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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2012
This article analyses how Rousseau's First Discourse and the questions it posed about human progress and the reform of society were debated in the institutional context of the Berlin Academy by Formey and Herder. Despite some important disagreements, Formey and Herder fundamentally shared Rousseau's assumption that erudition could be detrimental both to society and to the individual. In order to limit the socially corrosive effects of the arts and the sciences, and in an attempt to realize their full beneficent potential, they called for their reform through institutional regulation and management by a meritocracy of scholarly experts. Drawing on Hume, Herder in particular developed a positive role for the modern state as an active agent of enlightenment, provided it not only promoted the arts and sciences but also guaranteed freedom and the rule of law to ensure their flourishing.
1 Herder, Johann Gottfried, “Vom Einfluß der Regierung auf die Wissenschaften, und der Wissenschaften auf die Regierung (1780)”, in idem, Werke, vol. 9/2, ed. Wisbet, Rainer and Pradel, Klaus (Frankfurt, 1997), 296Google Scholar. For an abbreviated English translation see Herder, Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings, trans. and introduced by Ioannis D. Evrigenis and Daniel Pellerin (Indianapolis, 2004), 130–42.
2 The prize question for the Classe de belles-lettres, “Quelle a été l'influence du Gouvernement sur les Lettres chez les Nations où elles ont fleuri? Et quelle a été l'influence des Lettres sur le Gouvernement?”, was announced at the Academy's assembly of 4 June 1778. See Nouveaux mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres (1778) (Berlin, 1780), 27. Its first version, suggested by Jean-Alexis Borrely, read, “Quelle est l'influence du gouvernement sur les gens de lettres, et des gens de lettres sur le gouvernement?” There are no records of why it was changed to the final version. See Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, PAW I VI 10, 51r and 64v.
3 McClellan, James, Science Reorganized: Scientific Societies in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1985), chap. 2Google Scholar.
4 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts or First Discourse, in idem, The Discourses and other Early Political Writings, ed. Gourevitch, Victor (Cambridge, 1997), 1–29Google Scholar, esp. 18 ff. On the French and German debates around the First Discourse see the particularly bibliographically indispensable dissertation by Tente, which also reprints the majority of the original contributions in full length: Tente, Ludwig, “Die Polemik um den Ersten Discours von Rousseau in Frankreich und Deutschland”, Diss. Phil. Kiel, 1974 (MS). Cf. Jaumann, Herbert, ed., Rousseau in Deutschland: Neue Beiträge zur Erforschung seiner Rezeption (Berlin and New York, 1995)Google Scholar.
5 Rousseau, Discourses, 13–4 and 20–2. Cf. Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, 2nd edn (Princeton and Oxford, 2003Google Scholar; first published 1975).
6 Mandeville, Bernard, The Fable of the Bees, ed. Kaye, F. B., vol. 1 (Indianapolis, 1988), 369Google Scholar. Cf. Rousseau, Discourses, 16. On Rousseau's struggle with Mandeville see Hundert, E. J., The Enlightenment's Fable: Bernhard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Cambridge, 1994), 105–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Rousseau, Discourses, 24.
8 Hahn, Roger, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences 1666–1803 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1971), 137Google Scholar.
9 Rousseau, Discourses, 50. On how Rousseau further refined and clarified his argument in the course of the debate around the First Discourse see Wokler, Robert, “The Discours sur les sciences et les arts and Its Offspring: Rousseau in Reply to His Critics”, in Harvey, Simon et al. , eds., Reappraisals of Rousseau: Studies in Honor of R. A. Leigh (Manchester, 1980), 250–78Google Scholar.
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11 Hahn, Anatomy, 137–40; Daniel Roche, Le siècle des Lumières en province: académies et académiciens provinciaux, 1680–1789, vol. 1 (Paris, 1978), chap. 3.
12 On Formey see Eva D. Marcu, “Formey and the Enlightenment”, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1952; Storost, Jürgen, “Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey”, in idem, Dreihundert Jahre romanische Sprachen und Literaturen an der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften (Frankfurt, 2001), 43–57Google Scholar; Smith, Margarete G., “In defence of an eighteenth-century academician, philosopher and journalist: Jean-Henri-Samuel Formey”, SVEC 311 (1993), 85–100Google Scholar; Fontius, Martin, “Der Akademiesekretär und die Schweizer”, in idem, ed., Schweizer im Berlin des 18.Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1996) 285–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hayez, Arnaud, “Jean Henri Samuel Formey (1718–1797): Un journaliste de la République des lettres”, Francia 21/2 (1994), 245–53Google Scholar.
13 Formey, Jean-Henri-Samuel, “Preface”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres de Berlin année 1745 (Berlin, 1746)Google Scholar, n.p. On the ideology of the Berlin Academy see Mary Terrall, “The Culture of Science in Frederick the Great's Berlin”, History of Science 28 (1990), 333–64.
14 See Bibliothèque impartiale, vol. 3, pars 1 (March–April 1751), 250–60; Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique 13 (July–Sept. 1753), 213–20.
15 Bibliothèque impartiale, vol. 3, pars 1 (March–April 1751), 256.
16 Formey, Jean-Henri-Samuel, “Examen philosophique de la liaison réelle qu'il y a entre les sciences et les mœurs”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres (1753) (Berlin, 1755), 397–416Google Scholar, quotes at 397. This text can be accessed via http://bibliothek.bbaw.de/bibliothek-digital/digitalequellen/schriften. The “Examen philosophique” also appeared separately in the same year (Avignon (i.e. Paris), 1755) with the ambitious subtitle “dans lequel on trouvera la solution de la dispute de M. J. J. Rousseau, avec ses adversaires, sur la question proposée par l'Académie de Dijon, au sujet du bien ou du mal que les sciences ont occasionné dans les moeurs”. On this text see the short passages in Tente, Polemik, 19; Pott, Sandra, Reformierte Morallehren und deutsche Literatur von Jean Barbeyrac bis Christoph Martin Wieland (Tübingen, 2002), 202–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Laursen, John Christian and Popkin, Richard, “Hume in the Prussian Academy: Jean Bernard Merian's On the Phenomenalism of David Hume”, Hume Studies 23 (1997), 153–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 154. Cf. Pott, Morallehren, 141 ff. On Formey's crucial disagreement with Wolff and the Wolffians about the question of the necessity of revelation for human salvation and his affinity to Deist positions in his “Essai sur la necessité de la revelation” of 1746, see Bronisch, Johannes, Der Mäzen der Aufklärung: Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel und das Netzwerk des Wolffianismus (Berlin, 2010), 337–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Laursen and Popkin, “Hume in the Prussian Academy”, 155.
19 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 398–405. Formey's account of man's premier état strikingly resembles Rousseau's later characterization of the first men in the Second Discourse.
20 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 405–6. For a similar view see idem, Principes de morale: déduits de l'usage des facultés de l'entendement humain, vol. 2 (Leiden, 1762), 517–18.
21 On the quarrelsome reality of the Republic of Letters see D'Argens, Jean-Baptiste de Boyer Marquis, Mémoires secrets de la république des lettres, t. 1 (Amsterdam, 1737), esp. 36 and 120–6Google Scholar. Cf. Mulsow, Martin, Die unanständige Gelehrtenrepublik: Wissen, Libertinage und Kommunikation in der Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daston, Lorraine, “The ideal and reality of the Republic of Letters in the Enlightenment”, Science in Context 4 (1991), 367–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and (with particular reference to Formey) Goldgar, Anne, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters 1680–1750 (New Haven and London, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 König, Samuel, Appel au public, du jugement de l'Académie royale de Berlin, sur un fragment de lettre de Mr. de Leibnitz, cité par Mr. Koenig (Leiden, 1752), 42–3Google Scholar. On this controversy, which preoccupied the educated European public during 1752–3, and which, not least due to Voltaire's taking sides with König, effectively damaged the reputation of both the Berlin Academy and its president, see the excellent study by Goldenbaum, Ursula, “Das Publikum als Garant der Freiheit der Gelehrtenrepublik: Die öffentliche Debatte über den Jugement de L'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres sur une Lettre prétendue de M. de Leibnitz”, in idem, ed. Appell an das Publikum. Die öffentliche Debatte in der deutschen Aufklärung 1687–1796 (Berlin, 2004), 509–651Google Scholar.
23 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 406: “Les Sciences . . . sont les théories qui contiennent des principes, dévelopés jusqu’à un certain point, desquels on tire une suite non interrompuë de conséquences, qui conduisent à un dernier but, ou terme, qui n'est pas le non plus ultra de la théorie, mais qui est le dernier effort auquel est actuellement parvenu l'esprit humain à son égard,” original emphasis.
24 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 409–10.
25 Ibid., 407–8.
26 Ibid., 411: “Aussi voit-on parmi les Savans précisément la même différence morale qu'entre les autres Classes d'hommes, modifiée seulement par le genre de vie qu'ils menent, & les récompenses auxquels ils prétendent.”
27 Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique 17 (Oct.–Dec. 1755), 276–99, 296.
28 de Fontenelle, Bernard, “Éloge de Monsieur Maraldi”, in idem, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 7 (Paris, 1997), 181Google Scholar: “Son caractère était celui que les Sciences donnent ordinairement à ceux qui en font leur unique occupation, du sérieux, de la simplicité, de la droiture.” Cf. idem, “Éloge de Monsieur Varignon”, in ibid., 29. On the genre of the academic éloge and the concept of the virtuous scientist see Paul, Charles B., Science and Immortality: The éloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences, 1699–1791 (Berkeley, 1980)Google Scholar; Roche, Le siècle des Lumières, 166–81.
29 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 412. For Rousseau's reply to a similar claim by King Stanislas see Rousseau, Discourses, 36–7.
30 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 414: “Je ne vois qu'une seule Nation qui ait fait son capital de la Morale, qui l'ait envisagée comme une Science immédiatement & continuellement appliquable à la vie & aux actions des Citoyens, & qui en ait ouvert des Ecoles, non de simple théorie, mais de pratique, où l'on est formé à la vertu, comme on l'est ailleurs aux exercices du Corps, aux Arts & aux Sciences.”
31 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 415. Formey showed himself a staunch partisan of the moderns in the querelle des anciens et des modernes by reducing ancient Greek philosophy to vain chitchat: “toute l'ancienne Philosophie des Grecs n'a été qu'un vain babil, un étalage de Principes arbitraires”. Ibid., 407.
32 Ibid., 407.
33 Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique 13 (July–Sept. 1753), 213–20, here 214.
34 Ibid., 215.
35 Rousseau, Discourses, 103.
36 d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond, “Discours préliminaire”, in d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond and Diderot, Denis, eds., Encyclopédie, vol. 1 (Paris, 1751), xxxiijGoogle Scholar.
37 Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique 17 (Oct.–Dec. 1755), 296–8.
38 Ibid., 297 ff.: “C'est que ce développement [i.e. the advancement of the arts and sciences] à l’égard des individus, fait nâitre plus de mal que de bien; parce qu'il y en a effectivement plus de vicieux, que de bons: mais qu’à l’ègard des masses, ou des Sociétés, la réunion des lumières que les Sciences font briller, est une source d'avantages infiniment considérables, qui rétablissent pleinement l’équilibre de la balance”.
39 Mémoires pour l'histoire des sciences et des beaux arts (July 1755), 1733–56, esp. 1756; [Elie-Catherine Fréron], “[review] Formey Examen philosophique”, L'année littéraire, vol. 5 (Aug. 1755), 65; Bibliothèque des sciences et des beaux-arts (Oct.–Dec. 1755), 363.
40 Formey, “Examen philosophique”, 406.
41 For a similar account of ancient and modern systems of philosophy see Formey, Histoire abbrégée de la philosophie (Amsterdam, 1760), 313–14; English translation: A concise history of philosophy and philosophers. By M. Formey (Glasgow, 1767), 260–1. For a similar criticism see Rousseau, Discourses, 98. Formey, however, stressed that “we are not to renounce the sciences, as the citizen of Geneva advises, in order to secure us from vice: we have only to follow them with caution: folly may encrease the folly of fools, but it ever promotes the virtues of the good”. Formey, A concise history, 261.
42 [Charles-François Tiphaigne de la Roche], Apulejus Discurs über das Mittel glücklich zu seyn. Mit den Anmerkungen des Hrn. Professors Formey (Glogau, 1760), 137–8. Notably, this text was published together with “Herrn Hume Vier Philosophen: Quod vitae spectabor iter: Aus dem Englischen”, a translation of the French (!) translation of Hume's essays on the four philosophers.
43 Formey, Samuel, “Considérations sur ce qu'on peut regarder aujourd'hui comme le but principal des académies, et comme leur effet le plus avantageux”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres (1767) (Berlin, 1769), 367–81Google Scholar; idem, “Considérations sur ce qu'on peut regarder aujourd'hui comme le but principal des académies, et comme leur effet le plus avantageux. Second discours”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres (1768) (Berlin, 1770), 357–66. Extracts of this text were reprinted under the entry “Académies (avantages des)”, in Supplément à l'Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, t. 1 (Amsterdam, 1776), 93–9.
44 Formey, “Considérations”, 1768, 359.
45 Ibid., 1768, 361.
46 Ibid., 1768, 364. For a similar plan to regulate the République de Lettres by a tribunal of literary experts see his “Essai sur la morale des auteurs”, notably written in 1755, later published in Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres (1782), (Berlin, 1784), 363–403, esp. 379–83.
47 Hahn, Anatomy, 21 ff., 66 ff., 140 ff.
48 König, Appel au public, 47–8; Goldenbaum, “Das Publikum als Garant der Freiheit”.
49 Formey, “Considérations”, 1768, 366.
50 See Vollmer, Annett, “Journalismus und Aufklärung: Jean Henri Samuel Formey und die Entwicklung der Zeitschrift zum Medium der Kritik”, Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte 9 (2007), 101–29Google Scholar.
51 On the prize contests of the Berlin Academy see Buschmann, Cornelia, “Die philosophischen Preisfragen und Preisschriften der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften im 18. Jahrhundert”, in Förster, Wolfgang, ed., Aufklärung in Berlin (Berlin, 1989), 165–228Google Scholar. On contemporary notions of meritocracy see Vopa, Anthony J. La, Grace, Talent, and Merit: Poor Students, Clerical Careers, and Professional Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 Dagen, Jean, L'histoire de l'esprit humain dans la pensée française de Fontenelle à Condorcet (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar; Israel, Jonathan, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (Oxford, 2006), 496–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the debates about the relation between human spirit, language and society at the Prussian Academy see Lifschitz, Avi, Language and Enlightenment: The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth-Century (Oxford, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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54 For a modern, excellently commented edition of both texts see Herder, Johann Gottfried, Werke, vol. 4, Schriften zu Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Altertum 1774–1787, ed. Brummack, Jürgen and Bollacher, Martin (Frankfurt, 1994), 109–214Google Scholar.
55 Zammito, John H., Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago and London, 2002), 91–9Google Scholar.
56 Herder, Johann Gottfried, “Wie die Philosophie zum Besten des Volks allgemeiner und nützlicher werden kann”, Werke, vol. 1, Frühe Schriften 1764–1774, ed. Gaier, Ulrich (Frankfurt, 1985), 101–34, 108Google Scholar. I have used the translation by Michael Forster: Herder, Johann Gottfried, Philosophical Writings (Cambridge, 2002), 6Google Scholar. Herder here saw his task to reconnect philosophy to its public role in line with the Pyrrhonists’ scepticism towards metaphysics and great philosophical systems.
57 On Herder's theory of history in the context of Enlightenment anthropology and philosophies of history and time see Pross, Wolfgang, “Naturalism, Anthropology, and Culture”, in Goldie, Mark and Wokler, Robert, eds., The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge, 2006), 218–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “Nachwort”, in Herder, Werke, vol. 3/1, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, ed. Pross (Munich and Vienna, 2002), 839 ff.; Häfner, Ralph, Johann Gottfried Herders Kulturentstehungslehre: Studien zu den Quellen und zur Methode seines Geschichtsdenkens (Hamburg, 1995)Google Scholar; Zammito, Kant, 332 ff. On Herder's political thought see Dreitzel, Horst, “Herders politische Konzepte”, in Sauder, Gerhard, ed., Johann Gottfried Herder 1744–1803 (Hamburg, 1987), 267–98Google Scholar. For a profound, recent account of Herder scholarship see Zammito, John H., Menges, Karl and Menze, Ernest, “Johann Gottfried Herder Revisited: The Revolution in Scholarship in the Last Quarter Century”, Journal of the History of Ideas 71 (2010), 661–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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60 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, Werke, vol. 2, 1751–1753, ed. Stenzel, Jürgen (Frankfurt, 1998), 64–73Google Scholar, esp. 73: “Die Künste sind das, zu was wir sie machen wollen. Es liegt nur an uns, wenn sie schädlich sind.”
61 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 307–9; cf. Rousseau, Discourses, 11–12. On the contrast between Athens and Sparta in eighteenth-century political thought see Alexander Schmidt, “The Liberty of the Ancients? Friedrich Schiller and Aesthetic Republicanism”, History of Political Thought 30 (2009), 286–314.
62 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 308.
63 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 311.
64 Ferguson, Adam, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, ed. Oz-Salzberger, Fania (Cambridge, 1995), 170Google Scholar. On the reception of Ferguson in Germany see Oz-Salzberger, Fania, Translating the Enlightenment: Scottish Civic Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Herder's debt to eighteenth-century Scottish thinking see Zammito, John H., “Die Rezeption der schottischen Aufklärung in Deutschland: Herders entscheidende Einsicht”, in Schmidt-Haberkamp, Barbara, Steiner, Uwe and Wehinger, Brunhilde, eds., Europäischer Kulturtransfer im 18. Jahrhundert. Literaturen in Europa - Europäische Literatur? (Berlin, 2003), 113–38Google Scholar.
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66 Herder, Werke, vol. 4, 122–7.
67 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, ed. Senff, Wilhelm (Weimar, 1964), 116–18Google Scholar.
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72 Hume, “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences”, 119 ff.
73 For evidence of Herder's untiring enthusiasm for the civic humanist values see his praise of William Johnston Temple in a letter to Müller, J. G. (Nov. 1780) in Herder, Briefe, vol. 4, ed. Dobbek, Wilhelm and Arnold, Günter (Weimar, 1979), 143Google Scholar. Temple's Moral and Historical Memoirs (London, 1779), translated into German as Moralische und historische Denkwürdigkeiten (Halle, 1780), employed a conventional civic humanist vocabulary, lauded Roman liberty, and attacked luxury and superfluities. In Herder's view Temple was an author “nourished by the spirit of the Ancients, invigorated by the spirit of their sound reason, their liberty, and their simple dignity”. He was thus convinced that Temple's book would not be praised in the journals of the politically conservative Aufklärer of Göttingen for “its author is no slave of monarchy”.
74 Hume, “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences”, 125 ff. Cf. idem, “Of Civil Liberty”, in Essays, 87–96, esp. 90 ff.
75 Robertson, William, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V. With A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century in four volumes, vol. 1, 7th edn (London, 1792)Google Scholar, esp. 86 ff.
76 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 358: “Aber auch der Despotismus rieb sich und musste, gleichsam wider seinen Willen, Monarchie werden, auf Gesetze des Staats gründet. Wenn aus keinem andern Grunde, so geschahe dies daher, weil zwischen Staaten von besserer Verfassung der Despotismus keine Stelle, keine Sicherheit findet und sich gleichsam selbst vernichtigt.”
77 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 359–60.
78 Herder, Werke, vol. 1, Herder und der Sturm und Drang, ed. Wolfgang Pross (Munich and Vienna, 2002), 650 ff.
79 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 341–54.
80 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 391; cf. Rousseau, Discourses, 24 and 202.
81 Herder, Werke, vol. 3/1, 286 (bk 8, chap. 4); cf. Rousseau, Discourses, 132 and 183–4.
82 Cf. Schmidt, Georg, “Luthertum, Aufklärung und religiöse Gleichgültigkeit am Weimarer Hof im späten 18. Jahrhundert”, in Malettke, Klaus, Grell, Chantal and Holz, Petra, eds., Hofgesellschaft und Höflinge an europäischen Fürstenhöfen in der Frühen Neuzeit (15.–18. Jh.) (Münster, 2001), 491–506Google Scholar.
83 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 750–1.
84 See now Müller-Michaels, Harro, “Herder in Office: His Duties as Superintendent of Schools”, in Adler, Hans and Koepke, Wulf, eds., A Companion to the Works of Johann Gottfried Herder (Rochester, NY, 2009), 372–90Google Scholar; Kessler, Martin, Johann Gottfried Herder: Der Theologe unter den Klassikern: das Amt des Generalsuperintendenten von Sachsen-Weimar, 2 vols. (Berlin and New York, 2007Google Scholar).
85 Cf. Böning, Holger, Schmitt, Hanno and Siegert, Reinhart, eds., Volksaufklärung: Eine praktische Reformbewegung des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Bremen, 2007)Google Scholar.
86 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 389. On Herder's tutelary concept of the public and the role of the educated elite towards the uneducated masses see Vopa, Anthony J. La, “Herder's Publikum: Language, Print, and Sociability in Eighteenth-Century Germany”, Eighteenth-Century Studies 29 (1995), 5–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
87 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 386: “Soll Wissenschaft auf den Staat wirken, so müssen Stände gebildet werden und nicht Gelehrte, Männer von Geschäften und nicht Polygraphen.” Original emphasis.
88 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 385.
89 Ibid., 1141.
90 Herder, Werke, vol. 10, Adrastea, ed. Günter Arnold (Frankfurt, 2000), 663–72 and 714–15.
91 Ibid., 707–9.
92 Ibid., 709–14. In fact, this idea became realized one year later with the foundation of the Jenaer Allgemeine Literaturzeitung in 1803 by Herder's friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the Weimar minister Christian Gottlob Voigt, a prestigious review journal, which was basically owned by the state. Cf. Müller, Gerhard, Vom Regieren zum Gestalten: Goethe und die Universität Jena (Heidelberg, 2006), 476 ff. Cf.Google Scholar Formey, “Essai sur la morale des auteurs”, 379–83.
93 That Herder indeed aimed at such a reform of education in Germany and other parts of Europe can be understood from a letter (25 Jan. 1781) to Baron Görtz, the Prussian envoy in St Petersburg, whom he had sent his prize essay. Herder lamented that despite the praise he received in Germany nothing would be done to amend the defects he had criticized. Frustrated with Frederick the Great's recently published account of German literature, Herder also asked Görtz to recommend his essay to Empress Catherine II, for he had said something “that would do no harm to princes to read it”. Herder, Briefe, vol. 4, ed. Wilhelm Dobbek and Günter Arnold (Weimar, 1979), 160.
94 Herder, “Idee zum ersten patriotischen Institut für den Allgemeingeist Deutschlands (1787)”, in Werke, vol. 9/2, 565–80. On the historical background see Hans Tümmler, “Johann Gottfried Herders Plan einer deutschen Akademie (1787)”, in idem, Weimar, Wartburg, Fürstenbund 1776–1820: Geist und Politik im Thüringen der Goethezeit. Gesammelte Aufsätze (Bad Neustadt, 1995), 39–52.
95 See Arnd Bohm, “Herder and Politics”, in Adler and Koepke, A Companion to the Works of Johann Gottfried Herder, 291 ff.
96 Herder, Werke, vol. 3/1, 328.
97 Ibid., 329–30.
98 Herder, Werke, vol. 4, 214: “Sie [= poetry] hat sich unendlich verfeint, alle Vorstellungsarten und Moralen erschöpft; wirkt aber wenig, und kann und soll jetzt leider nur wenig wirken; sie ist zum lieben Vergnügen.”
99 Herder, Werke, vol. 4, 147–8.
100 Herder, Werke, vol. 9/2, 360.
