Herder's conception of "das Volk"

by Georgiana Rose Simpson

CONCLUSION

The character and frequency of the references which Herder makes in his writings to the philosophers of the eighteenth century show that he knew the predominant lines of thought which characterized the entire period of the enlightenment. The outstanding eighteenth-century theories which seem to have a place in Herder’s conception of das Volk are well epitomized in the teachings of Leibniz, Shaftesbury, and Rousseau.

Herder’s own exposition of a part of Leibniz’ contribution to thought shows how he found here some things which were in agreement with his own fundamental ideas concerning innate potentialities.

The praise given to Shaftesbury’s principal ideas of the harmonious development of the individual and of humanity lead us to believe that Shaftesbury had exercised an influence on the German writer.

The numerous eulogistic outbursts over Rousseau, the coinciding in many writings by both men of details concerning the essential elements in man’s nature, concerning primitivism, liberty, and the ideal state, show that Herder was fully imbued with the spirit of Rousseau, expressed in the cry, “back to nature.”

CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION

Both the word Volk and the various ideas for which it stands are old and are to be found among many peoples. The parent tongue, the Indo-European, seems to have had a form which meant “full,” “many.” The “many” easily became the “common,” so that the “many” as opposed to the “few” was parallel with the “common,” “vulgar” as opposed to the “upper classes,” the “aristocracy.” This meaning seems to have been a fundamental one in both ancient and modern times.

The shift in meaning of the Germanic word Volk, which extends the sense to that of “nation,” has been more general and more permanent in German than in English. It is with these two main conceptions, that is Volk, the common people, and Volk, nation, that we are concerned in this study of Herder. Many examples of Herder’s use of the term Volk show that he makes the word an exact synonym for nation. In many other examples it is used as an equivalent term for nation. In both of these uses “nation” with Herder means those bound together only by the same laws and customs whether related by consanguinity or not.

But Herder frequently makes Volk stand more specifically for those who are of the same blood, and in that sense identifies it with “race.” We have seen that these are common uses of the term Volk and the idea conveyed by it, uses which occur in many languages and among many civilized peoples.

Now Herder, while using the term Volk in the commonly accepted sense of nation, has always firmly in mind certain attributes and powers which characterize groups as such. They have power to rule; they have power to express themselves in peculiar ways; they have Nationalgeist. This Nationalgeist in the final analysis is the outgrowth of physical and social environment and conforms to the dictates of these in all its peculiarities.

In exercising their powers and general spirit, they act as an entity according to Herder’s conception. He makes the group a single being, an individual. In Herder’s day when ideas of nationalism had no definite shape, this added sense of the meaning of nation meant clearly that he was a forerunner in the realm of philosophy, and gave to Herder’s conception of Volk, even in this commonly used sense, a unique place. Individuality, personality, distinguished nations just as these traits mark out human beings.

Herder makes use of the term Volk in a second sense. Here he means a group within a civilized nation which forms the mass below the aristocracy and the governing class. This use likewise is to be found in all languages of civilized peoples.

But Herder is emphatic in noting that this group has not been affected by expurgating and eliminating influences to the fullest extent to which these have operated. It has therefore been more thoroughly the product of natural environment. In the proportion to which innate tendencies have not been checked and warped, individual traits have had free development. Therefore spontaneous personality characterizes this group to a higher degree than it does the more cultured. Here Herder makes prominent his philosophy that unhampered nature is the most potent force in the development of this spontaneous personality.

In his collection of Volkslieder, Herder does not confine himself to those which are marked by primitivism, but includes also many selections of polished literary form. But these all submit to a classification which takes into account the true expression of universal and fundamental feelings common to all humanity. Here Herder’s mind is fixed on that power which the group has to express itself, to express that which is fundamental and therefore to show forth its personality.

Ossian’s people and the Ancient Hebrews are products of an environment which is most effective in shaping Herder’s ideal Volk: namely, nature unaltered by the hand of man. As a result of such rough, crude surroundings, these peoples have developed into simple, harmonious beings, and possess all the elements which Herder considers essential in man’s nature. He finds they are natural because they are primitive, and they possess superior traits because they are natural. They have the power to give expression to their personality and have exercised this power in a marked way in their unique literatures. The individuality of each group is sharply defined in the songs of each.

Now how does Herder arrive at the requirements to which he makes his Volk conform?

His philosophy as expressed in Erkennen und Empfindung recognizes inborn forces in the individual which are potentialities differing in kind and degree of working power in each person. These varying potentialities he makes the constituencies of the senses which are accordingly different in scope and capacity in every human being.

It must be noted that Herder does not regard these original “forces” as constituted by the senses; they are prior to and more fundamental than the senses. The phenomenon Reiz, stimulus, which causes the smallest fiber either in plant or animal to contract or expand, repeats itself in the nerves of each one of the senses. But this Reiz is in the beginning, and without it there would be no Kräfte, no nerve, no sense organ. This Reiz, then, is identical with the innate forces, Kräfte.

They control and direct the development of the senses and are, therefore, the very beginning of that variation in sense functioning which initiates individuality.

It is in the treatment of these original Kräfte that Herder gives his own turn to Leibniz’ theory of the monad.

The principle of the monad was highly abstract, and when Herder took it over he gave to it a more concrete application. It became the principle of innate and varying potentialities. The monad was not controlled and directed by a force outside itself, according to Herder, but by a power within, and as the power within was never exactly alike in any two beings, no two could develop just alike. Here are Herder’s foundations for individuality and personality.

A perfection resulting from the unfolding of the content of the individual life and the shaping of its originality are seen in Shaftesbury’s thought when he makes morality consist of the rich and full expression of individual powers in a beautiful and sovereign personality. The individual system as seen in one man in all its physical and mental elements is related to something external to himself. Altruistic inclinations are an important part of the natural endowment of every human being.

Now Herder sees that this unfettered development of natural endowments will come to its fullest only in relations to others. It is the essence of his Humanität. He goes further than Shaftesbury in that he finds in this tie, which unites the individual to the group, that which is universal and fundamental. He endows his Volk with sentiments which are universal and fundamental. It is this universal and fundamental which makes such expressions as “Hamlet’s soliloquy” find a place among the songs of Herder’s Volk.

We have seen that when Herder lays emphasis on the feelings, when he is opposed to arbitrary and restrictive government, when he elevates the crude and primitive, his system of thought is in agreement with that of Rousseau. But Herder makes an advance in seeking standards in processes actually or believed to be found in Nature. His line of investigation in history, art, and philosophy will be by way of the natural man, i.e., the primitive. His Volk, then, because of their power to express their personality freely, give him a theory of art; art must be an expression of personality.

Both Shaftesbury and Rousseau relate the development of the individual to the group but neither makes the altruism or interdependence such an impelling force as does Herder. His Volk, conscious of their own frailty, will have sympathy and a general regard for the needs and interests of mankind. This consciousness will be not merely a passive altruism nor an interdependence of material and economic necessity, but it will be heightened by an ideal love for humanity, which will force to active and positive efforts to make humanity the highest possible.

When we eliminate details, when we regard only those elements upon which Herder’s thought seems to be continuous, those qualifications of which he never seems to loose sight, whether he idealizes his Volk through his philosophy, his song collections, his study of the works of other philosophers, or through the analysis of concrete examples, we come to the following as essentials in Herder’s Volk: Das Volk is a group whose innate, natural tendencies have been allowed to unfold and develop unhindered and unwarped by civilization. They are people who have come into contact with various forces of nature in the physical world and have been strongly influenced by their natural environment.

They, as an entity, possess: (1) Individuality, personality; (2) a sense of that which is universal and fundamental among mankind; (3) common feelings of relationship to humanity; (4) strong religious sentiments.

They are wont to express themselves freely, fully, truthfully, in various forms of art, the individual specimens of which find their test of genuineness in the response which they receive from the group out of which they arose.

In this ideal conception Herder sees the best that mankind can produce.