Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T12:10:36.709Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“SANGUINARY AMUSEMENT”: E. A. FREEMAN, THE COMPARATIVE METHOD AND VICTORIAN THEORIES OF RACE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2013

VICKY L. MORRISROE
VICKY L. MORRISROE*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Gloucestershire E-mail: Vmorrisroe@glos.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article seeks to revise the conventional portrait of the historian E. A. Freeman (1823–92) as an arch-racist and confident proponent of Aryan superiority. Focusing on the relatively obscure Comparative Politics (1873), it is argued that, while attitudes towards race were hardening in the later nineteenth century, Freeman combined the insights of the practitioners of the Comparative Method and the Liberal Anglican philosophy of Thomas Arnold to define the Aryan race as a community of culture rather than of blood. Explicitly rejecting biological interpretations of race, Freeman and the practitioners of the Comparative Method used the Aryan concept to denote a community of languages, myths, laws and political institutions and, in recognizing the instability of culture, articulated an account of progress that was cyclical rather than unilinear. It will be demonstrated that Freeman's Aryan universalism issued in anxieties concerning the future stability of the West and a fear that recapitulation might be engendered by contemporary political expansionism and contact with the rival civilization of the despotic East.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , April 2013 , pp. 27 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Stephens, W. R. W, The Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman, 2 vols. (London, 1895)Google Scholar.

2 , E. Freeman, A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, six vols. (Oxford, 1867–79)Google Scholar.

3 Burrow, John, A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge, 1981), 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mandler, Peter, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (New Haven, 2006), 43Google Scholar.

4 MacDougall, Hugh, Racial Myth in English History (Montreal, 1982), 100–1Google Scholar and Parker, C. J. W., “The Failure of Liberal Racialism: The Racial Ideas of E. A. Freeman”, Historical Journal 24/4 (Dec. 1981), 825–46, 837CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Jann, Rosemary, “From Amateur to Professional: The Case of the Oxbridge Historians”, Journal of British Studies 22/2 (1983), 122–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jann, The Art and Science of Victorian History (Columbus, OH, 1985)Google Scholar; and Walton, Susan, “Charlotte M. Yonge and the ‘Historic Harem’ of Edward Augustus Freeman”, Journal of Victorian Culture 11/2 (2006), 226–55Google Scholar.

6 Hunt, James, Introductory Address on the Study of Anthropology Delivered before the Anthropological Society of London, February 24th, 1863 (London, 1863), 13Google Scholar.

7 Hall, Catherine, McClelland, Keith and Rendall, Jane, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Gender and the Reform Act of 1867 (Cambridge, 2000), 191Google Scholar.

8 On Victorian attitudes to race see, for example, Bolt, Christine, Victorian Attitudes to Race (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Burrow, J. W., Evolution and Society (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar; Hall, McClelland and Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation; Hall, Catherine, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar; Horsman, Reginald, “Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850”, Journal of the History of Ideas 37/3 (July–Sept. 1976), 387–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mandler, English National Character; and Stocking, W., Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

9 Hannaford, Ivan, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Washington, DC, 1996), 278Google Scholar.

10 Knox, Robert, The Races of Men: A Fragment (London, 1850)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Knox, , The Races of Men: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Influence of Race over the Destines of Nations, 2nd edn (London, 1862)Google Scholar; Kidd, Benjamin, Social Evolution (London, 1898)Google Scholar; and Keane, A. H., Man Past and Present (Cambridge, 1899)Google Scholar. For a discussion of these works and their place within Victorian debates on race see Mandler, English National Character, 116–20.

11 See Mandler, English National Character; and Porter, Bernard, The Absent-Minded Imperialists (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar.

12 See Mandler, English National Character, 72–86.

13 Mandler, English National Character, 77.

14 Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald and Burrow, John, That Noble Science of Politics (Cambridge, 1983), 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Ibid., 213.

16 On the mid-Victorian use of the Comparative Method see, for example, Bowler, Peter, The Invention of Progress: The Victorians and the Past (Oxford, 1989), 35–6Google Scholar; Burrow, Evolution and Society; Collini, Winch and Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics, 207–46; Mandler, English National Character; and Stocking, W., Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; and Stocking, Victorian Anthropology.

17 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 1.

18 Freeman, Comparative Politics, ii.

19 See Collini, Winch and Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics, 212–13; and Burrow, John, “The Uses of Philology in Victorian England”, in Robson, Robert, ed., Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain: Essays in Honour of George Kitson Clark (London, 1967), 180–204Google Scholar.

20 Müller, Friedrich Max, Suggestions for the Assistance of Officers in Learning the Languages of the Seat of War in the East (London, 1854)Google Scholar.

21 On the intellectual influences on Müller see Müller, Friedrich Max, “My Predecessors” (1888), in Müller, , Last Essays (London, 1901), 27–62Google Scholar, esp. 29.

22 Müller, Languages of the Seat of War, 30.

23 Freeman described Müller's work as “ingenious”, 23 Nov. 1875, Freeman Papers, John Rylands University Library, Special Collections (hereafter JRUL).

24 Freeman to Müller, 18 Dec. 1875, Freeman Papers, JRUL.

25 van den Bosch, Lourens, Friedrich Max Müller: A Life Devoted to the Humanities (Leiden, 2002), 85Google Scholar; see also Dowling, Linda, “Victorian Oxford and the Science of Language”, Modern Language Association 97/2 (1982), 160–78, 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See Bowler, The Invention of Progress, 69.

27 Müller, Languages of the Seat of War, 16 and 20. For expressions of the same idea see also Müller, Friedrich Max, Lectures on the Science of Language (London, 1864), 62Google Scholar; and Müller, The Science of Thought, 2 vols. (London, 1887), 1: 618Google Scholar.

28 Girardot, N. J., “Max Müller's ‘Sacred Books’ and the Nineteenth-Century Production of the Comparative Science of Religions”, History of Religions 41/3. (2002), 213–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 215. On the debate between Darwin and Müller on the origin of language see Bowler, The Invention of Progress, 68–9; and Dowling, “Victorian Oxford and the Science of Language”.

29 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 3–4.

30 Ibid., 5.

31 Ibid., 6.

32 Ibid., 12.

33 Müller, quoted in Van den Bosch, Friedrich Max Müller, 206.

34 Müller, quoted in Ibid., 205.

35 Müller to Freeman, 1 Jan. 1870, Freeman Papers, JRUL, FA2/7/21a.

36 Freeman, E. A., “Race and Language”, in Freeman, , Historical Essays, third series (London, 1879), 173–230Google Scholar. Originally published in the Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1877.

37 Ibid., 183.

38 Ibid., 188, italics mine.

39 Ibid., 189.

40 Ibid., 191 and 181.

41 Freeman, E. A., “The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity”, in White, Arthur Silva, ed., Britannic Confederation (London, 1892), 31–56, 36Google Scholar.

42 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 13.

43 On Maine see, for example, Cocks, R. C. J., Sir Henry Maine: A Study in Victorian Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Diamond, A., ed., The Victorian Achievement of Sir Henry Maine: A Centennial Reappraisal (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Feaver, G., From Status to Contract: A Biography of Sir Henry Sumner Maine, 1822–1888 (London, 1969)Google Scholar.

44 Maine, H. S., Ancient Law, fifth London edition (London, 1873; first published 1861), 165Google Scholar.

45 Bock, Kenneth E., “Comparison of Histories: The Contribution of Henry Maine”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 16/2 (1974), 232–62, 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Maine, H. S., Village Communities in the East and West, third edition (London, 1876; first published 1871), 238Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., 210–11.

48 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 14.

49 Freeman, “Race and Language”, 192.

50 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 302.

51 The best study of the Liberal Anglican interpretation of history remains Forbes, Duncan, The Liberal Anglican Idea of History (Cambridge, 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 The first German edition of Niebuhr's History of Rome appeared in 1811–12 and was translated into English in 1827. The three-volume English translation of Niebuhr's work referred to here was published between 1828 and 1842 and follows the second German edition, which the author contrasts with the earlier edition as being “the work of a man who has reached his maturity”. Niebuhr, B. G., The History of Rome, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1828–42) 1: xiiGoogle Scholar. On Niebuhr see Bunsen, C., The Life and Letters of Barthold George Niebuhr (New York, 1852)Google Scholar.

53 On the influence of Niebuhr and Vico on Arnold's interpretation of history see Forbes, The Liberal Anglican Idea of History, particularly 12–20. On Vico's reputation and influence in England more generally see his Autobiography, trans. M. H. Fisch and T. G. Bergin (New York, 1944; repr. 1963).

54 Vico, Giambattisto, Principles of the New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations [1725], 3rd edn of 1744 (trans. David Marsh, London, 1999), 480Google Scholar.

55 Arnold, Thomas, “The Social Progress of States”, in Arnold, The Miscellaneous Works of Thomas Arnold, 2nd American edn (New York, 1846), 307Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., 307–313 and 316–23.

57 Ibid., 306.

58 Ibid., 306.

59 Heyck, T. W., The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England (London, 1982), 129Google Scholar.

60 Thomas Arnold, “Christian Duty of Conceding the Roman Catholic Claims” [1829], in Miscellaneous Works, 160–88, 177. On Arnold's attitude towards race see a brief treatment in Barksdale, Richard K., “Thomas Arnold's Attitude Toward Race”, Phylon Quarterly 18/2 (2nd qtr, 1957), 174–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Freeman described his debt to Arnold, his “great master”, in Freeman, E. A., On the Office of the Historical Professor: An Inaugural Lecture Read in the Museum at Oxford (London, 1884), 8–9Google Scholar. Freeman's admiration of Arnold, whose “wide grasp” and “majestic eloquence” set him above other historians, is discussed in Stephens, Life and Letters, 1: 118–19. Freeman expressed respect for Niebuhr but was not unaware of his faults, which included “arrogance” and “self-sufficient dogmatism”. See ibid., 1: 203.

62 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 16.

63 Ibid., iv.

64 Ibid., iv.

65 Maine described Freeman's application of the Comparative Method as “such a novelty” in a letter to Freeman dated 30 Dec. 1871, Freeman Papers, JRUL.

66 Bolt, Victorian Attitudes to Race, 27; and Bowler, The Invention of Progress, 9.

67 Burrow, Liberal Descent, 220.

68 Ibid., 220.

69 Ibid., 225.

70 Müller quoted in Van den Bosch, Friedrich Max Müller, 219.

71 Müller quoted in ibid., 51.

72 Müller, quoted in ibid., 262.

73 Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 468.

74 See Van den Bosch, Friedrich Max Müller, 242–92.

75 Maine, Ancient Law, 165, italicization of “hitherto” is mine. See Burrow, “Henry Maine and Mid-Victorian Ideas of Progress”, in Diamond, The Victorian Achievement of Sir Henry Maine, 55–69, 57.

76 E. A. Freeman, “Historical Cycles”. The article first appeared in the Saturday Review on 20 February 1869, but references here refer to the later re-publication of the essay in Freeman's Historical Essays. Freeman, E. A., Historical Essays, fourth series (London, 1892), 252Google Scholar.

77 In the history of Sicily, in particular, Freeman felt that historical events had repeated themselves almost exactly as the land had twice been the battleground between Christianity and Islam. See Freeman, E. A., Sicily: Phoenician, Greek and Roman (New York, 1892), 3–4Google Scholar. See also Freeman, “Sicilian Cycles” [Saturday Review, 1878] in Historical Essays, third series; and Freeman, The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1891–4).

78 Burrow, Liberal Descent, 221–2.

79 For Arnold's application of Niebuhr's analysis of these dangers to the history of Rome see Arnold, Thomas, The History of Rome (three vols. in one, New York, 1868Google Scholar; first published as three volumes, 1838–40).

80 Arnold, “The Social Progress of States”, 322.

81 Ibid., 323–4.

82 Ibid., 322.

83 Freeman, Comparative Politics, 214.

84 Ibid., 93–4.

85 Ibid., 125.

86 Ibid., 99.

87 Ibid., 44.

88 Ibid., 48–9.

89 Ibid., 49.

90 Ibid., 57.

91 Ibid., 100.

92 Ibid., 115.

93 Ibid., 125.

94 Ibid., 126–7.

95 Ibid., 130.

96 Ibid., 221.

97 Ibid., 222.

98 Ibid., 212.

99 Hall, Defining the Victorian Nation; and Hall, Civilising Subjects; Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West; MacKenzie, John, Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar; MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1984)Google Scholar; Richards, Jeffrey, Imperialism and Juvenile Literature (Manchester, 1989)Google Scholar; and Richards, Imperialism and Music: Britain 1876–1953 (Manchester, 2001)Google Scholar.

100 Bell, Duncan, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900 (Princeton, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bell, Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar; Mandler, English National Character, 122–33; and Porter, Absent-Minded Imperialists, 70–82.

101 Freeman, “The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity”, 56.

102 Dilke, Charles, Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in the English-Speaking Countries During 1866 and 1867, 2 vols. (London, 1868)Google Scholar, Problems of Greater Britain, Dilke, 2 vols. (London, 1890); Dilke, , The British Empire (London, 1899)Google Scholar; Smith, Goldwin, “The Expansion of England”, Contemporary Review 45 (1884), 524–40Google Scholar; and Smith, , “The Empire”, in Smith, , Essays on Questions of the Day, 2nd edn (New York, 1894; first published 1893)Google Scholar.

103 Seeley, J. R., The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (London, 1883), 51Google Scholar.

104 Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, 11.

105 E. A. Freeman, “The Unity of History”, in Freeman, Comparative Politics, 296–339, 322. See also Freeman, , “The Holy Roman Empire”, in Freeman, , Historical Essays, series one, 1st edn (London, 1875)Google Scholar, originally published in the North British Review, (March 1865).

106 Freeman, “The Unity of History”, 324.

107 Ibid., 327.

108 E. A. Freeman, A History of Federal Government, vol. 1, General Introduction: History of Greek Federations (1863). Freeman's plan was to make a multivolume work on ancient and modern federalism but the project was never completed. Volume 1 was re-published posthumously in a new form edited by Bury, J. B., and called The History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy (London, 1893), 170Google Scholar.

109 Freeman, Federal Government, 184.

110 Ibid., 1–2.

111 Ibid., 20.

112 Ibid., 121.

113 Freeman, “The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity”, 42.

114 Ibid., 42.

115 Ibid., 45.

116 Freeman, “Imperial Federation”, Macmillan's Magazine 51 (1885), 436, 437–8. See also Federal Government, 5–26.

117 Stephens, Life and Letters, 2: 294.

118 Ibid., 295.

119 Momigliano, Arnaldo, “Two Types of Universal History: The Cases of E. A. Freeman and Max Weber”, Journal of Modern History 58/1 (1986), 235–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

120 Ibid., 235.

121 Ibid., 235.

122 Freeman, The Unity of History, 302–3.

123 Ibid., 304.

124 Freeman, E. A., The History and Conquests of the Saracens (Oxford, 1856)Google Scholar; and Freeman, , The Ottoman Power in Europe: Its Nature, Its Growth and Its Decline (London, 1877)Google Scholar.

125 [Freeman], “Mahometanism in the East and West”, North British Review 23 (1855), 450, in Freeman Papers, JRUL, ref. EAF/2/2/14.