/ Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959), 130: 'a good part of Burckhardt's "reflections on history" can be regarded as an attempted application to historical thinking of Schopenhauer's judgement that the man who has read Herodotus has read enough history.' 44 See Felix Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 3-10. 45 Reflections, 46. 46 Letter to Friedrich von Preen, New Year's Eve, 1870, Letters, 145. 47 The Greeks and Greek Civilization, 7. 48 Bernard Yack stresses this difference between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in The Longing for Total Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 324. 49 Cited in Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 116. 50 Letter to Albrecht Brenner, 16 March 1856, Letters, 122. 51 Charles O'Brien, 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Historian as Socratic Humanist/ Journal of Thought 16 (1981), 65. 52 Reflections, 34. 53 Letter to Johannes Riggenbach, 12 Dec. 1838, Letters, 39. 54 Cited in Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 115. See also Kaegi, JBB, I 21 and 228. 55 Letter to H. Schauenburg, 10 June 1844, Letters, 92. 56 Judgements, 24. 57 Burckhardt in Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 138; cf. Kaegi, JBB, III, 693-4. 58 Albert Salomon, 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man/ Review of Politics 2 (1940), 418. 59 Reflections, 121. 60 Nichols, introduction to Force and Freedom, 75. 61 22 March 1847, Letters, 106. 62 Jorn Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Postmodernism/ History and Theory 24 (1985), 239. 63 Judgements, 74. 64 Reflections, 33.

Notes to pages 111-19 245 65 G.W.F. Hegel, Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 11. 66 Reflections, 33. 67 Hegel, Reason in History, 52-3. 68 Ernst Cassirer, 'Force and Freedom: Remarks on the English Edition of Jacob Burckhardt's "Reflections on History/" American Scholar (1944), 413. 69 Reflections, 39. 70 Salomon, 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man/ 417. 71 Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche/ 41. 72 See Klaus Berger, 'Jacob Burckhardt as an Art Historian/ in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Jacob Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later, 38-44, who maintains that Burckhardt successfully kept the two apart. 73 On this point, see Sax, 'State and Culture/ 22, and Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 126-37. 74 Carl J. Friedrich, 'Style as the Principle of Historical Interpretation/ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 14 (1955), 151. 75 Gombrich especially emphasizes Burckhardt's Hegelianism (Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and Art [Oxford: Phaidon, 1979], 34-42); but he does not point out that Burckhardt refused to see this Volksgeistas a temporary form of the Absolute Spirit on its pre-ordained path through history. 76 Nietzsche, Unfashionable Observations, trans, with an Afterword by Richard T. Gray (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995), 9. 77 Ibid., 12. 78 Thomas Leddy, 'Nietzsche on Unity of Style/ Historical Reflections/ Reflections historicities 21 (1995), 555. 79 M.S. Silk and J.P. Stern, Nietzsche on Tragedy(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 134. 80 For example, the lecture 'On Fortune and Misfortune in History/ Reflections, 317-40. 81 Greeks and Greek Civilization, 11. 82 Sax, 'State and Culture/ 12. 83 Ibid., 13. 84 History of Greek Culture, 53, 55. 85 Greeks and Greek Civilization, 186. 86 Ibid., 162. 87 Ibid., 166. 88 Ibid., 184. 89 Ibid., 12.

246 Notes to pages 119-25 90 E.M. Butler, The Tyranny of Greece over Germany (Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1958). 91 Greeks and Greek Civilization, 11. 92 See Frederick C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 245-64. 93 See Josef Chytry, The Aesthetic State: A Quest in Modern German Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 70-105; cf. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism, 84-110. 94 For an excellent overview of Nietzsche's early thought, with an emphasis on his political, cultural, and educational ideas, see Quentin P. Taylor, The Republic of Genius: A Reconstruction of Nietzsche's Early Thought (Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 1997). 95 Reflections, 174. 96 Burckhardt, History of Greek Culture, 16. 97 Reflections, 173. 98 History of Greek Culture, 131-2. 99 Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 132. 100 Ibid., 134. 101 Reflections, 38. 102 See Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt,' 235; cf. Sax, 'State and Culture,' 3. 103 Letter to F. von Preen, 17 Nov. 1876, Letters, 171. 104 Letter to Hermann Schauenburg, 10 June 1844, ibid., 92. 105 Reflections, 35. 106 Civilization, I, 21. 107 Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in NineteenthCentury Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 261. 108 John Hinde, 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Art of History,' Storia della Storiografa 30 (1996), 123. 109 Trevor-Roper, Introduction to Judgements, 11. 110 On this point, see, Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche/ 41. 111 Mentioned by Nichols in the 'Introduction' to Burckhardt, Force and Freedom: Reflections on History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 54. 112 William Kerrigan and Gordon Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), xii. 113 Wolfflin, Renaissance and Baroque, trans. Kathrin Simon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), 77. 114 Reflections, 107. 115 Michael Ann Holly, 'Cultural History as a Work of Art: Jacob Burckhardt and Henry Adams,' Style 22 (1988), 211.

Notes to pages 125-37 247 116 Sax, 'State and Culture/ 8. 117 John Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000), 215-16. 118 Civilization, I, 40. 119 Peter Gay, Style in History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974), 142. 120 Charles Singleton, The Perspective of Art,' Kenyan Review 15 (1953), 433. 121 Civilization, 1,104. 122 Reflections, 42. 123 5 March 1846, Letters, 97. 124 Reflections, 37. 125 Letter to F. von Preen, 17 Nov. 1876, Letters, 171-2. 126 This is the same critical attitude that Peter Bergmann has termed Nietzsche's 'anti-motif; see his Nietzsche, especially chapter 1. 4. Elements: Scepticism, Organicism, and Human Nature 1 2 3 4

Reflections, 34. Ibid., 318 and 339. Ibid., 33. Wolfgang Mommsen, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom/ Government and Opposition 18 (1983), 464. 5 Reflections, 36. 6 Albert Salomon, 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man/ Review of Politics 2 (1940), 433. 7 For the Romantic's organic conception of society, see Frederick C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 236-9. 8 Reflections, 39. 9 Letter to Von Preen, 17 Nov. 1876, Letters, 171. 10 Burckhardt, cited in David Gross, 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Critique of Mass Society/ European Studies Review 8 (1978), 396. 11 For an analysis of these and other examples of ancient and medieval golden-age theories, see Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London: Temple Smith, 1970), 187-97. 12 Reflections, 320. 13 judgements, 225. 14 Reflections, 323 15 judgements, 24-5. 16 Reflections, 103.

248 Notes to pages 137-40 17 Judgements, 27. 18 Ibid., 25. Burckhardt was especially sensitive about cruelty to animals. During one of his trips, for instance, he complained about the Italians: old men beat their donkeys, a fashionable man of the ruling elite abused his horses in public, and in Bologna a giant tortoise was displayed for money, though severely injured in its capture and suffering from gangrene. (Of the tortoise's owner, Burckhardt says that he 'would like to have given the fellow one in the face!') Letter to Max Alioth, 25 Aug. 1878, Letters, 184. 19 Judgements, 26. 20 Ibid., 214. 21 Reflections, 295. 22 Gross, 'Critique of Mass Society/ 395. 23 The leading example of the negative influence of mass society on art is the work of Richard Wagner ('a man who has caught time by the short hairs in a masterly fashion'), whose music appeals in a bold and ruthless way to the fears of the 'great crowd of nervous people who cling to it.' Letter to Von Preen, New Year's Eve, 1872, Letters, 157. 24 Letter to Von Preen, 3 July 1870, ibid., 140. 25 This last danger was symbolically represented by a rumour that spread throughout Basel on 23 May 1871 - the Louvre had been torched by a mob in Paris during the Commune rising. This was an extremely shocking moment for both Burckhardt and his young friend Nietzsche. See Burckhardt's letter to Von Preen, 2 July 1871 (Letters, 147): 'Yes, petroleum in the cellars of the Louvre and the flames in the other palaces are an expression of what the Philosopher calls "the will to live"; it is the last will and testament of mad fiends desiring to make a great impression on the world.' Compare Nietzsche's letter to Carl Von Gersdorff, 21 June 1871 (Selected Letters ofFriedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969], 81): 'When I heard of the fires in Paris, I felt for several days annihilated and was overwhelmed by fears and doubts; the entire scholarly, scientific, philosophical and artistic existence seemed an absurdity, if a single day could wipe out the most glorious works of art, even whole periods of art; I clung with earnest conviction to the metaphysical value of art, which cannot exist for the sake of poor human beings but which has higher missions to fulfill.' 26 Letter to Von Preen, 20 July 1870, Letters, 143. 27 Gross, 'Critique of Mass Society/ 399. 28 On this score, Burckhardt took special civic pride in the fact that Basel still had a 'class of business men that makes a splendid exception owing to the part they take in life outside their work.' The city offered the business

Notes to pages 140-7 249 person an opportunity to attend a wide variety of evening lectures on all sorts of topics, worldly and religious. Thus Burckhardt once noted that 'if there were a lecture each evening in the winter, it would be well attended.' The Young Business Men's Society, to which Burckhardt gave two lectures a year, ran 'an educational establishment the size of a respectable institute.' See the letter to Eduard Schauenburg, 5 Dec. 1869, Letters, 132. 29 3 July 1870, ibid., 141. 30 Letter to Von Preen, 2 July 1871, ibid., 147-8. 31 For example, Johannes Wenzel, Burckhardt in der Krise seiner Zeit (Berlin, DDR: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1967). 32 'The traditional legal system and the constitution were guardians of a sort, bad enough in their way, but at least guardians.' Letter to Von Preen, 2 Jan. 1880, Letters, 198. 33 Letter to Von Preen, 27 Feb. 1876, ibid., 171. 34 Letters to Von Preen, 19 February and 1 May 1881, ibid., 201-3. 35 For example, Reinhold Niebuhr, The Historian as Prophet/ Nation 156 (10 April 1943), 530-1. 36 Reflections, 73. 37 In Switzerland, Burckhardt's anti-Semitism became a public issue in the late 1990s. The controversy caused particular discomfort for the Swiss National Bank, which had dedicated to Burckhardt the new Swiss 1,000franc banknote released in April 1998. (It features Burckhardt's picture on one side, and illustrations on the other depict his favourite subjects: classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance.) The bank took the unusual step of issuing a press release defending its choice: 'The fact that, apart from his extensive complete works, [Burckhardt's] correspondence contains isolated anti-Semitic statements is to be deplored. Jacob Burckhardt's complete works may not be judged solely from this angle. The National Bank regrets that such passages hurt the feelings of some members of the community. Burckhardt was selected to illustrate the new 1000 franc note in appreciation of his complete works as a historian of culture and art. Burckhardt's writings ... contain no passages that can be labelled anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is not a subject that runs through Burckhardt's works.' Swiss National Bank, Bern/Zurich, Press Release, 14 May 1998. Internet. Available online at http://www.snb.ch/e7aktuelles/ pressemit/pre_980514.html 38 Lionel Gossman, Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study of Unseasonable Ideas(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 244. 39 On this point, see Fritz Stern's comments at the time of the increased

250 Notes to pages 148-52 public commentary in Switzerland about Burckhardt's attitude towards Jews. For a short article on the subject, including an interview with Stern, see Fritz Stern, 'Zeitlose Gedanken, zeitgebundene Urteile,' Tagesanzeiger, 22 Sept. 1999. Internet. Available online at http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/archiv/99september/990922/167104.htm. Stern also delivered an address in a prominent public lecture series dedicated to Burckhardt, 'Jacob Burckhardt, Friedrich Nietzsche und die Versuchung des Antisemitismus' (16 May 1999). For a seminal treatment of the 'pathological' elements of German cultural criticism, see Stern's The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the German Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). 40 Letter to Max Alioth, 24 July 1875, Letters, 169. 41 Peter Gay, Style in History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974), 145. 42 As Gossman (Basel in the Age of Burckhardt, 463, n 65) observes: 'The emancipation of the Jews, grudgingly conceded in 1866 in response to strong pressure from France, and to a lesser degree, the United States and Great Britain, must have been experienced by many in [Burckhardt's] social class as another blow to their once privileged status. In the referendum in Basel, the measure passed by a margin of only 482 citizens' votes, 1,278 votes having been passed against it.' 43 Letter to Von Preen, 2 Jan. 1880, Letters, 199. 44 Letter to Max Alioth, 10 Sept. 1881, ibid., 205. 45 Letter to Von Preen, 13 April 1882, ibid., 207. 46 Reflections, 340. 47 'Religions are the expression of human nature's eternal and indestructible metaphysical need,' ibid., 72. 48 Ibid., 76. 49 Ibid., 75. 50 Salomon, 'The Image of Man,' 421. 51 Reflections, 188-9. 52 Ibid., 76. 53 Ibid., 192-3. 54 Ibid., 194. 55 Letter to Louise Burckhardt, 16 July 1840, Letters, 55. 56 Burckhardt, quoted in Dru's introduction, ibid., 34. 57 21 April 1872, ibid., 151. 58 Burckhardt, quoted in Salomon, The Image of Man,' 420. 59 See Lewis Spitz, 'Reflections on Early and Late Humanism,' in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960), 24.

Notes to pages 153-9

251

60 Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche/ in his The Importance of Nietzsche: Ten Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 53. 61 Reflections, 338. 62 Letter to Von Preen, New Year's Eve 1872, Letters, 157. 63 Letter to Arnold von Salis, 21 April 1872, ibid., 151. 64 Reflections, 269-70. 65 Ibid., 272. 66 Ibid., 276. 67 Ibid., 274. 68 Ibid., 275. 69 Ibid., 275. 70 Judgements, 151. 71 For a good analysis of Burckhardt's art criticism and art history, see Hinde, Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity, chaps. 8-9. See also Claus Berger, 'Jacob Burckhardt as an Art Historian,' in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Burckhardt and the Renaissance,38-44, and Lionel Gossman, 'Jacob Burckhardt as an Art Historian,' Oxford Art Journal 11 (1988), 25-32. 72 Reflections, 296-8. 73 Ibid., 299-300. 74 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968), §983. 75 Ibid., §984. 76 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §212, in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. and trans, by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 1968). This volume also contains The Birth of Tragedy, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, and Ecce Homo. Any references below to these texts are from this edition. 77 Reflections, 306. 78 Ibid., 40. 79 Ibid., 311. 80 On this point, see Robert Kingdon, The Continuing Utility of Burckhardt's Thought on Renaissance Politics,' in Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Burckhardt and the Renaissance, 7-13. 81 Reflections, 309. 82 Ibid., 308. 83 Ibid., 298. 84 Letter to Von Preen, 26 Sept. 1890, Letters, 224. 85 Reflections, 311. 86 Judgements, 156.

252 Notes to pages 159-70 87 88 89 90 91

Mommsen, 'Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom/ 464. Reflections, 313. Ibid., 313. Ibid., 314-15. Thomas A. Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 158. 5. Themes: Freedom, the State, and Society

1 Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 5. 2 Albert Salomon, 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man,' Review of Politics 3 (1940), 417. See also Richard Sigurdson, 'Jacob Burckhardt's LiberalConservatism/ History of Political Thought 13 (1992), 487-511. 3 Here I disagree with Kahan, who claims that, contrary to popular opinion, Mill was not a democrat; Aristocratic Liberalism, 8. 4 See Hans Baron, 'Burckhardt's "Civilization of the Renaissance" a Century after Its Publication,' Renaissance News 13 (1960), 218-19; Karl Lowith, Jacob Burckhardt: der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1966), 152-88; and Benjamin C. Sax, 'State and Culture in the Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, Annals of Scholarship 3 (1985): 27-8. 5 Humboldt wrote the book as a young man in 1791-2, but it did not appear as a whole until 1854, almost twenty years after his death. Humboldt held off on publication because he feared trouble with the Prussian censors. However, sections appeared in Schiller's journal Neue Thalia. For an English translation, with an excellent Editor's Introduction, see Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, ed. J.W. Burrow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 6 For a full discussion of the role of Bildung in Humboldt and later German thinkers, see W.H. Bruford, The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation: 'Bildung' from Humboldt to Thomas Mann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). 7 Humboldt, Limits of State Action, 16. 8 Ibid., 64. 9 Ibid., 12. 10 See Sax, 'State and Culture/ 28. 11 Letter to Von Preen, 2 July 1871, Letters, 147. 12 Letter to Von Preen, 25 Sept. 1890, ibid., 223.

Notes to pages 171-81 253 13 On this point, see Karl Weintraub, Visions of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 132-4. 14 Cicerone, 118. 15 Ibid., 118-24. 16 Ibid., 147. 17 Ibid., 159. 18 See Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 136. 19 Recollections of Rubens, 23-4. 20 Weintraub, Visions of Culture, 135. 21 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, in Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, Reflections on the Revolution in France and The Rights of Man (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973), 45. 22 Reinhold Aris, History of Political Thought in Germany from 1789 to 1815 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 251. 23 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution, 202. 24 Ibid., 201. 25 On this point, see Brian R. Nelson, Western Political Thought: From Socrates to the Age of Ideology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), 225-46. 26 Letter to Von Preen, 17 Nov. 1876, Letters, 171. 27 Nelson, Western Political Thought, 242. 28 Jorn Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Post-Modernism,' History and Theory 24 (1985), 240. 29 Ibid., 243. 30 Ibid., 242, 31 Judgements, 174. 32 Riisen, 'Jacob Burckhardt/ 245. 33 Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 235. 34 For a fuller discussion of this conception of the state, see A.P. d'Entreves, The Notion of the State, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). 35 Burke, Reflections, 61. 36 Ibid., 62. 37 Ibid., 123. 38 Ibid., 62-3. 39 Ibid., 63-4. 40 Ibid., 66. 41 Ibid., 65. 42 Ibid., 66. 43 Ibid., 127-8. 44 History of Greek Culture, 10.

254 Notes to pages 181-6 45 46 47 48 49 50

Ibid., 11. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 14-15. Ellen Meiksins Wood, Peasant-Citizen and Slave (London: Verso, 1988), 22-8 notes this aspect of Burckhardt's political thought, and she points to an apparent contradiction in his view - namely, that, side by side with the argument that Athens was corrupted by the spread of antibanausic prejudice, we find the notion that the ultimate source of corruption was the triumph of the banausic mob. 51 History of Greek Culture, 82. 52 Burckhardt, quoted in Wood, Peasant-Citizen and Slave, 23. 53 Ibid., 25. 54 History of Greek Culture, 83. 55 Ibid., 102. 56 Felix Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 79. 57 Reflections, 172. 58 Judgements, 95. 59 On this point see Sax, 'State and Culture,' 12. 60 For an accessible analyses of Burckhardt's thesis and its reception, see Peter Elmer, 'Inventing the Renaissance: Burckhardt as Historian,' in Lucille Kekewich, ed, The Impact of Humanism(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 1-22. See also Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 179-328; Nelson and Trinkaus's Introduction to Civilization, I, 3-19; Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Burckhardt and the Renaissance; Denys Hays, 'Burckhardt's "Renaissance": 1860-1960,' History Today 10, no. 1 Qan. 1960), 14-23; Baron, 'Burckhardt's "Civilization,"' 207-22; E.M. Janssen, Jacob Burckhardt und die Renaissance (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1970); Philip Lee Ralph, The Renaissance in Perspective (New York: St Martin's, 1973); William Kerrigan and Gordon Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), and Lionel Gossman, 'Cultural History and Crisis: Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,' in Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering History: Culture, Politics, and the Psyche (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994), 404-27. 61 Gilbert, History: Politics or Culture?, 61, n 17.

Notes to pages 186-96 255 62 Civilization, I,143. 63 Ibid., 22. 64 Hans Baron, for one, criticizes Burckhardt for overstating this case. For Baron, the spirit of republicanism and civic participation in the Italian Renaissance requires greater attention. See 'Burckhardt's "Civilization/" 215-17. 65 Kerrigan and Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance, 15. 66 As many commentators have pointed out, Burckhardt's phrase 'Der Staat als Kunstwerk' brings to mind the title of Hegel's section on the Greeks, 'Das politische Kunstwerk,' in his Philosophy of History. For a critical discussion of the similarities between Burckhardt's cultural history and Hegel's philosophy, see E.H. Gombrich, Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and Art (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), 34-42. 67 Sax, 'State and Culture/ 9. 68 Kerrigan and Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance, 14. 69 Civilization, I, 27-8. 70 Kerrigan and Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance, 16. 71 Letter to Ludwig von Pastor, 13 Jan. 1896, Letters, 235. 72 See Nelson and Trinkaus' introduction to Civilization, 16; cf. Gombrich, Ideals and Idols,34-5. 73 Civilization, II, 442-3. 74 Ibid., I, 274. 75 Kerrigan and Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance, 30. 76 Civilization,II, 430. 77 Reflections, 136. 78 Judgements, 203-4. 79 Ibid., 218. 80 Reflections, 139. 81 Letter to Von Preen, 25 March 1890, in Letters, 223. 82 Reflections, 183. 83 Ibid., 71. 84 Michael Walzer, The Civil Society Argument/ in Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Citizenship (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 153. 85 Reflections, 71-2. 86 Ibid., 219. 87 Walzer, 'Civil Society/ 167. 88 David Gross, 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Critique of Mass Society/ European Studies Review 8 (1978), 404.

256 Notes to pages 199-202 6. Burckhardt and Nietzsche: Two Critiques of Modernity 1 Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). 2 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 28. 3 See, for example, Allan Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 4 Kaegi, JBB, IV, 52; see also ibid., VII, 36-73. 5 Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 205-8. 6 Alfred von Martin, Nietzsche und Burckhardt: Zwei Geistige Welten im Dialog, 3rd ed. (Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1945). 7 On this point, see E.M. Janssen, Jacob Burckhardt und die Griechen (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1971), 17-18. 8 Martin, Nietzsche und Burckhardt, 19-20, 38-44, 58-60, and 36. 9 Ibid., 173. 10 Peter Heller, Studies on Nietzsche (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1980), 90. 11 Edgar Salin, Jacob Burckhardt und Nietzsche (Basel: Verlag der Universitatsbibliothek, 1938; rpt. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1948); this book includes the texts of the complete exchange of letters between Nietzsche and Burckhardt. It was reissued in a slightly revised paperback edition, and without the letters, as Vom deutschen Verhangnis. Gesprach an der Zeitenwende: Burckhardt-Nietzsche (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1959). 12 See Karl Lowith's Jacob Burckhardt: der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1966). Lowith was especially shocked that Salin, a Jewish member of the Stefan George Circle, would exalt the wayward activism of Nietzsche over the more contemplative stance of Burckhardt. And he criticized Salin on other points as well. See Lowith, My Life in Germany before and after 1933, trans. Elizabeth King (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 22. 13 Charles Andler, Les Precurseurs de Nietzsche, vol. 1 of 6, (Paris: Editions Bossard, 1931), 265-339. 14 Burckhardt, Gesamtausgabe, ed. Emil Owen et al., 14 vols. (Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1929-34), vol. 8, xxiii-xxix. 15 Overbeck from 1889, quoted in Sander L. Gilman, ed., Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of His Contemporaries, trans. David J. Parent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 47.

Notes to pages 203-10 257 16 Erich Heller, 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche/ in his The Importance of Nietzsche: Ten Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 50. 17 Ibid., 53. 18 See especially the letter to Carl von Gersdorff, 7 Nov. 1870, Nietzsche Briefauechsel,ed. G. Colli and M. Montemari (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975-2003), vol. 2,155. 19 According to many accounts, Burckhardt's doubts about Nietzsche can be traced back to the period of their active acquaintance in Basel. See recollections by Heinrich Gelzer-Thurneysen, Paul Heinrich Widermann, and Overbeck in Gilman, ed. Conversations with Nietzsche, 44, 62, and 45-7. 20 Salin, Vom deutschen Verhangnis, 121. 21 Letter to Burckhardt, 22 Sept. 1886, Selected Letters ofFriedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 255. 22 Letter to Nietzsche, 26 Sept. 1886, Letters, 212. 23 Letter to Ludwig von Pastor, 13 Jan. 1896, ibid., 234-5. 24 Letter to Nietzsche, 25 Feb. 1874, ibid., 158. 25 19 March 1874, in Selected Letters, 122. 26 13 Jan. 1896, Letters, 235. 27 Paul Widermann, Nov. 1875, in Gilman, ed., Conversations with Nietzsche, 64. 28 Twilight of the Idols, 'What the Germans Lack/ Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), §5. 29 Letter to Burckhardt, 5 Jan. 1889, Selected Letters, 346. 30 Letter to Burckhardt, 4 Jan. 1889, Selected Letters, 345. 31 Nietzsche, Unfashionable Observations, trans, with Afterword, by Richard T. Gray (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995), 9. 32 Ibid., 197. 33 Nietzsche, What the Germans Lack/ §4. 34 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'The Case of Wagner/ in Walter Kaufmann, ed. and trans., The Basic Writings of Nietzsche (New York: Modern Library, 1968), §2. 35 Nietzsche, 'The Greek State/ trans. M.A. Mtigge, in The Complete Works of Nietzsche, vol. I, ed. Oscar Levy (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 8. 36 Ibid., 10. 37 Ibid., 11. 38 Ibid., 12-13. 39 From a Burckhardt lecture recorded by Heinrich Geltzer and excerpted in The Socratic Enigma, ed. by Herbert Spiegelberg (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1964), 242-3.

258 Notes to pages 210-14 40 Tame peoples like ourselves, 'whose lust for power no longer rages so blindly/ have no need for a strong state; for individual security, the strength of our state does us more harm than good. Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), §§199 and 179. 41 Nietzsche, 'Homer's Contest/ trans. M.A. Miigge, in Complete Works, vol. I, 60. 42 Ibid., 62. 43 Nietzsche, Twighlight of the Idols, 'The Problem of Socrates/ §8. 44 Civilization, I, 227. 45 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Preface, in Kaufmann, ed., Basic Writings. 46 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 'What I Owe to the Ancients/ §3. 47 Ibid., §4. 48 While there is no section on Nietzsche's view of Dionysius in Burckhardt's notes, there is a section on 'Tragedy.' And a few of Burckhardt's notes on the difference between Dionysius and Apollo, and one on poetry, refer to Nietzsche by name or to his book The Birth of Tragedy(Kaufmann, ed., Basic Writings). For details, see Stahelin's introduction to Griechische Kulturgeschichte, in Burckhardt, Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 8, xxv-xxviii. 49 Ehrenberg, 'Greek Civilization and Greek Man/ in his Aspects of the Ancient World: Essays and Reviews (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), 55. 50 F.A. Lea, The Tragic Philosopher: A Study ofFriedrich Nietzsche (London: Methuen, 1957), 241. 51 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 'Skirmishes of an Untimely Man/ §37. 52 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1968), §881. 53 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 'Skirmishes of an Untimely Man/ §37. 54 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §740. See also §§317, 326, 881, 882,1016, and 1017. 55 Ferguson, Renaissance in Historical Thought, 205-10. 56 von Martin, Nietzsche und Burckhardt, 93,119, and 137ff. 57 David Norbrook, 'The Life and Death of Renaissance Man/ Raritan 8 (1989), 104. This notion is evident, for instance, in works such as Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), which opens with a description of an execution in France when a traitor's body was torn apart by four horses pulling in different directions. 58 William Kerrigan and Gordon Braden, The Idea of the Renaissance, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 55. 59 See Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'Why I Write Such Good Books/ §1, and

Notes to pages 214-19 259 Twilight of the Idols, 'Skirmishes of an Untimely Man/ §37. These and another reference to Napoleon are the only instances of Nietzsche's linking the Ubermensch with specific historical personalities. See Detwiler, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism, 50. Yet there has been some scholarly disagreement over Nietzsche's understanding of Borgia. Walter Kaufmann, for instance, decries the common misconception that Nietzsche admired the duke. On the contrary, says Kaufmann, Borgia is simply an ideogram for 'unsublimated animal passion'; he is not to be admired, since he has yet to learn to sublimate his strong passions, but neither are we to be admired just because we are too feeble to have sinned. See Nietzsche, 224-5. Kaufmann's attempt to exonerate Nietzsche seems not only highly reconstructive and incomplete, but it is also silent on the decisive fact that the case of Borgia, like most other of Nietzsche's historical examples of highly organized will to power, necessarily involves political domination. What is more, I think that we should take seriously the extent of Nietzsche's admiration for Borgia's personal strength and willingness to deny the individuality and freedom of others in order to preserve and expand his own freedom and power. 60 Detwiler, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism, 53; cf. 33-7. 61 Civilization, 1,128. 62 Ibid., 130. 63 Ibid., 133. 64 Ibid., 129. 65 Nietzsche, Antichrist §61, in Kaufmann, Portable Nietzsche. 66 Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Part One, §16, in Kaufmann, ed., Basic Writings. 67 Nietzsche, The Greek State,' 17. 68 Reflections, 270. 69 Nietzsche, Unfashionable Observations, 70 George Brandes, 'An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism,' Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. A.G. Chater (London: Heinemann, 1914), 3-56. 71 Peter Heller, Studies on Nietzsche, 208. 72 Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §28. For a discussion of this topic, see Detwiler, Aristocratic Radicalism, 130. 73 Peter Heller, Studies on Nietzsche, 104. 74 Ibid., 106. 75 Letter to Hermann Schauenburg, (before 14) Sept. 1849, in Letters, 107. 76 See his letter to Nietzsche, 13 Sept. 1882, in ibid., 208-9. Here Burckhardt chides Nietzsche about his tyrannical bent and also urges him to teach history, to lecture ex professo on world history from his unique perspective.

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References

Works by Burckhardt

German Editions Briefe. Ed. Max Burckhardt. 10 vols. Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1949-86. Gesamtausgabe. Ed. Emil Diirr, Werner Kaegi, Samuel Merian, Albert Oeri, Hans Trog, Felix Stahelin, and Heinrich Wolfflin. 14 vols. Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1929-34. Griechische Kulturgeschichte. First pub. 1898-1902. Ed. by Rudolf Marx. Introduction by Felix Stahlen. 3 vols. Leipzig: Alfred Kroner, n.d. Historische Fragmente: aus dem Nachlass gesammelt von Emil Diirr. First pub. in 1929. Stuttgart: Koehler, 1957. Jacob Burckhardt als politischer Publizist: Mil seinen Zeitungsberichten aus den Jahren 1844-45. Ed. Emil Diirr. Zurich: Fretz und Wasmuth, 1937. Jacob BurckJwrdts Vorlesung iiber die Geschichte des Revolutionszeitalters. Ed. Ernst Zeigler. Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1974. Jacob Burcklwrdt und Heinrich Wolfflin: Briefwechsel und andere Dokumente ihrer Begegnung 1882-1897. Ed. Joseph von Gantner. Basel: Schwabe, 1989. WeltgeschichtlicJie Betrachtungen. First pub. in 1905. Ed. Werner Kaegi. Bern: Druck Hallweg, 1947. Translations The Age of Constantine the Great. First pub. in German in 1852. Trans. Moses Hadas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy. Trans, and ed. Peter Humphrey. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

262 References The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Trans. James Palmes and ed. Peter Murray. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. The Cicerone: An Art Guide to Painting in Italy. Trans. A.M. Clough. New York: Garland Press, 1979. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. First pub. in 1860. Trans. S.G.C. Middlemore, with Introduction by Benjamin Nelson and Charles Trinkaus. Illustrated ed. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Force and Freedom: Reflections on History. Ed., with Introduction, by James Hastings Nichols. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964. The Greeks and Greek Civilization. Ed. Oswyn Murray and trans. Sheila Stern. New York: St Martin's Griffen, 1999. History of Greek Culture. Trans. Palmer Hilty. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1963. Judgements on History and Historians. Trans. Harry Zohn, with Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959. Reprinted by Liberty Press, with an introduction by Alberto R. Coll. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1999. The Letters of Jacob Burckhardt. Ed. and trans. Alexander Dru. New York: Pantheon, 1955. Recollections of Rubens. Trans. M. Hottinger. New York and London: Garland Press, 1978. Reflections on History. Ed. Gottfried Dietze. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1979. Critical Literature Andler, Charles. 'Burckhardt.' In his Les Precurseurs de Nietzsche. Paris: Editions Bossard, 1931: 265-339. Baron, Hans. 'Burckhardt's "Civilization of the Renaissance" a Century after Its Publication.' Renaissance News 13 (1960): 207-22. Earth, Hans. 'Jacob Burckhardt und Friedrich Nietzsche.' Neuer Schweizer Rundschau Neue Folge 6 (1938-9): 26-37. Brown, Alison. 'Jacob Burckhardt's Renaissance.' History Today 38 (1988): 20-5. Cassirer, Ernst. 'Force and Freedom: Remarks on the English Edition of Jacob Burckhardt's Reflections on History.' American Scholar (1944): 407-17. Ehrenberg, Victor. 'Greek Civilization and Greek Man.' In his Aspects of the Ancient World: Essays and Reviews. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946. Elmer, Peter. 'Inventing the Renaissance: Burckhardt as Historian.' In Lucille Kekewich, ed., The Impact of Humanism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000: 1-22.

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Ferguson, Wallace K. The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948. Flaig, Egon. 'Asthetischer Historismus? Zur Asthetisierung der Historic bei Humboldt und Burckhardt.' Philosophisches Jahrbuch 94 (1987): 79-95. Gay, Peter. Style in History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1974. Gilbert, Felix. 'Cultural History and Its Problems.' In International Congress of Historical Sciences, Rapports. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1960: 40-58. - History: Politics or Culture? Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. - 'Jacob Burckhardt's Student Years: The Road to Cultural History.' Journal of the History of Ideas 47 (1986): 249-74. Gitermann, Valentin. Jacob Burckhardt als Politischer Denker. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1957. Gombrich, E.H. Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and Art. Oxford: Phaidon, 1979. Gossman, Lionel. 'Antimodernism in Nineteenth Century Basle: Franz Overbeck's Antitheology and J.J. Bachofen's Antiphilology.' Interpretation 16 (1989): 359-89. - 'Basel.' In Nicolas Bouvier, Gordon Craig, and Lionel Gossman, eds., Geneva, Zurich, Basel: History, Culture and National Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, 64-99. - 'Basle, Bachofen and the Critique of Modernity in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 47 (1984): 136-85. - Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study of Unseasonable Ideas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. - 'Cultural History and Crisis: Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. In Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering History: Culture, Politics and the Psyche. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994: 404-27. - 'Jacob Burckhardt as an Art Historian.' Oxford Art Journal 11 (1988): 25-32. Greenwood, E.B. 'From Heidegger to Burckhardt - Karl Lowith's Pilgrimage.' Encounter 72 (1989): 59-63. Gross, David. 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Critique of Mass Society.' European Studies Review 8 (1978): 393-410. Grofie, Jiirgen. 'Reading History: On Jacob Burckhardt as a Source-Reader.' Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 525-47. Hardtwig, Wolfgang. Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Alteuropa und moderner Welt: Jacob Burckhardt in seiner Zeit. Gottingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1974.

264 References Hays, Denis. 'Burckhardt's "Renaissance": 1860-1960.' History Today, 10 no. 1 (1960): 14-23. Heftrich, Eckhard. Hegel und Jacob Burckhardt. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967. Heller, Erich. 'Burckhardt and Nietzsche.' In his The Importance of Nietzsche: Ten Essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Heller, Peter. Studies on Nietzsche. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1980. Herkless, J.L. 'Meinecke and the Ranke-Burckhardt Problem.' History and Theory 9 (1970): 290-321. Hinde, John R. 'The Development of Jacob Burckhardt's Early Political Thought.' Journal of the History of Ideas (1992): 425-36. - 'Jacob Burckhardt and the Art of History.' Storia della storiografa 30 (1996): 107-23. - Jacob Burckhardt and the Crisis of Modernity. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. Holly, Michael Ann. 'Cultural History as a Work of Art: Jacob Burckhardt and Henry Adams.' Style 22 (1988): 209-19. Howard, Thomas A. 'Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of "Crisis" and "Transition."' Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 149-64. - 'A Pessimist of Promise.' National Interest 47 (1997): 89-95. - Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Janssen, E.M. Jacob Burckhardt und die Griechen. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1971. - Jacob Burckhardt und die Renaissance. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1970. Kaegi, Werner. Jacob Burckhardt, eine Biographic. 7 vols. Basel: Benno Schwabe, Verlag, 1947-82. Kahan, Alan S. Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Kerrigan, William, and Gordon Braden. The Idea of the Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Kuczynski, Jiirgen. Die Muse und der Historiker. Berlin, DDR: Akademie, 1974. Levi, A.W. Humanism and Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. Lowith, Karl. Jacob Burckhardt: der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1966.

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- Meaning and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. - My Life in Germany before and after 1933. Trans. Elizabeth King. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Mali, Joseph. 'Jacob Burckhardt: Myth, History and Mythhistory.' History and Memory 3 (1991): 86-118. - 'Political Restoration or Cultural Renaissance? Historiographical Reflections on Ranke and Burckhardt.' Tel Aviver Jahrbuchfiir deutsche Geschichte 25 (1996): 97-116. Martin, Alfred von. Die Religion bei Jacob Burckhardt. Munich: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1947. - Nietzsche und Burckhardt: Zwei Geistige Welten im Dialog, 3rd. ed. Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1945. Meinecke, Friedrich. 'Carl Neumann iiber Jacob Burckhardt.' Historische Zeitschrift138 (1928): 79-83. - 'Ranke und Burckhardt.' In German History: Some New German Views. Ed. and trans. Hans Kohn. London: Allen & Unwin, 1954: 141-56. - 'Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen von Jacob Burckhardt.' Historische Zeitschrift 97 (1906): 57-62. Momigliano, Arnaldo. Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977. Mommsen, Wolfgang. 'Jacob Burckhardt - Defender of Culture and Prophet of Doom.' Government and Opposition 18 (1983): 458-75. Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Jacob Burckhardt and the Renaissance: 100 Years Later. Laurence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Historian as Prophet/ Nation 156 (10 April 1943): 530-1. Norbrook, David. 'The Life and Death of Renaissance Man.' Raritan 8 (1989): 89-110. Nurdin, Jean. 'Jacob Burckhardt et le refus de la modernite.' Revue d'Allemagne 14 (1982): 88-95. O'Brien, Charles. 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Historian as Socratic Humanist.' Journal of Thought 16 (1981): 51-73. Rusen, Jorn. 'Die Uhr, der Stunde schlagt: Geschichte als Prozess der Kultur bei Jacob Burckhardt.' In Karl-Georg Faber and Christian Meier, eds., Historische Prozesse. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978: 197-215. - 'Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Borders of Postmodernsm.' History and Theory 24 (1985): 235-46. Salin, Edgar. Jacob Burckhardt und Nietzsche. Basel: Verlag der Universitatsbibliothek, 1938; rpt. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1948).

266 References Salomon, Albert. 'Crisis, History and the Image of Man.' Review of Politics 2 (1940): 415-37. Sax, Benjamin C. 'Jacob Burckhardt and National History.' History of European Ideas 15 (1992): 845-50. - 'State and Culture in the Thought of Jacob Burckhardt.' Annals of Scholarship 3 (1985): 1-35. Sigurdson, Richard. 'Jacob Burckhardt: The Cultural Historian as Political Thinker.' Review of Politics 52 (1990): 417-40. - 'Jacob Burckhardt's Liberal-Conservatism.' History of Political Thought 13 (1992): 487-511. Thompson, J.W. A History of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan, 1942. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. 'Jacob Burckhardt.' Proceedings of the Royal British Academy 70 (1984): 359-78. Warnke, Martin. 'Jacob Burckhardt und Karl Marx.' Neuer Rundschau. Basel: S. Fischer Verlag, 1970: 702-23. Wedgewood, C.V. 'Jacob Burckhardt.' Encounter 13 (1959): 35-42. Weintraub, Karl. Visions of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Wenzel, Johannes. Jacob Burckhardt in der Krise seiner Zeit. Berlin, DDR: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1967. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor. 'Some Notes on Burckhardt.' Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959): 123-37. Zeeden, Ernst. 'Der Historiker als Kritiker und Prophet.' Die Welt als Geschichte 11 (1951): 154-73. Other Relevant Works Antoni, Carlo. From History to Sociology. Trans. Hayden White. London: Merlin Press, 1959. Aris, Reinhold. History of Political Thought in Germany from 1789-1815. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. Ary, Jeffrey Paul von. Progress and Pessimism: Religion, Politics and History in Late Nineteenth Century Britain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Barnard, P.M. Herder's Social and Political Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

References 267 Beiser, Frederick C. Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. Berger, Stefan. The Search for Normality: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Germany since 1800. Providence, RI: Bergahn Books, 1997. Bergmann, Peter. Nietzsche: The Last Antipolitical German. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Brandes, George. Friedrich Nietzsche. Trans. A.G. Chater. London: Heinemann, 1914. Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Bruford, W.H. The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation: 'Bildung' from Humboldt to Thomas Mann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Bullock, Allan. The Humanist Tradition in the West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1985. Burke, Edmund, and Thomas Paine. Reflections on the Revolution in France and The Rights of Man. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973. Butler, E.M. The Tyranny of Greece over Germany. Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1958. Butterfield, Herbert. Man on His Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955. Chytry, Josef. The Aesthetic State: A Quest in Modern German Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Copleston, Frederick. Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism. Andover, Me.: Burns, Gates & Washbourne Ltd., 1946. Croce, Benedetto. History as the Story of Liberty. Trans. Sylvia Sprigge. New York: W.W. Norton, 1941. D'Entreves, A.P., The Nation of the State. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. Detwiler, Bruce. Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Engel-Janosi, Friedrich. The Growth of German Historicism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1944. Fox, Michael, ed., Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Frederiksen, Elke P., and Katherine R. Goodman, eds. Bettina Brentano von Arnim: Gender and Politics. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

268 References Friedrich, Carl J. 'Style as the Principle of Historical Interpretation.' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 14 (1955): 143-51. Gilman, Sander L. ed. Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of His Contemporaries. Trans. David J. Parent. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Gooch, G.P. History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century. 2nd ed. New York: Longmans, 1952. Hegel, G.W.F. Reason in History. Trans. Robert S. Hartman. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953. Henry, Martin. Franz Overbeck: Theologian? Religion and History in the Thought of Franz Overbeck. Frankfurt am main: Peter Lang, 1995. Herder, J.G. J.G. Herder on Social and Political Culture. Ed. and trans. P.M. Barnard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Houlgate, Stephen. Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Criticism of Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Humboldt, Wilhelm von. The Limits of State Action. Ed. J.W. Burrow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Iggers, George. The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, rev. ed. Middleton, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1968. Jones, W.T. A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1952. Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. 4th ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. Krieger, Leonard. Ranke: The Meaning of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Lea, F.A. The Tragic Philosopher: A Study of Friedrich Nietzsche. London: Methuen, 1957. Leddy, Thomas. 'Nietzsche on Unity of Style.' Historical Reflections/Reflections historiques 21 (1995): 553-67. Lukacs, Georg. Goethe and His Age. London: Merlin, 1968. Megill, Allan. Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Meinecke, Friedrich. The German Catastrophe. Trans. Sidney B. Fay. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950. - Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook. Trans. J.E. Anderson; trans, rev. H.D. Schmidt, with foreword by Sir Isaiah Berlin. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972. - Machiavellianism: The Doctrine ofRaison D'Etat and Its Place in Modern History. Trans. D. Scott. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957.

References 269 Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1956. Nelson, Brian R. Western Political Thought: From Socrates to the Age of Ideology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modern Library, 1968. - The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Ed. Oscar Levy. New York: Macmillan, 1909-11. - Daybreak. Trans. R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. - The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1974. - Human, All too Human. Trans. Marion Faber, with Stephen Lehman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. - Nietzsche Briefwechsel. Ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975-2003. - The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. - Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. Ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. - Unfashionable Observations. Trans., with Afterword by Richard T. Gray. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995. - The Will to Power. Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage, 1968. Overbeck, Franz. How Christian Is Our Present-Day Theology? Trans. Martin Henry. New York: Continuum, 2003. Schnadelbach, Herbert. Philosophy in Germany: 1831-1933. Trans. Eric Mathews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World As Will and Idea. 3 vols. Trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 1890. Silk, M.S., and J.P. Stern. Nietzsche on Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Singleton, Charles S. The Perspective of Art.' Kenyan Review 15 (1953): 169-89. Smith, Woodruff D. Politics and the Sciences of Culture in Germany 1840-1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Spiegelberg, Herbert. Ed. The Socratic Enigma. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1964. Sterling, Richard. Ethics in a World of Power: The Political Ideas of Friedrich Meinecke. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958. Stern, Fritz, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the German Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

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Strauss, Leo. The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1964. Taylor, Quentin P. The Republic of Genius: A Reconstruction of Nietzsche's Early Thought. Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 1997. Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the French Revolution. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1955. Treitschke, Heinrich von. Politics. Ed. and trans. Hans Kohn. Harbinger Edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963. - Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. 7 vols. Trans. Edan Paul and Cedar Paul. New York: McBride, Nast & Co., 1915-19. Von Laue, Theodore H. Leopold Ranke: The Formative Years. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950. Waldstein, Edith. Bettine von Arnim and the Politics of Romantic Conversation. Columbia, SC: Random House,1988. Walzer, Michael. 'The Civil Society Argument.' In Ronald Beiner, ed., Theorizing Citizenship. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Wolfflin, Heinrich. Principles of Art History: The Problem of Development of Style in Later Art. Trans. M.D. Hottinger. New York: Dover Publications, 1949. - Renaissance and Baroque. Trans. Kathrin Simon. Ithaca, NJ: Cornell University Press, 1966. Wood, Ellen Meiksons. Peasant-Citizen and Slave. London: Verso, 1988. Yack, Bernard. The Longing for Total Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Index of Names

Acton, Lord, 3, 239 n.30 Alioth, Max, 237 n.130, 248 n.18, 250 n.40, n.44 Andler, Charles, 202 Antoni, Carlo, 240 n.52 Aris, Reinhold, 173-4 Aristotle, 101,117,140,141,179 Arnim, Bettina von, 21-2, 231 n.12 Augustine, St (Augustine of Hippo), 135 Bachofen, Johann Jacob, 13, 69, 229 n.24 Barnard, P.M., 237 n.115 Baron, Hans, 254 n.60, 255 n.64 Beiser, Frederick C, 52, 236 n.106 Berger, Klaus, 251 n.71 Bergmann, Peter, 70 Bismarck, Otto von, 50, 63, 67, 73, 74, 151,158 Bockh, August, 20, 21 Borgia, Cesare, 156, 213-15, 258 n.59 Braden, Gordon, 124,187, 254 n.60 Brandes, George, 217 Bruford, W.H., 252 n.6 Burckhardt, Jacob, 227 n.3, 228 n.5; on architecture, 31, 45; as an

aristocratic liberal, 5, 21-2, 53,164, 242 n.85; on art, 20, 31, 35-6, 44, 45, 59, 88, 91,171-3, 233 n.59, 234 n.83; as an art critic and historian, 14,90,112,116,171-3, 234 n.83; and asceticism, 6, 30, 49, 50-2, 78, 103; and Basel, 3, 9,10-13, 20-8, 42-4, 46, 69, 71,126,139,179,180; as editor for the Easier Zeitung, 268; and Berlin, 10-11, 20-8, 60, 70, 71; and Bildung, 28, 31, 45, 50, 52, 61,114,116,119,140,166-8; and civic humanism, 28, 45, 50; and conservatism, 5, 22, 25, 31, 49, 523, 83,134-6,142,145,173-7,190, 200, 228 n.6; as a cultural historian, 3, 9, 14, 31-2, 45-7, 58, 59-60, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 79-86, 87-8, 89, 90-5, 96,105,110,112-27,137,138, 216; and democracy, 5, 8-9,22, 26, 289, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53-4, 56,142-50, 165-70; early life and family life, 3, 11,12,19, 34, 62,108; flight to Italy, 28-32, 233 n.44; and Germany, 21, 50, 55, 60-1, 70, 231 n.8; and Gewaltmenschen, 38, 41,158, 187, 204; on historical greatness,

272 Index of Names 37-8,138,153-60; and Hegel, 10, 43, 45, 51, 87, 95,103-12,123,189; on human nature, 9,14, 31, 82-3, 107,132,135-142,143,148,160-3, 224; and the Jesuits, 27; on Jews, 147-9, 250 n.42, 256 n.12; and Kinkel, 21, 24-6, 34, 61; and Nietzsche, 4-5, 7,13,14,15, 20, 26, 38, 44, 69, 79, 94,106,110,114-15, 120,126,127,138,176,196-7,198219, 228 nn.7-9; his organicism, 133-5; personal life and characteristics, 3, 8,11,19, 42-3, 71,196; his pessimism, 8, 25, 29, 52, 53, 54-7, 72, 73, 76, 93,102,106-7,131,137, 143,149-50,169,176, 202, 211; and philosophy, 6, 7, 9,14, 87, 89, 90-5, 96, 111, 123,132,141; as a prophet, 5, 8, 25, 30-1, 40, 54-57, 72, 73,105, 144-5,148-9; and Ranke, 10, 20, 21, 22-3, 24, 59-60, 69-79, 84, 98,104, 105,106, 122,123,124, 231 n.19; and religion, 10,19-20, 28, 33^0, 45, 46, 54, 77,147,157, 218; compared with the Romantics, 48, 51-2, 84,112,119,126,133; his scepticism, 5, 76, 83-4, 85, 90,1315,146,196, 217, 222; and Schopenhauer, 87, 88, 89, 90, 95-9,102-112, 116,120,131,156,202; and the state, 6,10,11,14,22, 23-4, 34, 40, 42, 45-50, 54, 56-7, 61, 74-8, 87, 104,112,133-4,146,179-97, 236 n.110; on style in history, 90, 11222, 207; as a teacher, 3, 4, 7, 9, 29, 31, 42-7, 71,105,140, 231 n.8, 235 n.87, 236 n.110 Burckhardt, Jacob Sr (father), 11,19, 161,162

Burckhardt, Johann Rudolf (grandfather), 19, 230 n.l Burckhardt, Louise (sister), 22, 23, 60, 152 Burke, Edmund, 8,15,113,164,1737,195, 223 Cassirer, Ernst, 112 Chytry, Josef, 236 n.114 Coll, Alberto, 229 n.14 Croce, Benedetto, 81 Dahlmann, Friedrich Christoph, 66-7 De Wette, Wilhelm, 19, 229 n.20 Detwiler, Bruce, 214, 258 n.59,259 n.60 Dietze, Gottfried, 228 n.6 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 69, 77, 80 Diogenes the Cynic, 93,106 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 20, 21, 23, 35, 66-7, 69,104 Dru, Alexander, 228 n.6 Diirr, Emil, 12, 232 n.29 Ehrenberg, Victor, 211 Elmer, Peter, 254 n.60 Epicurus, 93,106 Erasmus, 11 Eusebius, 34, 38 Ferguson, Wallace K., 200, 212, 254 n.60 Foucault, Michel, 200 Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, 22 Friedrich, Carl J., 63 Gay, Peter, 34, 38,125,148 Gentz, Friedrich, 113,174 Gersdorff, Carl von, 248 n.25

Index of Names Gilbert, Felix, 21, 34, 104, 184, 186, 231 n.19 Gobineau, Joseph Arthur Comte de, 200 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 13, 30, 50, 61, 69, 74, 93,119,167,168, 169, 202, 223, 233 n.44 Goetz, Walter, 240 n.52 Gombrich, E.H., 245 n.75, 255 n.66 Gorres, Joseph, 113 Gossman, Lionel, 13,147, 229 n.9; 250 n.42, 251 n.71, 254 n.60 Grofie, Jiirgen, 235 n.87 Gross, David, 48, 138,140, 196 Hays, Denys, 254 n.60 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 10, 43, 45, 50, 51, 64, 67, 77, 78, 84, 87, 90, 95-112,123,188,189, 207, 221 Heidegger, Martin, 200 Heller, Erich, 103, 153, 202-3 Heller, Peter, 201, 217, 218 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 50, 51, 61, 79-81, 82, 84-5, 119,124,126,133, 147, 223 Herkless, J.L., 240 n.52, 241 n.55 Herodotus, 79, 101 Hesiod, 135 Heussler, Andreas, 27 Hinde, John R., 22, 123,125, 227 n.3, 229 n.17, 232 n.29, 238 n.ll, 242 n.3, 251 n.71 Hitler, Adolph, 74, 144, 201 Holbein, Hans, 12 Holderlin, Friedrich, 50, 51, 119, 202 Holly, Michael Ann, 124 Homer, 83, 210 Horkheimer, Max, 102

273

Houlgate, Stephen, 99 Howard, Thomas A., 20, 34 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 50,119, 195, 223, 252 n.5; and individualism, 50,168,195; influence on Mill, 53,168, 237 n.119; and the state, 5, 15, 50,167-8,169,191,195 Iselin, Isaac, 11 Janssen, E.M., 254 n.60 Kant, Immanuel, 50, 96,109 Kaegi, Werner, 33, 200, 201, 228 n.5 Kahan, Alan S., 53,164, 227 n.3, 242 n.85 Kaufmann, Walter, 199, 251 n.76, 258 n.59 Kerrigan, William, 124,187, 254 n.60 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 201 Kingdon, Robert M., 234 n.77 Kinkel, Gottfried, 21, 24-6, 34, 61, 219 Knox, Israel, 96 Kuczynski, Jiirgen, 49, 236 n.110 Kugler, Franz, 20, 21, 45, 238 n.ll Laue, Theodore von, 76 Leddy, Thomas, 115 Lessing, Carl Friedrich, 119 Lowith, Karl, 201, 256 n.12 Lukacs, Georg, 233 n.44 Luther, Martin, 215 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 32-3, 37, 38, 40, 41,125-6,153,155,156,158,159, 213; on Cesare Borgia, 213, 214; The Discourses, 38; History of Florence, 33; and Nietzsche, 39,153, 213-14; The Prince, 32, 41-2, 213

274 Index of Names

115, 211, 258 n.48; onTragedy, 115, 211, 258 n.48; onCesare ; Borgi Mali, Joseph, Tragedy, 78, 227 n.3 David Strauss, Writer and Confessor, Mann, Thomas, 30 114, 207, 208; Ecce Homo, 208, 258 Martin, Alfred von, 200-1, 212 n.59; The Gay Science, 94, 205; Marx, Karl, 8, 89, 98,112,147,151, Genealogy of Morals, 213; on 193 Germany, 114-15, 207, 208; on Meinecke, Friedrich: and the BurckGewaltmenschen, 204, 206, 213, 215; hardt-Ranke problem, 69-79, 240 Human, All-Too-Human, 94; on n.52; on historicism, 59, 61, 80; and Renaissance Italy, 199, 209-10, 214; Nazi Germany, 74-5 Schopenhauer as Educator, 208; Michelangelo, 171,173, 211 Twilight of the Idols, 44, 206, 208, Mill, John Stuart, 15,165,168,169, 210; on the Ubermensch, 4, 20, 38, 177,195; as aristocratic liberal, 53, 153, 200, 201, 203, 212, 214, 258 164,195, 223, 227 n.3, 242 n.85; and n.59; On the Use and Abuse of democracy, 5, 53,166,169-70; On History, 94, 98, 205 Liberty, 53, 237 n.119; and tyranny of the majority, 9,165,166 Norbrook, David, 213 Novalis, 48, 51,113 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 93 Mommsen, Theodor, 124 Mommsen, Wolfgang, 131,159, 227 Overbeck, Franz, 13, 69, 202-3, 230 n.3 n.25 Miiller, Adam, 51,113 Petrarch, Francesco, 211 Murray, Oswyn, 233 n.59 Plato, 43, 91, 93, 96,109, 211, 225 Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), Preen, Friedrich von, 10, 57,105,140, 104,156,174, 213, 214 228 n.5, 248 n.25 Nelson, Brian, 175, 254 n.60 Neumann, Carl, 73 Ralph, Philip Lee, 254 n.60 Nichols, James Hastings, 109, 228 n.6 Ranke, Leopold von: and Berlin, 10, Niebuhr, Reinhold, 57 20, 69; and Burckhardt, 10, 20, 21, Nietzsche, Friedrich, 4, 7,13,14,15, 22, 24, &, 69-79, 84, 85, 96,104, 20, 26, 57, 69, 70, 79,106,107,110, 106,113,122, 227 n.3, 231 n.19, 238 114-15,126,127,138,153,156,157, n.ll, 239 n.15; and conservatism, 161,176,182,196,197,198-219, 24, 63; 'A Dialogue on Politics,' 62, 223, 225, 226, 248 n.25; on agonistic 63; as diplomat, 59, 62; 'The Great culture of Greece, 119-20, 209-10; Powers,' 62; on historical method, antimodernism of, 5, 217; and 20, 23, 59-68, 77, 79, 80, 84, 97-8, Basel, 4,13, 38, 44,198, 201, 203, 105,106,122,123-4; and political 206, 230 n.25; Beyond Good and Evil, history, 14, 62, 65, 71, 77, 79,123; 94, 203, 211, 251 n.76; Birth of and the state, 62-6, 74, 76, 111, 190 Tragedy, 115, 211, 258 n.48; on Raphael, 154,171,173, 211

Index of Names 275 Rohde, Erwin, 205 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 173; and the French Revolution, 174; on human nature, 55, 76, 82, 135-6, 142, 170, 174 Rubens, Peter Paul, 45, 171-3, 211 Riisen, Jorn, 110, 176,177, 227 n.3, 233 n.42 Salin, Edgar, 201-2, 203, 256 n.12 Sails, Arnold von, 231 n.8, 233 nA7 Sax, Benjamin C, 92, 116,125, 227 n.3 Schauenburg, Eduard, 228 n.6, 248 n.28 Schauenburg, Hermann, 110,127 Schiller, Friedrich, 13, 50,113,119, 168, 202, 223 Schlegel, Friedrich, 48, 51, 113, 119 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 48 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 88, 116, 120, 156, 161, 162, 202, 211; as The Philosopher/ 90, 95, 103,109, 110, 131; and Hegel, 95-112; on history, 81, 89, 97-103, 110, 201, 202; on genius, 95-6, 155, 161; his pessimism, 57, 95,102, 103,106-7,131, 162; World as Will and Idea, 87, 95, 96,101,103,107, 111 Segesser, Philip, 27 Sigurdson, Richard, 227 n.3 Smith, Woodruff D., 32 Socrates, 93, 210-11, 225, 232 n.34 Stahelin, Felix, 202 Stern, Fritz, 249 n.39

Stern, Sheila, 229 n.15 Strauss, David Friedrich, 70,114, 207, 208 Strauss, Leo, 243 n.37 Sybel, Heinrich von, 66, 67,104 Taylor, Quentin P., 246 n.94 Thompson, J.W., 228 n.5 Thucydides, 79,101,122 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 5, 9,15, 53, 113,164,165-6,168-9,177,195, 223, 227 n.3, 242 n.85 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 66, 67-8, 69, 70,112,190, 208 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 35,123, 228 n.6 Trinkaus, Charles, 254 n.60 Waldstein, Edith, 231 n.12 Walzer, Michael, 193 Weintraub, Karl, 121,172,173 White, Hayden, 30,123, 177 Widermann, Paul, 206 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 50,119 Wilamowitz, Ulrich von, 70 Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor, 244 n.43 Winckelmann, Johann, 61, 119, 120, 236n.ll4 Wolfflin, Heinrich, 43, 45,124 Wolters, Albrecht, 239 n.15 Wood, Ellen Meiksons, 183, 254 n.50 Yack, Bernard, 244 n.48 Zeno the Stoic, 135

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Index of Subjects

aestheticism, 30, 49, 51-2, 113, 199, 200, 224, 236 n. 114 Anschammg, 87, 93-4,105, 122,125 antibanausic attitude, 140, 254 n.50 antimodernism, 5,10, 89,142-50,160, 207, 212, 225 anti-Semitism, 147-50, 249 n.37, 250 n.39 aristocracy, 50, 57, 113-22, 207, 217 aristocratic liberalism, 5, 21-2, 53, 164, 242 n.85 barbarism, 29, 30, 33 Basel, 11, 12, 23-8, 42; compared to Berlin, 11, 20-8, 69-79; cultural and social life, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 43, 139, 179-80, 248 n.28; and Burckhardt's early history, 3, 11, 13, 19; education in, 11, 14, 19, 43; Nietzsche in, 4, 13, 38, 44, 198, 201, 206, 230 n.25; pietism in, 11, 12; political life, 10, 12, 13, 23, 26, 28 Easier Zeitung, 26 Berlin: Burckhardt in, 10, 20-8; compared to Basel, 11, 20-8, 6979; and Ranke, 10, 20, 59-79; and Treitschke, 67-71

Bildung, 10, 28, 31, 45, 50, 52,114, 116,140,166-8 bourgeoisie, 8, 28, 43, 49 conservatism, 4,12, 22, 24, 49, 52, 132,134,142,175,190, 200 cultural history (Kunstgeschichte), 10, 14, 31, 32, 45-6, 58, 70-9, 87-112, 200, 216, 222 culture (Kultur), 3, 5, 9, 20, 23, 45; concept of, 4, 7,10, 31, 32-40, 45, 47; in decadent times, 4,11-12, 30, 35; German idea of, 51, 60-9; and religion, 10, 34,123; and the state, 8,10,14, 24, 42-7, 49-50, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 61-9,122 democracy, 5, 8, 9,13,14, 26, 33, 48, 50, 51, 53, 57,116,142-50,165, 182-4,190, 222 despotism, 8, 26, 29, 33, 40, 41, 57 development, concept of, 28, 33, 41, 47, 50, 51, 54 education, 28, 31, 45, 46, 52, 57,166, 191, 225 elitism, 29, 30, 45, 50, 57

278

Index of Subjects

England, 24, 57 equality, egalitarianism, 5, 6, 7, 9, 29, 52, 53, 54, 55,142-50,165,169,195 Florence, 33, 41,116,184-9, 209 France, 11, 36, 52, 53, 54,190-2 Franco-Prussian War, 56,104 Frankfurt Parliament, 66-7 freedom (or liberty), 6, 7, 8, 9,14,15, 24, 28, 29, 31, 36, 40, 42, 46, 47, 50, 53, 54, 98,165-78 French Revolution (1789), 8, 52-4, 104,165,174-6,190-2, 215, 223 Geneva, 12,13 genius, 4, 26, 33, 36, 37, 95,155, 216 German Historical School, 21, 23, 24, 60-9, 72,102-6,132,174,190, 239 n.30 Germany, 11,13, 24,148; Burckhardt and, 13, 21, 50, 55, 60-2; and culture, 21, 52, 57, 70-9,119-20, 182, 208-10; as empire, 21, 52, 55; Nazi Germany, 72, 74-5,144, 201 Gewaltmenschen, 38, 41,158,187, 204, 206 great-men view of history, 153-60, 226 Greece: agonistic character of, 117, 119-20, 209-10; Burckhardt on, 10, 36,45,117-22,178-84, 204; German intellectuals and, 119, 182; Nietzsche on, 94-5,119, 20912 historicism, 21, 24, 79-86,123,194 human nature, 9,14,135-42,160-3, 170 humanism, 23, 28, 45, 50,107,167, 182,188, 200

idealism, 49, 78, 86 individualism, individuality, 5-10, 29, 40, 50-4, 80,130,185, 222 Italy, 28-32, 41-2,184-9, 233 n.44 Jesuits, 27 Jews, 147-9, 250 n.42, 256 n.12 Kalogathia, 117 Kantonstrennung, 12 Kleinstaat, 23,139,179 Kolnische Zeitung, 27 Kultur. See culture Kulturgeschichte. See cultural history Kulturkampf,61 Kulturstaat, 61,134 Lucerne, 27 Machtpolitik (power politics), 13, 65, 70 Marxism, 35, 49,193 mass society, 7, 26, 28, 47, 48, 49, 51, 54, 56,138,161,166,175 militarism, 5, 49, 56, modernity, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 20, 31, 42, 47, 49, 51, 54, 56, 58,110, 206-9 myth, 6,19, 91 nationalism, 24, 29, 56,110,126, 208 Nazism, Nazi regime, 72, 74-5,144, 201,236n.llO paganism, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 painting, 34, 43, 45,171-3, 211 pessimism, 5,14, 54-7,102,107,169, 176, 202, 211, 231 n.8 philosophy, 38, 45, 95-112; Burckhardt's attitude towards, 6,14, 87, 90-5,112,132; Hegel as symbol of,

Index of Subjects 279 87, 90, 95-103; and history, 24, 34, 50; Schopenhauer as 'The Philosopher/ 90, 95,103,109,110,131 poetry, 24, 25, 35-6, 48, 50,122-7, 243 n.37 polis, ancient, 50,116-22,178-84 political history, 14, 23, 61-9, 70-9, 80-6 power politics. See Machtpolitik progress: concept of, 5, 7, 51, 54, 56, 149; in history, 9,12, 24, 31, 51,192 proletariat, lower classes, 8, 33,14450,190 Protestantism, 11, 12, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27,43 Prussia, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 66-9,168-9 public opinion, 28, 53 Reformation, 11, 12,223 religion, 10,14, 20, 28, 32, 36, 37, 45, 150-3 Renaissance: Athens compared to, 45,127,185; Burckhardt's thesis on, 3, 5, 32, 41, 43, 45,124-7,1859, 200, 212-15, 225, 254 n.60; culture in, 42, 45, 124; Renaissance Man, 38, 40, 42, 212-15; and the state, 41, 42,178,184-9,195 romanticism, 51,114-16,119,122, 174, 223 socialism, 29, 43,134,191 Sonderbundkrieg, 27 Sophrosyne, 121,171 state, 6, 7, 9,15, 26, 33, 37, 40, 42, 46, 51, 52, 53, 55-7, 164-97, 207; aesthetic state, 50; as a work of art,

41, 50, 255 n.60; Athenian state, 180-4, 209; and culture, 10,13, 23, 46, 49, 55; Humboldt on, 50,167-9, 191, 252 n.5; origins of, 178-80; and power, 7,10,11,14, 22, 24, 39, 46, 47, 54, 55-7,189-94; and religion, 10, 34, 36-7, 40, 45, 46, 192 style in history, 35,112-22, 207 Switzerland, 11,12, 27, 28,148,152 totalitarianism, 30, 54, 57, 73-6 tragedy, 115 tyranny of the majority, 165-6 Ubermensch, 4, 20, 38,153, 200, 201, 203, 212, 214 universal suffrage, 5,145 University of Berlin, 10,19, 24; Burckhardt invited to teach at, 10, 70; Burckhardt as student, 10-11, 19, 20-8, 61; Ranke as professor, 10, 61-9, 231 n.19; Treitschke as professor, 70 University of Basel, 10-13, 69-70; Burckhardt and, 3, 26, 42-6, 69, 71, 126,139,179,180; compared to University of Berlin, 69-71; Nietzsche as professor, 4,13, 70, 198, 201, 203, 206 virtii, 34, 38 Volksgeist, 61,114, 245 n.75 Wissenschaft, 13, 62 Zurich, 42