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Friedrich Meinecke’s Followers (6)
Friedrich Meinecke
Born
in Salzwedel, Germany
October 20, 1862
Died
February 06, 1954
More books by Friedrich Meinecke…
“[Edmund Burke] taught men to have a deeper veneration and understanding for all the irrational constituents in the life of the State—the power of tradition, of custom and of instinct, and the subconscious impulses of feeling.”
― Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook
― Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook
“The most a historian can do is to take the particular processes of the historical world which he is supposed to elucidate, and let these events be seen in the light of higher and more general forces which are present behind and develop in these events; his task is to show the concrete sub specie aeterni. But he is not in a position to determine the essence of this higher and eternal force itself or to determine the relationship it bears to concrete reality. Thus he can only say that in historical life he beholds a world which, though unified, is bipolar: a world which needs both poles to be as it appears to us. Physical nature and intellect,
causality according to law and creative spontaneity, are these two poles, which stand in such sharp and apparently irreconcilable opposition. But historical life, as it unfolds between them, is always influenced simultaneously by both, even if not always by both to the same degree. The historian’s task would be an easy one if he could content himself with this straightforward dualistic interpretation of the relationship between physical nature and intellect, as it corresponds to the Christian and ethical tradition of earlier centuries. Then he would have nothing more to do than describe the struggle between light and darkness, between sin and forgiveness, between the world of intellect and that of the senses. He would be a war-correspondent; and taking up his position (naturally enough) in the intellectual camp he would be able to distinguish friend from foe with certainty.”
― Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History
causality according to law and creative spontaneity, are these two poles, which stand in such sharp and apparently irreconcilable opposition. But historical life, as it unfolds between them, is always influenced simultaneously by both, even if not always by both to the same degree. The historian’s task would be an easy one if he could content himself with this straightforward dualistic interpretation of the relationship between physical nature and intellect, as it corresponds to the Christian and ethical tradition of earlier centuries. Then he would have nothing more to do than describe the struggle between light and darkness, between sin and forgiveness, between the world of intellect and that of the senses. He would be a war-correspondent; and taking up his position (naturally enough) in the intellectual camp he would be able to distinguish friend from foe with certainty.”
― Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History
“Amongst the most impressive pieces by which Gustav Freytag, in Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, showed the woes of the German people in the 17th century and its lifelessness and rigidity after the Thirty Years War, is the cutting satire on Ratio status of 1666, which he reprinted. In this a young and promising counsellor of the ruler is taken into the secret chambers where the arcana status are to be found: the cloaks of State, masks of State, spectacles of State, eye dust, etc., which are used in the work. Cloaks of State, beautifully trimmed on the outside but shabby on the inside, with names like salus populi, bonum publicum, coservatio religionis, etc., are used when one goes to meet the representatives of the people, when one wishes to make the subjects agree to pay subsidies, or when, under the pretext of a false doctrine, one wants to drive someone out of house and home. One completely threadbare cloak, which is in daily use, is called Intentio, good intentions; this is worn, when one is laying new insupportable burdens on the subjects, impoverishing them with forced labour, or inaugurating unnecessary wars. With the various spectacles of State, midges can be made into elephants, or little kindnesses on part of the ruler can be made into supreme acts of mercy. There is an iron instrument with which the ruler can enlarge the gullets of his counsellors, so that they can swallow great pumpkins. Finally, a ball of knotted wire, furnished with sharp needles and heated by a fire within, so that it draws tears from the eyes of the beholder, represents the Principe of Machiavelli.”
― Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History
― Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History
