2 Chapter 2: Introductory Assignment

The purpose of the following chapter is to get students to practice reading and analyzing primary sources. The goal is to learn to evaluate sources critically. Historians try not to take any primary source at face value, but to question its purpose and understand its bias. It is also important for readers to be able to distinguish between fact and interpretation when doing this activity. When reading any source, we want to try to put ourselves into the historical past, to try to understand what the source was trying to accomplish in the period in which it was written. Our job here is not to judge these past societies, but to try to come to understand them. Certainly, what we learn might be distressing from a modern perspective, however we must set aside our modern biases in order to gain a deeper understanding of the historical past.

As you read the following sources, think about the following five questions. You must approach each of these questions from the perspective of when the source was originally written, not from the modern day

1. Who is the author? When was the source composed?
   1. Knowing the author helps us to better understand perspective. Is this a person who is a religious leader? A political leader? Both? Are they not associated with the government in any way? Knowing this basic information will help us to ascertain the agenda/purpose of the source.
   2. Knowing the time something was written gives us better historical context. Does this come from a period of conflict? Is it from the beginning of a dynasty? Its end?
2. Who was the intended audience?
   1. Was this meant for general consumption? Was it a personal letter whose contents were not meant to be known publicly? If so, was it to a close friend or maybe an adversary? Throughout history people will write different ways when it is meant for different audiences.
3. What is the purpose of the source?
   1. This can be a difficult one. Sometimes a stated aim is not always the truth. Other times, something that seems straightforward is not.
4. What is the historical context in which the letter was written and read?
   1. Context gets at why this, why now? What is going on that would lead the author to produce this particular source at this particular time? Sometimes we can find the answer to this in the source itself, but oftentimes we need to look outside of the source to understand what was happening in the wider society.
5. What biases are detectable in the source?
   1. Bias gets at who is advantaged or disadvantaged by what is written. Sometimes this is intentionally done, sometimes it is unintentional and can simply show us something about the society that the author had never intended, mainly because the concept was common at the time.

If we begin with these general questions in mind, as we read there is a lot more that we can learn from each source beyond simply what is in them. In the end, as we read we really want to ascertain the why of something, not just the what. Yes, it is important to understand what is in each source, but we also need to understand the meaning behind it, the why. Understanding the meaning is much more important than just understanding the facts of what is in each source.

2.1 William Adams: My Coming to Japan (1611)

William Adams (1564–1620) was an English navigator and ship pilot who became one of the earliest Englishmen to establish a lasting connection with Japan. In 1600, Adams arrived in Japan aboard a Dutch expedition after a disastrous voyage across the Pacific. He was brought before Tokugawa Ieyasu and due to his knowledge of navigation, shipbuilding, and European affairs became an adviser to the man who would later become shogun. Although Adams initially hoped to return to England, he ultimately remained in Japan.

“My Coming to Japan,” written in 1611, is a letter Adams sent to English merchants and fellow countrymen in Southeast Asia. It recounts his difficult voyage, arrival in Japan, imprisonment and questioning by Ieyasu, and eventual life in Japan. His account provides insight into early seventeenth-century encounters between Europeans and Japan and illustrates how individuals such as Adams could become cultural intermediaries between increasingly connected regions of the world. His letter also helped encourage English commercial interest in Japan, contributing to the establishment of an English trading post there in Hirado, an island in modern-day Nagasaki Prefecture in 1613. The post closed in 1623 due to low profits and strong competition from the Dutch.

The following is adapted from Eva March Tappan, ed., The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, Volume I: China, Japan, and the Islands of the Pacific, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), pp. 325-331. Edited and notes added by Travis Ritt.

It was agreed that we should leave the coast of Peru and direct our course for Japan, having understood that cloth was good merchandise there and also how upon that coast of Peru the king’s ships were out seeking us…So we stood away directly for Japan…We had a wondrous storm of wind as ever I was in, with much rain, in which storm we lost our consort, whereof we were very sorry. Nevertheless with hope that in Japan we should meet the one the other, we proceeded on our former intention for Japan, and in the height of thirty degrees sought the northernmost cape of the fore-named island, but found it not by reason that it lay false in all cards and maps and globes; for the cape lies in thirty-five degrees and one half, which is a great difference. In the end, in thirty-two degrees and one half we came in sight of the land, being the nineteenth day of April. So that between the Cape of St. Maria and Japan we were four months and twenty-two days; at which time there were no more than six besides myself that could stand upon his feet.

So we in safety let fall our anchor about a league from a place called Bungo [on the east coast of Kyushu]. At which time came to us many boats and we suffered them to come aboard, being not able to resist them, which people did us no harm, neither of us understanding the one the other. The king of Bungo showed us great friendship, for he gave us a house and land, where we landed our sick men, and had all refreshing that was needful. We had when we came to anchor in Bungo, sick and whole, four and twenty men, of which number the next day three died. The rest for the most part recovered, saving three, which lay a long time sick, and in the end also died.

In the which time of our being here, the emperor hearing of us sent presently five galleys, or frigates, to us to bring me to the court where His Highness was, which was distant from Bungo about eighty English leagues. So that as soon as I came before him, he demanded of me of what country we were. So I answered him in all points, for there was nothing that he demanded not, both concerning war and peace between country and country; so that the particulars here to write would be too tedious. And for that time I was commanded to prison, being well used, with one of our mariners that came with me to serve me.

A two days after, the emperor called me again, demanding the reason of our coming so far. I answered: We are a people that sought all friendship with all nations, and to have trade in all countries, bringing such merchandise as our country did afford into strange lands in the way of traffic. He demanded also as concerning the wars between the Spaniards or Portugal and our country and the reasons; the which I gave him to understand of all things, which he was glad to hear, as it seemed to me.

In the end I was commanded to prison again, but my lodging was bettered in another place. So that thirty-nine days I was in prison, hearing no more news, neither of our ship nor captain, whether he were recovered of his sickness or not, nor of the rest of the company; in which time I looked every day to die, to be crossed [crucified] as the custom of justice is in Japan, as hanging in our land. In which long time of imprisonment, the Jesuits and the Portuguese gave many evidences against me and the rest to the emperor that we were thieves and robbers of all nations, and, were we suffered to live, it should be against the profit of His Highness and the land; for no nation should come there without robbing; His Highness’s justice being executed, the rest of our nation without doubt should fear and not come here any more: thus daily making access to the emperor and procuring friends to hasten my death. But God, that is always merciful at need, showed mercy unto us and would not suffer them to have their wills of us. In the end, the emperor gave them answer that we as yet had not done to him nor to none of his land any harm or damage; therefore against reason and justice to put us to death. If our countries had war the one with the other, that was no cause that he should put us to death; with which they were out of heart that their cruel pretense failed them. For which God be forever-more praised.

Now in this time that I was in prison the ship was commanded to be brought so near to the city where the emperor was as she might be (for grounding her); the which was done. Forty-one days being expired, the emperor caused me to be brought before him again, demanding of me many questions more, which were too long to write. In conclusion he asked me whether I were desirous to go to the ship to see my countrymen. I answered very gladly, the which he bade me do. So I departed and was free from imprisonment. And this was the first news that I had that the ship and company were come to the city. So that with a rejoicing heart I took a boat and went to our ship, where I found the captain and the rest recovered of their sickness; and when I came aboard with weeping eyes was received, for it was given them to understand that I was executed long since. Thus, God be praised, all we that were left alive came together again.

From the ship all things were taken out, so that the clothes which I took with me on my back I only had. All my instruments and books were taken. Not only I lost what I had in the ship, but from the captain and the company generally what was good or worth the taking was carried away; all which was done unknown to the emperor. So in process of time having knowledge of it, he commanded that they which had taken our goods should restore it to us back again; but it was here and there so taken that we could not get it again, saving 50,000 R in ready money was commanded to be given us and in his presence brought and delivered in the hands of one that was made our governor, who kept them in his hands to distribute them unto us as we had need for the buying of victuals for our men with other particular charges. In the end the money was divided according to every man’s place; but this was about two years that we had been in Japan, and when we had a denial that we should not have our ship, but to abide in Japan. So that the part of every one being divided, every one took his way where he thought best. In the end, the emperor gave every man, much as was worth eleven or twelve ducats a year, namely, myself, the captain, and mariners all alike.

So in process of four or five years the emperor called me, as divers times he had done before. So one time above the rest he would have me to make him a small ship. I answered that I was no carpenter and had no knowledge thereof. “Well, do your endeavor,” said he; “if it be not good, it is no matter.” Wherefore at his command I built him a ship of the burden of eighty tons or thereabout; which ship being made in all respects as our manner is, he coming aboard to see it, liked it very well; by which means I came in favor with him, so that I came often in his presence, who from time to time gave me presents, and at length a yearly stipend to live upon, much about seventy ducats by the year with two pounds of rice a day daily. Now being in such grace and favor by reason I learned him some points of geometry and understanding of the art of mathematics with other things, I pleased him so that what I said he would not contrary. At which my former enemies did wonder, and at this time must entreat me to do them a friendship, which to both Spaniards and Portuguese have I done, recompensing them good for evil. So to pass my time to get my living, it hath cost me great labor and trouble at the first; but God hath blessed my labor.

In the end of five years I made supplication to the king to go out of this land, desiring to see my poor wife and children according to conscience and nature. With the which request the emperor was not well pleased, and would not let me go any more for my country, but to bide in his land. Yet in process of time, being in great favor with the emperor, I made supplication again, by reason we had news that the Hollanders were in Shian and Patania; which rejoiced us much with hope that God should bring us to our country again by one means or other. So I made supplication again, and boldly spoke myself with him, at which he gave me no answer. I told him if he would permit me to depart, I would be a means that both the English and Hollanders should come and traffic there. But by no means he would let me go. I asked him leave for the captain, the which he presently granted me. So by that means my captain got leave, and in a Japan junk sailed to Pattan; and in a year’s space came to Hollanders. In the end, he went from Patane to Ior, where he found a fleet of nine sail, of which fleet Matleef was general, and in this fleet he was made master again, which fleet sailed to Malacca and fought with an armado of Portugal; in which battle he was shot and presently died; so that, as I think, no certain news is known whether I be living or dead. Therefore I do pray and entreat you in the name of Jesus Christ to do so much as to make my being here in Japan known to my poor wife, in a manner a widow and my two children fatherless; which thing only is my greatest grief of heart and conscience…

Source: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, Volume I: China, Japan, and the Islands of the Pacific, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), pp. 325-331. The text has been modernized by Jerome Arkenberg.

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use © Paul Halsall, October 1998

2.2 Edmund Burke: Reflections on The Revolution in France (1790)

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) was an Irish-born British statesman and political thinker who became one of the most influential critics of the French Revolution. A supporter of constitutional government and gradual political reform, Burke was initially sympathetic to some of the revolutionary ideas coming out of France, but became deeply concerned by the revolution’s rejection of established institutions, traditions, religion, and social hierarchies. His Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, was written as a response to the growing enthusiasm for the French Revolution among British intellectuals and politicians.

In the Reflections, Burke argued that societies should not attempt to rebuild government according to abstract theories of liberty, equality, and natural rights without considering historical experience and established traditions. He defended inherited institutions, particularly the monarchy and established church, arguing that they provided stability and social continuity. Burke predicted that revolutionary attacks on these institutions would lead not to greater freedom but to violence, disorder, and eventually authoritarian government. The work became one of the foundational texts of modern conservative political thought.

The following is adapted from Edmund Burke, Works, (London: 1867)

The question of dethroning, or, if these gentlemen like the phrase better “cashiering kings,” will always be, as it has always been, an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the law; a question (like all other questions of state) of dispositions, and of means, and of probable consequences, rather than of positive rights. As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds. The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered state. Times, and occasions, and provocations, will teach their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high­minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold, from the love of honourable danger in a generous cause; but, with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good.

The third head of right, asserted by the pulpit of the Old Jewry, namely, the “right to form a government for ourselves,” has, at least, as little countenance from anything done at the Revolution [of 1688], either in precedent or principle, as the two first of their claims. The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty. If you are desirous of knowing the spirit of our constitution, and the policy which predominated in that great period which has secured it to this hour, pray look for both in our histories, in our records, in our acts of parliament, and journals of parliament, and not in the sermons of the Old Jewry, and the after­dinner toasts of the Revolution Society. In the former you will find other ideas and another language. Such a claim is as ill­suited to our temper and wishes as it is unsupported by an appearance of authority. The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of reverence to antiquity: and I hope, nay I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, authority, and example.

…

You will observe that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors.

This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. 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. Besides, the people of England well know, that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission; without at all excluding a principle of improvement…By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives..

You [in France] might, if you pleased, have profited of our example, and have given to your recovered freedom a correspondent dignity. Your privileges, though discontinued, were not lost to memory. Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations, of a noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls; you might have built on those old foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was perfected; but you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished. In your old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with the various descriptions of which your community was happily composed; you had all that combination, and all that opposition of interests, you had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe. These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a matter not of choice, but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations; and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few or in the many, for ever impracticable. Through that diversity of members and interests, general liberty had as many securities as there were separate views in the several orders; whilst by pressing down the whole by the weight of a real monarchy, the separate parts would have been prevented from warping, and starting from their allotted places.

You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you. You set up your trade without a capital. If the last generations of your country appeared without much lustre in your eyes, you might have passed them by, and derived your claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection for those ancestors your imaginations would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour: and you would have risen with the example to whose imitation you aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to respect yourselves You would not have chosen to consider the French as a people of yesterday, as a nation of low­born servile wretches until the emancipating year of 1789. In order to furnish, at the expense of your honour, an excuse to your apologists here for several enormities of yours, you would not have been content to be represented as a gang of Maroon slaves, suddenly broke loose from the house of bondage, and therefore to be pardoned for your abuse of the liberty to which you were not accustomed, and ill fitted. Would it not, my worthy friend, have been wiser to have you thought, what I, for one, always thought you, a generous and gallant nation, long misled to your disadvantage by your high and romantic sentiments of fidelity, honour, and loyalty; that events had been unfavourable to you, but that you were not enslaved through any illiberal or servile disposition; in your most devoted submission, you were actuated by a principle of public spirit, and that it was your Country you worshipped, in the person of your king? Had you made it to be understood, that in the delusion of this amiable error you had gone further than your wise ancestors; that you were resolved to resume your ancient privileges, whilst you preserved the spirit of your ancient and your recent loyalty and honour; or if, diffident of yourselves, and not clearly discerning the almost obliterated constitution of your ancestors, you had looked to your neighbours in this land, who had kept alive the ancient principles and models of the old common law of Europe meliorated and adapted to its present state-by following wise examples you would have given new examples of wisdom to the world. You would have rendered the cause of liberty venerable in the eyes of every worthy mind in every nation. You would have shamed despotism from the earth, by showing that freedom was not only reconcilable, but, as when well disciplined it is, auxiliary to law. You would have an unoppressive but a productive revenue. You would have had a flourishing commerce to feed it. You would have had a free constitution; a potent monarchy; a disciplined army; a reformed and venerated clergy; a mitigated but spirited nobility, to lead your virtue, not to overlay it; you would have had a liberal order of commons, to emulate and to recruit that nobility; you would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and to recognise the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all conditions; in which consists the true moral equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it never can remove; and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy. You had a smooth and easy career of felicity and glory laid open to you beyond anything recorded in the history of the world; but you have shown that difficulty is good for men.

…

They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant. Their I resistance was made to concession; their revolt was from protection; their blow was aimed at a hand holding out graces, favours, and immunities.

This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their punishment in their success. Laws overturned; tribunals subverted; industry without vigor; commerce expiring, the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy made the constitution of the kingdom; everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence; and, to crown all, the paper securities or new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognised species that represent the lasting, conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the principle of property, whose creatures j and representatives they are, was systematically subverted.

Were all those dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood and tumult, to the quiet shore of a tranquil and prosperous liberty? No! nothing like it. The fresh ruins of France, which shock our feelings wherever we can turn our eyes, are not the devastation of civil war; they are the sad but instructive monuments of rash and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace. They are the display of inconsiderate and presumptuous, because unresisted and irresistible, authority. The persons who have thus squandered away the precious treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made this prodigal and wild waste of public evils, (the last stage reserved for the ultimate ransom of the state), have met in their progress with little, or rather with no opposition at all. Their whole march was more like a triumphal procession, than the progress of a war. Their pioneers have gone before them, and demolished and laid everything level at their feet. Not one drop of their blood have they shed in the cause of the country they have ruined. They have made no sacrifices to their projects of greater consequence than their shoe­buckles, whilst they were imprisoning their king, murdering their fellow citizens, and bathing in tears, and plunging in poverty and distress, thousands of worthy men and worthy families. Their cruelty has not even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings, throughout their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain from the beginning.

…

To observing men it must have appeared from the beginning, that the majority of the Third Estate, in conjunction with such a deputation from the clergy as I have described whilst it pursued the destruction of the nobility, would inevitably become subservient to the worst designs of individuals in that class. In the spoil and humiliation of their own order these individuals would possess a sure fund for the pay of their new followers. To squander away the objects which made the happiness of their fellows, would be to them no sacrifice at all. Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. One of the first symptoms they discover of a selfish and mischievous ambition, is a profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others. To be attached to the subdivision, to love the platoon we belong to in society is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.

Source: Edmund Burke, Works, (London: 1867)

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use. (c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997

2.3 Johann Gottfried von Herder: Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, literary critic, and early Romantic thinker whose ideas profoundly influenced modern concepts of nationalism. Unlike Enlightenment thinkers who often sought universal laws of human progress, Herder emphasized the importance of culture, language, geography, and historical circumstances in shaping different peoples. He argued that each society should be understood within its own historical context rather than judged according to the standards of another culture.

Herder’s Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit), published in several volumes between 1784 and 1791, presented a broad history of humanity from its origins through the development of civilizations. Herder viewed history as a complex process of human development in which different peoples contributed to humanity’s overall cultural growth. His work challenged simple, Eurocentric notions of progress and emphasized the diversity and individuality of human cultures. It became an important influence on Romanticism and later approaches to cultural and national history.

The following is replicated in its entirety from the Paul Hallsall edition of Johann Gottfried Herder Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. 1784.

Nature has sketched with mountain ranges which she fashioned and with streams which she caused to flow from them the rough but substantial outline of the whole history of man . .One height produced nations of hunters, thus supporting and rendering necessary a savage state; another, more extended and mild, afforded a field to shepherd peoples and supplied them with tame animals; a third made agriculture easy and needful; while a fourth led to fishing and navigation and at length to trade. The structure of the earth, in its natural variety and diversity, rendered all such distinguishing conditions inescapable . . Seas, mountain ranges and rivers are the most natural boundaries not only of lands but also of peoples, customs, languages and empires, and they have been, even in the greatest revolutions in human affairs, the directing lines or limits of world history. If otherwise mountains had arisen, rivers flowed, or coasts trended, then how very different would mankind have scattered over this tilting place of nations….

Nature brings forth families; the most natural state therefore is also one people, with a national character of its own. For thousands of years this character preserves itself within the people and, if the native princes concern themselves with it, it can be cultivated in the most natural way: for a people is as much a plant of nature as is a family, except that it has more branches. Nothing therefore seems more contradictory to the true end of governments than the endless expansion of states, the wild confusion of races and nations under one scepter. An empire made up of a hundred peoples and a 120 provinces which have been forced together is a monstrosity, not a state-body.

What is the supreme law which we note in all great historical events? In my opinion, it is this: that, in every part of our earth, all possible development is determined in part by the position and the necessities of the locality, in part by circumstances and the opportunities of the age, and in part by the inborn and self-nourishing character of the peoples…. All events in the human sphere, like all productions of nature, are decreed solely by time, locality, and national character, in short by the coordination of all the forces of life in their most positive individuality.

Active human powers are the springs of human history, and, as man originates from and in one race, so his body, education, and mode of thinking are genetic. Hence that striking national character, which, deeply imprinted on the most ancient peoples, is unequivocally displayed in all their operations on the earth. As the mineral water derives its component parts, its operative power, and its flavor from the soil through which it flows, so the ancient character of peoples arose from the family features, the climate, the way of life and education, the early actions and employments, that were peculiar to them. The manners of the fathers took deep root and became the internal prototype of the descendants. The mode of thinking of the Jews, which is best known to us from their writings and actions, may serve as an example: both in the land of their fathers and in the midst of other nations they remain as they were, and even when mixed with other peoples they may be distinguished for some generations onward. It was and is the same with all other peoples of antiquity—Egyptians, Chinese, Arabs, Hindus, etc. The more secluded they lived, nay frequently the more they were oppressed, the more their character was confirmed, so that, if every one of these nations had remained in its place, the earth might have been regarded as a garden where in one plot one human national plant, in another, another, bloomed in its proper form and nature, where in this corner one kind of national animal, in that, another, pursued its course according to its instincts and character….

Has a people anything dearer than the speech of its fathers? In its speech resides its whole thought-domain, its tradition, history, religion, and basis of life, all its heart and soul. To deprive a people of its speech is to deprive it of its one eternal good…. As God tolerates all the different languages in the world, so also should a ruler not only tolerate but honor the various languages of his peoples…. The best culture of a people cannot be expressed through a foreign language; it thrives on the soil of a nation most beautifully, and, I may say, it thrives only by means of the nation’s inherited and inheritable dialect. With language is created the heart of a people; and is it not a high concern, amongst so many peoples—Hungarians, Slavs, Rumanians, etc.—to plant seeds of well-being for the far future and in the way that is dearest and most appropriate to them? . . .

The savage who loves himself, his wife, and his child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity for his tribe as for his own life is, it seems to me, a more genuine being than that cultured shade who is enchanted by the shadow of his whole species…. In his poor hut, the former finds room for every stranger, receives him as a brother with impartial good humor and never asks whence he came. The inundated heart of the idle cosmopolitan is a home for no one….

No greater injury can be inflicted on a nation than to be robbed of her national character, the peculiarity of her spirit and her language. Reflect on this and you will perceive our irreparable loss. Look about you in Germany for the character of the nation, for their own particular cast of thought, for their own peculiar vein of speech; where are they? Read Tacitus; there you will find their character: “The tribes of Germany, who never degrade themselves by mingling with others, form a peculiar, unadulterated, original nation, which is its own archetype. Even their physical development is universally uniform, despite the large numbers of the people,” and so forth. Now look about you and say: “The tribes of Germany have been degraded by mingling with others; they have sacrificed their natural disposition in protracted intellectual servitude; and, since they have, in contrast to others, imitated a tyrannical prototype for a long time, they are, among all the nations of Europe, the least true to themselves.”. . .

If Germany were only guided by the forces of the age, by the leading strings of her own culture, our intellectual disposition would doubtless be poor and restricted; but it would be true to our own soil, fashioned upon its own model, and not so misshapen and cast down….

Source: Johann Gottfried Herder. Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. 1784.

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