250-300 words
Responses should discuss the author’s argument, the evidence used, the historical
context, the author’s worldview, the contribution the reading makes to our class
content, or connections to other readings. (Depending on whether the reading is a
primary or secondary source, you may not be able to discuss all of those elements for
each reading.) In general, you should not discuss your personal reaction to the
reading. These should be formal Word documents with a paragraph structure that
have been proofread for grammar and spelling errors.
The Reading:
Johann Gottlieb Fichte: To the German Nation, 1806Johann Gottlieb Fichte (17621814) was a German philosopher, a reformer and a supporter of the French
Revolution and its ideals. But when France, under Napoleon, took control of
Germany along with much of the rest of Europe, he rethought his position and made
a series of Addresses to the German Nation (1806), in French-occupied Berlin. The
first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal
boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a
multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they
understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves
understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and
an inseparable whole. Such a whole, if it wishes to absorb and mingle with itself any
other people of different descent and language, cannot do so without itself becoming
confused, in the beginning at any rate, and violently disturbing the even progress of
its culture. From this internal boundary, which is drawn by the spiritual nature of
man himself, the marking of the external boundary by dwelling place results as a
consequence; and in the natural view of things it is not because men dwell between
certain mountains and rivers that they are a people, but, on the contrary, men dwell
together-and, if their luck has so arranged it, are protected by rivers and mountainsbecause they were a people already by a law of nature which is much higher.Thus
was the German nation placed-sufficiently united within itself by a common language
and a common way of thinking, and sharply enough severed from the other peoplesin the middle of Europe, as a wall to divide races not akin....That things should
remain thus did not suit the selfishness of foreign countries, whose calculations did
not look more than one moment ahead. They found German bravery useful in waging
their wars and German hands useful to snatch the booty from their rivals. A means
had to be found to attain this end, and foreign cunning won an easy victory over
German ingenuousness and lack of suspicion. It was foreign countries which first
made use of the division of mind produced by religious disputes in GermanyGermany, which presented on a small scale the features of Christian Europe as a
whole-foreign countries, I say, made use of these disputes to break up the close inner
unity of Germany into separate and disconnected parts....They knew how to present
each of these separate states that had thus arisen in the lap of the one nation-which
had no enemy except those foreign countries themselves, and no concern except the
common one of setting itself with united strength against their seductive craft and
cunning-foreign countries, I say, knew how to present each of these states to the
others as a natural enemy, against which each state must be perpetually on its guard.
On the other hand, they knew how to make themselves appear to the German states
as natural allies against the danger threatening them from their own countrymen-as
allies with whom alone they would themselves stand or fall, and whose enterprises
they must in turn support with all their might. It was only because of this artificial
bond that all the disputes which might arise about any matter whatever in the Old
World or the New became disputes of the German races in their relation to each
other.
Every war, no matter what its cause, had to be fought out on German soil and with
German blood; every disturbance of the balance had to be adjusted in that nation to
which the whole fountainhead of such relationships was unknown; and the German
states, whose separate existence was in itself contrary to all nature and reason, were
compelled, in order that they might count for something, to act as makeweights to the
chief forces in the scale of the European equilibrium, whose movement they followed
blindly and without any will of their own. Just as in many states abroad the citizens
are designated as belonging to this or that foreign party, or voting for this or that
foreign alliance, but no name is found for those who belong to the party of their own
country, so it was with the Germans; for long enough they belonged only to some
foreign party or other, and one seldom came across a man who supported the party of
the Germans and was of the opinion that this country ought to make an alliance with
itself.Now, at last, let us be bold enough to look at the deceptive vision of a universal
monarchy, which people are beginning to hold up for public veneration in place of
that equilibrium which for some time has been growing more and more preposterous,
and let us perceive how hateful and contrary to reason that vision is. Spiritual nature
was able to present the essence of humanity in extremely diverse gradations in
individuals and in individuality as a whole, in peoples. Only when each people, left to
itself, develops and forms itself in accordance with its own peculiar quality, and only
when in every people each individual develops himself in accordance with that
common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality-then, and
then only, does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true mirror as it ought to
be; and only a man who either entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and divine
order, or else is an obdurate enemy thereto, could take upon himself to want to
interfere with that law, which is the highest law in the spiritual world! Only in the
invisible qualities of nations, which are hidden from their own eyes-qualities as the
means whereby these nations remain in touch with the source of original life-only
therein is to be found the guarantee of their present and future worth, virtue, and
merit. If these qualities are dulled by admixture and worn away by friction, the
flatness that results will bring about a separation from spiritual nature, and this in its
turn will cause all men to be fused together in their uniform and collective
destruction.Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Thirteenth Address,” Addresses to the German
Nation, ed. George A. Kelly (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1968), pp. 190-91, 19394, 197-98.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment