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Albrecht von Haller and English Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Current assumptions of scholars in the field indicate little argument against the view of Georg Bondi that the philosophy of the poems of Albrecht von Haller is taken from the philosophy of Shaftesbury. My own examination of the evidence convinces me that this opinion is fallacious. In an effort to indicate the sources of Haller's philosophical poems I shall make a fresh survey of the situation.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1925
References
1 Haller writes in 1772: “Bequemere Sternrohre, rundere Glastropfen, richtigere Abtheilungen eines Zolles, Sprizen und Messer thaten mehr zur Vergrösserung des Reiches der Wissenschaften, als der schöpferische Geist des des Cartes, als der Vater der Ordnung Aristoteles, als der belesene Gassendi.” Hirzel, Albrecht von Haller's Gedichte. Einleitung, p. xi, note 2. Referred to hereafter as Hirzel.
2 Hirzel, pp. xvi, xvii. “Ueberhaupt,” writes Haller, “an guten Köpfen ist hier kein Mangel, maszen in metaphysicis und andern hohen Wissenschaften neben Hrn. Bülfinger noch mehr waren, die auch in Engelland mit höchstem Recht wegen ihrer Tiefsinnigkeit würden berühmt gewesen sein.” Bilfinger was with Wolff, an ardent Leibnizian.
3 Hirzel, p. xvi, note 4.
4 J. Georg Duvernay, Professor of Anatomy and Botany, and a friend of Bilfinger's.
5 Hirzel, p. 227; they were written between December, 1723, and April 1725. They are not included in the Kürschner Auswahl (v. 41, Deutsche National Literatur).
6 Hirzel, p. xxxv. Boerhave's dissertation, De distinctione mentis a corpore (1689) attacked Epicurus, Hobbes, and Spinoza.
7 Ed. by Hirzel, Leipzig, 1883.
8 Hirzel, p. xxxix.
9 The contrast with Hagedorn, who visited London two years later after a careful preparation in the language, is to be remarked. See Coffman, The Influence of English Literature on Friedrich von Hagedorn, Modern Philology vol. xii, no. 5. pp. 313-323. “… there is no doubt,” she writes, “that [Hagedorn] was early familiar with contemporary English literature” (i.e., in 1729).
10 Tagebücher, p. 126.
11 Ibid., p. 128.
12 Ibid., pp. 128-9.
13 Ibid., pp. 132-3.
14 Hirzel, p. xli, notes 1-6.
15 Tagebücher, pp. 132-134.
16 Ibid., p. 140.
17 Dedication to the Boerhaveschen Inslilutiones, quoted in Hirzel, p. xlix note 1.
18 Hirzel, p. xlix.
19 Encyclopedia Britannica, v. iii, p. 804. There are two volumes of the Leibniz-Bernouilli correspondence under the title Gul. Leibnitii et Johannis Bemouilli Convercium Philosophicum et Mathematicum. Leibniz was instrumental in securing for Bemouilli a gold medal from the King of Prussia.
20 Hirzel, pp. xlix-lii.
21 In 1730. Hirzel, p. liii, note 2.
22 Hirzel, p. liv, and p. 44, note 17.
23 Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichte, vierte vermehrte und veranderle Auflage …Göttingen, 1748, pp. 5-10, and in Hirzel, pp. 248-249.
24 Hirzel, p. lv. One can not agree with Mrs. Coffman that Hagedorn “was the first German writer who was able to reject the lumbering diffuseness of contemporary German literature and to imitate successfully Pope's compactness of style.” (Op. cit., p. 180) Haller's Die Alpen was composed in 1729; Hagedorn's visit to England took place in that same year, but his poems, even though written in 1729, did not appear until 1750. In the meantime Haller's mastery of the line in Die Alpen is evident to any who will read.
25 Hirzel, p. lvi.
26 Note that in dedicating his Enumeratio methodicus Stirpium Helvetiae indigeniae (1742) to the Prince of Wales, he praises Englishmen for being distinguished in science. After a sentence on Bacon he continues. “Nata est et floret in Britannia paulo seculo junior illa societas cujus ideam meditatus erat parens melions philosophiae, Geometria, Algebra, Mechanica, Chemia experimenta difficillima et impediossima conspiraverunt in restaurationem Physices. Dedil orbi Newtonum Providentia, qui doceret, quantum humanum ingenium posset in inveniendo, et limites figeret ultra quos nihil posteris sperendum esset.” (My italics.) Praise of Newton can go no higher. Hirzel, p. lvi, note 1.
27 There is a French and an English edition in the University of Chicago library; and a copy of the French edition in the Newberry library. I suspect that this reading also bore fruit in Haller's romance, Alfred, König der Angelsachsen (1773), based on a Latin history by Joh. Spelman. There is an English translation of Haller's book in the Newberry library, and two German editions at the University of Chicago.
28 Hirzel, p. lxvi.
29 See Haller's introductory note, Hirzel, p. 43.
30 Life, Encyclopedia Britannica, xii, 855-856.
31 Vv. 1-10 are not in the first edition.
32 “Der Dinge Werth ist das, was wir da von empfinden” (v. 13). Hirzel, p. 21.
33 “So lang die Einfalt dauert, wird auch der Wohlstand währen” (v. 50)
34 “Was Epictet gethan und Seneca geschrieben Sieht man hier ungelehrt und ungezwungen üben.” (vv. 69-70.) 36 “Die Arbeit füllt den Tag und Ruh besetzt die Nacht; Hier lässt kein hoher Geist sich von der Ehrsucht blenden.” (vv. 74-75)
36 “O Witz ! des Weisen Tand, wann hast du ihn vergnüget? Er kennt den Bau der Welt und stirbt sich unbekannt!” (vv. 85-86)
37 “Heut ist wie gestem war und morgen wird wie heut” (v. 94). The beauty of innocent love (a theme sounded again in Ueber den Ursprung des Uebels) is no small part of the picture. See vv. 105-106; 129-130; 131-160, as noticed in the text.
38 I suggest that Milton has influenced this passage as well as Ueber den Ursprung des Uebels, Bk. II, vv. 161-178.
39 See note to v. 110. Hirzel, p. 25.
40 Observe that the scientist is one “der die Natur erforscht und ihre Schönheitkennt.” (v. 302.)
41 Hirzel, p. 43.
42 The passage can not be out of Pope, for the Essay on Man did not appear until four years later. Hirzel refers this to Leibniz (p. 44, note).
43 Newton's own attitude. “… a short time before his death he uttered this memorable sentiment. 'I do not know what I may appear to the world but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettiershell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me.” Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, ii, 407. Edinburgh and Boston, 1855. The story seems well authenticated. So startling an anecdote must have come to the ears of the young scientist who stood by Newton's grave only four months after the death of the astronomer whom he again and again passionately praised. Cf. Haller,
“Ach! eure Wissenschaft ist noch der Weisheit Kindheit,
Der Klugen Zeitvertreib, ein Trost der stolzen Blindheit“
(vv. 58-59). Yet the sentiment is a commonplace—it is in Hamlet and Seneca and every moral philosopher.
44 I do not well understand this:
“Doch weil der Stolz sich schämt, wann wir nicht alles wissen,
Hat der verwegne Mensch auch hier urtheilen müssen.
Er hat, weil die Vernunft ihn nur zu zweifeln lehrt,
Sich selbst geoffenbart und seinen Traum verehrt.“
“Auch hier” seems to refer to the existence of God, but what the “Traum” is, is not clear; it may be our delusion that God exists, or the presumptuous man's delusion that reason avails—or anything else.
45 See Opera Newtoni, Tome Tertius, pp. 427-442, (ed. Horsley, Cambridge 1913).
46 The passage is important:
“Von dir, selbst-ständigs Gut [God], unendlichs Gnaden-Meer.
Kommt dieser innre Zug, wie alles gute, her!
Das Herz folgt unbewusst der Würkung deiner Liebe,
Es meinet frei zu sein und folget deinem Triebe;
Unfruchtbar von Natur, bringt es auf den Altar
Die Frucht, die von dir selbst in uns gepflanzet war.
Was von dir stammt ist ächt und wird vor dir bestehen
Wann falsche Tugend wird, wie Blei im Test, vergehen
Und dort für manche That, die sitzt auf äussern Schein
Die Welt mit opfern zahlt, der Lohn wird Strafe sein!“
Hirzel, p. 76. Cf. Die Tugend (1729):
“Nicht der Hochmut, nicht die Eigenliebe,
Nein, von Himmel eingepflanzte Triebe
Lehren Tugend und dass ihre Krone
Selbst sie belohne.
…………………….
Doch der Himmel hat noch seine Kinder,
Fromme leben, kennt man sie schon minder,
Gold und Perlen findt man bei den Mohren,
Weise bei Thoren.“
47 In Die Alpen Haller insisted on the utilitarian view of nature; here he paints landscape for its own sake.
48 Vv. 143-144 are closely akin to Milton's “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
49 “Philosophie ist ihm [Shaftesbury] Tugend und zugleich Glückseligskeitlehre; Ethik und Religionsphilosophie sind die beiden Gebiete, die er behandelt.” Bondi, Das Verhältnis von Hallers philosophischen Gedichten zu Philosophie seiner Zeit. Leipzig, 1891, p. 6. Referred to hereafter as Bondi.
50 Bondi, p. 6; Shaftesbury, II, 26 ff.
51 Cf. Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, I, chap. ix, Moral Philosophy.
52 Bondi, p. 8.
53 Bondi, pp. 11-13. He is supported by Erik Schmidt (Charakteristiken, Berlin, 1886, p. 114) and Hettner (Litteraturgeschichte des 18ten Jhds. (Third ed.) III, 1, p. 354.) Bondi argues that Hirzel, who advocates Leibniz, has been led astray by ignoring this fact. Cf. also R. M. Meyer, Jahresbericht, II. iv 6: la (120): “Wenn auch nicht jede Einzelheit bestehen bleibt, in der Abhängigkeit des sch weren, strengen Schweizers von seinem eleganten Vorbild annimmt, so ist doch der Beweis des in jenen Gedichten mächtig nachwirkenden Einflusses Shaftesbury's unzweifelhaft geführt. Lehrreich ist besonders die Vergleichung der ältesten Texte mit den späteren Ausgaben, die Erörterungen über Begriffe wie ‘Natur’ und ‘Gott’.” But the reader will note how much of Haller's argument resembles Des Cartes as well, whom, though he had repudiated, he of course knew. See likewise below, p. 126.
54 It seems odd that there should be more traces of Leibniz in a poem dated 1734 than in a poem dated 1729 or 1730, especially when Bondi argues that between Haller's early enthusiasm for Leibniz and the writing of Ueber den Ursprung des Uebels, Haller underwent a profound religious change which drew him away from Leibniz and towards Shaftesbury! Bondi, pp. 38-39.
55 See the early pages of Hirzel and of the Tagebücher and note the poem quoted on p. 104, ante.
56 See Brewster, Life of Newton, I, 332.
57 Bondi's argument. “Von seinem bisherigen Standpunkte aus musste ihm die Théodicée als ein beinahe orthodoxes Buch erscheinen … [then] er seine Ansichten wirklich geändert habe.” (p. 38.) Yet we are informed (p. 4) that Leibniz speaks thus of Shaftesbury's Moralists: “J'y ai trouvé d'abord presque toute ma Théodicée (mais plus agréablement tournée) avant qu'elle vÛ le jour.” And later, “Si j'avais vÛ cet ouvrage avant la publication de ma Théodicée, j'en aurais profité comme il faut et j'en aurais emprunté de grands passages.” If Shaftesbury is so much like Leibniz that Leibniz himself admits it, Leibniz is entitled to the prior claim,
58 See previous note,
59 See J. T. Merz, Leibniz, Edinburgh and London, 1884, II, 135-216; A. Weber, History of Philosophy (tr. F. Thilly), New York, 1909, pp. 343-369; and of course the Théodicée in the Opera Philosophica, Berlin, 1840, pp. 468-624. Leibniz himself provides an Abrége de la Controversé, pp. 623-629. If on the one hand he complains of Cartesianism in language like this: “Fidei autem mysteria artificiose declinavit [Des Cartes]; philosophari sublicet sibi, non theologari propositum esse, quasi philosophia admittenda sit inconciliabilis religioni, aut quasi religio vera esse possit quae demonstratis alibi veritatibus pugnet,” (De Vera Methodo Philosophiae et Theologicia, p. 111), yet he is orthodox in form: “If we mean by reason the human understanding, God is also suprarational insofar as He surpasses human nature (or is supernatural) ; that is, He transcends human intelligence as much as His perfection surpasses ours.” (Weber, p. 362).
60 Studied at length in Léon Bloch, La Philosophie de Newton, chapter ix.
61 Bloch, p. 490; and see the last chapter of Brewster's Life.
62 Roger Cates, editor of the second edition of the Principia (1713), prepared, with Newton's consent, a preface to the work which, among other things, defends experimental science against the charge of atheism:
“Vel enim dicent hanc, quam confingunt, Mundi per omnia pleni constitutionem ex voluntate Dei profectam esse, propter eum finem, ut operationibus naturae subsidium praesens haberi posset at Aethere subtillissimo cuncta permeante et implente; quod tamen dici non potest siquidem jam ostensum est ex Cometarum phaenomenis, nullum est ex hujus Aetheris efficiam: vel dicent ex voluntate Dei profectam esse, propter finem aliquen ignotum; quod neque dici debet, siquidem diversa Mundi constitutio eodem argumento pariter stabiliri posset: vel denique non dicent ex voluntate Dei profectam esse, sed ex necessitate quodam naturae. Tandem igitur delabi oportet in faecas sordidas gregis impurrissimi. Hi sunt qui somniant Fato universa regi, non Providentia; materiam ex necessitate sua semper aut ubique extitisse, infinitam esse ac aeternam. Quibus positis, erit etiam undiquoque uniformis: nam varietas formarum cum necessitate omnino pugnat. Erit etiam immota: nam si necessario moveatur in plagam aliquam determinatum, cum determinatu aliqua velocitate; pari necessitate movebitur in plagam diversam cum diversa velocitate; in plagus autem diversas, cum diversis velocitatibus, moveri non potest: oportet igitur immotum esse. Neutiquam prefecto potuit oriri Mundus, pulcherrima formarum ac motuum varietate distinctus, nisi ex Uberrima voluntate cuncta providentia et gubernantis Dei.
“Ex hoc igitur fonte promanarunt illae omnes quae dicuntur Naturae leges. in quibus multa sane sapientissimi consilii, nulla necessitatis apparent vestigia … Qui verae Physicae principia legesque rerum, sola mentis vi et interno rationis lumni fretum, invenire se posse considit; hunc oportet vel statuere Mundum ex necessitate fuisse. Legesque propositas ex eadem necessitate sequi; vel si per voluntatem Dei constitutus ordo Naturae, se tarnen, homuncionem misellum, quid optimum factu sit perspectum habere.” (Operum Newtoni, Tom. Sec. pp. xxiii-xxiv.)
Newton simply takes over this argument in his first letters to Bentley (Operum Newtoni, Tom. Quart. pp. 427-442).
Leibniz wrote in 1668 the Confessio Naturae contra Atheistas (Opera, pp. 45-47), directed against Hobbes, Des Cartes, Gassendi, and others, demonstrating. a similar truth with respect to the properties of bodies:
“Cum autem,” he concludes, “demonstraverimus corpora determinatem figuram et quantitatem, motum vero ilium habere non posse, nisi supposito ente incorporali, facile apparet illud Ens incorporale pro omnibus esse unicum, ab harmoniam omnium inter se, praesertim cum corpora motum habeat, non singula a suo ente incorporali, sed a se innicem. Cur autem Ens illud incorporale hanc potius quam illans magnitudinem, figuram, motum elegat, ratio reddi non potest, nisi sit intelligens, et ab rerum pulchritudinens, sapiens, ab rerum obedinetiam ad nutum, potens. Tale igiture Ens incorporale erit Mens totius mundi rectrix, id est Deus.” (p. 46.)
63 Bloch, p. 496, and Brewster, passim. For Haller's opposition to Cartesianism, see above, p. 1, and the preface to the French translation of Haller (1750), Hirzel, pp. 281-284.
64 Bloch, p. 496, Weber, pp. 361-362.
65 Bloch, p. 496; Merz, p. 128; p. 179.
66 Bloch, pp. 487-9.
67 See the Optica, Quaest. xxxi; the First Letter to Bentley; and the Scholium Generale to De Mundi Systemate, Operum Newtoni, Tom. Tertius, pp. 170-174. For Leibniz see Merz and Weber passim; and the Causa Dei, prop. 104, Opera Philos., p. 661. The close relation between the calculus and the principle of continuity is evident.
68 This fact explains why Haller in the same poem can blame the “wise man” for egotism, and yet praise Newton.
69 “Deus Corpora singula ita loca vit (Scholium Generale). Causas rerum naturalium non plures admitti debere, quam quae et verae sint et earum phaenomenis explicandis sufficiant. Dicunt ubique Philosophi: natura nihil agit frustra; ac frustra sit per plura, quod fieri potest per pauciora.” (Principia: Regula I and explanation. Operum Newtoni, Tom. Tert. p. 3) Bloch denies that Newton admits the principle of minimum action (p. 506), but I think he is mistaken.
70 Bloch, pp. 515-516.
71 Bloch, p. 518; Weber, p. 362.
72 Bloch, pp. 519-520.
73 Merz, pp. 166-167. The quotation is from Leibniz's letter to Coste, 1707.
74 Bondi, p. 34.
75 Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, London, 1882, p. 89. And see Leslie Stephen, op. cit.
76 Advice to an Author, Pt. iii, Sect. 3, quoted in Fowler, pp. 68-70.
77 Fowler, p. 121.
78 Bondi, pp. 10-11.
79 Hirzel, p. lxxvi.
80 Ibid.
81 See his contribution to Die Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen in the Tagebuch seiner Beobachtungen über Schriftsteller u. über sich selbst, Bern, 1787.
82 P. 14.