1 On the response of German intellectuals to the French Revolution, the two most comprehensive studies remain those of Droz, Jacques, L'Allemagne et la révolution française (Paris, 1949)Google Scholar, and Gooch, G. P., Germany and the French Revolution (London, 1920).Google Scholar

2 On the peculiar relationship between German intellectuals and political authority during this period, see Krieger, Leonard, The German Idea of Freedom (Chicago and London, 1972), especially pp. 21–81.Google Scholar The present article originally arose out of Professor Krieger's seminar on nineteenth-century intellectual history given at the University of Chicago in the fall and winter of 1975–76. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Professor Krieger for his comments and criticism.

3 For a fascinating if less than successful attempt to locate an intelligentsia in eighteenth-century Prussia, see Brunschwig, Henri, Enlightenment and Romanticism in Eighteenth Century Prussia (Chicago, 1974).Google Scholar

4 This is one of the chief arguments in the excellent introductory chapter of Blanning, T. C. W.Reform and Revolution in Mainz, 1743–1803 (New York, 1974), pp. 1–45.Google ScholarReill, PeterThe German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism (Berkeley, 1975)Google Scholar, on the other hand, emphasizes the anti-statist, corporatist side of the Aufklärung. While it is certainly true, as will later be seen, that the Aufklärung had its corporatist side, Reill somewhat overstresses this aspect by drawing his examples primarily from Göttingen. Göttingen's unique university and its political connections to England made it by no means typical of the Aufklärung as a whole.

5 Schlumbohm's, JürgenFreiheit—Die Anfänge der bürgerlichen Emanzipationsbewegung in Deutschland im Spiegel ihres Leitwortes (ca. 1760–1800) (Düsseldorf, 1975)Google Scholar is a significant contribution towards this reconstruction. Schlumbohm's analysis of the various uses of the word freedom in Germany during the second half of the eighteenth century is a model for how the methodology of Begriffsgeschichte can be combined with Marxian categories to produce solid social and intellectual history.

6 For a history of the term despotism prior to the eighteenth century, see Koebner, R., “Despot and Despotism: Vicissitudes of a Political Term,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1951).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Emphasizing how contemporaries at the time of the Revolution had become conscious of the power of language, Schlumbohm cites a Jacobin quoted in the Hamburg Politisches Journal in 1792: “It has been said that with fifteen beautifully sounding words one can compose an opera. But our magic is far greater, for by means of four words—equality, freedom, rebirth, and despotism—we have destroyed a monarchy” (p. 61).

8 Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, Huit Dissertations, que la compte de Hertzberg a lues dans les assemblies publiques de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres de Berlin (Berlin, 1787).

9 Ibid., p. 156.

10 Ibid., p. 158.

11 For a general analysis of Montesquieu's influence in Germany, see Vierhaus, Rudolf, “Montesquieu im Deutschland,” Collegium Philosophicum: Studien Joachim Ritter zum 60. Geburtstag (Basel, 1965).Google Scholar

12 Hintze's, “Die Hohenzollern und der Adel,” Historische Zeitschrift 112 (1914)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a good example of this revisionism.

13 For Eckart Kehr's Marxian critique of the Hohenzollern legend, see his 1932 article “Zur Genesis der preussischen Burokratie und des Rechtstaats,” republished in the collection of Kehr's essays edited by Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Der Primat der Innenpolitik: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur preussisch-deutschen Sozialgeschichte (Berlin, 1965).Google Scholar For the other examples mentioned, see Rosenberg, Hans, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy, and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience 1660–1815 (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar, and Büsch, Otto, Militärsystem und Sozialleben im alten Preussen, 1713–1807: Die Anfänge der sozialen Militarisierung der preussisch-deutschen Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1962).Google Scholar

14 StatsAnzeigen (henceforth abbreviated S.A.) 4, no. 13:3.

15 Kirchner, Joachim, Das deutsche Zeitschriftenwesen: Seine Geschichte und seine Probleme, 1 (Leipzig, 1942): 200.Google Scholar

16 S.A. 4, no. 13:3.

17 Walker, Mack, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, 1648–1871 (Ithaca, 1971).Google Scholar

18 S.A. 3, no. 16:389.

19 A. L. Schlözer, Theorie der Statistik (Göttingen, 1804), p. 57.

20 Habermas, Jürgen, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Darmstadt, 1962), pp. 76–111.Google Scholar

21 Koselleck, Reinhart, Kritik und Krise: Eine Studie zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt (Freiburg, 1959), p. 41Google Scholar: “The origin of the bourgeois intellectual is to be found in the private realm to which the [absolutist] state had limited its subjects. Every step outside of this realm became a step into light, an act of enlightenment. The triumphal procession of the Enlightenment occurred in the same measure as it was able to extend this private inner realm into the public light.”

22 A. L. Schlözer, Ernst Ludwig, Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg (Göttingen, 1786), p. iv.

23 Compiled from statistics supplied in Kirchner, Deutsche Zeitschriftenwesen, 1:176.

24 From Bendix, Reinhard, “Province and Metropolis: The Case of Eighteenth Century Germany,” Joseph, Ben-David and Terry, Nichols Clark, eds., Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils (Chicago, 1976), p. 14.Google Scholar

25 The statistician acquired a similar importance for Schlözer, who wrote that it was “not the jurist, but the statistician [who] is the most eminent, indispensable, and important person in the land.” S.A. 5, no. 19:392.

26 S.A. 16, no. 61:96.

27 Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Berlin (Berlin, 1792), p. 646.

28 Ibid., p. 649.

29 Oeuvres de Condorcet, by A. O'Connor and M. F. Arago, 9 (Paris, 1847): 147–73. I am indebted to Professor Keith Baker of the University of Chicago for this particular reference and for his general observations on the problem of political language in eighteenth-century France.

30 See his brief article “Varianten in der politischen Terminologie” in the Briefwechsel meist historischen und politischen Inhalts 4, no. 21:206–7.

31 S.A. 13, no. 52:467.

32 In his article “August Ludwig Schlözer's Staatsauffassung,” Historische Zeitschrift 132 (1925), Arnold Berney argued that Schlözer became a constitutionalist as a result of his reading of Montesquieu and Rousseau. Others, such as Christern, Hermann, Deutscher Stāndestaat und englischer Parliamentarimus (Munich, 1939)Google Scholar, argue that Schlözer remained eclectic and was never able to overcome the contradictions in his political theory. This view is shared by Krieger, Leonard, who in his recent Essay on the Theory of Enlightened Despotism (Chicago, 1975)Google Scholar points to Schlözer as an example of the contradictions inherent in the advocacy of enlightened despotism.

33 S.A. 14, no. 53:53.

34 S.A. 16, no. 61:72–76.

35 Ibid., p. 74.

36 Ibid., p. 76.

37 A. L. Schlözer, Öffentliches und privat-Leben (Göttingen, 1802), p. 210. This is not to say that Schlözer was not often critical of Joseph's policies, both in Hungary and else-where. See, for example, the interesting discussion of Schlözer's critique of Austrian universities in Klingenstein, Grete, “Despotismus und Wissenschaft: Zur Kritik norddeutscher Aufklärer an der österreichischen Universität 1750–1790,” Friedrich, Engel-Janosi, Grete, Klingenstein, Heinrich, Lutz, eds., Fonnen der europäischen Aufklärung (Vienna, 1976).Google Scholar On Schlözer and Hungary, see Éva Balázs' essay in the same volume, “A. L. Schlözer und seine ungarischen Abhänger.”

38 Mémoires de l'Academie Royale, pp. 659–63.

39 Ibid., p. 662.

40 “Mémoire sur les révolutions des états, extemes, internes, et religieuse,” Mémoires de l'Academie Royale, p. 672.

41 Ibid., p. 673.

42 S.A. 16, no. 63:331.

43 See Schlözer, Ernst Ludwig, p. 300.

44 See Christern, Deutscher Ständestaat, passim, and Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, 1966), p. 548.Google Scholar

45 In the StatsRecht Schlözer wrote that while ideal constitutions could be found in the histories of Rome and England, “neither philosophy, nor Romulus, nor the Duke of Leicester invented them, but only chance, with the guidance of good sense and the good fortune of conjuncture.” Allgemeines StatsRecht und Stats Verfassungslere (Göttingen, 1793), p. 155. Rudolf Vierhaus notes in his article on Montesquieu's influence in Germany that few German readers of Montesquieu seriously believed that his ideal of the British constitution was applicable to Germany. See pp. 424–26.

46 StatsRecht, p. 114.

47 Ibid., pp. 147–48.

48 Ibid., p. 154.

49 S.A. 18, no. 72:507.

50 StatsRecht, p. 154.

51 Ibid., p. 154.

52 Kant, Immanuel, “Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?” in Kants Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 8 (Berlin, 1912/1923): 37.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 36.

54 Mémoires de l'Academie Royale, p. 472.

55 Ibid., pp. 478–79.

56 S.A. 13, no. 52:463.

57 S.A. 16, no. 61:79.

58 StatsRecht, p. 127.

59 Ibid., pp. 128–29.

60 S.A. 17, no. 66:220.

61 Marcuse, Herbert, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (London, 1955), p. 216.Google Scholar

62 Epstein, Genesis of German Conservatism.

63 Cf. Karl Mannheim's distinction between traditionalism, which is essentially unreflective and “naive,” and conservatism, which self-consciously develops theoretical justifications for existing institutions, in “Das konservative Denken,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 57 (1927): 72–73.

64 On the rationalistic basis of conservative thought, see Greiffenhagen, Martin, Das Dilemma des Konservatismus in Deutschland (Munich, 1971), pp. 62–70.Google Scholar

65 Quoted in Koselleck, Reinhart, Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung, und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848 (Stuttgart, 1967), p. 180.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., p. 193.