Herder's conception of "das Volk"

by Georgiana Rose Simpson

The crane, the turtledove, the eagle, the raven, the stork, the ostrich, the lion, the wild ox, perhaps the elephant and the rhinoceros, as well as most of our common domestic birds and other animals, frequented these environments.

Herder conceives of this entire milieu as a world in which the dawn of human life was arising out of dark night, and giving way to the broad daylight in which water and air, earth and sea, mountain and forest, were in the fullest view and most powerful working. The strong contrasts of oriental skies wrought through light and darkness their sharpest outlines.

The mild climate was perhaps the most beautiful in the world, and produced the simplest needs of life with little labor on the part of the inhabitants. With fertile river valleys in addition, which furnished grazing lands, it was natural that one of the earliest grades of civilization should arise here—the shepherd folk.

Although these people had a civilization that was early circumscribed, it nevertheless presupposes some cultivation. Even the shepherd state cannot exist without arts and fixed customs. The Hebrews in this shepherd state had developed family bonds and fixed the ruling power of the father in domestic life. They had domesticated animals, and developed tender feelings toward them.

Let us look at the moral and mental traits due to this physical and social environment.

The eye developed clearness and acuteness, a vivid sensitiveness; it saw every leaf, every blade of grass, the plains and valleys, the waters in outline and expanse, the planets and the broad ether in which they hung, and it distinguished every movement. The ear heard the delicate rustlings of branches and bows, as well as the roar of winds, the smallest raindrop, and the rush of mighty waters. Every sense was thus developed to a finesse which left no phenomenon of nature unobserved.

These sense impressions were impregnated with the feelings and carrying these effects of feelings they passed onward to the mind and made mental pictures of a kind which correspond to the character of the imprint made by the feelings. Then these made-over pictures were given back to the world in the sublime language found in the Old Testament. It is in these pictures, in this investing of free nature with the power to feel, that we see the texture and depth of feeling which are an essential part of the personality of this group.

They saw the dawn rising out of darkness. They felt that the phenomenon was due to a cause superior to any power in man. They could not account for the beginnings of mankind. The consciousness of limitations of their own knowledge and the awe for the unknown first cause turned the actual darkness and dawn and full daylight into chaotic emptiness, a ray of light at the beginning of creation and a completed work at the end of six days—a wonderful personality directing it all. They saw the trees and the plants thriving in their own spheres, and they attributed to them life impulses given them by the sympathy and love and directing force of special geniuses, the messengers of God. The stars were light; they had undeceiving brightness and constant courses. They stamped the sense impression of them with the feeling of worshipful joy, of rhythm which became music and dancing, and so it was that the stars became the daughters that shouted about the throne of the Great Ruler. At times they assigned to them the sense of power for defense in well-ordered numbers of individuals, and the stars became an army ready to do battle for God. Again they were his willing servants and messengers. They saw the heavens stretching from horizon to horizon, and everything in creation working in its own sphere with regularity and order. Their own feeling for system, harmonious working in family and tribal circles, pictured God in paternal relations; a householder who stretched his great tent by fastening it to the outmost borders of the earth, and opened and arranged therein the treasures of his household. They heard a light rustle of leaves and imprinted upon it the feeling of gentleness and kindness, and it became a messenger of God, an angel. They heard the thunder and their shuddering gloom translated it into the voice of an angry God. They listened to their own heartbeats and transferred their rhythm to their own speech, for we may account for the free light rhythm in their songs by comparing it with the systole and diastole of the heart and the movements of the breath in the physiological processes of inspiration and expiration.

Their national pride and national joy found expression in collective song which might either glorify God or invoke their own well-being. Such song is at one and the same time inspiration and expression.

In general, their poetic language draws concise analogy between the objects of creation and the qualities and attributes of the creator of these things. It lingers over single images, repeats them, wonders at them, and finally gives them forth with a vigorous tongue incapable of empty words.