rogress in History·

(Fronl the tirst lecture to King

Ma.xi111ilian
. l[ of Bavaria, ''On the
Epo~hs of Moden1 History'', 1854)

I. How tlu~com.-ept '"progress.. is to be understood in history

t r ,w ,, ere w nssumc, in comnHHl with nrnny u philosopher, Lhat ali of rnankind is
d~vdnping frc,m a giwn original stntc ll' a positivc goal. we could conceive lhis
phx:css in twl, wuys. Eithcr u general guiding will promotes the development of
the hunrnn rnce frnm urn.· point to another or therc is in mank.ind a vestige of
spirituul nutun.: whic.'h or nt·t·essity drives things toward a certain goal. I would not
,:l,llsidcr thl'SC two views 10 be either philosophically tenable or historically
dcmonstrahh.:.
\Ve cunnot consider these views philosophically acceptable because the former
cuse u.oes so far as to do uway with human freedom and makes men into too\s
witho~t a will of their own; and because in the lauer case men would have to be
God or nothing at ali.
But histori..:n.lly too. these views are not provable. For first of ali. the greater
pan of mankind is still in its original state. at the very point of departure . And then
the question arises: what is progress? Where is the progress of mankind noticeable')
Elt::ments of the greal historical development have been incorporated in the Latin
nnLI Gl'mrnnic pcoples. Hen!, to be sure. a spirilual power exists which develops
st~p by step. lndecd, the hislorical power of the human spirit in ali of history is
unmistaknhle. a movement started in primeva] times which continues with a
ccrtain s1eadjness. TI1ere is. however, but one system of populations arnong
mankind which cakes part in this general historical movernent. while others ure
excludcd from i1. But in general we can also view the nat.ionalities engaged in the
historical movemenr as not progressing steadily. For instance, if we turn our
utLent1o n to Asio, we see that culture originated there and that the continent had
sl!vem l cultuml epoch.s. But there the movement has on the whole t,eeo
n-lrogre~si, e: for lhe oldest epoch of Asian culture was the rnost flourishing: tlte
second and third epochs , in which lhe Greek and Rornan elernents dominated.
were no longer as signi ficant, and with the invasion of the barbarians - rhe

• F'rom ··ut>er dte Eí>OChen der neueren G , hi h .. . ,., p 1-9.

tmn~lated by \\'ilma A. lggers. ese e le m Weltgesc/Jiclire, Theil IX. Abt -· P ·
 Thc Jdealistic Theon of 1-Jisroringrapliy 21
g,,ls - culture in Asia disappe~ d complelely. In view of this fot·t the thcs1!>
~~t:;.. _,graph.K progn!ssion has been offered. l must. howevcr, from thc ~taii
,)! ~~..~ 11 nn
J~ 1 .... ~
empty ussernon lo nss ume. as did for instance Peter the Grcat that
· · th d f h ·
., lturt' was makrng e_roun s O t e globe: that It had come from the East' and
,u curning thcre agarn.
"as ~ . be .
secondly. another error 15 _10 avoid~d herc, namely, the assurnption that the
rNzre.ssive de,·elopment of the centunes encompasses at the same lime ali
~;cheS of hun~an nature an~ skill. To stress only one example, history shows us
81:
ch:tl in modero tunes flounshed most in the fifteenth and in the first half of the
SLxteenth century. ?ul m. the seventeenth and in the first three quarters of the
ei!lbtt:.enth cenmry it declmed the most. The same is true of poetry: there are also
0 ;1 vbrief periods when this art is really outstanding, but there is no evidence that
it ri·ses to a higher level in the course of the centuries.
If we thus exclude a geographic law of developmem and if we furtherrnore have
10 assume, as history teaches us, that peoples can perish arnong whom the
development that has begun <loes not steadily encompass everything, we shall bener
recognize the real substance of the continuous movement of mankind. It is based on
lhe fact that the great spiritual tendencies which govern mankind sometimes go
separate ways and at other times are closely related. In these tendencies there is,
bowever, always a certain particular direction which predominates and causes the
omers to recede. So, for exarnple, in the second half of the sixteenth century the
religious element predominated so much that the literary receded in the face of it. In
tbe eighteenth century, on the other hand, the striving for utility gained so much
ground that art and related activities had to yield before it.
Thus, in every epoch of mankind a certain great tendency manifests itself; and
progress rests on the fact that a certain movement of the human spirit reveals itself
in every epoch, which stresses sometimes the one and sometimes the other
tendency, manifesting itself there in a characteristic fashion.
If in contradiction to the view expressed here, however, one were to assume
that this progress consisted in the fact that the life of mankind reaches a higher
potential in every epoch - that is, that every generation surpasses the previous one
completely and that therefore the last epoch is always the preferred, the epocbs
preceding it being only stepping stones to ones that follow - this would be an
injustice on the part of the deity. Such a generation which, as it were, had become
a means would not have any significance for and in itself. It would only have
rneaning as a stepping stone for the following generation and would not bave an
immediate relation to the divine. But I assert: every epoch is immediate to God,
and its wortb is not at ali based on what derives from it but rests in its own
ex.istence, in its own self. In this way the contemplation of history, that is to say
of individual life in history, acquires its own particular attraction, since now every
epoch must be seen as somelhing valid in itself and appears highly worthy of
consideration.
The historian thus has to pay particular attention first of all to how people in.a
certain period thougbt and lived. Toen he will find that, apart from ce~n
unchangeable eternal main ideas, for instance those of morality, every epoch has lls
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