Bachofen vs. Mommsen

Orpheus Philologus Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity
Author(s): Lionel Gossman

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 73, No. 5 (1983),
pp. 1-89
Published by: American Philosophical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006432 .
Accessed: 04/01/2013 12:59
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
OF THE
TRANSACTIONS
AMERICAN
PHILOSOPHICAL
HELD
SOCIETY
AT PHILADELPHIA
FOR PROMOTING
VOLUME
USEFUL
KNOWLEDGE
73, PART 5, 1983
ORPHEUS
PHILOLOGUS
Bachofenversus
Mommsenon the Study
of Antiquity
LIONEL GOSSMAN
Professor
ofRomanceLanguages,Princeton
University
THE AMERICAN
INDEPENDENCE
PHILOSOPHICAL
SQUARE:
SOCIETY
PHILADELPHIA
1983

CopyrightC) 1983 by The AmericanPhilosophicalSociety
Libraryof CongressCatalog
Card Number 82-73832
InternationalStandard Book Number 0-87169-735-1
US ISSN 0065-9746

George and Simone BrangierBoas

Nathan and Lily Edelman
in memoriam

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments.................vu..................
Abbreviations ...................................
I. Vestigesof Bachofen .................................
II. The Prophetof Basle .................................
III. The Enemy: Mommsen ...............................
IV. AphilologicalHistoriography.............
..............
V. Bachofenand the NeohumanistTradition ......
..........
VI. Bachofenversus Mommsen Today .........
.............
Index
.................
..................

Page
ix
1
8
21
42
58
80
87
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The bulk of this essay was writtenin 1978-79 duringtenureof a fellowship fromthe National Endowmentforthe Humanities.I would like
to expressmy gratituteto the N.E.H. I also wish to thankPrincetonUniversityforgrantingme a leave of absence frommynormalteachingduties
and the InstituteforAdvanced Studyin Princeton,and its DirectorHarry
Woolf,forallowingme, as a Visitor,fulluse ofthefacilitiesof theInstitute.
It is a pleasure to recordmy indebtednessto Felix Gilbertforthe sympatheticinteresthe has shown in mywork,to mycolleague Carl Schorske
forhis warmencouragement,
especiallyin thefallof 1979 when we taught
a seminartogetheron nineteenthcenturyBasle, and to Douglas Forsyth,
a graduate studentin the HistoryDepartmentat Princeton,for sharing
withme his extensiveknowledgeof thenineteenthcenturyBasle patriciate
and forseverallivelydiscussionsabout Basle and its culturein the course
ofthepast fewyears.Finally,I wish to acknowledgethegenerouspractical
assistanceI received,duringa briefvisitto Basle in 1979, fromDr. Berthold
Wessendorfof the Departmentof Manuscriptsat the UniversityLibrary.
Lionel Gossman
Princeton,February1983.

ABBREVIATIONS
As Bachofen'sworkis notwell knownand remainslargelyuntranslated,
it has been quoted liberallyin English translationin the presentstudy.
Referenceshave been placed in the textin order to allow the reader to
identifyimmediatelythe source,and, in the case of the correspondence,
the date of each quotation.The followingabbreviationshave been used.
They are also used in the footnotesto referto Bachofen'sworks.
Correspondence,in JohannJakobBachofensGesammelteWerke,Ed.
Karl Meuli. Vol. X, ed. FritzHusner. Basle and Stuttgart:Schwabe
& Co., 1967. The numberrefersto the numberof the letterin this
edition,and is followedby the indicationof the year.
GR JohannJakobBachofensGriechischeReise. Ed. Georg Schmidt.Heidelberg:RichardWeissbach,1927. The firstpublicationof the 1851
manuscriptin the UniversityLibraryat Basle.
Werke.Ed. Karl Meuli. Basle and
GW JohannJakobBachofensGesammelte
&
10 volumes. Volumes 1, 2, 3,
1943-67.
Stuttgart:Schwabe Co.,
4, 6, 7, 8, and 10 had appeared by the time of Meuli's death in
1968. No furthervolumes have appeared.
M
ofJ.J.Bachofen.
Myth,Religion,and MotherRight:SelectedWritings
Trans. Ralph Manheim. BollingenSeries, no. 84. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1967. WhereverpossibleI have quoted from
the version of
this readily available English text. Unfortunately,
Bachofen's autobiographygiven here is a truncatedone, though
thereis no indicationthatthe German textfromwhich the translationwas made had been drasticallyabbreviated.I have therefore
been obliged,quite frequently,
to referto the fullGerman text(SB
below).
SB
Autobiography(a long autobiographicalletterto his formerteacher,
the legal scholar F. C. von Savigny,writtenin 1854, rediscovered
far
in 1916, and firstpublished by Hermann Blocherin Zeitschrift
34 [1917] and in BaslerJahrbuch,
Rechtswissenschaft,
vergleichende
und Antrittsrede
1917, 295-348), in J.J.Bachofen,Selbstbiographie
Ed. AlfredBaeumler. Halle/Saale: Max Nieuiberdas Naturrecht,
meyer,1927.
WTS Dr. WilhelmTheodor Streuber.Nekrolog.November1857. Basle:
Schweighauser'scheBuchdruckerei.
C
All translationsare mine unless otherwiseindicated.

so ist die Grosswissenschaft,

"Wie der Grossstaatund die Grossindustrie,
die nichtvon Einem geleistet,aber von Einem geleitetwird,ein notwendiges ElementunsererKulturentwicklung."
Mommsen. Reply to an address by
Adolf Harnack at the Royal Prussian
Academy of Sciences. 3 July,1890.
"Es muss die Zeit kommenin welcher der Gelehrteseine Studien fiber
ihrVerhaltniszu den hochstenDingen ernstlichzu Rede stellt."
Bachofen,Autobiography
(1854).
"Andromaque,je pense a vous!"
Baudelaire,Le Cygne(1860).

I. VESTIGES
OF BACHOFEN
houghTheodorMommsenwas probablyunawareof it,fromthe
timeof the firstappearance of his influentialand successfulRomische Geschichte(1854), he was the object of the passionate and
enduringhatredof an obscure Swiss philologistin the provincialcityof
Basle. JohannJacobBachofenis stillnot well knownin the English-speaking world. He receivesa briefmentionin most historiesof anthropology
on account of his pioneeringcontributionto the popular nineteenth-cenhis studiesofrelationsin matrilinear
turytheoryof "matriarchy,"
societies,
notablyof the "avunculate,"and his correspondencewithLewis Morgan.'
Most of his ideas have been discardedby contemporaryanthropologists,
however; the theoryof matriarchyis now discredited;and recentscholarship in Germanyhas challenged the view that he himselfsubscribed
to theevolutionismcommonlyassociatedwithhis work.2Classical scholars
know of his strikingly
originalcontributionsto the studyof Greek myth
l Bachofen'sMutterrecht
(1861) preceded McLennan's PrimitiveMarriage(Edinburgh:A.
and C. Black, 1865) by fouryears.In Studiesin AncientHistory(London: B. Quaritch,1876)
McLennan pointedout thathe did not know of Bachofen'swork until 1866 (391-92). This
seems plausible, since Bachofenclaimed that even in Germanyhis work was ignoredand
thatitcould be effective
onlyifitwere translatedintoEnglishand French.He was pathetically
gratefulto the young Genevan, Alexis Giraud-Teulon,for bringingit to the attentionof
Frenchscholars(La Me'rechezcertainspeuplesde l'antiquite,Paris: E. Thorin,1867). Bachofen,
on his side, learned of McLennan's work even later,in 1869 (C 264, 1869).
Amongthemanygeneralstudiesofthe historyof anthropologyin whichBachofenappears
in connectionwiththe theoryof matriarchy
and the theoryof evolutionism,see notablySol
Tax, "From Lafitauto Radcliffe-Brown;
a shorthistoryof the studyof social organization,"
in SocialAnthropology
ofNorthAmericanTribes:EssaysinSocialOrganization,
Law,andReligion,
originallypresentedto ProfessorA. R. Radcliffe-Brown,
ed. Fred Eggan (Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1937), and Carle C. Zimmerman,Familyand Civilization(New York:Harper
and Brothers,1947). His name appears frequently,
of course,in the major workssupporting
or challengingthe ideas of primitivepromiscuityand matriarchy,such as Westermarck's
Historyof Human Marriage(London: Macmillan, 1891) or Briffault's
The Mothers(London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1927). Though Briffault's
argumentrests more on the idea of
matrilocythan on that of descent throughthe female line (matrilocywas discussed by
Bachofenonlyin his laterwork),itsdebtto Bachofenis stillconsiderable.Curiously,Briffault's
massive three-volumework suffereda fate similarto Bachofen's:it was eitherneglectedor
regardedwithcondescensionby professionalanthropologists
as theworkof an amateurwho
stillclung to outwornevolutionarynotions. In addition,it sufferedfroma similarstylistic
disability,the centralargumentbeing swamped by the mass of illustrativematerial.There
has been some revival of interestin Briffault
and an abridgedversionof The Motherswas
published in England in 1959.
2 See JohannesDormann,"War JohannJakobBachofenEvolutionist?"
Anthropos
60 (1965):
1-48, and "Bachofen-Morgan,"
Anthropos
63-64 (1968-69): 129-38. Bachofenhimselfmakes
no secretof the partplayed in his thinkingby Plutarch'sIsis and Osirisor of the essentially
spiritualcharacter-in his view-of the "evolution" that is manifestedin social life and
institutions.

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS
of Athenian
and tragedythroughGeorge Thomson,whose interpretation
tragedyin Aeschylusand Athens(1941) owes much to Bachofen, and
throughmany admiringallusions to him in the writingsof Karl Kerenyi.3
ReadersofEngelscome acrosshis name in TheOriginsoftheFamily(1884),
whereEngelsacknowledgesat some lengthhis indebtednessto Bachofen's
Marxistswere understandably
then stillrelativelyneglectedMutterrecht.
attractedto the thesis that patriarchywas preceded by matriarchyand
thatthe existingsocial orderis thereforeneithernaturalnor eternal.4The
Mutterrecht
was obviouslyalso of interestto Freud and Jung,as readers
lettersare aware.5Jung,espeof Totemand Taboo and of the Freud-Jung
cially,as a fellow citizenof Basle, appears to have had a special affinity
forBachofen,and he himselfattributedthe Bachofenrevivalin the early
twentiethcenturyto the growingpublic interestin psychology.6Lewis
Mumfordwas probablyindebted,directlyor indirectly,to Bachofen for
ofMan (1956) and The
the contrasthe draws,in both The Transformations
Cityin History(1961), betweenthematernalcultureof theneolithicvillage
I
See the moving and understandingtribute,"JohannJakobBachofensPortrat,"in his
TessinerSchreibtisch:
Mythologisches
Unmythologisches
(Stuttgart:
Steingruben,1963), 21-31.
See also his AufSpurendes Mythos(Munich and Vienna: Langen-Muller,1967), 49-50, 84,
115,etpassim.As earlyas 1955 Kerenyihad alreadydedicateda substantialessay to Bachofen
des Humanismus,miteinemIntermezzoiuberNietzscheundAriadne,
(Bachofenund die Zukunft
Zurich:RascherVerlag). Referencesto Bachofenas a reveredguide and masteroccur frequentlyin the pages of Kerenyi'sGesammelteWerke(Munich: Langen Muller,1966-).
avec Paul et Laura Lafargue,ed. E. Bottigelli3 vols. (Paris: Editions
4 See Correspondance
sociales, 1956-59. 3 vols.), 3: 64-65. Marx's thoroughknowledgeof Bachofenemergesfrom
his notes on Morgan,Maine, and Lubbock;see Lawrence Krader,ed., The Ethnological
NotebooksofKarlMarx(StudiesofMorgan,Phear,Maine, Lubbock)(Assen: Van Gorcum& Comp.
B. V., 1974), 116-1 7, 235-37, 314, 323, 339. On Bachofen'spopularityin the oppositecamps
of socialistand fascistwritersin the earlytwentiethcentury,see ErichFromm,"Die sozialpsychologischeBedeutungder Mutterrechtstheorie,"
Zeitschrift
furSozialforschung
3 (1934):
196-227; also GerhardPlumpe, "Die Entdeckungder Vorwelt:Erlauterungenzu Benjamins
Text+ Kritik31/32 (1971): 19-27.
Bachofenlektiire,"
5 See The Freud-Jung
Letters,ed. WilliamMcGuire,trans.R. Manheim and R. F. C. Hull
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1974), letters312J-316J,318J,fromApril to June,
in Totemand Taboo,pt. 4 (CollectedWorks,
1912. Freud also refersto Bachofen'sMutterrecht
standarded., 13: 144; cf. 122, 125-26). The influenceof Bachofenon Jungand the Jungians
An Inquiryintothe
was doubtlessgreaterthan on Freud. See Jung'sMysterium
conjunctionis:
Separationand SynthesisofOppositesin Alchemy,trans.R. F. C. Hull, in his CollectedWorks,
20 vols. (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1954-78), 14: 18-20, 307, et passim.See also
the works of Erich Neumann, Amorand Psyche:The PsychicDevelopmentof the Feminine,
trans.Ralph Manheim (1956; 2nd. ed. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1971) and The
GreatMother:An AnalysisoftheArchetype,
trans.Ralph Manheim (1955; 2nd. ed. Princeton:
PrincetonUniversityPress, 1972). WilliamMcGuire,editorof the Freud-Jung
Lettersand coeditorof the CollectedWorks,told me thatit was at Jung'ssuggestionthatthe extractsfrom
Bachofenwere translatedintoEnglishand publishedin the BollingenSeriesby The Princeton
relationmay be found
UniversityPress. Furthersuggestionsconcerningthe Jung-Bachofen
in Henri Ellenberger,The Discoveryofthe Unconscious:theHistoryand EvolutionofDynamic
"C. G.
Psychiatry
(New York: Basic Books, 1970), 223, 660; and in Philipp Wolff-Windegg,
Jung-Bachofen, Burckhardt,and Basel," Spring:an Annual of ArchetypalPsychologyand
Jungian
Thought(1976): 137-47. On theotherhand, on theleftwingof Freudianism,Wilhelm
ReichacceptsBachofen'sthesisof a matriarchalperiodprecedingthe age of patriarchy.(See
his The InvasionofCompulsory
Sex-Morality,
orig. Ger. 1936; New York: Farrar,Straus and
Giroux,1971). ErichFrommalso refersfrequentlyto Bachofen.
6"Psychology and Literature,"CollectedWorks,14: 84.

VESTIGES OF BACHOFEN
and the newer paternalcultureof the town.7Those familiarwith Mumford'swork will recognizethe significanceof that contrastfornearly all
his writing.Most recently,feministshave begun to take an interestin a
writerwho can be presented,thoughnot withoutsome simplification
and
even speciousness,as having been an earlychampion of women.8These
are, however, faint echoes of a massive work of great originalityand
imaginativepower, which will come to ten volumes when the Gesamtausgabe,edited by the late Karl Meuli, is finallycompleted.A volume of
extractsin an English translationby Ralph Manheim was published by
PrincetonUniversityPress in the Bollingenseries in 1967, but none of
Bachofen'smajorworkshas been translatedin fulland, apartfromJoseph
Campbell's introductionand George Boas's prefaceto the Princetonvolume, thereis virtuallyno criticalliteratureon him in English.
In Germany,on the otherhand, Bachofenhas consistently
engaged the
most energeticand enterprising
minds. During his lifetime,it is true,he
was eitherignored completelyor disregardedas a misguided eccentric,
one of hundreds of obscure classical philologistsin the provincialcities
of German-speakingEurope.9He had difficulty
findinga publisherforhis
writingsand it was only in his later years that he began to attractthe
7 See The Transformations
ofMan (New York: Harper and Brothers,1956), Chapts. 1-3,
and The Cityin History;its Origins,itsTransformations
and itsProspects(New York:Harcourt,
Brace and World, 1961), chapts. 1-3. In 1961 Mumfordcontributeda note on Bachofento
a slimvolume containinga shorttranslatedtextby Bachofen,whichwas printedby the wellknown printerViktorHammerat his Stamperiadel Santuccioin Lexington,Kentucky,in an
editionof one hundredcopies (Walls:Res Sanctae/ResSacrae.A passagefrom"VersuchUeber
die Graebersymbolik
derAlten'). The distinctionbetween neolithicvillage and civilizedtown
was, of course, essential to the work of PatrickGeddes, the unusual Scots scientist,educationist,and urbanplanner,who was the singlemostpowerfulinfluenceon Mumford.(See
especiallyGeddes's fiveTalksfromtheOutlookTower,given at the New School in New York
in 1923, in Marshall Stalley,ed., PatrickGeddes:SpokesmanforMan and the Environment,
New Brunswick:RutgersUniv. Press, 1972, 289-380, notablythe thirdand fourthtalkson
"The Valley Plan of Civilization"and "The Valley in the Town"). Geddes had been a close
friendand associate of Elisee and Elie Reclus,both of whom participatedin his Edinburgh
SummerMeetingsbetween 1887 and 1899, and Elie Reclus was one of Bachofen's small
band of correspondentsand admirersin the last years of the philologist'slife. There is,
indeed, an audible echo of Bachofen in Geddes's affirmation
that village cultureis not
supersededbut continuesto existalongside that of men and cities,and in the admiration
he expressed for a historianof Rome who "below, behind, beyond this great historyof
Rome . . . got down to bedrock;down to the primitive,matriarchal,and persistent,fact,
thatwomen are in the way of feedingmen, providedtheirmen will bringthemthe stuffto
cook, and the fuelto cook it with" (Stalley,310). Mumford'slinksto Bachofenare thusboth
indirectand direct.
8 See, forinstance,ErnstBornemann,Das Patriarchat:
Ursprungund ZukunftunseresGesellschaftssystems
(Frankfurt
am Main: Fischer,1975). The AmericanfeministEvelyn Reed,
in Woman'sEvolutionfromMatriarchalClan toPatriarchalFamily(New York:PathfinderPress,
1975), refersto Briffault
ratherthan Bachofen,but her argumentis in line with Bachofen's.
A vigorouslycriticalevaluation of Bachofenfroma more modern feministstandpointis to
be foundin MarielouiseJanssen-Jurreit,
Sexismus:iuberdieAbtreibung
derFrauenfrage
(Munich
and Vienna: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1976), 96-111 .
9 See C 91, 94 (both 1857), 242 (1868); also Meuli in Afterwordto Mutterrecht
(GW 3:
1097-1100), and Kienzlein Afterword
to Tanaquil(GW,6: 455-57). Itis striking,
nevertheless,
thatMcLennan,the authorof Primitive
Marriage,did come upon theMutterrecht
shortlyafter
he had published his own study.

attentionof a few farseeingcolleagues, like JosefKohler,the legal comand sociologicalinterests,

paratist,who shared his broad interdisciplinary
and Alexis Giraud-Teulon,the Genevan sociologist,who triedto make
his workknown in France.'0Soon afterhis death, however,his fortunes
changed. At certainhigh points his reputationeven began to approach
or surpassthatof his formidableenemy.But the clienteleof the maverick
fromthat of the internationally
different
Swiss scholar was significantly
acclaimedNobel prize-winnerand permanentsecretaryof the prestigious
PrussianAcademy of Sciences. While Mommsen's admirershave always
well-trainedclassicalphilologists,
been recruitedin theranksoftraditional,
Bachofenfoundhis among artists,poets,writers,and philosopherscritical
social order of WilhelminGermanyand disenchantedby
of the stiffing
labors of establishedacademic scholwhat theytookto be the trivializing
arshipin historyand philology.
The relationsof Bachofenand Nietzsche-the two men were friendly
fora time duringNietzsche's ten year stintas professorof philologyat
Basle-have attractedparticularattention.There was much in Nietzsche
to appeal stronglyto theolderscholar,not least Nietzsche'sdenunciations
withtheancients
familiarity"
of criticalphilologistsand their"impertinent
and his fidelityto the idea of classical studiesas an educationof the total
specialismor a career.The emphasis
man ratherthan an institutionalized
Nietzsche placed on the gulf separatingthe ancient world fromthat of
students,the importancehe attached to the
its late nineteenth-century
foundationofHellenicculture,even his impatiencewithbooksprimitive
certainlyno less strangein one who occupied a chair of philologythan
in one who, as we shall see, had withdrawnfromall institutionalaffilinot
thatself-development
and self-discovery,
tations-and his affirmation
"science," were the obligationof the trulycultivatedman, defineda conceptionof scholarshipthatwas remarkablyclose to Bachofen'sand that
fromPieprobablyreflectssimilarintellectualinfluencesand affiliations,
tismto Schopenhauer.It is hard to imaginethatthe older scholardid not
welcome the appointmentof the youthfulNietzsche to succeed Adolf
Kiessling,whom he had scorned as a "bootlickerof Mommsen" (C 212,
1866), or thathe did not respondwithas much enthusiasmto Nietzsche's
InauguralAddress on "Homer and Classical Philology"on 28 May 1869
as he apparentlydid threeyearslaterto TheBirthofTragedy.Nevertheless,
if Nietzsche perhaps learned somethingfromBachofen,Bachofencould
not learn fromNietzsche.Nietzschefinallyturnedhis back on both Basle
and philology.Bachofen,in contrast,remained-uncomfortably-bound
10On JosefKohler,professorof law at Wurzburg(1877-78) and at Berlin(1888-1919),
by R. H. Barnesto his translationof Kohler'sOn thePrehistory
see thesubstantialintroduction
GroupMarriage,MotherRight(orig.German,1897; Chicago: Univ. of
ofMarriage:Totemism,
Chicago Press, 1975). Several of Kohler's works on comparativelaw were translatedinto
Englishshortlyaftertheirfirstappearance in German. See also Guido Fass6, Histoirede la
philosophiedu droit,XIX et XX sikcles,trans.C. Rouffet(Paris: Librairiegenerale de jurisprudence,1976), 176-77.

to his earlyphilologicalvocation,just as he remained-uncomfortablybound to his native city,choosing in both cases the path of inner exile
ratherthan that of open rupture.In the end, many German artistsand
intellectualscame, as Thomas Mann did, to see Bachofenand Nietzsche
as representingdiametricallyopposed solutions to the dilemmas of
modernman."'
It was notNietzsche,but themembersof theKosmischeRunde,an avantgarde artisticand philosophicalmovementin Munich at the end of the
last century-notably Ludwig Klages, Karl Wolfskehl,and AlfredSchuler-who reallymade Bachofen'sreputationin Germany."2The circleof
" The textsin whichNietzscheis closestto Bachofenare the inauguraladdress on Homer,
We Philologists,The Futureof our EducationalInstitutions,
and The Birthof Tragedy,which
Frau Bachofen told C. A. Bernoulliher husband had read with deep satisfaction(Martin
einesgenialenIrrtums,
Geschichte
Vogel,ApollonischundDionysisch:
Regensburg:Gustav Bosse
Verlag,1966, 99n). Like Burckhardtin thisrespect,Bachofenfound it increasinglydifficult
togo along withNietzsche'sworkafterTheBirthofTragedy,
despitehis initialwarmsympathy
for the man. Frau Bachofenrecountsthat even personal relationswith Nietzsche cooled,
then broke offaltogether.The estrangementbetween the two men was probablydue not
so much to Nietzsche's increasinglyphilosophical bent-thereis somethingdisingenuous
about Burckhardt'sinsinuations,in his lettersto Nietzsche,that the cause of his growing
reservewith respectto his erstwhilecolleague was his own lack of philosophical talent;
Burckhardtknew as well as anybodythatNietzsche was in no sense a professionalphilosopher,had not been trainedas one, and did not use the language or the styleof professional
philosophy-asto his increasinglyfreeand directexplorationof the problemsthatconcerned
him. The BirthofTragedy,thoughit irritatedthe professionalphilologistsin Berlin,was still
recognizablya workof philology.It concernedancientGreekculture,the relationof ancient
and similarquesartand ancientreligion,the relationof dramaticand epic representation,
tions. If it seems revolutionaryto us today, that is partlybecause we read it from the
perspectiveof Nietzsche's later work, which Bachofen and Burckhardtcould not do, and
the traditionof classical philology,fromZoega on,
partlybecause mostof us have forgotten
in which contemporariescould easily place it. As a work of philology,it was well received
by Nietzsche's colleagues at Basle. Withthe writingof HumanAll Too Human and Dawn of
Day, however,in 1878 and 1881, Nietzsche had clearlybroken with the philologicaland
historicaldisciplineswhich, for Bachofen and Burckhardt,however free theymightbe in
theirattitudesto those disciplines,stillprovideda residual orderand objectivity,a bulwark
against the total disintegrationof all established order. In Bachofen's case, in addition,
Nietzsche's overthostilityto religionmay have contributedto the estrangementof the two
men. Bachofencould toleratethe quiet atheismof Overbeck,but he may well have found
the increasinglymilitantanti-Christianfulminationsof Overbeck's friendunacceptable.
On the relationsof Bachofenand Nietzschethe mostimportantstudyis AlfredBaeumler,
"Bachofen und Nietzche," firstpublished in 1929, in his Studienzur deutschenGeistesgeschichte(1937; 3rd ed., Berlin:Junkerund Dunnhaupt, 1943), 220-43. The questionof Bachofen's relationto Nietzscheis also centralto Baeumler'sextensiveand learned introduction
to extractsfromBachofen'sworks,published as Der Mythusvon Orientund Occident:eine
der altenWelt,aus den Werkenvon J.I. Bachofen(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1926). A
Metaphysik
second editionof thiswork appeared in 1956, and Baeumler'sintroductionwas laterpublished separately,withan addition,as Das mythische
Weltalter:
BachofensDeutungdes Altertums,miteinemNachwort,Bachofenund die Religionsgeschichte
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965).
The relationto Nietzscheis also emphasized by Baeumler'scolleague,ManfredSchroter,in
his introduction
to a new editionof Bachofen'sDas lykischeVolk(Leipzig; H. Haessel, 1924).
On the oppositionof Bachofenand Nietzsche,see note 16 below.
12 See especially the importanttributeto Bachofen in the essay on sources following
Eros (Munich: Georg Muller, 1922; 4 editions until 1941):
Klages's Vom kosmogonischen
"Verfasserdieser Zeilen bekennt,dass die ihm um die Jahrhundertwende
zuteil gewordene
mit den HauptwerkenBachofenssein weiteresLeben entscheidendmitbesBekanntschaft
timmte"(quoted fromLudwig Klages,St(mtliche
Werke,8 vols., Bonn: BouvierVerlagHerbert

poets and artistsgroupedaround StefanGeorge after1905 continuedthe

interestin Bachofen sparked by the Kosmiker,
with whom George had
been associated,and it is not an accidentthatKarl Meuli, the Swiss ethof the recenteditionof Bachofen's
nologistwho served as editor-in-chief
collectedworks,had been attractedin his youth to the George circlein
Munich."3In importantways, the oppositionof George and Max Weber
in the yearsjust beforethe FirstWorldWar repeatsthatof Bachofenand
Mommsenin the middleyearsof the nineteenthcentury,even thoughthe
personal relationsof George and Max Weber were warmerand the two
men both understoodeach otherfarbetterand respectedeach othermore
than Bachofenand Mommsen.
NeitherBachofen'srelationto Nietzsche,problematicas it admittedly
was, nor the distinctionhe shared with Nietzsche of being taken up by
a succession of writersclosely associated with National Socialism, like
ManfredSchroterand AlfredBaeumler,theBerlinprofessorof philosophy
who assumed directionof the Nazi Institutefor Political Pedagogy in
1933,'4 did anythingto enhance his standingamong traditionalphilologists or liberal-mindedthinkers.Even a superficialinvestigationof the
on Bachofenin Germanwill quicklyconfirmthat,while Mommliterature
sen is perceived not only as a superb philologistbut as a leading and
inspiringfigurein Germany'sliberal and rational tradition,Bachofen is
usuallyalignedwiththe forcesof irrationalism,
myth,and BlutundBoden.
In the polemicsthataccompanied the Bachofenrevivalin the twentiesof
of Bachofen's significanceis unthe presentcenturythis interpretation
mistakable.'5 It is, moreover, like politically motivated criticismsof
Grundmann,1969-74. 3: 495). Klages's commentson Bachofen were republishedas an
derAltenpublished by C. A.
introductionto the editionof Versuchilberdie Gr(ibersymbolik
Bernoulliin 1925 (Basle: Helbing und Lichtenhahn).
On the KosmischeRunde,see Claude David, StefanGeorge:son oeuvrepoetique(Lyon:
Linke, Das Kultischein der DichtungStefanGeorges
I. A. C., 1952), 196-209; Hans-Jiurgen
zu
(Munich and Dusseldorf:Helmut Kupper, 1960). 1: 59-62; ErnstMorwitz,Kommentar
George(Munich and Dusseldorf:Helmut Kupper, 1960), 46, 389.
ed. Thomas
Schriften,
13 FranzJung,
"BiographischesNachwort,"in KarlMeuli,Gesammelte
Gelzer (Basle and Stuttgart:Schwabe & Co., 1975), 2: 1158.
on Kant,Hegel, and Nietzsche,and the collaboratorof Manfred
14 Baeumler,an authority
Schroter,another Bachofen enthusiastin the Nazi ranks, on a Handbuchder Philosophie
(Munich and Berlin:Oldenbourg, 1933), is notoriousas the editor of AlfredRosenberg's
und Reden(1943) and of various Nazi pedagogical and ideological tracts.See on
Schriften
(New York: Yiddish ScientificInstitute,1946), 23-25,
him Max Weinrich,Hitler'sProfessors
AlfredBaeumlersBeitragzur PdYdagogie
Paidagogik:
and WinfriedJoch,Theorieeinerpolitischen
am Main: Peter Lang, 1971).
(Bern:HerbertLang; Frankfurt
im Nationalsozialismus
15 In favorof Bachofen:Baeumler(see above, note 11); Schrbter
(see above, note 11; and
(Munich: C. H. Beck,n.d.), vii-lvi; C. A.
his introductionto Bachofen'sOknosderSeilflecher
(Basel: Schwabe, 1924); and WernerDeubel,
Bernoulli,J. I. Bachofenund das Natursymbol
209 (1927): 66-75, though
"Der Kampfum JohannJakobBachofen,"PreussischeJahrbulcher
the lattertakes issue with Baeumler for tryingto reconcile Bachofen's insightsinto the
chthonicage of humanitywith his Christianconvictionsand supportsKlages's view that
like his philosophy of history,is simply tacked on to startlingly
Bachofen's Christianity,
insightsthatare in realityincompatiblewithit. AgainstBachofen:mostforcerevolutionary
fullyErnstHowald, "Wider JohannJakobBachofen,"(1924) reprintedin Humanismusund
ArtemisVerlag,1957), 63-75; ErnstKarl Winter,"Bach(Zurichand Stuttgart:
Europtiertum

Nietzsche or Heidegger,not entirelywide of the mark. Nevertheless,it

Bachofen's work was a point of referencefor the entire
is insufficient.
or criticismof liberal,bourgeoisculture,
Germantraditionof Kulturkritik,
in the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury,whetherthe criticismcame from
the rightor fromthe left.A completeaccountof Bachofen'slegacy would
have to explain how it came to be shared by Marxistsand Nazis, how it
could inspireErichFrommand WalterBenjamin,as well as AlfredBaeumler and ManfredSchrbter,and how it could happen thatThomas Mann,
of theBachofenrevival
who warnedof thedangerouspoliticalsignificance
in the 1920s, was at the same time so profoundlymoved by the Swiss
scholar's approach to myththat throughhis influenceKarl Kerenyiwas
transformed-"liberated,"as he wrotehimself-froma "humanistscholar
of religion"into a "mythologist,prepared to journey,togetherwith Asclepidean spirits,to the realm of the greatmythologies.""6
A full scale study of Bachofen in English would make a valuable
to our understandingof German and European culturalhiscontribution
toryin the nineteenthand twentiethcenturies.Somethingof Bachofen's
importanceand of the interesthis workcontinuesto hold may, however,
be conveyed by a more modest inquiryinto the contemporarycultural,
political, and intellectual context and implications of his attack on
Mommsen.
ofen-Renaissance,"Zeitschrift
furdie gesamteStaatswissenschaft
85 (1928): 316-42-an excellentoverviewof theentiredebate-and B.Croce,"II Bachofene la storiografia
afilologica,"
Attidella Reale Accademiadi Scienzemoralee politichedi Napoli,51 (1928): 158-76. Croce's
positionis moderateand understanding,
albeitultimatelynegative,and his articlecontributed
to the "revival" throughthe publicationof some then unknown lettersfromBachofento
the Italian scholarand antiquarianAugustinoGervasio. In a middle position,arguingfora
more rationalBachofen,a philosopherof historyin the German idealist tradition:Georg
Schmidt,JohannJakobBachofensGeschichtsphilosophie
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1929), a Universityof Basle dissertation,and, some years later,J. Lesser, "JohannJakobBachofen,zu
seinem 50. Todestag am 25 November 1937," Philosophia(Belgrade),2 (1937): 251-69.
16 Benjamin'sessay on Bachofenwas draftedin Frenchin 1934-35 with the modest aim
of presentingthe Swiss scholar'swritingsto a public thatknew nothingof them.It was not
published,however,until 1954. A German translationappeared in 1971 in Text + Kritik,
31/32: 28-40. Fromm'sessay is referredto in note 4 above. Mann's critiqueof Bachofen
in 1926 in PariserRechenschaft
(Gesammelte
Werke,Frankfurt
am Main: FischerVerlag,1974,
12: 47-51) was occasioned by Baeumler'srecentlypublished introductionand selectionof
texts,Der Mythusvon Orientund Occident.Kerenyi'scommentis in a prefatorynote, dated
and Humanism:the Correspondence
1944, to the Kerenyi-Manncorrespondence(Mythology
of ThomasMann and Karl Kere'nyi,
trans.A. Gelley, Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1975,
28-29). The problem of the culturalsignificanceof Bachofen in the German traditionis
extremelycomplex.While Bachofen'sinfluenceseems to run parallel to Nietzsche'sin some
cases-that of Ludwig Klages, forinstance-many of those who were most apprehensive
of its effects,
such as Thomas Mann, ErnstHowald ("WiderJohannJakobBachofen",1924,
in his Humanismusund Europaertum, Zurichand Stuttgart:
ArtemisVerlag,1957, 63-75), or
Konrad Heiden (A Historyof National Socialism,Eng. trans.London: Methuen, 1934, 359)
oppose Bachofento Nietzsche,as an erroneousand regressivein contrastto a productive
and heroicsolutionto what theyall perceiveas the dilemma of liberaldemocraticsociety.

II. THE PROPHET OF BASLE
he clocks of Basle, if we can believe the accounts of English and
one hourbehindthoseof the

weretraditionally
Frenchtravelers,
neighboringcountries.A fewattempts,inspiredby Enlightenment,

to synchronizeBasle time with that of the world around met with the
determinedresistanceof the citizenry,untilthisidiosyncracy,along with
was swept away, in the wake
more importantcustomsand institutions,
of the FrenchRevolution,by the short-livedHelveticRepublic. Basle did
not set its clocksback again at the Restoration.Nevertheless,throughout
the nineteenthcenturyit remaineda deeply conservativecity,proud of
its independenceand its past glories.
When it joined the Swiss Confederationin 1501, aftermuch hestitation
and hard bargaining,Basle already had a distiguishedhistoryas a Free
Cityof theEmpireand as one of theleading centersof humanistlearning,
art,and printingin the German speakinglands. As the Swiss Confederation, priorto the Federal Constitutionof 1848, was littlemore than a
close-knit,permanentdefensivealliance-"II y a des Cantons,il n'y a pas
de Suisse," Tocquevilleremarkedin 1836-the citizensof Basle continued,
at least untilthe middle of the nineteenthcentury,to regardtheircityas
an autonomous state withinthe Confederation.Situated at the meeting
pointof Frenchruled Alsace, the GermanDuchy of Baden, and the other
cantons of the Confederation,it appeared to them unique and distinct
with respectto all of these. Even quite recently,elderlyinhabitantsof
Basle have been known to speak of "going to Switzerland"when leaving
theircityforone of the othercantons.
Though quite highlyindustrializedby the early nineteenthcentury,
Switzerlandknew nothingof the massive growthof towns and the huge
migrationsof population that accompanied the IndustrialRevolutionin
England. Rightsof settlementwere strictlycontrolled-and grudgingly
granted-by the individualcantons,which remainedrelativelystable demographicallyuntilmid-century.Industrywas only graduallyorganized
in factories.The manufactureof silk ribbons,the mainstayof the Basle
economyand the foundationon whichthe fortunesof manyof itsleading
familieshad been built,remainedpredominantlya putting-outindustry
runby merchantcapitalists.Therewas a spurtin factoryproductionduring
buta surprising
theheydayofsteam-drivenlooms aroundthemid-century
amountof workwas stillbeing farmedout to individualsin theruralareas
around Basle in the earlydecades of the presentcentury.Politicallytoo,
Basle enteredthe modern age cautiouslyand with misgivings.Though
some of the outstandingarchitectsof the modern Swiss Confederation
8

THE PROPHET OF BASLE
workedfora federal
were drawnfromold Basle families-Achille Bischoff
customs union, BenediktLa Roche for a federal postal system,Johann
JacobSpeiserbecame directoroftheCentralBank and introduceda federal
currencyand a federalcoinage, Carl Geigy championed and helped finance the constructionof a federalrailway system-the cityleadership
seems on thewhole to have been draggedunwillinglyalong in the process
of centralizationwhichbegan withthe new Federal Constitutionof 1848.
Many of theold families,among whom the cityfathershad been recruited
forover two centuries,looked apprehensivelyon centralization,
railways,
industrialization,and immigrationas threatsto the traditional,closed,
semi-patriarchal
communitytheyconsideredthemselvesobligatedto preserve and protect.
Aftermid-century,
however, modern life began to transformthe traditionalways of Basle. The Strasbourgrailway reached the outskirtsof
the cityin 1844, the railway fromGermanyshortlyafterwards.Banking
operations,which had been a familybusiness run by the merchant-manufacturers,were revolutionizedby the formationof modern joint-stock
banks capable of financingthe railways and otherlarge-scaleindustrial
projectstypicalof thesecond halfof the century.Frommodestbeginnings
as an adjunct to the manufactureof silk ribbons,the chemical industry
increasedin importanceuntilby the last quarterof the centuryits contributionto the city'seconomybegan to rival thatof the ribbonindustry
itself.Again,the old familiesappear to have been divided in theirattitude
to this development.The most liberaland enterprising
sons of the patriciate, influencedby the progressiveideas of ChristophBernoulli(17821863), an early champion of science, technology,and industry,took the
lead in promotingit, but otherslooked on it with deep misgiving,and
considered the manufactureof syntheticdyes not only unsanitaryand
deleteriousto public health,but unnaturaland immoral.JohannRudolf
Geigy-Merian,one of the youngerpatriciansmost eager to adapt to the
new order of industrialcapitalism and the man most responsible for
launching the present Geigy Chemical Company on the road to commercialsuccess,at firstprovidedfinancialsupportforthepioneeringefforts
of an associate, preferring
not to engage the familyfirmand the family
reputationdirectlyin what seemed a riskyand not altogetherrespectable
enterprise.
New industries,along with new techniquesand modes of production
in the older ones, led to a far more rapid increase of population in the
lateryears of the centurythan in the earlierones, and the native artisan
class was graduallyoverwhelmedby a new proletariat.At the beginning
of the century,half the inhabitantsof the citywere sufficiently
well esoffto enjoy burgherrights.By the 1880s those
tablishedand comfortably
enjoyingburgherrightswere outnumberedby nonburghersfourto one.
What the patriciatehad consistentlysoughtto avoid-the destructionof
the old communityand corporatelifeof the cityby a vast influxof foreign
workers-had finallycome to pass, partlyas a resultof the veryadjust-

10
mentsthe partriciateitselfhad had to make to changed political,social,

and economicconditions.
Most of thepatricianfamiliesof Basle-the Bernoullis,the Burckhardts,
the Geigys, the Heuslers, the Iselins, the La Roches, the Merians, the
Paravicinis,the Sarasins, the Sosins, the Vischers-had originallyimmigratedto the cityas wealthyrefugeesfromreligiouspersecutionin France,
Italy,and the Spanish Netherlands,or fromthe disordersof the Thirty
Years' War. They had been welcomedbecause of the skillsand the capital
theybroughtto the cityand because theircommercialand industrialactivities,beingnew, did not conflictwiththoseof theold establishedguilds.
The remarkabledegree of social harmonythatprevailedin Basle forover
two centurieswas due in no small measure to the carefulavoidance of
conflict
bybothparties.Bytheend ofthenineteenthcenturytheconditions
which had permittedthat social harmonyno longer obtained. The destructionof the old patriarchaland communitariancitywas symbolized
by the demolition,in 1850, of the fourteenth-century
citywalls and the
rapid expansion of the town into the surroundingcountry.
Like his betterknown contemporaryand fellow citizenJacob Burckhardt,Bachofenlived throughthese changes and theydeeply affectedhis
relationboth to his native cityand to the materialcivilizationand the
centralizedstate power thatseemed to threatenits existencein the form
in which he knew and loved it. Though not quite as long establishedin
the Bachofenshad been burgherssince the sixBasle as the Burckhardts,
teenthcenturyand theirhighlysuccessfulsilk-ribbonbusiness had been
in theirhands since 1720. They owned valuable propertieson or near the
and in 1828 theymoved intoa handsomeneoclassicaltownMiinsterplatz,
on
the
house
Sankt Alban Graben-adjacent to the presentMuseum of
AncientArt-which Bachofen's father,JohannJacob Bachofen-Merian,
had had designedby the leading architectin Switzerland,MelchiorBerri,
ofJacobBurckhardt.
thebrother-in-law
The eighteenth-century
Bachofens
had been knowledgeable connoisseursand the familyart collectioninheritedby Bachofen'sfather,himselfa considerablecollector,must have
been one of the richestin Switzerland.It included works by Giorgione,
Rembrandt,Vermeer,Van Dyck, Hobbema, David Teniers,Poussin, and
Greuze; and itwas citedin contemporary
guidebooksas one ofthenotable
curiositiesof the city.Less active in citypoliticsthan some otherleading
families,tendingliterallyto mind theirown business,the Bachofenswere
neverthelesswell established,well respected,extremelywell to do, and
connectedby marriagewith the otherprominentfamiliesor Geschlechter
the Forcarts,the Merians,the Passavants."7
of the city-the Burckhardts,
17
Information
concerningBasle and itshistoryhas been drawnfromthefollowingsources:
Edgar Bonjour,"Basel im Schweizerbund"(essays on Swiss history)in his Die Schweizund
RedenundAufsdtze,
Europa:ausgewThlte
vol. 1 (Basle: Helbingund Lichtenhahn,1958): 143244; idem, "Basels Anteilan der Entwicklungder neuen Schweiz" (furtheressays on Swiss
Basel
history)in his Die Schweizund Europa,vol. 6 (1979); 133-233; idem, Die Universitlit

11
The Basle patriciatewas not unaffectedby the repercussionsof the

FrenchRevolutionin Switzerland.Though theHelveticRepublichad been
short-lived,the Act of Mediation restoredthe old cantonal governments
on a farbroaderelectoralbasis, especially-in Basle-with respectto the
relativerepresentationon the City Council of the town itselfand of the
dependenton it,thanhad prevailedin theAncienRegime.
countrydistricts
When the Allies returnedSwitzerlandto the statusquo ante in 1814, the
Basle patriciateappears to have resolvedto make reformsin itsown house
in order to retain controlof the city. The universitywas revived and
thoroughlymodernized,and the wealthierfamiliesbegan to educate their
sons with a deliberateview to public office.More and more, especially
and
afterthe citywas forciblyseparatedfromitsrebelliousruralterritories
reconstitutedas the autonomous canton of Basel-Stadtin 1833, the centuries-oldtraditionof entrustingthe governmentof the canton to prominentburghersaftertheyhad retiredfromactivelifein tradeor commerce
gave way to a new regimein whichthepatriciateexercisedpower through
cadre of jurists,professors,and educated
a speciallytrainedadministrative
rentiers
drawnfromitsranks.In seekingto avoid the creationof a salaried
careerbureaucracy,the patriciateseems to have been moved not only by
fiscalconservatismbut by a concernthat its scope of action should not
be restricted
by any body alien to it. Professionalbureaucracies,not sur1460-1960(Basle: Helbing und Lichtenhahn,1971); Carl JacobBurckhardt,
"Basel," in GesGesammelteWerke,vol. 5 (Bern,Munich,Vienna: Scherz, 1971): 381-88; Paul Burckhardt,
bis zur Gegenwart(Basle: Helbing und
chichteder Stadt Basel von der Zeit der Reformation
Lichtenhahn,2nd ed., 1957); AlfredBurgin,Geschichtedes Geigy-Unternehmens:
Ein Beitrag
zur Basler Unternehmer-und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte
(Basle: KommissionsverlagBirkhauser,
derStadtgemeinde
1958); Paul Doppler, OrganisationundAufgabenkreis
Basel (1803-1876)(Ingenbohl:Theodosius-Buchdruckerei,
1933); Eduard Fueter,Die Schweizseit 1848: Geschichte,
Politik,Wirtschaft
(Zurichand Leipzig:Orell Fiissli,1928); Handbuchderschweizerischen
Volkswirtschaft
(Bern: Benteli,1955); L. F. Haber, The ChemicalIndustryduringthe Nineteenth
Century(Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1958); AlbertHauser, Schweizerische
und SoWirtschaftszialgeschichte
(Erlenbach-Zurichand Stuttgart:Eugen Rentsch,1961); Maurice Levy-Boyer,
Les Banques europeenneset l'industrialisation
internationale
dans la premieremoitiedu xixe
siecle (Paris: Presses Universitariesde France 1964); Andreas Miller,Strukturund soziale
derUniversitdt
Basel (Winterthur:
P. G. Keller,1955); WillyPfister,Die Einbiurgerung
Funktion
derAusla'nderin derStadtBasel im 19. Jahrhundert
(Basle: Kommissionsverlag
FriedrichReinhardt,1976); Heinz Polivka,Die chemischeIntdustrie
imRaumevon Basel (Basle: Helbing und
Lichtenhahn,1974); Andreas Staehelin, Geschichteder UniversitatBasel 1818-1835 (Basle:
derUniversita't
Basel ausfiinfJahrhunderten
Helbingund Lichtenhahn,1959); idem,Professoren
in vor-undfriuhindustrieller
(Basle: FriedrichReinhardt,1960); Peter Slotz, BaslerWirtschaft
Zeit (Zurich:SchulthessPolygraphischerVerlag, 1977); La Suisse e'conomique
et sociale,ouvrage publie par le Departementfederalde l'economie publique (Einsiedeln:Etablissements
Benziger,1927).
On Bachofenhimself,the best biographyto date is by Karl Meuli in GW 3: 1012-79. On
the Bachofenfamilyand art collection,F. Vischer-Ehinger,
Chronikder FamilieBachofenin
Basel (Basle: E. Birkhauser,1911). On Bachofen'sstudiesand scholarlycareer,the typescript
of what was to have been volume 5 of GW,consistingof a catalog of the Nachlass,with a
substantialintroductionby JohannesDbrmann,is invaluable; it is preservedin Basle Univ.
Library,Departmentof MSS. I also benefitedfromconversationwiththe authorof the most
recentstudy of Bachofen (Andreas Cesana, JohannJacobBachofensGeschichtsdeutung:
eine
ihrergeschichtsphilosophischen
Untersuchung
Voraussetzungen,
unpublisheddiss. Basle, 1978),
who told me thatin his opinion Bachofenat mid-centurywas the richestman in Basle.

12
fromboth Bachofenand Burckwere a constantbuttof criticism

prisingly,
style,as alienhardt,who always representedthem,in eighteenth-century
of despotism.
ated instruments
Bachofen'seducation suggeststhat his familymay have had in mind
as well as in the family
forhim a role in this reformedadministration,
business. At the age of fivehe was enrolledin Herr Miinzinger'sprivate
school, where he preceded Burckhardtby a few years. Two years later,
in 1822, he went on to the Gemeindeschule,then to the Gymnasium
(1825), the Padagogium or preparatorycollege of the university(1831),
and finallythe Universityof Basle (1834). His teacherswere the same as
From 1835 to 1837 he attendedthe Universityof Berlin,
Burckhardt's."8
where he heard the greatestscholars of the day-Bbckh in philology,
Rankein history,Ritterin geography,and Savignyin law."9In 1837-1838
he was at Gbttingen.Though he had by then forsakenphilologyto seek
a degree in law, possiblyat the urgingof his family,his interestin philological studyremainedlivelyforhe broughtwith him a letterof introductionfromhis old teacherat the Basle Padagogium, Franz Dorotheus
Gerlach,to Carl OtfriedMuller,the greatRomanticphilologist,who held
a chairat Gbttingen.The letterindicatesthathe planned to attendMuller's
lectures.20
had importantbusiness connections
As the Basle ribbonmanufacturers
withFrance,England,and America,it is not surprisingthatBachofenwas
sentoffto Franceand England to acquaint himselfwiththe language and
laws of these two countries.In 1838 he leftforParis, where he spent a
year as an apprenticein a Frenchlaw firm.He then crossed the Channel
and continuedhis educationin England. In London, then at Cambridge,
happy and was invitedto become
wherehe relatesthathe was particularly
a fellow of Magdalene College, he not only read extensivelyin English
law but was an attentiveobserverof contemporaryEnglish life and institutions.Beforeleaving the BritishIsles, he travelednorthto Liverpool
and visitedScotland,venturingas farwest as Iona. In 1840 he returned
to Basle, and shortlyafterwardswas appointed professorof law at the
university.
There is considerableevidence that,as a young man, Bachofenwas a
liberalor at least had liberalsympathies,and thathe shared the optimistic
confidenceof many scholars and thinkersin the period before 1848see thefulland detailedaccountin Werner
1 On theteachersof Bachofenand Burckhardt,
vol. 1 (Basle: Schwabe & Co., 1947).
eine Biographie,
Kaegi,JacobBurckhardt:
der
and Alterthamer
Enzyklopa'die
19 Copious notes of Bbckh'slectureson the Philologische
18, 19; of Ranke's lectures
Hellenerare preservedin Basle Univ. Library,Bachofen-Archiv,
on German History,modern History,and recentHistory,in Bachofen-Archiv20-23; and
26, 27.
of Savigny's lectureson the Institutionsand the Pandects,in Bachofen-Archiv,
HerrBachofen,Stud. Juris.. . . wiinschtin Gottingen
20 "EinermeinerehemaligenSchtiler
Leitungnoch in der Forschungdes
seine Studien zu vollenden,um unterihrertrefflichen
Alterthumsgefordertzu werden" (dated Basle, 20 October, 1837, in Carl OtfriedMuller:
Briefeaus einemgelehrtenLeben 1797-1840,ed. SiegfriedReiter,Berlin:Akademie-Verlag,
1950, 1: 322).

13
Humboldt,Ranke,Hegel, Savigny,each in his own way-in thepossibility

of reconcilingthe old and the new, the values of traditionand the values
championedand propagatedby the Revolution,the cultureof the age-old
European communitiesand the organizationof the modernpoliticalstate,
the faithof Christianityand the cult of pagan antiquity.By joining the
forinstance-a nationalassociationof well-meaning,modZofingerverein,
eratelyreformingSwiss studentsfromwell-to-dofamilies,establishedin
1819-he signifiedhis sympathywith the goal of a more unifiedand
centralizedSwiss state and his opposition to the narrow and restrictive
Kantonligeist.Indeed, in his address to the Basle Zofingiain 1834, on the
anniversaryof the Rutlioath, the foundingact of the Swiss Confederation-Bachofen was then nineteenyears of age-he praised Switzerland
as one of the few states that owe theiroriginto an act of popular will
ratherthan the dynasticambitionsof a prince.21Three years later in a
letterto GerlachfromGbttingenhe expressedhis disgustat the summary
dismissalof theseven university
professorswho had protestedagainstthe
revocationof the liberal constitution(C 1, 1837). In 1839 the man who
laterstood opposed to every extensionof state power wrote fromParis
of his admirationboth forthe centralizedorganizationof the Frenchstate,
to which he attributedthe intellectualand artisticvitalityof Paris, and
fortheopenness of all publicinstitutions
in France-libraries,universities,
parliamentitself-which he contrastedwith the narrownessand secretivenessof public lifein Switzerland(C 3, 1839). It is notable too thaton
his visitto Scotland in 1840 Bachofensought out Sir WilliamHamilton,
the acknowledgedleader of the most liberalwing of Scottishphilosophy
since the death of Dugald Stewart.22
In 1844, however,Bachofenresignedhis professorshipin the wake of
a violentcampaign in the radical press against what was perceivedas a
characteristic
promotionby the establishedfamiliesof one of theirown.
The followingyearhe also withdrewfromthe GrosserRat or CityCouncil,
afterservingforonly a year. From that time untilhis death in 1887 he
played no furtherrole in the public lifeof Basle, retainingonly the parttimefunctionof judge at the Court of Appeals.23
21
J. J. Bachofen,"Ueber Herkommenund Zucht. Rede gehalten am Grutlifest
vor der
SectionBasel des Zofingervereins,"
in Zofingia:Centralblatt
des schweizerischen
Zofingervereins
(Basle, Feb. 1958, 98: 145).
22 Basle Univ. Library,
Bachofen-Archiv272, item 292. Note fromSir WilliamHamilton
(24 June1840).
23 On the radical attacks on Bachofen's appointment,see K. Meuli in GW 3: 1039; W.
Kaegi,JacobBurckhardt,
2 (1950): 399. Bachofendid agree to serve,fromJanuary1855 until
May 1858, on the universityCuratel,the three-mancommitteewhich effectively
determined
universitypolicyafterthe reformof the universityadministration
in 1818 (Bachofen-Archiv
279, 9-10). A letterfromJuliusFriedlanderof Berlin(21 Nov. 1857) reportingDroysen's
opinion of a candidate for the chair of historyat Basle dates fromthis period (BachofenArchiv272, 59). Buteven withoutany officialrole,Bachofenappears to have been frequently
consultedon universitymatters.Accordingto Edgar Bonjour (Die UniversitatBasel 14601960, Basle: Helbing and Lichtenhahn,1971, 541-42), he was largelyresponsiblefor the

14
There seems littledoubt that the events leading to Bachofen's resignationmarkedhim deeply and permanently.He had believed thathe had
somethingto contributeto the lifeof his native city,thathe was destined
to be one of its patres,and he had probablyhoped to steerit, at his own
speed and accordingto his own lightsno doubt, in a moderatelyliberal
direction.But others,he discovered,were not willingto entrustthe fortunesof the cityto him and were impatientformoreradical changes than
he, in all likelihood,contemplated.His disappointmentwas more than
personal: his liberalfaithitselfcollapsed. It was shatteredcompletelyby
the activitiesof the militantradicals of the mid-1840s, at Lucerne and
elsewhereeven more than at Basle. These culminatedin 1847 in the SonderbundWar,which set the radical-mostly Protestant-cantonsagainst
the conservative-mostlyCatholic-ones, and in which Basle, Protestant
and commercialbut also deeply conservative,triedunsuccessfullyto play
a mediatingrole. ThereafterBachofenshared the angrycontemptof his
compatriotBurckhardtforwhat the latterreferredto, with bitterness,as
"the illusions. . . of 1830.124
The vigilantirony which enabled Burckhardtto overcome in some
measure the dialecticof illusion and disillusionseems not to have been
a solutionforBachofen,however. Far fromabandoning the idealism of
his youth,he spent his life piously preservingand protectingit untilhe
it into the image of a lost, immenselybeautiful,and evertransformed
regrettedage of harmonyand wholeness that pervades his entirework.
Evokingthe elationhis friendWilhelmStreuberexperiencedas a student
at the Universityof Berlinin the mid-1830s and the disappointmenthe
sufferedon his returnto Basle, Bachofen expressed his own continued
mourningforthe dream of reconciliationand harmonywhich the great
teachersof his generation-Ranke, Savigny,Schleiermacher,Bockh-had
held out to theirstudentsas capable of being realized in history.25
In Streuber
ofthemagicwhichtheFriedrich
Wilhelm
we findfurther
confirmation
exercises
on sensitive
and eageryoungminds.The combinedpresence
University
of so manyrespectedscholars,the highpositiontheyoccupy,the importance
in lifeand in thestate,thecomingtogether
ofso many
to scholarship
attributed
appointmentto the chair of law of AgathonWunderlichand, afterhim, of R. von Jhering,
two of the most distinguishedlegal scholarsGermanyproduced in the nineteenthcentury.
He withdrewfromthe Curatel on account of what he termeda grossinsulton the part of
one of his colleagues,"eines ungewaschenenNeu-Schweizers" (C 129, 1860). Nevertheless,
even afterthis episode, Bachofenremainedloyal to, if somewhat detached fromthe university.In 1877 he made a giftof 15,000 francsto the Padagogium forthe supportof sick
or sicknesspension fund
or disabled teachers,and a giftof 5,000 francsto the Krankenkasse
forthe supportof sick students,especiallyof those withoutfamilyin the
of the university,
city.
24 JacobBurckhardt,
ed. Emil Durr (Stuttgart:K. F. Koehler,1957),
HistorischeFragmente,
270.
25 Wilhem Theodor Streuber(1816-1857) began teachingclassical philologyat Basle in
1841 and was appointedprofessorof classical philologyat the universityin 1851. In 1847
he succeeded Burckhardtas editorof the BaslerZeitung,a post he occupied untiljust before
his death. Streuberdied ten monthsto the day afterBachofen'smother.

15
hundredsof youngmen filledwiththe desireto leam, fromall the Germanthebeautyand dignityof thescholarlylife.
speakinglands,all thishighlights
Everyotherconcemvanishesaway, and the soul is filledwitha singleidea.
. . . Likeone newbomStreuber
enjoyedin Berlinwhatno latertimeoflifeever
ofa presentfullof contentment
bringsback-the doublyblissfulexperience
and
of thefruits
and of a proudand confident
of thefuture.
satisfaction
anticipation
in a dreamand now
. . . LeavingBerlinhe feltlikea manwho had beenflying
foundhimself,
as he awoke,sinkingbackdownto theharshground.. . . Now
thedoublepainofmemories
fullofmelancholy
he suffered
and a future
without
help.He had girdedhimselfup forlifeas fora joyfulfeast,buthe had hardly
begunto drinkfromthecup whenthelastlampswereextinguished
and thelast
notefellsilent(WTSvi,viii,xxxvi).
Life in Basle was certainlya far cry fromthe joyful feast to which
Bachofen,like Streuber,had once looked forward."Along with many
oustandingqualities,our good cityof Basle," Gerlach once wrote to his
old student,"has an overpoweringtendencyto philistinetediousness,
which,God knows,is breathedin withthe veryair."26Bachofenaccepted
old nativecity"(C 162,
the tediousnessof lifein his "highlyuninteresting
1863) as a conditionforwhich therewas no remedyexceptironicalforbearance. His lettersconvey not only the boredom and provincialismof
what was then stillthe largestGerman-speakingcityin Switzerlandbut
a salutarycapacity forwritingabout it with humor. Expressinghis reservationsabout the estheticismof Burckhardt'slectureson art in a letter
to his friendMeyer-Ochsnerin Zurich,Bachofenadded that"in any case
it's unlikelyhe will create much havoc here. The thoroughlyunesthetic
dispositionof the Basle public will make sure of that.For it is not easily
shakenout ofitsImperialCitycomposureand pursuestheso-calledhigher
pleasures only out of boredom" (C 109, 1958). On scholarlyactivitiesin
Basle, he wrote on anotheroccasion, "I have not much to tell you. An
enormouscentrifugalforcedissipateseverythingand nothingsignificant
happens.. . . The good folk of Basle cherishunconditionalpeace. The
littlebit of spiritthereis is spent on creditbanks and otherswindles that
go by the name of progress"(C 152, 1863). In a more playfulmood he
told Meyer-Ochsnerof being visitedby a "courteous and well-educated
who had been recommendedto call on him.
youngman" fromFrankfurt,
His age naturally
calledforsomesocialdistractions.
How glad I wouldhave
beento providehimwiththese,ifonlyitwerepossible.Butin Basle,youknow,
at leastas faras myeyescan see,thereis no societyand absolutely
no association
ofthevariousfamilies.
Mr.Myliusspeakswellofthedancingassemblies
inZurich;
he willhaveto forgoall thatsortofthinghere,forI do notrecollect
everhearing
ofanyonedancingin Basle,exceptat thevilepopularballsat camivaltime.I come
to theconclusion
thatwiththebestwillin theworldI have nothingto offer
the
youngmanexcepttheadvicethathe notstaytoolonghere.Thenativesgo tobed
themselves
fromearlyyouthtohaveas fewneedsas possible.
earlyanddiscipline
26
Basle Univ. Library,Bachofen-Archiv

272, item65. Gerlachto Bachofen,15 Sept. 1851.

16
concert,
anda sermonbyPaterHebich,voila
A lecture,
an interminable
symphony
tout(C 140,1861).
Marriageto Louise Elizabeth Burckhardtin 1865 and the birthof his
son Wilhelma year later did not alter Bachofen's view of life in Basle.
"Boredom as always," he wrote to a friendin Rome in 1879. "In a city
like Basle absolutelynothinghappens, except what happens wherever
thereare human beings-baptisms and burials" (C 300, 1879). Toward
the end of his life he wrote a series of lettersto his littleniece Annita,
who was spendingthe winterin the south of France,to keep her abreast
of eventsin Basle. "I should have to inventsomething,"he told her, "if
I am to entertainyou pleasantly. For nothingnew is to be discovered
eitheron the Gerbergasseor on the Baarfusserplatz"(C 333, 1886).
I am answering
yourletterrightaway,thoughthereisn'tmuchto tell.One day
is verymuchlikeanotherhere.We getup in themoming,consumefourmeals,
thenretireto bed again. If the sun shineswe go out,if it rainswe take our
umbrellas
else. One day I beginmywalkwiththeSanktalonglikeeverybody
nextday withtheAeschenvorstadt,
theday afterwiththegreat
Alban-Vorstadt,
Gerbergasse.
EverymomingI drinkcocoa,everyeveningtea.
Wieintressant,
wie intressant
0 du, meinherrlich
Schweizerland!
(C 336, 1887)
If humorprovided some relieffroma reality,fromwhich, since 1844
at least, Bachofenno longer expected any joy or satisfaction,therewas
also a more powerfulconsolation.Italy,forBachofenas forBurckhardt,
was the golden land, the only place, accordingto his correspondence,
wherehe was trulyhappy. In his large,comfortablehouse in the greyold
cityon the Rhine he would dream of it or plot tripswith his friendand
fromZurich,HeinrichMeyer-Ochsner;and then sudfellow-philologist
dently,on an impulse, he would be off,wanderingup and down the
peninsula, visitinghis beloved burial sites and adoring the unchanging
beautyof the landscape. It is strikingthatin his autobiography,when he
wantedto emphasize the tiesthatbind a man to his homeland,the phrase
thatcame to his mindwas one thatits author,Madame de Staei, had used
to describe her heroine's attachmentto Italy. Bachofen's Italy was not
however.He was not drawn to the land of artand culture,
Burckhardt's,
but to a more ancient,prehistorical,pre- or early Roman Italy,an Italy
"ieratica e sacerdotale," as he himselfdeclared, quoting an Italian colleague,27an Italyof primitivepietyand religionwithits deepest roots,as
27 C 257, to Meyer-Ochsner,
18 Feb. 1869,quotingAng.Leosini,"La Provinziadell'Abruzzo,"
Rivistaitalianadi scienze,lettereed arti,127 (1863). Cf. also C 65: "The subsequent studies
[oftheGeschichte
derRimer]are to describethefortunesofCentralItalybeforethefoundation
of Rome and at least to suggesthow greatwas the floweringof those centuries,which are
the golden age of Italy.The mightyrealm of Alba, of which so low an opinionis held, and
whichis now regardedvirtuallyas mythicaland legendary,lay especiallyclose to myheart."
On Burckhardt'slongingforItaly,see the letterto Hermann SchauenbergfromBerlin,27
February,1847: "Italyopened myeyes,and since thenmywhole lifeis consumedby a great
longing for the golden age, for the harmonyof things" (The Lettersof JacobBurckhardt,
selected,editedand translatedby AlexanderDru, London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1955,
104).

17
he believed, not in Greece,but in the eternalOrient.Unlike Burckhardt,

he had no sympathywith the politicalaspirationsof modern Italy,was
horrified
by the 1848 Revolutionin Rome,whichhe witnessedpersonally,
and even foundhimselfsupportingthe Papal States. Garibaldiwas a term
of abuse in his vocabulary,and in the modern Italians he saw, for the
most part,only degenerate,unworthysuccessorsof those antique inhabitantsof the Italian soil whose history,traditions,customs,social organization,and religionhe spent most of his life tryingto understandand
to reconstruct.28
On otheroccasions he traveledto Paris, to London, to Dresden or to
Karlsruhe,to studyvases and sarcophagiin the museums,or to Stuttgart
or Breslau,to attend the meetingsof the Associationof German Philologists,Teachers,and Orientalists.But he always returnedto Basle-"Basileam, horridamterramet asperam," as he liked to say, adapting Tacitus
(C 69, 1851), and he was never temptedto leave it.29He quoted approvinglyfrommemory(thequotationis slightlyinaccurate)Madame de Stael's
observationin Corinnethat "Les annees passees a l'etrangersont comme
des branchessans racine," and added his own comment:
rootsonlyin one's nativesoil.The greatexperiences
One has firm
of lifecan be
gonethrough
onlythere,forthedestiniesof familiesand statesare notplayed
outin one life,butonlyin a wholeseriesof generations
one uponthe
following
other(SB 25).
In its very drabness Basle seems to have been regardedby Bachofen
as a sortof haven. The tensionin his work between nostalgia fora lost
Eden in which sensualityand spiritualitywere not in conflict-the age
of the Mothers-and acceptance of the triumphof spirit-the age of the
Fathers-recurs in his correspondenceas a tensionbetween the powerful
attractionof Italyand the South (C 84, 134) and gratitudeforthe security
providedby the cold, greycityon the Rhine. The South forBachofen,as
laterforthehero of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice,is not onlythe happy
abode of sunlightand sensuality,it is also a dangerousplace in which the
unwarytravelermay be attackedby mortalfevers.In one of his letters
to Meyer-Ochsner,Bachofen tells of having fallen sick in Montpellier
in the oppressiveheat and of havingreturnedhalfdead
fromoveractivity
to Basle as to a "liebes Schutzenvaterland"(C 134). His innerexile from
this beloved and protectivefatherlandappears to have been interpreted
by him in a deeply Christianand Calvinistsense as a trialand a destiny
placed upon himby Providence,so thathe mightseek out his truevocation
and dedicate himselfsingle-mindedlyto it. It was thus somethingto be
borne with fortitude,if not withoutpain.30A decade afterhe withdrew
28 See the disparagingremarksin GR 9, 11: the Milanese, accordingto Bachofen,are "eine
liederlicheBevolkerung,die besser nichtexistierte."The women of Venice and Triesteare
characterizedby "eine ungemeineLiederlichkeitund offentliche
Unsittlichkeit."
29 He turneddown invitations
to teach at Zurichand at Freiburgin Breisgauin 1841 and
1850 respectively.(See Meuli, GW 3: 1039-40).
30 See the movingpages in GR 7-8: "On March 11th,I lefthome, at 8.30 in the morning.
The sky was overcast.My heartalso. The eleventhis always a fatefulday forme. My first

18
fromboth the universityand the Rat he was presentingthe failureof his

thatreleased him
expectationof publicofficeas a providentialopportunity
fromhumdrumobligationsfor which he had no real taste and froma
greaterinvolvementin law thanhe desiredand thatallowed himto devote
his life to what had always been closest to his heart,philologyand the
studyof the prehistoricpast:
no one who has studiedcan declineto takepartin public
Herein Switzerland,
inlaw and,as theshopkeepers
affairs,
leastofall onewhohas acquireda doctorate
thatis not
say, has nothingto do. Studyforthe sake of studyis something
bypractical
conis chiefly
distinguished
understood
bya peoplewhosecharacter
cems.. . . Butmyplansweresharply
opposedtothepublicopinionofmynative
land(M 9).
Nevertheless,Bachofen'swithdrawalfromthe public life of his native
city was never regarded by him as markinga break with it. However
Basle, he always thought
estrangedhe may have been fromcontemporary
of himselfnot as an outsidercriticalof traditionalculturebut as a member
of a communitythat was largerthan that of the immediatepresent,a
communitywhose values he had inheritedand was obligatedto preserve
and hand on, especiallyin a time of adversitythat appeared to him as
a winterof the spirit.
BetweenBurckhardt
in temand Bachofentherewere manydifferences
perament,in outlook,and in worldlyfortune.Burckhardtachieved internationalrenownin his lifetimeand was called to Berlinto succeed Rankea call he declined-whereas Bachofenearlyabandoned the relativelysuccessfulcareerhe had begun as a specialistin law and legal history,ruined
his reputationas a scholar by obstinatelyrejectingNiebuhriancriticism,
and devoted his lifeto studiesthatwere not in the academic mainstream
journeyto Italybegan on 11 September1842. On 11 March 1843, my journeyto Naples.
On 11 Octobermy journeyto Rome. On 11 November my arrivalthere.On 11 May, my
departure.All this unintentionallyand absolutely without design. I can't overlook such
coincidences.What will the 1 ths that are to come bring?Many different
thingsno doubt,
but one thingnever,forwhich howeverI would gladlygive up everythingelse! . . . I have
always hoped, and hope has always revived in me. And throughall this hoping I have
witha proud consciousnessof mystrength.To be unblessed
become a man, and now I suffer
by happiness is stillnot to be unhappy. Conscious renunciationawakens a remarkableselfconfidence,a pridesuch as even theconsciousnessofsuccessfullyapplied energiescan hardly
provoke,and an intensefeelingof our subordinationto a higherworld order,which is the
richestsourceofvirtuein entirepeoples as well as in particularindividuals."Difficult
personal
experiences,Bachofengoes on, lead us to recognizeour truepersonal worth."Nothing is
leftto us but the innercore of things.What was dearestto us is most oftenthe thingthat
is affected.Can some one, who feels himselfcalled to a particularoffice,be affectedby
anythingmoredeeply shatteringthan when he findsthatit is impossibleforhim to exercise
this One Thing. That verythingis what is taken fromhim, and therebylife loses forhim
all its externalvalue. But it must be taken fromhim, in orderthat nothingshould remain
thatcould distracthimfromtheOne GreatThingthatalone has value. Even ourbestqualities
can become the obstacle that hindersus on the path to perfection.When externalaction,
effective
activityin the worldin the way we best understandit becomes impossible,we must
assume that the life's task being pointed out to us is that of bringingourselves to greater
perfection.As Tertulliansays so beautifully:Nemo alii nascitur,sibi moriturus."

19
of his time. He thus ensured that throughoutmost of his life he would

be unrecognizedand disregardedby his colleagues.Burckhardt
was always
attractedby art,and his dream of a fuller,more integratedlife than that
of his own bourgeoisage was a dream of beauty and culture.Bachofen,
on the otherhand, was a deeply religiousspirit;and in the Italy of his
imaginationand longing,wholeness and unityrestedon a religioussense
of the communityboth of human beings among themselvesand of men
with nature and the gods. Bachofen was, moreover,even more conservative than Burckhardt,whom he came to view with reserveand even
dislike,partlyon account of Burckhardt'scondescendingmanner,partly
on accountof his earlyliberalism,particularly
his supportof Italianunity,
and partlyon accountof his estheticism.31He once wroteto Meyer-Ochsner thathe did not attendBurckhardt'slecturesbecause "I findit simply
impossibleto have estheticoutpouringsabout thebeautyof buildingsand
landscapes flowingall over me" (C 109, 1858). Above all, Bachofen regarded his scholarlyactivityas a religiousmission. If he defended his
religiousconceptionof antiquityso ardentlyagainstthe modem economic
and politicalinterpretations
of his enemies,it was at least in partbecause
he believed that the sacred task of restoringthe religiousfoundationof
ancientsocietieshad been placed upon himby Providence.32
The urbanity
and skepticismthatare associated with Burckhardtwere absent fromhis
serious and passionate temperament.
Yet there are importantcommon features.Both men were inwardly
alienatedfromtheirown times,even fromcontemporary
lifeand politics
in the citywhich remained home for both of them and to which both
were profoundlyattached.Both looked on the futurewithdark foreboding.33Botheschewed a politicsofactiveoppositionin favorofrenunciation
and inward withdrawal.34Both despised the establishedacademic activitiesof scholarshipand historyas practicedby theircontemporaries,
seeing
themas almostsacrilegiousmanifestations
of themindlessproductionand
soulless bureaucracy of industrialsociety and the modern state; and
31 C 116, to Meyer-Ochsner,13 Jan. 1860. On Bachofen'spreferenceforsymbolicinterpretationover formalestheticanalysis,see Thomas Gelzer, "Die Bachofen-Briefe:
Betrachtungenzu Vision und Werk,Wirklichkeit
and Leben J.J.Bachofensanhand von Band X der
'GesammeltenWerke,"' Schweizerische
Zeitschrift
farGeschichte19 (1969): 777-869, at 826n.
32 This is the burden of the Griechische
Reise.To bear witnessto the religiousfoundation
ofancientsocietyseemed to himthe onlycourseof actionopen to himin the modem political
context,and the only way in which he could affirm
his own view of the basis of all political
authority(SB 36-37).
33 For Bachofen'sviews, see C 57, 217, 256, 264, 274, 275, 280, 309; SB 36.
34 A striking
instance,in Bachofen'scase, is his refusalto give an opinionof the new civil
law code being drawn up forthe cityof Basle. He responded to Biirgermeister
Carl Felix
Burckhardt'srequest courteouslybut firmly,
pointingout his profounddisagreementwith
the entireenterprise,
but affirming
his readinessto accept,as a judge, and to studywith the
greatestcare whatevernew code mightbe finallyproduced:"Ich bin also genothigt,bei dem
Werke Ihrer Commission der quatuordecimviri ein stummerZuschauer zu bleiben, um
spaterhinmitErgebungin das uns bereiteteneue Schicksal der richterlichen
Pffichteingehender Pruifungdes neuen codex legum mit um so grossererGenauigkeitobzuliegen" (C
216, to Carl Felix Burckhardt,18 March 1866).

20
throughtheirscholarshipboth constructedimaginaryuniversesin which

theycelebrateda wholeness and fullnessof lifethattheydespaired of in
theirown world. Both appear to have sensed that conservativepolicies
were not only politicallyinopportunebut unlikelyto achieve the kind of
restorationthey wanted-"Even the conservativesparticipateunconsciouslyin destruction,"one of the philologistswithwhom Bachofenwas
most in sympathywrotein 183435-and both, as patricians,feared and
hated the new democraticand popular movementsin which bolder and
more optimisticspiritsplaced theirhopes.36
3 Welckerto Bockh,13 Dec. 1834, in BenedettoBravo,Philologie,Histoire,Philosophiede
l'histoire:e'tudesur J.G. Droysenhistoriende l'antiquite,Wroclaw,Warsaw, Cracow: Zaklad
narodowyimieniaOssolinskich,1968. WydawnictwoPolskiejAkademiiNauk, 124. Cf. Bachofen'scommentin SB 35 thatbeingout ofsympathywiththedirectiontakenby contemporary
Swiss politics,and at the same timepersuaded that"siegreichenMeinungengegenuiberdie
Rolle ewiger Opposition mehr erbittereals nutze," he simplywithdrewfromthe Grosser
Rat or CityCouncil of Basle and frompoliticalactivityaltogether.
36
C 219, 256, 264, et passim;SB 36-37.

Jn
III. The Enemy: Mommsen
Bachofen'seyesTheodorMommsenwas theCaesarofthecontem-
poraryacademic establishmentin classical philology,the champion

and apologistof ImperialRome, as against the ancientpatriciancity
to which Bachofen was devoted, the man most responsiblefor institutionalizingthe studyof antiquityand turningit into a mindlessindustrial
enterprise.Even morecruellythanNiebuhr,theroughhands ofthisnorthern rationalisthad violated and degraded the sanctityof the mythsin
which Bachofen perceived the fragileremnantsof a past more remote,
more beautiful,more glorious, and of far vaster significancethan the
surfacehistoryof class and politicalstruggles,to which the criticalhistorians,as he saw it,had reduced ancientGreece and Rome. In the hands
of Mommsen and his cohorts-and Bachofen clearlyfeltthat his commandingpositionat the Universityof Berlinand in the BerlinAcademy
gave Mommsenenormouspower to promoteor impede scholarlyprojects
and careers-antiquitywas being strippedof its glory,of everythingthat
made itunique and different
fromthepresent,greater,morerichlyhuman,
more heroic. It was being remodeled to conformwith the pettinessand
of contemporary
thefragmentariness
Berlin,and withthenarrowinterests,
the egotismand the unbridledlust forpower of modern societies.Men
with small minds were making antiquityover in theirown image and
in Gerdeprivingit of its power to function-as it had done traditionally
many, especiallysince the late eighteenthcentury-as an ideal, an otherness,a different,
simpler,more human world by which the presentone
was to be measured.37
Bachofen'sconceptionof thisotherworldwas no longerquite the same
as the one that Winckelmannhad outlined for generationsof German
scholarsafterhim.For thepredominantly
estheticbasis of Winckelmann's
conceptionof antiquityhe substituteda predominantly
religiousone. The
artof antiquityinterestedhim not as the perfectionof harmoniousform,
but as a textin which he could decipher the myths,beliefs,and social
and religiouspracticesof the past. He stood in the line of Creuzer,rather
than in that of Voss. (In the famous polemic between these two over
Voss's translationof Homer, Creuzer had characteristically
accused the
translatorof reducingthe epic universeof antiquityin his translationto
the paltry dimensions of the contemporarybourgeois vision of the
3 Thomas Gelzer,"Die Bachofen-Briefe,"
clearlyperceivesBachofen'srage at the destruction of his ideal, but inclinesto view thatideal as a personal refugefora man out of tune
withtheworldand poorlyadapted to it.Whileacknowledgingtheroleofpersonalpsychology
in Bachofen'sattitudes,I wish to accord greaterobjective,historicaland social significance
to the ideal than Gelzer. See below, chapterV.
21

22
world.38)Typically,Bachofendid not limithis interestin antiquityto classical antiquity.He followed the work of Frenchand English orientalists
and Egyptologistsattentivelyand he constantlyinsistedon the oriental
The strictneoclassical conceptionof
rootsof ancientItalian civilization.39
antiquitydefendedby Letronnein Paris, forinstance,would have been
He also kept
as unacceptableto him as to Champollionor Felix-Lajard.40
up with the growingliteratureon the "primitive"peoples of Africaand
America,in which theremay have been greaterinterestat Basle, withits
extensivetrade in "colonial" products and its support of the overseas
missionaryactivitiesof the Basle Mission,than in most German-speaking
cities.Indeed, Bachofenwas increasinglytakenup by thisbranchof study,
Briefe(vol.
as investigationof the sources of his last work,Antiquarische
from
1, 1880; vol. 2, 1886), has made abundantlyclear. The difference
As the past thatdrew Bachofenwas
Burckhardt
on thispointis striking.4'
more remote and alien than the one that appealed to Burckhardt,its
boundarieswere also less narrow;and itis movingto observethe obscure,
embitteredclassical philologistreachingout in the years of his maturity
to Lubbock, Tylor,McLennan, and Morgan, while many youngermen
achieved acclaim by laboring diligentlywithin the restrictedfield of a
as any modem podisciplinethathad become as bounded institutionally
liticalstate.42
38 On the Voss-Creuzercontroversy
and the two orientationsrepresentedin it,see Baeumler,Der Mythusvon Orientund Occident,cvii-cviii,et passim.See also W. Rehm,Griechentum
und Goethezeit(Leipzig: Dieterich,1936), 285-334.
39 Cf. C 179, 188, 257; above all the Introduction
to Tanaquil,GW 6: 380-405. The subtitle
of Tanaquilis "Eine Untersuchunguber den Orientalismusin Rom und Italien."
40 Bachofenwould not, of course,have supportedChampollion's "Egyptomanie,"as his
opponentscharacterizedit. He probablystood close to Raoul-Rochette,whom he cites frequentlyand who argued consistentlyat the Academie des Inscriptionsagainst two privileges-that of the writtentextover monumentalevidence, and that of Hellenism (and its
rival Egyptomania)over a largervision of the Orient (India, Assyria,Phoenicia) as the
principalfocus fromwhich human culturespread out toward the West,includingGreece.
41 Burckhardt's
rejectionof evolutionismand comparatismseems not untaintedby racism.
on History(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1943), 35: "To draw
Thus in the Reflections
deductionsfromnegroesand Red Indians is of as littleuse as to draw deductionsfromnegro
religionsto throwlighton religion.The white and yellow races must have gone different
on thatbeginning;"
ways fromthebeginning,and theblackracescan castno lightofauthority
and on p. 42: "We may at once exclude here the religionsof lesserraces,those of the negro
peoples, etc. . . The primordialelementsof the spirituallife can be deduced fromthem
even less than the originsof the state fromthe negro state. For such peoples are fromthe
outseta preyto everlastingfear;theirreligionsdo not even give us a standardforthe first
signs of the birthof the spirit,because among them the spiritis destinednever to come to
spontaneousbirth."
with Morgan by sending
42 See C 276, 278 (1870). Bachofenopened the correspondence
the lattera copy of Tanaquil(C 286). Morgan,on his side, had heard of BachofenfromErnst
Curtius'sGriechische
Geschichte
(Engl. trans.,1868) in which thereis a referenceto the paper
"LTberdas Weiberrecht"that Bachofen read to the membersof the German Philological
Associationat theirmeetingin Stuttgartin 1856. Bachofen's work was acknowledgedby
Morgan in AncientSociety(1877). The correspondenceand exchangeof books was kept up
untilMorgan's death. Mary Morgan then wrote Bachofenthankinghim for"the beautiful
tributeto my husband which you so kindlysent to me in your letterof January16," and
assuringhim "that I shall always cherishyourname because of the delightyou gave to my
272, item 166, Mary Morgan to Bachdepartedone" (Basle Univ. Library,Bachofen-Archiv

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
23
Mommsen,of course,was an infinitely

morecomplexfigurehistorically
than Bachofenallowed.43The two men appear to have known each other
only brieflyat an early stage in both their careers, and Bachofen's
Mommsen is in large measure a symbol. "My business is not with
Mommsenas an individual,"he acknowledged. "He is, forme, the very
type of the modern way of thinking,and deserves to be dealt with as
such" (C 150, 1862). In manyrespects,Mommsenrepresentedeverything
Bachofenwished to repudiatein himself:his youthfulliberalism,his confidencein modernity,his untroubledand impersonalstudies of Roman
legal history.The almostmythicaldimensionsof his Mommsenthus permit an illuminatinginsightinto Bachofen's conceptionof what classical
scholarshipshould and should not be, and intotheunderlyingconnection
between his attitudeto scholarshipand his fundamentalsocial and politicalvalues, notablyhis attitudeto power. A method of interpretation
is here itselfa cipherto be interpreted-thesign of a relationto power
in thestate,in thefamily,and betweenthesexes. Itis clearfromBachofen's
writingsthat he himselfwas fullyconvinced of the broad politicalsignificanceof the positions scholars adopt in their work. Restorationor
he held, was the option of the scholar,as
revolutionarytransformation,
of the politician:
no less thanin thelifeof thestatetwomajor
In thefieldof historical
research,
endeavorscan be observedtoday. . . Thesedividethe forcesengagedin the
thenegbattlesofthemindintotwomainwarring
camps.One group,following
ativetendency
ofitsguidingspiritfindsdelightin aggression
and destruction;
the
andrestoration.
Thestruggle
otherpursuesthemorelaborioustaskofconstruction
is verycloselyconnected
withthegeneralaspirations
betweenthetwoorientations
of ourpresentlifeand times.The spiritof our century
findsitsimagereflected,
in theway we conceiveantiquity.
as in a mirror,
The samenegativeorientation
whichdistinguishes
ourpoliticalconditions
and movements
also determines
the
is lookedat (GW1: 449).44
wayancienthistory
Bachofen,itwould seem,projectedeverything
he dislikedabout modern
Basle, as distinctfromthe old patriarchalcityof the Renaissance,on to
mid-nineteenthcenturyBerlin,the capital of the modern,expansionist
Prussian state. In the same way he concentratedon the figureof the
secretaryof the BerlinAcademy everythinghe dislikedin modern philology, as distinctfromthe philologyhe had learned in his youth from
Bockh,Muller,and Creuzer, or fromthat of the Basle humanistsof the
sixteenthcentury.To describethe good philologisthe repeatedlyuses the
image of the cautious sailor huggingthe coastal waters instead of temerariouslyventuringon to the high seas-that "mer des tenebres,"from
ofen, 4 Feb. 1882). A photographof Morgan which accompanied this letterhung later on
the walls of Bachofen'sstudy.
unddas 19.Jahrhundert
43 See AlfredHeuss, TheodorMommsen
(Kiel: FerdinandHirt,1956),
especially92-125.
" Review of F. D. Gerlach,Zaleukos,Charondas,Pythagoras:
zurKulturgeschichte
vonGrossgriechenland
in Augsburger
AllgemeineZeitung,Beilage to n? 261, 18 Sept. 1858.

24
which Michelet'ssailors,in La Mer, likewise drew back in terror.Yet he

himself,on occasion,confessesto his own unconquerableurgeto "vagari,"
an urge to which he felthe dared not yield forfearit would overwhelm
him.45It seems clear thatcrossingto the otherside of the tomb,entering
into contactwiththe dead, returningto the Mothers,was experiencedby
him as a dangeroustransgressional
act which could be accomplishedonly
in propitiouscircumstancesand in the rightspirit.We have already referredto the letterin which he tells of fallingill in Montpellierfrom
overzealouslypursuinghis researchamong the ancientmonumentsin the
blazing heat. Mommsen,for Bachofen,appears to have representedthe
temerarioussailor,the transgressor
who violatesthe sanctuaryand seeks,
in a gestureof Prometheansacrilege,to lay divine mysteriesopen to the
vulgar.In his own activity,on the otherhand, he appears to have seen
rathera priestlymediation which restorescontinuitywithoutbreaking
down the barriersbetween the hierarchies,or sacred orders,of the universe. It is entirelyappropriatethat Mommsen translatedthe traditional
account of Roman historyinto the contemporaryscientificlanguages of
economicsand politics,whereas Bachofen'swork was rathera rewriting
that resultedin a textvirtuallyas poetic and open to interpretation
as
those he himselfinterpreted.Mommsen's Historyoffersitselfdemocratically to be read by all; Bachofen's textsremain mysterious,ambiguous,
the same hermeneuticskillsand insight
requiringfortheirinterpretation
thattheirauthorhimselfused to decipherthe textsof antiquity,and addressingthemselves,like the Orphic mysteriesthat figureso largelyin
them,to an elect of initiates.
I shall firstoutline Bachofen's criticismof Mommsen, quoting freely
fromthe littleknown and untranslatedtextsin which it is formulatednotablythe Correspondenceand the essay "Theodor Mommsens Kritik
der Erzahlungvon Cn. Marcius Coriolanus," which appeared in 1870, a
few monthsafterDie Sage von Tanaquil. I shall then summarizewhat I
take to be Bachofen'sown positionas a scholarand historianof antiquity
and attemptto situateboth thispositionand his critiqueof Mommsenin
the contextof the historyof scholarship,hermeneutics,
and politicsin the
nineteenthcentury.Finally,I shall indicatewhat I believe to be the contemporaryrelevanceof Bachofen'sposition.
Relationsbetween Bachofenand Mommsen seem never to have been
close or even cordial; but they were at firstentirelycorrect.Mommsen
4 Writing
to Meyer-Ochsnerin 1856 he explains thathe must be firmwith himselfand
turndown his friend'sinvitationto visithim in the Alps at Chur: "I cannot bringmyself
to leave harboragain. With me thereis always a terribledanger that once the anchor has
been lifted,the shore is soon leftfar behind and the ship steers an ever more foolhardy
coursetowardnew lands" (C 85, 1856). Six yearslaterthe same note is sounded in another
letterto Meyer-Ochsner:"I cannot tell you what a desire for'vagari' is brewingup within
me" (C 144, 1862).

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
25
wrotea favorablereviewof an earlyessay of Bachofen's,Die Lex Voconia

Eine rechtshistorische
Rechtsinstitute.
und die mit ihrzusammenha'ngenden
Abhandlung(Basle, 1843, 122 pp.), complimentingthe authoron his authenticallyhistoricalapproach and favorablycomparinghis attemptto
view the Voconian Law (which concernedwomen's rightsof inheritance
in ancient Rome) historicallyas an integralpart of the Roman law of
inheritance,ratherthan as an isolated phenomenon,with the work of
otherwriterson the subject.46Bachofen'sessay, which was accompanied
in the same yearby two othersof the same kind(all threewere reprinted
reflectshis inLehrendes romischenCivilrechts),
in 1848 as Ausgewa'hlte
terestsas a studentof law, priorto his resignationfromhis universitypost
in 1844 and to the greatinnerupheaval thatbegan afterhis firstvisitto
Italy in 1842-1843 and that resultedin his abandonmentof these early
studies and in a completeredirectionof all his scholarlyactivities.The
conflictwithMommsenappears to have been a consequence of thisinner
which Bachofenhimselfcharacterized-in what sense we
transformation,
shall see later-as a returnto philology(M 3).
There were signsof it beforethe publicationof eitherthe ill-fatedGeschichteder Ro'mer(1851), which Bachofen wrote in collaborationwith
FranzDorotheusGerlach,his friendand formerteacherat thePadagogium
and the Universityof Basle, or Mommsen's far more rigorouslycritical
Geschichte
(1854-1856), withwhich the workof the Basle scholRo'mische
ars was unfavorablycomparedand by whichit was immediatelyeclipsed.
In 1847 the annual meetingof theAssociationof GermanPhilologistswas
scheduled to be held in Basle and Bachofen,as one of the organizers,
wroteto Emil Braun,the secretaryof the GermanArchaeologicalInstitute
in Rome,askinghim to invitea numberof Germanscholarsthenworking
in Rome to attend.Mommsen was named as one of them. But only two
yearslater,in a letterto Meyer-Ochsner,Bachofenwas alreadyexpressing
his dislikeand distrustof Mommsen.It is truethatin the interimthe 1848
Revolutionhad takenplace in Germanyand thatMommsen,thenat Leipzig University,had been notoriouslyactive in the liberalcause. He is too
facile, Bachofen now wrote, too slick: "Sein Wahlspruch lautet: ich
schmiere,wie man Stiefelschmiert"(C 53, 1849). The image of the fawning servantof power was to recuroftenin Bachofen's characterizations
of Mommsen.
In 1851 parts 1 and 2 of the firstvolume of the Geschichteder Romer
of Gerlachand Bachofenappeared, and MommsenreviewedthemscathThe authors' enterprise,he
ingly in Zarncke's HistorischesCentralblatt.
to
their
total disregardand misdeclared, was a complete failure,due
They themselvescould
of
sources.
criticism
understandingof Niebuhrian
in no way be accused of the wittyscepticismthey reproachedNiebuhr
46 This text,
4 (1845):
Rechtswissenschaft,
Jahrbiicherfuir
whichappeared in theNeue kritische
2te Auflage (Berlin,Dublin, Zurich:
7, is reprintedin T. Mommsen,GesammelteSchriften,
WeidmannscheVerlagsbuchhandlung,1965), 3: 513-19.

26
with:"scepticaltheyare not,nor,indeed, do theyhave wit."47They quote

the testimonyof poets and later rhetoriciansas though it were above
suspicion. There is no siftingof early traditionfromlater accretions,no
attemptto establishwhat we can reallyknow of the language, customs,
religion,and politicalinstitutionsof early Rome, and authenticancient
tales are nowhere distinguishedwith historicaltactfromthe laterinventions of sophisticatedpoets and schoolmen ("Schul- und Poetengeschwatz"). As forthe style,it "hovers in the intolerablemiddle ground
and thusescapes neitheresthetic
betweensimplewalkingand poeticflight,
nor logical disaster."Though the authorsdo not distinguishtheircontributions,Mommsen declares, thereare indicationsthat most of the first
part is by Bachofen. In the second part-on Rome at the time of the
kings-where the contributionsof the two authors are distinguished,
Bachofencomes offa littlebetterthan Gerlach. The lattersimplyfollows
Livy,as thoughNiebuhrhad neverwritten,exceptthat"Livy writesbetter
and at considerablyless length." Bachofenon the foundationof Roman
politicallaw is better.At least thereis some scientificresearchhere and
an attemptto utilizeauthenticsources. But thereis the same illusionthat
restedon a theocraticfoundation,"as ifthe regium
theRoman constitution
be
identified
withthe Papacy." At the conclusionof his
were to
imperium
to the ideological gulfthatseparated
candidly
Mommsen
pointed
review
him fromBachofen: "'Sovereignty,' says the author,'resides in the divinity,not in the people;' and let anathema strikewhosoever disagrees.
camps according
Must we be divided even in Roman historyintodifferent
to the politicsof the day?"
Mommsen's review appeared anonymously. But as Mommsen was
teachingat Zurichin 1852-1854, Bachofencould easily have found out
who the authorwas. Unfriendlyor criticalremarksconcerningMommsen
now begin to appear in the Correspondencewith greaterfrequency.In
1854 Bachofentells his formerteacher,FriedrichCarl von Savigny,the
great juristand legal historian,that he had been provoked into an arwitha Zurichacquaintance
gumentabout Mommsen'sRomische Geschichte
who had showered praise on it (C 78); and in the long autobiographical
letterto Savigny of the same year he refersto Mommsen's "criminal"
portrayalof the profoundlyreligiousRoman people as "rationalists"(SB
30). Two yearslaterhe writesMeyer-OchsnerthatMommsenshould stick
to inscriptions-"Da ist er auf seinem Felde"-and thathe has communicated his frank,and highlyunfavorableopinion of him in all other
mattersto the archaeologistEduard Gerhard,a leading figurein the study
of inscriptionsat the Universityof Berlinand, like Bachofen,a former
studentof AugustBockh(C 84, 1856). The followingyear,announcingsomewhatprematurely-toMeyer-Ochsnerthathe had finishedhis study
of "gynaecocracy,"he observed:"Provided people do not say of it,as one
ut nil intelligat?"(C 95). In
has to say of Mommsen:facitneintelligendo
47
6: 653-54.
Mommsen,GesammelteSchriften,

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
27
AllgemeineZeitungfor
a review of a work by Gerlach in the Augsburger
the past
September18, 1858, the contemporaryfashionforinterpreting
in termsofthepresentand forhighhandedlyrejectingtraditionalhistorical
testimonyis fiercelycriticized."What would the world know of Rome,
if the only source of knowledge leftto it were Niebuhr or Mommsen?"
(GW 1: 450). In 1861 Mommsenis pictureddisdainfullyas an entrepreneur
in the currently
modishinscriptionsbusiness and as sendinghis "commisvoyageurs"or sales representativesto Spain and otherplaces in orderto
cornerthe marketforhimself(C 134). The same year,the publicationof
of which Bachofenstill
a thirdeditionof Mommsen'sRomischeGeschichte,
received a courtesycopy,48and the award of the Bavarian Academy's
Gold Medal to the author,unleashed a floodof hostilefeelings,of which
Bachofen'searlierallusions to Mommsengave only a hint.Fromthismoment of officialconsecrationonward, Bachofen's hatred and opposition
were unrelenting.Mommsen now became the emblem forhim of everythinghe found repugnantnot only in scholarshipbut in the entirecontemporaryworld. I shall reproducethe relevanttextsalmost in full.
Mommsen's Historyhad filledhim, Bachofen declared in a letterto
Meyer-Ochsner,"with rage and deep revulsion."
bookseveraltimes,veryattentively,
and I can say
Up to nowI havereadthefirst
sineireet studiothatthereare no wordsto characterize
withabsoluteconviction
It is a dutyto protestpubliclyagainstsuch
theauthor'strulyvillainousinfamy.
thatsucha miserable
a book.It is a markof thiscentury's
production
ignominy
couldactuallywin an awardand be acclaimedas a significant
accomplishment.
I havetoovercome
but,as I said,I regarditas a dutytoprotest.
a genuinedisgust,
I do nothopetoconvinceortoconvert.
Butat leastitshouldnotbe possiblelater,
itsgoodsense,tosaythatourage had sunkso deep
whenhumanity
has recovered
thatitdid notevenentera protest.
ofRome"is mynew task.I wantto exposethe
So "Mommsenand theHistory
entiremethodand procedure
ofthisso-calledhistorian
and toportray
theshamein all its repulsivenakedness.It
less insolenceof a modern,mindlessBerliner
wouldlead me toofar,wereI toelaboratemycomments
toyounow.Ifyouread
forinstance,
thechapteron theEtruscans,
you willgetan idea of theboundless
and at timesone
geniusoftheman.Buteachchapterincreasesone'sindignation,
wondersifone is dealingwitha personwho is in hisrightmind.The reduction
ofRometo theclichesofthemostinsipidPrussiansalonliberalism
is particularly
All thejargonof thedemagoguecropsup as earlyas theage of the
nauseating.
is embracedby themostmiserable
conceptsand comkings,so thateverything
pletelystoodon itshead.The onlymovingforceofancientlife,itseems,is trade
and traffic.
You constantly
read of importsand exports,the balanceof trade,
freeports,navigation
as ifthese
acts,factories,
emporia,
speculation,
competition,
indeedtheonlypointofviewfromwhichthelivesofpeoples
providetheprincipal,
can be considered
and judged.Indeed,this"practicalpointof view" is carried
thereis talkof the"clear-minded
overintoreligion:
oftheRomans,
rationalism"
48 He appears to have been on Mommsen's list, for in 1850 he mentionsreceivinga
courtesycopy of Mommsen's book on Roman coinage (C 63).

28
in relationto ideasofpersonaland landcredit,

law is considered
liberalism,
and
oftariff
and thosewhoarenotyetreadyforsuchhighideas
theabolition
barriers,
suchas "Thereare scholarsagainstwhomit is not
are dismissedin expressions
worthinvokingsuch arguments,
who are incapableof thinking,"
etc. etc. The
Romans,we arenowto believe,had recordsenoughand to spare,buttheycould
no longerunderstand
them;so theyservedup as manytalltalesas theirimaginationwas capableof concocting.
Thus we do well,"if we wouldbe impartial
and foremost,
of all thatstuff
thatgoes by thenameof
scholars,to getrid,first
butis reallyno morethantheproductof themostwretched
tradition
logic,"in
orderthatwe maymakeroomforthemostarbitrary
historical
inventions
andgive
thegoodlordcauseto takenoteof ourhintsand makehistory
unfoldin a more
Thisconstruction
logicalmannerin thefuture.
is suchthatitis totallydevoidof
Butwhat
anything
resembling
logic,and fullof themostglaringcontradictions.
in anycase,is onlya dialectical
doesthatmatter!
History,
game,nothing
real,and
truth
is onlywhatcan be madecrediblebysophistry.
The entiremodernage lies
in this book, in all its arrogant,narrow,vacuous Prussian demagoguery
(C 143,1862).
Two monthslaterBachofenrespondedto an attemptby Meyer-Ochsner
to get him to moderatethe vehemence of his criticism-as he had once
beforepointed out the excessive characterof the criticismof Niebuhr in
the Geschichte
derRomer(C 67, 1851)-with a reaffirmation
of his resolve
to pursue his attackon Mommsen:
I cannotletup in thestruggle
againstMommsen.Forme,registering
myprotest
is an absolutenecessity.
Romeshallnotbe judgedin
againstthisviewofhistory
theforumof Berlin.I shallpouroutall thescornand ridiculeI can muster.For
All thecrapulence
sucha boordoesn'tdeserveseriousconsideration.
ofourtime
lies revealedin thisbook and I regardits receiving
an award froma German
of soundcommonsense.Nor shallI stophitting
out at
academyas a mockery
Munich.IfBavaria'sconsumptive
wantshisnervestitillated,
monarch
lethimlook
to his operahouse;Romanhistory
is nota peg on whichto hangeveryvulgar
idea of a narrow,crabbedDane. I intendto showtherabbleof courtcouncillors
inthesepetty
Germancapitalsthat,eveninitsdecline,
republicanism
stillpreserves
a healthier
in the present
outlookthanthatmean-minded
resentment-which
ofgeneraldecayis spreading
condition
thatoncewas
everywhere-of
everything
greaton thisearth.You need not fearthatthiswill embitter
my life.On the
I expectthefight
to have a salutary
effect
on myhealth,principally
contrary,
an
increasein appetite.
cancopyinscriptions
ormuddychronicles;
Mommsen
buthis
handsarenotworthy
to holdthestylusof thehistorian
(C 144, 1862).
At the end of the year Mommsenis again the chieftopic of a letterto
Meyer-Ochsner.Once more he is clearlyassociated with those aspects of
contemporary
realitythatwere mostopposed to the traditionsof the conthe last relicof
servative,republican,and fiercelyindependentcity-state,
which,tarnishedas it was, Bachofenstilladmiredin his nativeBasle: the
priorityof trade and commerceover all other considerations,the greed
and vulgarity-as Bachofensaw it-of nouveaux-richesliberals,the modernnation-state,
withitsimperialistambitionsand policiesand itsleveling,
centralizedbureaucracies.What, he asked his correspondentmorosely,
should be the subject matterof theirlettersif not literature?

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
29
So muchis heard alreadyof all thosethingsthatprincipallyand almostexclusively

fillthe souls of men everywhere-building plans, loans, trade associations and
other stuffof that ilk-that I often envy the inhabitantsof the northernmost
Hebrides theirisolation.
You can imaginemyfeelingswhen I foundthe same twaddle of tradesmenand
capitalistsin Mommsen'sHistory.It runsrightthroughthewhole work,and seems
to be part of the illusion that the greatnessof a people rests on the degree of
perfectionof itstheoriesof politicaleconomy.I have now read throughtheabovenamed productof the latestwisdom of fools forthe second time,and this time
withpen in hand: a gigantictaskthatI undertookonlyout of a feelingofobligation
to stand up against such products.I am now about to expose the principles,or
ratherthe partypassions thatdeterminedthe planningand executionof thislampoon. My aim is to show those who want to be counted among its admirershow
the object of theirvenerationwas put together;but I also want to show our entire
age what principlesit has bred and raised to power over men. Only now that I
have carefullystudiedthiswork,do I have completeinsightinto the latestphase
of the developmentof spiritin Germany.That has been the essentialprofitto me
thatrequiredgreatself-discipline.He who only dips into the book can
of an effort
acquireno insightintoitsreal nature.For that,all 2,500 pages mustbe completely
gone through.Anyone who is not nauseated afterthatby the wretchednessof it
is a lost soul. My business is not with Mommsen as an individual.He is forme
the verytype of the modernway of thinking,and deserves so to be dealt with,
now that he has been officiallyconsecratedas such by three editions and an
academic prize. We oughtto be gratefulto the man forexpressingso nakedlyand
unreservedlyeverythingthat the timescarryin them. It is always good when a
disease declaresitselfclearlyand decisively.Then you can gethold of it and attack
itat thecore.Don't fora momentthinkthatall thatis at issue hereis the credibility
of the traditionalaccountsof the earliesthistoryof Rome. That aspect appears as
only a modestconsequence of a culturaltrendwhich has taken dangerouslyhold
onlyin fullyhistoricaltimes.In general,Rome and theRomansare notMommsen's
real concern. The heart of the book is its application of the latest ideas of the
times,and an apotheosisof the boundless radicalismof the new Prussia's friends
of light,by means of an ancientmaterialthatonly a Carl Vogt or some otherof
thatspecies could have dreamed of abusing and turningto partisanends in such
a way.49The innerconnectionof all the luminarieswho have followedMommsen
will certainlysurprisemany people. In face of such tendencies,one has no right
to remainsilent.To be sure,anyone who always swimswiththe current,wherever
it leads, can look on this too with indifference.
For my part, I cannot give up
even if the world proves fullof devils. I disregardthe question of scholfighting,
arshipaltogether.The book has none, and aftera conscientiousexaminationI have
not come upon one single page that has some scholarlymerit.But the basic doctrineswhich the author seeks to propose to the youth of our time,by way of
Roman history,as the greatestideas of humanity,and as an ideal and a road to
salvation,are of a kind to make Satan rejoice (C 150, 1862).
The last major outburst against Mommsen was provoked by an article
the latter published in the journal Hermes in 1870. In it Mommsen subnotoriousforhis scientificmaterialismand radical politics,Vogt
4 A German immigrant,
was named professorof geology,palaeontology,zoology and comparativeanatomyat Geneva in 1852.

30
jected the Coriolanus storyto criticalanalysis and characterizedit as a

finepoetic fable with no basis in historicalfact. The Coriolanus story,
however,was a crucial one forBachofen,since it revealed, in his view,
remnantsof an earliermatriarchalsocietyin the primitivecultureof Italy,
which officialRoman historiography
had suppressed.But it was not only
a cornerstoneof Bachofen'sview of historythatMommsenhad attacked;
it was, perhaps,also the innercore and secretsource of thatview. Bachofen's mother,Valeria Merian, bore the name of one of the principal
protagonistsin the Coriolanus story,Valeria,the daughterof Publicola;50
and Mommsen's critiquemay well have been experiencedby Bachofen
as a finalsacrilegeperpetratedby his impious enemy on the holiest of
holies, the littleknown figurewho is mentionedonly once in Bachofen's
but who seems
writing,in the memorablededicationof the Mutterrecht,
everywherepresentin it. Bachofenwas beside himself:
You shouldsee how Mommsentreatsthe old authorsin his own work.Only
is possiblehere.Seriouscriticism
is in orderforseriousstudies,notfor
mockery
whicharenow beingcarriedoutagainstall our
theignominious,
vulgarexercises
Geschichte
shouldhave been givena bluntrebuttal
old authors.The Romische
immediately
afterthepublication
of thefirst
volume.Instead,thatale-housetobaccowas ingested
without
and now,in thisstudyofCoriolanus,
we can
protest
see clearlywheresuchdeliberate
and calculatedreserveis leading.Itwas notmy
forthereis no hopeoffighting
successfully,
among
objectto teachanyonebetter,
the Germans,againstan entireinsurancecompanyof scholarly,
or ratherunI feelmyselfdutybound,evenif I muststand
scholarly,
cliques.Nevertheless,
quitealone,to protest
againstwhatI considerthemostabysmaldecadence.You
arewrongifyouthinkI shallbe setuponbyhowlingmobs.Theonlypunishment
Berlinclique,whichnow ena Swissis deemedworthyof by thePrussianized
as it previously
thusiastically
supportsBismarck
supportedthe Augustenburgs,
and willlaterperhapslickthebootsof the Russians,is absolutesilence.5'But
me notone bit.I wantedto say outloud whatI
however,thatmaybe, it affects
thinkofmoderncritical
nitpicking
(C 270, 1870).
The attackon Mommsen promisedin almost identicaltermsabout a
decade beforehad grownin the end into somethingmuch more creative
and positivethana criticalpamphlet.Over theyears,theoriginalpolemical
purpose had receded into the background, and the text that finally
emerged,Die Sage von Tanaquil:eine Untersuchung
uiberden Orientalismus
50
A letterto JosephMarc Hornung,professorof jurisprudenceat Geneva and the teacher
of Bachofen'syoung disciple and translatorAlexis Giraud-Teulon,appears to indicatethat
it was the suspicioncast on the role of Valeria thatmostupset Bachofen:"Tout ce que nous
savons des Sabins-et Valeria est femmede souche sabine-s'accorde a mettrele droitde
merehors de contestationpour le [sic] tribuchevaleresquedes Sabins" (C 269, 1870).
51 Christian
von Augustenburg'sclaimto the Danish thronewas supportedby theGerman
liberals duringthe 1848 revoltof the Schleswig-Holsteinersagainst Danish rule. On the
death of FrederickVII of Denmarkin 1863, Christian'sson revivedhis father'sclaim to the
throne,but Bismarckdroppedthe Augustenburgsaftera jointAustro-Prussian
forceinvaded
the disputedprovincein 1864. FollowingAustria'sdefeatby Prussia in 1866, the bipartite
Austro-Prussian
administration
of Schleswig-Holsteincame to an end and the provincewas
annexed to Prussia.The Germanliberalshad at firstopposed the war againstDenmark,but
theygraduallycame round in supportof Bismarck.

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
31
in Romand Italien(1870), was an impressiverestatementand elaboration

of Bachofen'sbasic ideas concerningearly history,forwhich Mommsen
had servedat best as a pretextor provocation.Stungby Mommsen'slatest
assault on the traditionof earlyRoman history-or, as he put it pointedly
himselfin a letterto an Italian correspondent,"Fache de l'impieteavec
laquelle Mommsen traitele beau traitdu heros cedant aux larmes de sa
mere"(C 271, 1870)-Bachofen retortedquicklythistimewitha scathingly
ironicalpamphletwhich he published the same year as a Beilageto Tanaquil.52 Beforethe year was out it had been translatedinto Frenchand
publishedat Geneva by Alexis Giraud-Teulon,subsequentlyprofessorof
aesthetics,then of the philosophyof historyat the Universityof Geneva,
and one of the youngermen, who, toward the end of Bachofen's life,
began to take an interestin his work.
In addition to these essential texts there are scatteredreferencesto
Mommsen throughoutthe correspondence.Though some seem simply
abusive,53Mommsenusuallyservesas a kindof cipherdesignatingcertain
detested:
featuresofmodernsocietyand culturethatBachofenparticularly
a domineering,arrogant,imperialistattitudeto the past and to the study
of history;an irreverentand, in Bachofen'sview, arbitraryand coercive
texts;and an organizationand institutionalization
methodof interpreting
of scholarlyresearchand reflectionwhich,as the passages quoted clearly
show, were closelyrelatedin Bachofen'smind to the values and practices
and
and industrialism,
of modernmaterialism,liberalism,commercialism,
and
thenarrow,disciplineduniformity,
to theintolerantauthoritarianism,
of the modern
the abject reverenceforpower he consideredcharacteristic
stateand ofBismarckianGermanyin particular.The imperialismofPrussia
had its counterpartforhim in the imperialismof the Prussian Academy,
and Mommsen, as the leader of the latter,was always associated with
Bismarck,thearchitectand chiefministerof the former.Thus one of those
admirersof Mommsen who "hinterihm Queue machen" (C 185, 1864),
the Basle professor,Adolf Kiessling,is describedwith bitingsarcasm as
".an enthusiasticBismarckian,a bootlickerof Mommsen's." He is also,
like all demagogues and radicals,in Bachofen'sopinion,
characteristically,
of
a worshipper power, ".an admirerof Tiberius."
place him in a clear
Certain featuresof Bachofen's Mommsen-figure
and
of
Bachofen'sscholarly
the
themes
preoccupations
to
essential
relation
work. Mommsen is above all identifiedwith violence. The only relation
he knowsto theother-the past,thetextsthatare itsonlyfeeblewitnesses,
the historicaltradition-is one of dominationand violation.Justas on the
politicalplane Prussia has set out to dominateall the German lands, on
the plane of scholarship-and Bachofen was keenly aware that,partic-
52 "Theodor Mommsen's Kritik

der Erzahlungvon Cn. Marcius Coriolanus,vorgelesenin
der Gesammtsitzungder konigl.preuss.Akademieder Wissenschaftenzu Berlinam 25 Febr.
1869."
53 "Der vermomsteCicero" (C 244, 1868), the Cicero of the "BerlinerSchandmaul" (C
257, 1869), the pun on "Mommsen schlechterRoman" (C 161, 1863), and so on.

32
ularlyin Germany,where classical scholarshiphad, fromthe beginning,

been interwovenwithpoliticalideals,scholarshipwas ideology-the Prussians had triedto impose theirlaw on all the German-speakingphilologists,concentrateall power in Berlinat the Royal PrussianAcademy,and
throughtheircontrolof academic appointments,journals,and publishing
houses, silence everydissentingvoice. "Individuallydeterminedresearch
has become unfashionable,"he complained. "In orderto be recognized
as a personof talent,you have to blow the horn of the fashionablecritics
of today,and no deviationfromthe Royal Prussian line is tolerable" (C
244, 1868). Bachofen'shatredof Mommsenis inseparablefromhis hatred
of modernPrussia.
His hatredof Prussia is in turnpart of a largerpatternof values and
concerns.ThroughoutBachofen'swork,which centers,like so manyother
major works of the nineteenthcentury,on a strugglevariouslydefined
as beingbetweennatureand spirit,Orientand Occident,femaleand male,
sacred and profane,past and present,thereis a consistentrepudiationof
any solutioninvolvingthe repressionof eitherterm.Male dominationis
rejected along with unbridled female "haeterism." Solipsisticindividualism and atomisticempiricismare as unacceptable as undifferentiated
communismand pantheism.The hypertrophy
of the self,its attemptto
abolish the other,is rejectedalong with the absorptionof the selfby the
other.The son mustnot rejecthis mother,in otherterms;but equally,the
mothermustnot overwhelmher son. The eternalworld of myth,which
transcendsthe world of the historical,mustbe acknowledged,but to permitthehistoricalto collapse intothemythicalwould be as mucha betrayal
of our human destinyas the attemptto deny our originsand to realize,
withinhistory,
the deificationof man in a world of pure spirit.
Bachofen'smost frequentlyproposed ideal is a moderaterule of spirit,
foundedon the freelygrantedacknowledgment-which in itselfelevates
whoevergrantsit to the plane of spirit-both of the preeminenceof spirit
and oftheimpossibility
ofrealizinga worldofpurespiritin human history,
indeed of the impietyof attemptingto do so. At times the emphasis in
his work falls on the moderationand restraintof the initialor "lunar"
momentof culture,situated between the swamps and darkness of the
original"tellurian"unityof all nature and the blinding"solar" lightof
naturetranscendedand spiritualized.This is the rule of the Mothers-in
which piety,orderlyand gentle manners,communityloyalty,and the
principleof servicehave replaced the promiscuityof the primitivechaos,
and in which man is still connected to and at the same time protected
fromhis divine originin nature.It is an Edenic momenton the threshold
of history,a moment of peace and harmonybefore the long voyage
throughthewildernesswhichwillbe man's lot,and in thecourseof which
he will have to earn his rightto be rebornto a vita nuova of the spirit.
At times,the emphasis falls less on the gentle lawfulnessof this stage
than on the ecstaticexperienceof an undivided and unalienated human
nature tremblingon the verge of historybut not yet part of it. In the
Dionysian religiouscults,as Bachofenrepresentsthem,natureand spirit

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
33
divided. Natureknows spirare alreadypresentbut not yetirreconcilably

and spiritfindssensual
itual longing,the desire for self-transcendence,
satisfaction.Human life is markedby "abandonment withoutreserveto
the most luxuriouslife of the senses and fidelityto that best Hope that
reaches beyond the grave," and "no idea of struggle,of self-discipline,
of sin and repentancedisturbsthe harmonyof [a] . . . lifeat once sensual
GW 3: 593). It was of thisorigand transcendingsensuality"(Mutterrecht,
inal conditionof man that Bachofen had a vivid intimationon his first
visit to Italy and for such a way of life that he spent all his remaining
years,he relates,in vain longing."Oh, that I had not found it truethat
the sun shines more brightlyin Italy than among us," he wrote in his
autobiographicalletterto Savigny. "I would not now be consumed by
such painfullonging" (SB 27).54
Butlongingitmustremain.Afterthecollapse of his optimisticliberalism
in history,
in the mid-1840s therewas no prospectof human fulfillment
and forthe CalvinistBachofen,no breakingout of history'siron cage, no
passageway fromthe historicalto the divine. Like many key conceptsof
the Romanticnineteenthcentury-the citizen king,constitutionalmonarchy,la me'repatrie,the livrepopulaireso ardentlydesired by Michelet,
Paris as the "centreexcentrique"of France,at once generaland particular
or MotherLaw, is
(anotheridea of Michelet's)-Bachofen's Mutterrecht,
an oxymoron,a yokingtogetherof contraries.But Bachofensituatedthe
realizationof his oxymoronnot in the historicalpresentor future,where
theoptimisticand liberalRomanticsplaced theirs,but squarelyin thepast,
indeed on the frontierbetween prehistoryand history,barelyin history
itself.The world of MotherLaw was thus one to which access was firmly
barred.
History,it turnsout, is a double bind. To the degree that man ceases
to desire and long forthe divine and to be guided by it, as the mariners
of old were guided by the stars,he loses an essentialpartof his humanity.
But equally, in attemptingto realize the divine in the historical,he also
loses his humanity.Every profane transcendenceof the historicalis ilto restore
lusory,a degradingparodyof theideal itclaimsto realize.Efforts
the early communismof the age of the Mothers will resultin the bestializationof man (C 309, 1881). At the otherend of the spectrum,the
Prometheanambitionof science,the beliefthatman can become absolute
Italy,in its degradedspiritualand political
5 As Bachofenimaginesit,even contemporary
condition,still offersan image of that formerglorious life. "In the South," he wrote,
. . . feelingsare deeper and experiencesmore vivid. Here nature,by the warmthand
invitesmortalmen to yield to her charmsand to
richnessof her sensuous manifestations,
enjoy the lifeof the senses under the guidance of a religionwhichhopes to elevate man not
by repressing,but on the contraryby developingand educatinghis sensuality,to which the
law of struggleis foreign,and in which the distinctionbetween this life and the otherlife
in GW 3: 587). Over half a centurylater,the mysticism
is not an absolute one" (Mutterrecht
of Tolstoiand Dostoievskiappears to have representedforMax Weber a similaralternative
and worldlystrugglethathe usually espoused. (See
to the strenuousethicof responsibility
ofMax WeberNew York: Knopf,
ArthurMitzman,The IronCage:An HistoricalInterpretation
1970, 272-73, 289-91).

34
masterof natureand by his own unaided efforts

achieve self-deification,
will likewiseproduce a race of inhumanmonsters.
Bachofen'spositionthus turnsout to be characteristically
conservative.
The best man can hope to achieve is a conditionin which the rule of
spirit,of reason, of the Father,is moderatedby the latter'scontinuingto
honor, respect,and fear the sacred body of nature fromwhich he has
emerged.The religious,patriarchalauthorityBachofendefended against
modern democraticand rationalistideas of popular sovereigntyrested
preciselyon its acknowledgmentof its originaldivine foundation,even
as it maintainedits distancefromthat foundation.This, to Bachofen,is
theburdenof man's historicity-tobe excluded foreverfromboth origins
and ends, yetto be unable to maintainhimselfas a human being without
to them.
constantlyreferring
Though Bachofen'sdeepestsympathiesseem to be engaged by Woman,
especiallythegravelymaternalDemeterfigure,throughwhom natureand
culture,the otherand the self,were firstgiven a relativelyautonomous
existence,yet at the same time held miraculouslyin harmony,he never
questions the achievementor the necessityof the male-dominatedpatriarchalculturefromwhichhe himselfspoke. Indeed, the verypossibility
of invitingthe reader to considerWoman with sympathyand reverence
depended on a reassuringreaffirmation
by the writerof the values he
shared with the reader.A commitmentto the benevolentrule of the Fathers,in otherwords, and a clear indicationthat paternal rule was not
withrespectforthe Mothers,but in the end founded
only not in conffict
on it,may well have been the conditionof the writer'ssympatheticidentification
withthe Mothers.To have abandoned this commitmentwould
have been, forBachofenthe writer,to renounce the possibilityof communication,of conventional,scholarlydiscourse,perhapssanityitself,and
Bachofenseems to have known both the dangerous attractionand the
fearof such an abandonment.In the same way, however,by insistingon
the honor due to the Mothersand on the impietyof tryingto dominate
them,Bachofensignaled his refusalof the modem discourseof science.
To the rejectionof Mommsen's practiceof scholarshipand of Bismarck's
practiceof politics in the contentof Bachofen's work correspondsthe
choice of a particularformand of a particularwritingpractice.
It was perfectlyconsistent,in short,both withBachofen'sconservative
politicalviews and with his work as a scholar and a writerthathe continued to honor and admire man's firstteacher and that he refusedto
abandon her or treather withdisdain. It is she, indeed, who inspiresthe
intensepietythatsuffusesthepages of theMutterrecht,
emerginghere and
therefromthe somewhatarid and repetitioustextin hymn-likepassages
ofgreatpowerand beauty.55To thepupil and friendof Savigny,theleader
5 The onlyseriousliterary
studyof Bachofenis theshortessay by WalterMuschg,Bachofen
als Schriftsteller
(Basle: Helbing and Lichtenhahn,1949. Basler Universitatsreden,
27). This
was originallya rectorialaddress.

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
35
of the historicalschool in legal studies,no presentcould be good thatwas

builton the suppressionor denial of the past.56The victoryof spiritcould
not, for Bachofen,entail the destructionof all that had preceded and
preparedit. Enough has already been said, however,to throwdoubt on
Bachofen's espousal of a Hegelian historicaldialectic or indeed of any
notion of historicalprogress.
No doubt he participated,along with his teachersAugust Bbckh and
Carl OtfriedMuller,in the largecurrentof ideas on which Hegel was also
borne. Even when, in an early essay, he emphasized the importancefor
the philologistand the historianof empiricalobservation,his termswere
Not surprisingly,
thoseofcontemporary
theseemphilosophy.57
therefore,
inglyevolutionarypatternthatreappearsin all his worksand thatoutlines
a progressfromthe confusedtellurianswamp to the clear air of heaven,
fromearthto sun, fromOrientto Occident,Aphroditeto Apollo, female
to male, matterto spirit-the in-itself,one is temptedto add, to the inand-for-itself-hasbeen interpretedas a philosophy of historyin the
Hegelian manner.Againstthisinterpretation,
however,itmustbe objected
that Bachofen's passionate sympathywith the defeated of history-socalled primitivesocieties,women, the Orient-amounts at timesto a calling into question of any dialectical philosophy of history,an incipient
aller Werte.
Umwertung
In dialecticalphilosophies of history,the defeated go under and are
overtakenbecause theybasically deserve to be, because what follows is
the discourse of the victorsincludes, but at
superior.Characteristically,
the same timesupersedesthatof the vanquished: out of loyaltyand compassion, a generous and pious man fromamong the victorsrestoresthe
power of speech to the vanquished, but in doing so, he undertakesto
speak forthem. Thus, for instance,Michelet,all of whose historiesare
essentiallyhistoriesof Woman (France,the People, the Witch,the Sea),
speaks for the past, for "la muette Etrurie,"for "le muet Orient," for
France,forthe naturalworld of the insect,the bird,and the sea, and for
his own wife Athenais Mialaret, whose rudimentaryeffortsat literary
expressionhe incorporatedinto his own text.
In Bachofen'swork,on the otherhand, manypassages implythe actual
56 Adrien Turel sees Bachofen'sawareness of the significance
of repressionas an anticipation of Freud. In Tanaquil,he pointsout, Bachofenrevisedhis earliernaive insistenceon
the historicalvalue of the traditionalRoman historicalannals and emphasized ratherthe
testimonytheygive of a nationalrepressionof all traceof debt to predecessors,notablyto
the Etruscans,who, in Bachofen's view, were stilllargelymatriarchal.One of Bachofen's
principalobjectionsto modernhistorians,such as Mommsen,is that theyrepeat the same
gestureof repression,fromthe same point of view-that of the powerful,patriarchally
organized state-when they use the criticalmethod to destroythe remnantsof testimony
Bern:Hans Huber, 1939, 19, 102to a pre-patriarchal
Rome (AdrienTurel,Bachofen-Freud,
103).
5"Die Beobachtung,die Naturforschungdes Gewordenen, die historischeEmpirieist
beruht" ("Das Na. . . das grosse Prinzip,auf dem alle wahre Kenntnis,aller Fortschritt
und das geschichtlicheRecht,"GW 1: 18). The term"Naturforschung"here smacks
turrecht
of Schelling.

36
and perennialvalue of modes of existenceand pointsof view thathistory

has apparentlyleftbehind. Here it seems to be not so much a matterof
appropriatingthe language of the other,of speakingforthe other,as of
listeningpatientlyand humbly,and allowing the otherto break through
the silence imposed by historyand speak for herself.The inordinate
amount of lengthyquotation in Bachofen's works, which many critics
have judged ruinous to the unityand coherenceof his own textand his
own style,as well as his professedwillingnessto servesimplyas a modest
collectorof the relicsof the past (SB 45) become more understandablein
the contextof thisrejectionof the dominating,ultimatelymonologicdiscourse of the dialecticalhistorian.It is as though the historicaldialectic
makes too short shrift,for Bachofen,of what historyappears to have
overtaken.Bachofen's recognitionof the value such momentscontinue
to representultimatelyimplies an anti-dialecticaland anti-progressive
view of historyand culture.58
The world of value, he seems to be saying,is independentof historical
sequence and historicalactualization.If we studythe past, it should not
be in orderto discoverthewheel of historicaldestinyand submit
therefore
to it, but in order to understandand recoverhuman values, to defend
them against all odds, and to promote them, if need be against what
our wanderingin
appears to be the tide of history.Only our historicity,
the wilderness,our exile fromthe divine is our destiny.Withinthe wilderness,thereare no prescribedpaths which we mustfollow.We are free
to choose, Bachofeninsists,though our choices have consequences that
become our destiny(C 57, 1850).
Bachofen'simpassioneddefenceof vanishingtraditionalvalues and of
the disappearingsocial and politicalorderof his nativecityand of Europe
consistentwiththisview of history.Withoutwhat
as a whole is perfectly
we mightcall the "feminine"momentor aspect of life,therecan be no
properlyhuman order,he wrotein an early essay. Love has been exiled
in moderntimesto thesphereofprivatelifeand is thoughtto have nothing
to do with the life of the polis,but this is a disastrouserrorand itselfa
"In the ages when the lifeof
sign of innercorruptionand disintegration.
on
love and inclination;in the
much
rests
is
and
healthy,
the state young
the sharp needle point of
on
rests
almost
of
its
everything
decline,
ages
whereas love binds them
and
men,
law
separate
and
law.
But
right
right
must
be supportedby religion
for
Bachofen,
Law,
together"(GW1: 60).59
58 For a fulldevelopmentof thispoint,see the "Afterword"by A. Baeumler-"Bachofen

essay of 1926
und die Religionsgeschichte"-tothe 1965 edition of his long introductory
Bachofens
Weltalter:
to Der Mythusvon Orientund Occident(AlfredBaeumler,Das niythische
Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965, 315-52, especially335-37).
Deutungdes Altertums,
machtals das Herz, da verfalltder Mensch
5 Cf. GR 33: "Wo der Kopf mehrFortschritte
jenen finsterenTrieben,die seine Seele auf ihrem unterstenGrunde birgt,und wird das
entstellt.
bis zu Unkenntlichkeit
Ebenbilddessen,derihn nach seinemGleichnisseerschaffen,
Mochte das denen zur Uberzeugungwerden, die alle Erziehungauf die Ausbildung des
Verstandesbegrinden." Cf. also SB 38-39 on the traditionof law as practicedin Basle, and
in GW 2: 381.
Mutterrecht,

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
37
and love. That is the proper way forlaw to be "natural." Only respect
for the past, for nature,for the Mothers,in short,will provide a solid
foundationfor the rule of law. In another text,in which he compared
Rome betweenthetimeof theGracchiand Augustus-Mommsen's Rome,
in otherwords-to modernFrance,Bachofendeplored a governmentin
which "thereis no mediation,but that which obstructsis always immediately annihilated [and] there is always a class that rules-today the
noblesse, tomorrowthe bourgeoisie,then le peuple, never all together,
never each in its own sphere" ("Bemerkungenzu Livius," GW1: 65-70).
The positionexpressedin both these passages is manifestlypolitically
conservative.(The essay fromwhich the firstpassage is takenwas in fact
writtenon the morrowof the defeatof the Sonderbund,
and the drafting
of a new Federal Constitutionin 1848). Bachofen'sargumentagainstabsolutismand in favorof pluralismis essentiallyreligious.Humanity,he
maintains,embracesthe past as well as the present,the dead as well as
the living,the vanquished as well as the victorious,the weak as well as
the strong,the peripheryas well as the center.In timeit extendsfarinto
thepast and the future,and in space it embracesfarmorethan Berlinand
Prussia,or even Greece and Europe. It is characteristic
of Bachofenthat
the historythat interestedhim most was the most remote,and that his
attentionextended outward fromGreece and Rome to the Orient,and
ultimatelyto the Africaand North America of travelers,explorers,and
ethnologists.Humanity,in sum, is not just presenthumanityor western
European humanity.The past does not existforthe sake of the present
in it.For Bachofen,at least as much as forhis teacher
or finditsfulfillment
Ranke, "JedeEpoche ist unmittelbarzu Gott." In the same way, the historiesof the various German communitiesare not fulfilledin Bismarck's
PrussianReich.
In the end, Bachofensituatedthe profaneworld,the world of human
historyand human society,between two portals throughwhich none
could pass: a transcendentoriginto which therewas no returnbut with
which communicationhad to be maintainedif men were not to cease to
be human, and a transcendentend beyond history,which it was not
possible to know, impious to anticipate,but equally imperativenever to
lose fromview. His historicalvision is not of inevitableprogressbut of
a fluctuating
existence,now more,now less effectively
shaped and determinedby transcendentalvalues. To be rebornto a vita nuovaof the spirit
is man's properdestinyand he muststrivenot only to meritit in his own
lifebut to promotehistoricalconditionsfavorableto the pursuitof the life
of the spiritin general.The realm of the solar, of pure spiritcan only be
approached in history,however; it cannot be actualized. Moreover,constantapproximationto it is not the inevitablemovementof history.Moments of achievementmay be followed by a fallingaway, momentsof
decline by a revival,and thereis no time,in historyas in individuallife,
when itis not necessaryto strugglein orderto achieve the closestpossible
approximationto the good, and to be vigilantin defendingwhat has been
achieved againstthethreatofdecadence. Bachofen'sview ofhistoryseems

38
in the end remarkablyclose to that of the eminentfellow-citizenfrom

whom, as we saw earlier,he remainedpersonallyalways distant.
This, then, was the essential doctrineof a scholar whose work was
largelya hymnof praise to thoseaspects of lifethatmodernrationalman,
the Prometheusof industryand state power, was eager to repress,and
whose deepest impulse as a scholar and a human being, was expressed
in the Virgilianphrase he himselfquoted as a kind of motto:"Antiquam
exquiritematrem"(GW1: 18). Though he was a latecomer,and though
his experienceboth of social revolutionand of mass militarismin what
he describedas "the centuryof the chassepot" (C 278, 1870) led him to
abandon themoderatelyoptimisticliberalismof his youth,he stillbelongs
to that generationof Romantichistorianswho saw themselvesas the
faithfuldecipherersof the voiceless past-backward-looking prophetsin
FriedrichSchlegel's words.Like Champollion,he probed the tombsof the
dead, so thatthepower of speech mightbe restoredto them;likeAugustin
Thierry,he took upon himselfthe role of "bard of the vanquished"; like
Michelet,he saw himselfas an Oedipus unravelingenigmas and an Orpheus bridgingtheworldsof thelivingand thedead.60"Venho de longe,"
he mighthave said with the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.
". . . Emissariode um rei desconhecido." ("I come fromafar . . . The
envoy of an unknown king" [Passos da Cruz vi, xiii]) His writing,at its
best,has an evocative,poeticqualitythatpointsbeyond the purelycausal
or chronologicalsequences of the positivisthistoriansof his time.In that
respect,however,it was not unhistoricalor antihistorical.It was simply
closer in spirit,despite some importantdivergences,to Romantichistowhichtriumphed
riographythanto thepositivist,academichistoriography
after1848.
Whateverpersonal significanceBachofen'skeepingfaithwith the vanquished of historymay have had for him as a man-and it is almost
impossible,as I have suggested,to discountthe place in his work of his
relationto his own parents-it was entirelyconsonantwithhis experience
as a citizenof Basle. Like all the membersof the Basle patriciate,Bachofen
was proud of the leading role his native cityhad played in the revivalof
learningand in the Reformation.He was also acutely conscious of its
subsequentdecline,culminatingin the humiliatingsettlementof 1833, by
whichthe Swiss Confederationpermanentlyseparatedtherebelliousrural
60 For Michelet'simage of thehistorianas Oedipus, see his Journal,
ed. P. Viallaneix(Paris:
Gallimard,1959-62), 1: 378 (entryfor 30 Jan. 1842), and Le Peuple, ed. L. Refort(Paris:
Didier, 1946), 200-01. See also my article,"The Go-Between:JulesMichelet 1798-1874,"
MLN 89 (1974): 503-41. Bachofencomparesthe philologistand archaeologistto the Oedipus
figureseveral timesin his correspondence(C 126, 127, 182, 191, 327). Bachofen'sinsistence
of the historicalheritageechoes thatof his teacherGerlach,
on the varietyand multiplicity
for whom the task of the historianwas to win and communicate"Erkenntnisdes men(F. D. Gerlach,Die Aetiologischen
schlichenWesens in seinerunendlichenMannigfaltigkeit"
Basle: JohannGeorg Neukirch,1854, 41).
Geschichte,
Mythenals Grundlagederromischen

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
39
districtsfromthe cityand divided the old city-stateinto the two autonomous cantonsof Basel-Stadtand Baselland. Resolutelyignoringthemodernizationthat had occurredsince then and that had in factbeen acceleratedin some respectsby the divisionof the canton,Bachofenchose at
timesnot to see Basle as the moderatelyprosperousindustrialand commercialcitywhichithad become and fromwhichhe himselfwas inwardly
estranged,but to transformit into a symbolof the world that had been
lost. Lookingout fromhis defeated,amputated,nativecity,withitsstruggling institutionsof learning and its memories of past glory,6'toward
Berlin,the brash,rich,new centerof German power and German scholarship,he associatedin his mind's eye the citywhich had given him birth
and guided his firststeps in the studyof antiquity,as it had once guided
all Europe,withthosefiguresof the defeated-the Demetrianmother,the
erstwhilemistressand teacherof men, and the Amazonian heroine,conquered and shorn of her glory-who are the heroines of his principal
work. It is easy to see how Mommsen,the Caesar of Berlin,always associated in his writingwith boots, pipes, cigars,and other emblems of
male power, could come to serve forhim as the figureof the violatorand
thetyrant.He is armedwiththestylusof thehistorian,Bachofenobserves,
but is unworthyto use it (C 144, 1862), since he wields it like a bludgeon
to coerce the past, ratherthan tenderlyand with understandingto serve
it. In the Mutterrecht,
in contrast,the phallus veneratedby the Mothers
is thatof theirsons-their champions,servants,and heroes (GW 2: 159).
Not surprisingly,
Bachofen in one of his letterscontraststhe humanist
scholarsof the sixteenthcentury-the period of Basle's eminence-with
the modernPrussian"pygmies."The greatage of his native citybecomes
one withthe greatage of the Mothersas he lamentsitspassing and pours
scornon what has succeeded. "That heroicage is reallypast," he writes.
"Yet we can console ourselves.We now have railwaysand Prussiancriticism" (C 132, 1861).62
The increasingacrimonyof Bachofen's attacks on both Prussia and
Mommsen after1860 seems closely related to his indignationat the aggressivepolicies of Bismarck.As earlyas 1856-1857 Prussia had offended
Swiss of almosteverypoliticalconvictionwhen it triedto bullythe fledgling Confederationinto acceptingFrederickWilliam IV's claims to Neuchatel by mobilizingforwar. Subsequently,duringthe period of intense
Austro-Prussianrivalryfor leadership of the erstwhileReich between
61There are frequentallusions in Bachofen'scorrespondenceto the difficulty
of attracting
distinguishedor promisingscholarsto the Universityof Basle, in partbecause the citycould
affordto pay only modest salaries. In his earlyyears he supportedplans to make the uniin German-speakingSwitzerland-into a federaluniversity
versity-thentheonlyuniversity
or Swiss national university.The subsequent evolution of Swiss politicstransformedhim
intoa championoflocal autonomy.The Basle patriciatewas extremely
proudofitsuniversity,
and thoughBachofen'sactual teachingcareerwas short,he remainedkeenlyinterestedin
the fortunesof the university.(See note 23 above).
62 Cf. the even more bitterremarkin C 278, 1870: "L'epoque du droitde mere me parait
. . .un age d'or a c6te du siele des chassepots."

40
about 1860 and the outbreakof war in 1866, sentimentin many of the
Germanlands ran against Prussia.63Outside Prussia itself,many liberals
as well as conservativesrejected the Prussianizationof Germany as a
solutionto the problemof Germanunity.Bachofenwas by no means out
of line in supportingthe congress of German sovereignsat Frankfurt,
which Austria,under the liberalleadershipof Schmerling,had called in
1863, and which Prussia boycotted(C 166, 1863). By 1866 Bachofenwas
so incensed by Bismarck'sarroganceand by the Austro-Prussianwar in
particularthathe refusedto attenda scholarlymeetingin Prussia. "I find
I have a deep innerrevulsionagainst Prussia," he wrote,"which makes
thesocietyand even thesightof thatrobber-nation
extremely
unpleasant"
(C 225, 1866). AftertheFranco-Prussianwar-though no admirerofeither
Franceor Napoleon III, whom he despised as the despot thatthe corrupt
and materialistFrenchdemosdeserved-he refusedto read the German
newspapersany more (C 283).
Thoughit was exacerbatedby his growingindignationat contemporary
events in Europe, Bachofen's hostilityto the view of ancient historyhe
associated with Mommsen was consistentwith the positionshe himself
had upheld since earlyin his career.In the struggleagainstMommsenhe
was simplyled to definethese more sharply.Since the mid-1840she had
of
rejectedthe aggressivenessand suspicion he consideredcharacteristic
modern criticalapproaches to texts,maintainingthat the lattermust be
addressed trustingly
and with respectif they were to respond to the inadvances and yieldtheirsecrets.True historicalunderstanding,
terpreter's
he had consistentlyheld, does not mean appropriatingthe otherto the
self,modernizingthe past and readingit withthe eyes of the present,but
losingthe selfforthe sake of the other,alienatingoneselffromone's own
presentand going out to reach the othernessof the past. To the deeply
religiousBachofen,historicalunderstandingwas akin to conversion.Like
Winckelmann,and all thegreatRomanticphilologists,moreover,Bachofen
had always seen bookishness and pedantic eruditionas barriersto the
livingrealityof the past. Especiallysince his firstjourneyto Italyhe had
been convincedof the value of the immediateexperience,short-circuiting
words, that is vouchsafed by directcontact with the actual relics and
landscapesofthepast. He had likewisealways denouncedthefragmented,
atomistic,aggregativeconceptionof knowledge implied by the practice
of old-stylegrammaticaland purelytextualphilology,claimingthat the
properaim and onlyworthyobjectofphilologywas comprehensiveinsight
into a culturalwhole. Finally,he had always opposed mechanisticideas
about the practiceof historicalresearch;these could only lead, according
to him, to the mere productionand accumulationof information,
not to
and to thecreationofa race ofscholar-bureaucrats
genuineunderstanding,
eagerlycompilingmore and more facts. His own ideal was always the
63 See GeoffreyBarraclough,
(Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1946),
TheOriginsofModernGermany
413, 420.

THE ENEMY: MOMMSEN
41
privatescholar,whose workis deeplyand personallymotivated,a vocation

ratherthan a professionor metier.Only among such scholars,in Bachofen's view, did truecommunicationoccur,and only fromthemcould an
authentic and enriching understanding of antiquity be expected.
Mommsen and Mommsen's Prussia thus seemed to stand foreverything
the Basle patricianhad always condemned and repudiated.
But Bachofen opposed not only the methods of Mommsen and his
school, the way theypracticedphilology,he also opposed the contentof
theirwork and the values it conveyed. As the champion of remotestantiquityand the still quasi-divine rule of the Mothers,Bachofen totally
of Caesar and the transitionto the emrejectedMommsen's glorification
pire, which he himselfconsidered not the culminatingachievementof
Roman historybut itsdecadence. In addition,by emphasizingincreasingly
the wider contextin which Greek and Roman cultureand institutions
should be situated,Bachofenfound himselfmore and more opposed to
the Hellenomanie,as he called it, of academic philology,and to the traditionalnotion,inheritedfromWinckelmann,but already questioned by
Herderand Creuzer,both of whom Bachofenregardedhighly,of Greek
or Graeco-Romancultureas an autonomousentitysprungfull-grownfrom
the head of Zeus and owing nothingto any other,earlierculture.64
In the followingtwo sections I shall examine brieflysome of these
aspects of Bachofen'sidea of scholarshipand argue that the positionhe
believed he was defending against Mommsen was by no means an
"aphilological"deviation,as Croce once said,65but essentiallytheposition
of the neohumanistand Romanticscholars of the period of the German
War of Liberationand of the Restoration-of Bockh,Muller,and Welcker,
to whose values and concerns Bachofen remained loyal throughouthis
life,even if on some issues his views divergedfromtheirs.Fliewas, for
instance,blinderand more obstinatethan theyin his oppositionto Niebuhrian criticismof sources. There is perhaps somethingcontradictory
about a philologythatimpatientlyaspiresto pass beyond the word to the
livingrealityof which the word is thoughtto be but the shadow; but the
contradiction
is one thataffectsan entiredistinguishedschool of classical
scholars.
64 Cf. B. Bravo,Philologie,
chap. 2; FelixGilbert,"JohannGustav Droysen,"in his History:
Choiceand Commitment
(Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1977), 26-27.
65 -II Bachofen e la storiografia
afilologica,"Attidella Reale Accademiadi Scienze morale
e politichedi Napoli, 51 (1928): 158-76.

IV. Aphilological Historiography
s earlyas 1841, in his inauguraladdress at the Universityof Basle,
Bachofendefinedthestancehe expectedthescholarseekingto
understandthe past to adopt.
Let us follow
systems.
truthby brilliant
Let us notbe deceivedabouthistorical
. . . the old oracle, as it was announced to Aeneas: Antiquamexquiritematrem
has produced,the
of thatwhichhistory
and investigation
. . .The observation
and
on whichall trueknowledge
studyofthepastis thegreatprinciple
empirical
1:
18).
rest
all progress (GW
This textcontainsseveral otherdirector indirectquotationsfromBacon's

ofLearning,which Bachofenhad read carefullyin England,
Advancement
and which he invoked to emphasize his rejectionof what Gibbon had
called "the highprioriroad" in legal and historicalstudies.A decade later,
in a polemical part of his introductionto the Geschichteder Romerhe
criticizedthe "vain erudition"of contemporycritics,notablyNiebuhrand
his disciples,chargingessentiallythat these modern scholars lacked the
patienceand pietyneeded to coax theirtruemeaningout of the old texts.
In theirprecipitoushaste to know and masterthe past, they succeeded,
accordingto the historianof the Mothers,only in violatingthe textsand
in forcingfromthem the message they wanted to hear. "Our objective
should not be to resolveall problems.He who strainshis eyes in the dark
loses his vision. To such a one even clearlydefinedfigureswill come to
seem as ghostly,insubstantialapparitions"(GW 1: 147). About the same
ofNiebuhr
Bachofenjustifieda criticism
time,in a letterto Meyer-Ochsner,
him
dear,"
I
hold
and
is
genius,
a
"Niebuhr
thathad shocked his friend.
of
conception
to
his
and
to
his
orientation
he wrote."But I am opposed
the
own
work,
in
I
my
advance
in
the
further
and
scholarship general,
morevehementlyI shall fightagainstthem. . . My own outlookis entirely
I regretall thatpedantry('Schulmeisterei')which rejectsinstead
different.
of explaining,and which substitutesconstructionsbased on the critic's
own conceptions.I am conservative,not destructive,and I still believe
Livy,Cicero,Dionysiusknew farmore of theirpeople's customsand historythan Niebuhr. The historicalscholarhearkensand elucidates,he does
notmasterand he does notdestroy"(C 67, 1851. Italics added). The same
idea recursin a letterto Ludwig Ross, a professorof classicsat Halle, who
had become,likeBachofen,a somewhateccentricand lonelyfigureamong
the classical scholarsof his day on account of his impenitentopposition
42

APHILOLOGICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY
43
to Niebuhrand his insistenceon the Orientaloriginsof classical culture.66

"The effort
to achieve understanding,"Bachofenwrote,"is the only genuine criticism"(C 110, 1859). That "Die wahre Kritikliegtim Verstandnis"
in which Bachwas also, yearslater,the mottoof theAntiquarische
Briefe,
ofen set forthhis ideas on earlyformsof familystructureand on the kin
relationshe associated with "matriarchy."
In thewake ofmuchwritingand reflection
on problemsofhermeneutics
Bachofenclearlydid
by Humboldt,Schleiermacher,Bockh,and others,67
not thinkthat understandingis an entirelypassive process or that the
subjectdoes not have to bringsomethingwithhimto achieve understanding of the object. As earlyas the writingsof FriedrichAst, it was readily
acceptedthat"all understandingnot onlyof alien worlds,but of the other
in general, is in principleimpossible except on the assumption of the
originalunityand identityof spirit('Geist') and of the originalunityof
all things in spirit."68Differentemphases were possible, however. To
some, understanding-or translation,which provoked similardebateswas possible because of a more or less fortuitouscoincidenceof the contemporaryand the ancient,the self and the other,and it meant understandingthe presentin termsof the past, the past in termsof the present.
In the state of joy he experiencedat the revival of Prussia's fortunesin
1813, Niebuhr tells,"the meaningof many an ancientmysteryrevealed
itself,"and a littlelaterhe adds that"When a historianis revivingformer
times,his interestin them and sympathywith them will be the deeper,
thegreatertheeventshe himselfhas witnessedwitha bleedingor rejoicing
heart."Not surprisingly,
Niebuhrthoughtwell of thetranslationof Homer
by Voss, who also happened to be a familyfriend.Voss, he wrote,had
"understoodand interpretedHomer and Virgilas if theywere our contemporariesand only separated fromus by an intervalof space."69 Yet
it was preciselythis modernizingtendencythat Voss's critics,above all
66 On Ross, see the articleby A. Baumeisterin Allgemeine
DeutscheBiographie;also Otto
Gruppe,Geschichte
derklassischen
undReligionsgeschichte
Mythologie
(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner,
1921), 171. Ross had spentmanyyearsin Greece and had been one of the mostdiligentand
faithfulsuppliersof inscriptionsto Bockh. In his correspondenceC. 0. Muller also refers
frequently
to "der treffliche
Ross." Bbckhand Mullercontinuedto treasurethe man and his
friendshipeven thoughtheycould not share his extremeoppositionto Niebuhriancriticism.
(See Max Hoffmann,
AugustBdckh,Lebensbeschreibung
undAuswahlaus seinemwissenschaftlichenBriefwechsel,
Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1901, 192, 342, 373). It was this oppositionto
Niebuhr,however,thatwas the foundationof his relationto Bachofen.Thankingthe latter
forhis dedicationof the Grabersymbolik
to him,Ross confessesto having been surprisedas
well as touched by it, since, as he put it pointedly,he had no giftforspeculation,was a
strangerto symbolicinterpretations,
and could not followhim in his intricatearguments.In
the same letter,however,Niebuhris reconfirmed
as one of the "grosse Irrlichter"
who have
misguidedtheyouthand corruptedthe studyof antiquity,and thereis a ringingdenunciation
of the "Bodenlosigkeitder MommsenschenHallucinationeniiberdie Vorgeschichteund die
KonigzeitRoms" (Basle Univ. Library,Bachofen-Archiv
272, item243, letterof 2 Feb. 1859).
67 See Joachim
einerGeschichte
Wach,Das Verstehen:
derhermeneutischen
Grundziige
Theorie
im 19. Jahrhundert.
3 vols. (Tubingen:J.C. B. Mohr, 1929).
68Wach, 1: 37.
69 Quoted fromHistory
ofRome(London: JohnTaylor,1828), 1: x, xii-xiii,ix,in thatorder.

44
Creuzer,vehementlyattacked.Voss, accordingto Creuzer,had reduced

the heroicfiguresof Greekmythologyto the dimensionsof contemporary
bourgeoisexperience.
It was the same charge that Bachofenleveled at Mommsen. Far from
tryingto understandancientRome in the lightof what Bachofenbelieved
we can findout about earlysocietiesfromcertaincomparable and presentlyexistingsocietiesin Africaand America,as he himselfwas trying
to do, Mommsen simplyread Roman historyin the lightof the contemporaryexperienceof westernEurope. "All my lectures[i.e. reading]are
dictatedby the convictionthat withoutenlargingmy views, I never will
come to a trueinsightinto the state of mind,European societywas governed by at the timeof the foundationof Rome," Bachofenwrotein his
somewhat GermanicEnglishto Morgan.
The taskof thehistorian
consistsin showingthedifference
ofwhathas beenand
whatis now.Buthistorians
of thisdescription
are a greatexception
now a days
. . . Germanhistorians
especiallyfollowanotherway. Theyproposeto make
to thepopularideasofourpresent
itaccording
antiquity
intelligible
bymeasuring
in thecreations
ofthepast:hencetheirstupidity
days.Theyonlysee themselves
torejectall traditions
thatwillnotallowtobe mistreated
in thatway.Topenetrate
thestructure
ourownis a hardy
ofa minddifferent
from
work;to takebarbarism
for
ofourso-calledcivilization
itselfand to forget
seemsa proofofretroeverything
gradingpropensity,
socialand political.
Mommsen'sportraitof Coriolanus "in the attireof a guard of Louis XIV"
exhibitsthe effectsof this method of interpretation.
The same is true of
thegentes and the Roman kings."Prototypestheybecome of the German
Emperorand the poor aristocracythat surroundthis throne.In time of
revolutiontheyare both set aside with the same hatred as if theywere
in actual power" (C 308, 1881. Italics added).70
in important
Bachofen'sconceptionof the earlyclassical world differed
ways, as has alreadybeen noted,fromthatof the neoclassical generation
ofWinckelmannand Wolf.He followedFriedrichSchlegel,Zoega, Creuzer
and otherRomanticscholarsin emphasizingthe religiousratherthan the
formal-esthetic
aspect of antiquity,and its tensions as well as its harmonies.71 Nevertheless,the neoclassical generationitself had initially
between antiquityand the present.The study of
stressedthe difference
antiquitywas conceived by Wolf,Ast, Humboldt,and othersas a purifying,transforming
activity,which, far fromconfirmingcontemporary
ideas would "cleanse the spiritof everythingtemporal,accidental,and
However much he may have
subjective,and raise it to pure humanity."72
70 Cf. GW 1: 450: "Nur wer die Altenim Lichteder Neuheit,konstitutionell
oder dermalen
wird als Sieger gekrontwerden."
gefarbt,vorfuhrt,
imperialistisch
71 See Rehm, Griechentum
chap. 9.
und Goethezeit,
72 Wach, Das Verstehen,
1: 40. Bachofen'steacher,F. D. Gerlach,had championedthe new
humanismat Basle in the 1820s and 1830s. See his speech at the opening of the summer
AnsichtenuiberhohereBildung:
termat the Padagogium in 1822, published as Verschiedene
(Basle: August Wieland, 1822).
derSommervorlesungen
zur Erdffnung
Einladungsschrift

45
fromthe neoclassical scholarsin his interpretation

of antiquitydiffered
was less than has sometimesbeen claimed-Bachofen
and the difference
remainedessentiallyfaithfulto this principle.The cleansingof the spirit
has simplybecome, forhim,harderto achieve,being at one and the same
time the resultand the conditionof the studyof antiquity.It resembles
divine grace forthe Christian.
Whoever
wouldunderstand
a peoplemustadoptthestandpoint
whichthatpeople
mustworkoutofitsspiritand
itselfoccupiedand whoeverwouldwriteitshistory
be ruledby theperspectives
of the
notout of his own. He mustnotlethimself
thoseoftheRomans,and see withtheir
nineteenth
butmustappropriate
century,
theideas of thenineteenth
in
is therein rediscovering
eyes.Whatprofit
century
theviewsoftheRomans
Romanhistory?
Theonlyvalueforus is in rediscovering
whattheyknew,what
themselves,
knowingwhattheythoughtof theirorigins,
are
theybelieved.Thatis myposition.I am entirely
positive,and all myefforts
towardmakingme as Romanas possible.I rejectthatso-calledscientific
directed
whichmeasuresthelifeand deedsof a nobleGod-filled
criticism,
peopleby the
viewsof a decadentand corrupt
decadentand corrupt
age, and carriesitsown
overtothatearlytimeandthatenergetic
giddiness
people.WhatwouldtheMiddle
Agesof theGermannationlooklikeiftheirfaithand theirdeedswereanalysed
A narrowdistorted
in whichnot
tobitsbythemodernspirit?
imagewouldresult,
a singletraitwas true.The same can be said of Rome. . . Formorethanany
otherpeople,theRomansweredeeplypenetrated
by theoverwhelming
feeling
thatand sympathize
ofdependency
on divinepower;whoevercannotappreciate
ofancientpopularlifeorunderstand
withit,willbe unabletograspa singlefeature
a single page of its history(C 63, 1850).73
The studyof antiquitywas so farfrombeing a lesson in contemporary

politicsor psychologyforBachofenthathe tendedto see it ratherin terms
of a personaldiscipline,a purification,
an alienationfromthe world,even
a kindof conversion.The politicaldisappointmentsof the mid-1840sand
Bachofen'ssubsequentwithdrawalfrompubliclifedid nothingto diminish
thisemphasison thepersonal,inwardsignificance
ofphilologicalresearch.
Writingto SavignyfromSt. Moritzin the summerof 1854, he praised the
purifying,
invigoratingAlpine air:
One would liketo cast aside the entireburdenof one's needs and one's vain
so as to breatheforever
as freely
as here.Treesand brooksteachme
knowledge,
said Socrates.I can learnonlyfrommen.True.Butmustwe alwaysbe
nothing,
ourselveswithlearning?
'The noblemandies as well as he who has done
filling
To workon ourselvesis in theend ourhighestvocation(C 77).
nothing.'74
In anotherletterto Savigny a year laterthe same note is sounded again.
The primaryobject of his study,he declares,is not to produce books for
the public. On the contrary,far fromwishing to disseminatehis self in
the world,he would ratherhold all the partsof it together"untilit leaves
73 Similar views in C 271, 322, in GR and in SB. Likewise Gerlach, Die Aetiologischen
Mythen.
74 Iliad, 9, 320.

46
thisearth." Indeed, one's aim should be to increaseit and to take it over

to the otherside as richas possible: " 'Nemo alii nascitursibi moriturus.'
I have made it my guiding policy to think,study,and write more for
myselfthan forthe public" (C 82, 1855).75
There is littledoubt that Bachofen himselfthoughtof his scholarly
careeras the consequence of a conversionexperience.It was the sightof
the walls of Rome, he told Savignyin the greatautobiographicalletterof
September1854, thatopened his eyes to the triviality
and vanityof the
juridical scholarshiphe had been pursuing-with considerable professional success, it should be said-up to that time, and caused him to
renounceit forever.Above all, in theburialsitesof the ancientshe caught
a glimpseof anotherworldwhich unfittedhim forthisone, yetshowered
him with spiritualrichesforhis entirelife.It was a world which,several
decades earlier,had already conquered Georg Zoega, the earnest Dane
fromSchleswig-Holsteinwho servedas tutorin thehousehold of Wilhelm
von Humboldtduringthe latter'stermas Prussian ministerto the Papal
States-a world dominatedby religion,the tombor burialplace, and the
sacred bond bindingthe livingand the dead generations.Unsuspectedor
ignoredby mostof Bachofen'scontemporaries,
withtheexceptionof some
marginalfiguressuch as Sir Charles Fellows (journal writtenduringan
Excursion
in Asia Minor,1838),GiuseppeMicali(Monumenti
ineditia illustrazione
dellastoriadegliantichipopoliitaliani,1844),GeorgeDennis
(The Citiesand CemeteriesofEtruria,1848), all of whom he subsequently

read, and of course, much later,Fustel de Coulanges (La Cite'antique,
1864), it completelyoverwhelmedthe youngscholar.Bachofenwas transformedby theexperience."I no longerdesiredto embracenot thegoddess
75 See also SB 46 and, above all, the importanttestimony

in WTS. Streuber,we are told,
was not one to writeout of vanity.He was drivenby an innerimpulse. "Er hat, indem Er
schriebund unermudetforschte,die ihm gewordeneLebensaufgabegelbst" (WTS xxxv).In
general,accordingto Bachofen,truewritingis a vocation,a calling,in the strictsense. The
reader is not the writer'sconcern. Bachofen,like Plato, has no place for rhetoricin his
conceptionof writing. Die vollendeteSchrifthat nichtdarinihrenHauptwert,dass sie die
menschlichenKenntnissebereichert,und Andereneine Fiille von Belehrungdarbietet.Ihre
Bedeutungliegtin ihrerExistenz,in dem Zeugnis,das sie von dem Strebenund der Macht
des menschlichenGeistes ablegt,in dem Glauben an das unsichtbareReich der Idee, aus
dem sie hervorgegangenist,und den sie befestigt"(ibid.).
Thomas Gelzer is one of the few commentatorson Bachofento emphasize what he calls
his "mystical"attitudeto scholarship.He also pointsout in an interesting
sectionof his long
article("Die Bachofen-Briefe,"
823-24) that,like the neo-Platonistswhom he admired so
much, Bachofenalso had two kinds of writing:an exotericand an esoteric.The problems
Gelzeranalysesin the exotericwork(Bachofen'scontradictory
attemptto arguefora mystical
visionby tryingto presentit as derivingfromempiricalresearch,resultingin an accumulation
of empiricalevidence in the text,which always remainsonly externallyrelated to the essentiallyvisionarythesis)are absent,he holds, fromthe esotericworks-notably the Selbstbiographieand the GriechischeReise. In these essentiallyconfessionalworks, writtenfor
intimatesand soul-mates,Bachofenfeltno need, says Gelzer,to argue a case and presented
his visionaryviews directlyin the poeticlanguage appropriateto them.These are also, from
a literarypoint of view, his most successfulworks.
The Latin quotation(properly"nemo alii nasciturmoriturussibi") is fromTertullian,De
Pallio, 5: 4, and runs like a leitmotivthroughall Bachofen'swriting.

47
herself,but her airy,deceptiveimage," he wrote. "As a consequence of

thisspiritualrevolutionit was impossibleforme, on myreturnfromItaly,
to announce the old course on the historyof Roman law" (SB 34). From
then on, he knew thathe must dedicate his lifeto the pious exhumation
of an ancient way of life that had been buried in oblivion,that was in
starkoppositionto the way of life of his own day, and thata greatdeal
of contemporary
scholarshipdid moreto conceal than to reveal. This was
the goddess he was now able to recognizeas the trueobject of his desire.
Renunciationof a moreimmediatesatisfactionfora greatersubsequent
gain-a strategythatcannothave been unfamiliarin thesober,bourgeois,
piously protestantsocietyinto which Bachofenwas born-is a common
theme in his writing.In the account of his journey to Greece in 1851,
which was not destined for publicationand in which he speaks more
directlyand more intimatelyof himselfthan in any other of his works
except the autobiographicalletterto Savigny, he refersmovingly,but
enigmatically,in tones reminiscentof Holderlin's Hyperion,to the one
great happiness of which he has been deprived; at the same time, he
claims that the courage and strengthrequired for renunciationmay be
even greaterthan those requiredforaction,and suggeststhatProvidence
may have withheldsatisfactionfromhim in orderto bend all his energies
to self-improvement.
Whenoutwardactivity
and effective
actionin theworld,inoursenseofit,become
we mustassumethatthelife'staskthatis beingpointedout to us is
impossible,
Tertullian
thatofevergreater
personalperfection.
'Nemo
saysthatverybeautifully:
aliinascitur,
sibimoriturus'
(GR 8).
The textmakes it clear that by effectiveaction in the world Bachofen
has in mind a vocationor callingin the Christian,especiallythe Calvinist
Christiansense: "Can any one who feelshimselfcalled to exercisea certain
officebe afflictedby anythingthat affectshim more deeply, than when
it becomes impossibleforhim to exercisethat one Thing?" The allusion
is almost certainlyto Bachofen's early expectationthat he would have a
leading role to play, as a teacher,statesman,and legal scholar, in the
governmentof his native cityand to the shipwreckof that expectation,
and of his optimisticliberalismin general,when, underpressurefromthe
radicals,he resignedboth fromhis chair at the universityand fromthe
GrosserRat.Certainly,he ofteninsistedin latertexts,some ofthemalready
quoted here, that he no longer had any ambitionto teach or influence
anybody,as thoughhe knew that he must give up such ambitions,and
thathis only purpose was, alone if necessary,to bear witness.From the
nostalgicsensualityof the GreekJourney
it seems clear,however,thatthe
young scholar had had to make other sacrificesas well, and it is likely
thatthe exclusionand isolationBachofensoughtto turninto an occasion
of gloryaffectedeveryimportantaspect of his life-his sexual role as a
man, his social and pedagogical role as a teacherand a citizen,and his
literaryand intellectualrole as a writerand scholar. His relationto his

48
mother,ValeriaMerian,has neverbeen exploredand will probablyalways

remain clouded. One can speculate, however, that some of his deepest
longingswere closely associated with this-by all accounts-intensely
pious woman, thatthroughher,desireand renunciationwere inseparably
connectedin his experience,and that he found consolation for his deprivationin the hope of a greaterreward at anotherlevel, in the hope,
in his own words,of embracingthe goddess herselfinsteadof her passing
earthlyforms.It is unlikelythatBachofen'slifeexperiencesdid not color
his attitudeto scholarshipand impartto his idea of the scholarlyvocation
the religiousfervorwhich emerges fromhis letters,his autobiography,
and the GreekJourney,
and which seems so alien to Mommsen.76
Whateverits deepest sources,Bachofen'sattitudeto scholarshipmeant
thatin understandingthe past, the scholar's task was to grow as far as
possibleawayfromhis own time,and by so doing,to rediscoverin himself
those depths of the human soul which mundane life covers over and
throughwhich alone it is possible forus to understandand communicate
withothercivilizationsand peoples, especiallythose of the earlyages of
human history.The assumptionthatsuch communicationis possible,and
that,in the end, thereis a common "nature" deep withinman, through
which the otherbecomes ultimatelyintelligibleto the self,is the foundation of Bachofen'shermeneutics."I could well say with Santi Bartoli,"
he once wrote,"che mi sono quasi sepolto nei sepolcri" (C 236, 1867).77
Such a withdrawalfromthe surfacephenomena of the everydayworld
is forBachofenat one and the same time a journeyinto the interiorof
the soul and a discoveryof the structureand laws of the universe. His
positionis thatofall who subscribedto or weretrainedin the"speculative"
philosophyof the earlynineteenthcenturyin Germany.78"Man himself
76 That there may well have been a religiousbasis for Mommsen's grim dedication to
scholarshipemergesfromHeuss, TheodorMommsen,112-13, but only in the way thatCalvinismprovidedthe basis, accordingto Weber,forthe spiritof capitalism.
77 The referenceis to Pietro Santi Bartoli,Gli antichisepolcri,ovveromausoleiromanied
etruschi(Rome, 1697). Cf. Michelet'scelebratedaccount of takingthe baths at Acqui and
being buried up to his head in mud. For Micheletand forBachofen,as forotherRomantic
writers,
entombment
is a preludeto resurrection
to a new life.See also Burckhardt's
comment
in a letterto Schauenberg(28 Feb. 1846): "This wretchedage . . . I have fallen out with
it entirely,
and forthatreason am escapingfromit to the beautiful,lazy south,wherehistory
is dead, and I, who am so tiredof the present,will be refreshedby the thrillof antiquity
as by some wonderfuland peaceful tomb" (The LettersofJacobBurckhardt,
p. 96).
78 B. Bravo's briefdefinition
of "speculative" philosophy is worth quoting: ". . . pour
connaitrele monde (l'histoireaussi bien que la nature),le sujet connaissantdoit, certes,
regarderles 'phenomenes' qui lui sont donnes par 'l'exp6rience'. . ., par 'l'empirie,'mais
surtoutdoit se plonger dans sa propre interiorite,
car '1'esprit'qui se manifestedans sa
'conscience'est le meme qui s'est manifesteet se manifestedans l'histoireet dans la nature;
cettepensee qui rentredans son interiorite,
c'est le 'Tiefsinn,'la 'profondeur,'poetique ou
philosophique,ou poetique et philosophiquea la fois,qui decouvrela 'Tiefe,'la 'profondeur'
du monde. Schellinget Hegel, chacun d'une facondiff'erente,
developpentsystematiquement
et formulentsur le plan de la philosophie cette convictionrepandue. Leur philosophie se
presentecomme 'philosophiespeculative,'comme 'sp6culation;'la 'sp6culation,'d'apres eux,
est la science,la seule science veritable,car elle 'deduit,' 'construit,'le devenirde 'l'esprit'
dans la natureet dans l'histoire,elle montrela necessitedes 'phenomenes,'en rentrantdans
de 'l'esprit'lui-meme"(Philologie,66).
l'interiorite

49
is not yet outside the harmonythat regulatesall the materiallife of the

earth,"he wrote."The law he followsis no exclusivelyhuman one, but
GW2: 378). Elsewhere
a universallaw of the entirecreation"(Mutterrecht,
he speaks of gynaecocracy,or the rule of women, as a stage in the education of humanityand as the "realizationof a law of naturewhich exercisesitselfin the lives of peoples no less than in the life of every inGW2: 34).79 In a letterto Meyer-Ochsnerhe claims
dividual" (Mutterrecht,
thatthemessage of ancientburialsculptureis ultimatelydecipherableand
intelligibleto everyman, "because it has itselfbeen drawn fromthe inner
depths of the human breast" (C 173, 1863). One of his favoriteimages
is thatof the echoingsounds producedby strikinga bronze or metalplate:
the studyof the outside world and of the world of historyis at the same
time,he holds, a discoveryof the lost or sunken innerrealm of the self:
"Thereis somethingabout thewalls ofRome thatmoves theinmostdepths
of man. When a metal plate is struck,the iron resounds and the echoing
is stoppedonlyby layingone's fingeron it. In the same way, Rome moves
the spiritthat is in communicationwith antiquity.Indeed, one stroke
followsanother,untileveryside of a man is moved and aroused, and he
finallycomes to consciousness of all that was slumberingwithin him"
(SB 32-33).
Bachofen'semphasison the correspondencebetween the innerand the
outerworlds,and his confidencein theimmediacyofunderstandingwhich
this correspondenceultimatelypermitshas, predictably,as its corollary
a keen dislike and distrustof books and of the knowledge mediated by
books. Bachofen'sgoal is presence. Understandingforhim is ultimately
a kindof religiousexperience,a turningto or possessionby the other,and
he is impatientwith anythingthat smacks of "Schulmeisterei,""Kleinmeisterei"(C 67, 123), or thepainstakingminutiaeof eruditionand textual
criticism."There are two roads to every kind of knowledge," he once
wrote,
thelonger,
slower,morelaboriousone ofintellectual
combination,
and theshorter
roadof the
one,theone we coverwiththeenergyand speedof electricity-the
whenitis touchedbythesightand theimmediate
imagination
contactofancient
in a flash,withoutanyintermediate
remainsand graspsthetruth
steps(SB 31).8
As a legal scholar and a practicingjudge, his attitudeto the law was
markedby the same distrustof books and writtencodes-the dead letter
in contrastto the livingspirit-as his attitudeto scholarshipin general.
7 Cf. Grabersymbolik,
in GW4: 479: "The religiousevolutionof mankindfollowsthe same
law thatis manifestedin the developmentof the individual."
80 Again the parallel with Micheletis striking.
The Golden Bough, which will allow the
historianto unlock the secretsof the past and "faireparlerles silences de l'histoire,"is to
be found in his own heart(Michelet,Journal,1: 378, 1842). The road to knowledgeof the
world is at the same timea journeyinto the interiorof the self: "De quoi l'histoires'est-elle
faite,sinon de moi? De quoi l'histoirese referait-elle,
sinon de moi?" (Michelet,Journal,1:
382, 1842). But Bachofen is here echoing his formerFrench teacher at the Padagogium,
AlexandreVinet.In his Chrestomatie
(Basle, 1829-1830), which was based on his class lectures,Vinetdistinguishesbetweenthe laboriousroad to abstractknowledge(savoir)and the
immediacyof insight(voir).See Chrestomatie
(2nd. ed., Basle: J.G. Neukirch,1836), 78.

50
Legal codes which are so abstractlyconceivedthattheyare unintelligibleto most

people and judgmentsconsistingof endless considerationsof a far more formal
thanmaterialnature. . . have destroyedall thebeautyof the old Swiss law. They
have put an end to the preciousharmonybetween the law and the whole outlook
of the people and to the immediacy of its often Solomon-like decisions.
. . .The traditionalsense of the law is now so thoroughlycorruptedthatjudges
themselvescan be heard expressingthe view that a legal maxim is valid only
because it stands in the code, and an infamyis punishable only because the law
expresslydeclares it inadmissible.
Nevertheless, to the student of Savigny, the law as practiced in Basle, and
as he himself practiced it, still retained something of its antique quality.
The judge
is morethan a legal machine,he is a judge in the fullsense of the word,and must
seek the groundsof his judgmentsin his intelligence,his experienceof life and
his moral principles.Even referencesto the commonwrittenlaws of the Empire
are always understoodand explained as an indicationof the law and of where
instructionmightbe found,never as an acknowledgmentthat the forceof law
residesin the actual textof the Roman law. Thus quotationachieves nothing,texts
and authoritiesprove nothing.If an opinion is to carrythe day, it mustbe on the
The mere words of a passage, the

strength of its inner motivation....
avTrO(0,a of the Pythagoreans,never relievethe judge of the obligationto think
forhimself(SB 39).
Bachofen's distrust of books and words-which is in essence a devaluation of the sign in favor of the living idea of which the sign is held to
be the inert and lifeless image-is a persistent feature of western thought,
notably of the Platonic and Christian traditions in which both he and his
teachers were steeped.8' The reference to Plato is explicit in the letters to
Savigny. In the autobiographical letter of September 1854, he declares
that he is convinced of the truth of the Platonic view that "even the best
written works are always only like silent pictures of which one has a
thousand questions to ask, with no hope of ever receiving an answer"
(SB 21). He does not like books, he repeats in another letter,and reproduces
the objections outlined in Plato's seventh Letter-the deformation of the
writer's meaning, which the writtentext is powerless to prevent, the coldness and alienation that take the place of original human contact, the
vulgarization that replaces the intimacy and directness of communication
among a privileged, like-minded few.
I shrinkfromthe generalscholarlypublic withits coldness and disinterestedness.
I do not like it. How rarelyit happens that words are understoodas they were
image arises
intendedin the mind of the writer.In most cases a totallydifferent
in the reader'ssoul fromthatenvisagedby the composerof it. And as thisimage
is completelydumb, cannot answer questions,explain its origin,resolve doubts,
81One of Creuzer'smajor workswas an editionof Plotinus(Oxford,1835). Bockhbegan

his careerwith editionsof various Platonicdialogues (1807, 1810), and contributedseveral
papers on aspects of Platonicphilosophy.

51
I simplydo notpermit
itto entertheworld.Truedelightand genuinesatisfaction
in whichone sparklightsup
come onlyfroman immediatespiritualrapport,
another,everyonebothgivesand receivesback,and thesprouting
and growth
oftheseedcanbe observedbyall. Sincethediscovery
ofprinting
thisdelighthas
becomerathertheexception
dwindledconsiderably,
thantherule,and falleninto
neglect.Forthebookhas communicated
itscharacter
to oraldiscourse
too.Whereverthepresent-day
scholarappears-in universities,
academies,or learnedsomeas anything
cieties-hehas neverstruck
buta bookreadingitself.
A bookthat
is delivered
up to thepublicis likea coinI havespent.I am thepoorerforit,and
notindeedby theloss of partof mywealth-thatcan be madeup-but by the
loss ofpartofmyself
(C 82, 1855).
Bachofen'sattitudeis not only nourishedon his own familiarity
with
traditionalPlatonic and Christianideas, it reflects,as we shall see again
laterin more detail,the positionof his teachersand masters,of Bockh at
Berlinor of Creuzer, Bockh's friend,protectorand formercolleague at
Heidelberg.In the sometimesacrimoniousdebate,in the earlydecades of
the century,between the school of Wolf and his pupil Bockh on the one
hand, and thatof Gottfried
Hermann,professorat Leipzigfrom1803 until
1848, and his studentChristianLobeck,professorat K6nigsbergfrom1840
to 1860, on theother,Hermannand his students,whose linguisticmastery
of Greek and Latin was legendary,denigratedthe low level of language
competenceand the primitivenatureof the textualcriticismpracticedin
the seminarsof Wolf and Bockh, while the latterand theirfriendsand
studentsdespised the narrownessof theiropponents' textualscholarship
and the presumptuousnessof theiremendationsand conjectures.In the
correspondenceof Bockh,Muller,and Welcker,"sachsischtrivial"became
a bywordforthe traditionalphilology,focusingexclusivelyon words and
books, that was supposedly practicedby Hermann and his school and
that stood opposed to the more comprehensive,historicallyorientedAlor generalstudyof antiquity,championedby Wolf.82
tertumswissenschaft,
The definitionof philologygiven year afteryear in Bockh's lecturesascribedto it an even vasterscope. In Bockh's eyes philologywas no longer
to be restricted
even to antiquity;itwas thehuman science,par excellence,
to borrowa modernterm,and its goal was the studyand understanding
of the entirerealm of human experienceas expressedin the productsof
or worksof art-"Erkenntnis
human culture,whetherbooks, institutions
des Erkannten,"in Bockh's own lapidaryphrase.83The aim of Bockh and
his school was to go behind the word to the "innerlife" thatit attempted
to convey.84
82
Hoffmann,August
Bockh,164, 220; Bravo,Philologie,85-86 et passim; FriedrichPaulsen,
Geschichte
desgelehrten
Unterrichts
aufdendeutschen
SchulenundUniversitaiten
(Leipzig:Veit,
1885), 546, 638-42; A. Bernardiniand G. Righi,II Concettodi filologiae di culturaclassica
nel pensieromoderno(Bari: Laterza, 1947), 459-67.
83 AugustBockh, Encyklopadie
undMethodologie
derphilologischen
ed. Ernst
Wissenschaften,
Bratuschek(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1877), 18.
84 Cf. C. 0. Muller, Prolegomenazu einer wissenschaftlicher
Mythologie(Gottingen:
Vandenhoekund Ruprecht,1825): "Kann man blosse Zusammenhaufungvon Faktennoch

52
Thereseems no questionthatBachofenshared the views of his masters

in the study of antiquity.Even his terms of abuse ("Schulmeisterei,"
"schmulmeistern")are theirs.In the conditionsof the 1850s and 1860s,
-mere erudition-and of
moreover,his hatredof mere "Gelehrsamkeit"
the extremealienation that he saw resultingfromnarrowlycriticaland
rationalistmodes of analysis,ratherthan sympatheticinsight,coincided
with his opposition to the democratizationand institutionalization
of
fromthevocationof a fewintoan industry
learningand itstransformation
employingmany. This he perceived as the consequence of substituting
formulas,techniques,and easily accessible professionalmethodsforthe
kind of unmethodical,historicallyacquired,traditionally
transmitted
lore
and learningof the patricianscholar.
The privilegeof presence also accounts for the oftenrepeated claim
that ancient civilizationcannot be understoodfroma distance,through
books, but onlyby placingoneselfat the heartof the verynatureand the
verysoil out of which it grew.Bachofen'sadoption of thisview coincides
with the overwhelmingexperienceof his firstvisitto Italyin 1842-1843
and withhis conversionto a new typeof scholarship.In a mildlyflattering
letterwrittenon his returnto Emil Braun, who was with the German
ArchaeologicalInstitutein Rome, he comparesthe bookish scholaralienated in the cold Northwiththose fortunateenough to feel on theircheek
the warm breathof Italian reality:
How oppressivethepoverty
of our Germanlifeis, how inadequateto thetrue
ofantiquity.
Whoeverhas seenItalybutoncewith
and enjoyment
contemplation
feelhow we in theseparts,withall our study,can
his senseswillimmediately
atthegreatspectacleofantiquity;
onlymanagetopeeroutfromourobscurecorner
in Italyis alreadyplacedin themidst
whereasthescholarwholivesandmeditates
ofit;lifeand studyuniteto formin hima fundamental
of antiquity
conception
he produceslikea livingbreathand spreadsa charm
whichpenetrates
everything
fromthe
overhisworksthatis as difficult
to describeas thecharmofa sculpture
bestperiod(C 18, 1844).
Book knowledgealways remainedassociated in Bachofen'swritingwith
distance,inadequacy, lifelessness,lack of warmth,alienation fromthe
sourceof lifeand light,fromnatureand the mothers,withthe suffocating
obscurityand enclosureof male-dominatedbourgeoislife.The images of
smoke-filled
rooms,fogs,obscuredlight-the Platoniccave, in sum-recur
again and again in his writingin connectionwiththe contemporary
world,
withcontemporary
scholarship,and especiallywithMommsen.85In conthe immediacyof vision.
trast,Italyis theland of sun, light,transparency,
Historienennen,und muss nichtin jedem Felde derGeschichtswissenschaft
auf den Sprossen
der Faktenzur KenntnisinnerenSeins und Lebens aufgestiegenwerden?" (336); similarly
in Die Dorier(1824; 2nd ed., Breslau:JosefMax, 1844), Muller speculates that "das Wesen
der Kunstdarin besteht,dass sich ein innerlichesLeben in einer sinnlichwahmehmbaren
Form . . .darstelle" (2: 370).
85 Cf. M 10, 13; C 18, 1851: "obscurato coelo et luce occulta"; there are innumerable
referencesin the Correspondenceto the smoke-filledrooms and the "Rauchclubbiste"of
Berlin.

53
"Every day," he wroteMeyer-OchsnerfromRome in 1865,

I see something
new,receivean impulsionto new insights
aboutancientRome,
view the forum,the sewers,the restoredPalatine. . . and whatI read in the
ancientsacquiresinthiswayso muchfleshandbloodthatin myheadI can easily
peoplethosehills,valleys,and ruinswiththe old lifeand imagineeverything
beforemyveryeyes.You knowthatI am convincedof thehistorical
occurring
oftheRomantradition
andhavenothing
butpityforourultramontane
authenticity
I am
armchair
scholars. . . Herein dailycontactwiththe oldestmonuments
doubtsaboutRomulusand stoodon thesideof
ashamedthatI onceentertained
YetI alsofeelkeenlyhowharditmustbe inthesmoketheallegorical
interpreters.
inthemidstofdeformed
filled
roomsofthecoldNorth,
andmisshapen
rationalists,
visionof things.Forhistory
to arriveat anyrealor correct
is notonlyin books,
and whatone sees hereeverydayoftheold and thenew-objectsand men,sky
and wood,hilland dale,fieldand stream-speakslouderthana thousandbooks
(C 199).
Bachofen's antipathyto books, his intense feelingfor landscape and

monuments,and his longingto stand again in the presence of antiquity
did not, of course,lead him away frombooks; theysimplyled to a kind
of writingwhich attemptedto deny or transcendits own characteras
writing,and which he shared with many otherRomanticand realistauthors.The haunting,unforgettabledescriptionsof the Roman campagna
in the GeschichtederRimerare the work of a Romanticpoet of the first
order:theycreatea visionarylandscape into which the reader is invited
to step,as ifintothetimelessnatureof Rome itself.They evoke,one might
say, the luminousbody of thatmaternalgoddess whom the Bachofenof
the autobiographylonged to embrace directly,not in mere signs and imBachofen'smodel forsuch an anti-bookishbook
ages. Characteristically,
was itselfanother book. In the great letterto Savigny he relates that
Winckelmann'sHistoryofArthad givenhim "one of thegreatestpleasures
of my entirelife."
of artlies in . . . thenobleclassicalgrace
The magicof Winckelmann's
history
thework.One cannothelp seeingthatit was
. . . thatis diffused
throughout
written
beneaththewarmer
sunofItaly,whereone feelseverything
moredeeply,
painand joy and thetruemeaningofthings;itis no productofoursmokystudy
rooms,withtheirrancidsmellof tallowcandlesand oil lamps(M 10).
Explaininghis own endeavorin the GeschichtederRomerto WilhelmHenzen some yearslater,Bachofentook up the same themesand images. His
naturedescriptionswere necessary,he declared,in orderto transportthe
northernpublic into a landscape of which it had no glimmering.The
northernreader's
land,people,and ideas are so entirely
different
fromeverything
thatsurrounds
the Romanpeople,thathe mustfirstbe broughtto feelthisdifference
and be
introduced
intothesouthern
landscape.Fromthisneedsprangmyefforts
in the
I was notatall interested
inproviding
first
essays[oftheGeschichte].
a topographic
butin portraying
theland in generaland itsintimate
description
relationto the

54
All thedetailsare intendedto servethisend and they

natureof theinhabitants.
(C 65, 1850).
significance
arenotmeantto have anyautonomous
As criticismand bookish study-"Schulmeisterei"-never gain access
to the life of the past, but remainalways externalto it, shut up "in the
roomsof the cold North,"the knowledgetheyprovidenever
smoke-filled
has the wholeness of life; it always consists of lifeless fragments.The
critical,analyticalintellect,in sum, which is unable to give itselfup to the
object,but standsback fromit to dominateit,failsalways to carryoffthe
prize. Its knowledge is not the knowledge the lover has of his beloved,
but the knowledgethe anatomisthas of a corpse. In the greatprefacehe
wroteto his Histoirede Francein 1869 Micheletevoked the artist-historian
settingout on his journeyto the underworldand being advised by the
men of reason, the philosophers,to arm himself,like Aeneas, with a
sword,in orderto maintainhis distancefromthe dangerousspectersthat
will crowd round him. Michelet'shistorianrejectsthe advice in horror:
ofthetruenature
ignorant
is thephilosopher
Fatalwisdom!. . . Oh howperfectly
ofhistory
and thatenables
oftheartist,
ofthesecrettalismanthatis thestrength
ittopassto and frobetweenthelivingand thedead! . . . You shouldknowthen,
a weapon,without
rudelydisturbing
a sword,without
ignorant
men,thatwithout
evenas itgathers
soulswhoaskforresurrection,
artretainsitslucidity
thetrusting
breathto them.86
themto itselfand restores
In Bachofen'scase, rejectionof violence in interpretation
and respectfor
the othernessof the other led the historianon occasion to adopt the
humblerole of the collector."I shall not be too proud," he wroteSavigny,
"to appear in the modestpositionof a collectorwho here and therecontributessomethingto the understandingof the materialand to the unravellingof the antique idea embedded in it, even if most of it, like old
bas-reliefs,remainsunresolvedand unexplained" (SB 45).
The sword of criticismprotects,to be sure, against absorptionby the
other;it is a defenseagainstmadness,alienation,and loss of identity;but
it also precludes authenticunderstandingof the other.Analysis divides
but no addition
and dismembers,yieldingonly disconnectedfragments,
of fragmentsever restoresa whole. In Bachofen'sRomantichermeneutics
the organic whole, life, continuity,is always privilegedover any "mechanical" assemblage of parts."The truth,"he wrotein Tanaquil,"is discoveredin the necessaryrelationsof all the membersand in the internal
coherencyof the whole, not piece by piece" (GW 6: 54). "Sheer quantity
of information,"
he had writtenyearsbeforein the autobiographicalletter
to Savigny," is not everything;it is not even the main thing" (SB 44).
Betweenthese two testimonies,the same persistentthemeis sounded in
a letterto Meyer-Ochsnerin 1863 on ancientburial customs:"We have
an overabundance of details, but we are virtuallywithoutany comprehensive views." Real understandingcannot be expected fromacademic
86
Histoirede France(Paris: J.Hetzel et Cie, n.d.), 1: 7.

55
("schulmassig")archaeology,which considersits task completedonce the

figureson bas-reliefsor sarcophagi have been identified,but only from
the scholar who ardentlylongs for "living thoughts,and not mere dry
notices,"and who knows thathe must look forthemin part in his own
innermostdepths. "The demands of eruditionare limitedto the detail"
(C 173).
In thestudyof veryearlyhistory,in particular,theanalyticaland critical
methodis inappropriate,accordingto Bachofen.The historicaltestimony
ofthemythshas to be takenas a whole, and itmakesno sense to scrutinize
each part of a myth,rejectingone and acceptinganother.The historicity
of the storyof the Danaids, forinstance,is
Hisof a quitedifferent
orderfromthatwhichcan be claimedfora Thucydides.
undGenauigkeit']
aretwoentirely
ofdetail['Geschichtlichkeit
toricity
and exactness
different
things.Therecan be no questionof thelatteras faras theprehistorical
to
mustbe evaluatedby thecriteria
appropriate
Everything
ages are concerned.
by whichHerasoughtto punishthecrime
it.No one detailofthegreatstruggle
has moreclaimtocredibility
thananyother.Butthecore
oflo on herdescendants
bothseekingpower,todetermine
oftworelatedfamilies,
oftheevent-thestruggle
but
themaleor thefemalelineshallpredominate-isno poeticfiction,
whether
morethanoncein
whichmankindhas probably
a genuineexperience
undergone
GW2: 286-87).
similarconditions
(Mutterrecht,
themereexerciseof criticalscholAs themereamassingof information,
arshiphad always seemed deadlyto him,Bachofendetestedtheincreasing
institutionalization
and organizationof scholarship,which he associated,
as we saw, with the influenceof Mommsen,with the growingpower of
thestate,and withdemocracy.As earlyas 1847, advisingAndreasHeusler,
a leadingmemberof theGreatCouncil who had been largelyinstrumental
in procuringhis own appointmentto a universitypost at Basle, about a
candidate fora positionin law at the university,he distinguishedthree
types of scholar: the "creative nature who will open up new paths of
scholarship,"theindependentscholarwho will "pursue his own path and
stamp his genius on everythinghe does," and lastlythe scholar with "a
certaingeneralculture."Scholars of the firstvarietyare rare:"How many
of themare thereanyway?And where are theyto be found?" But even
those of the second class have become uncommonand it is the thirdtype
thatpredominates:"In our age, even men's minds have been put in uniform.Only a veryfew emergefromthe school and the lecture-hallwith
theirown essential selves intact" (C 45). The democraticspiritfavors
professionalismand vulgarization,the adaptationof antiquityto modern
mass consumption,insteadof the arduous effort
to reach out to antiquity:
"Kochly,"he wrotedisparaginglyofa Zurichcolleaguewho was preparing
an abridgmentof the Iliad, "schulmeistertden Homer. Wahre GaribaldiLiteratur"(C 123, 1860). And in a commenton educationin his autobiographicalletterto Savignyhe noted:
If presentmaterialistic
learningis likelyonce moreto
trendsbecomedominant,
whichwilllack statesupport,and musthave recourseto
becomea priesthood

56
privatefundsand privateactivity
of all sorts.Onlythenwillit be possibleto
realizetheideal of whichI have spokenand to eradicatetheliterary
proletariat
withall itsevilconsequences
(M 8).
Professionalcriticismis withoutvalue because it can be impartedmechanicallyto large numbersand to a uniformstandard,and requiresa
bureaucraticsalaried professorate,for whom education and scholarship
are not a deeply-experienced,personal vocation but a business and a
career.Both mass education and vast co-operativescholarlyenterprises,
such as Mommsen'scelebratedCorpusInscriptionum
Latinarum,
forwhich
Bachofennever let slip an opportunityof expressinghis contempt,were
at odds with an essentiallyreligiousview of scholarshipas a prophetic
vocationor at least a high priesthoodof the elect. "It is not the man who
has chosen his studies," he once remarkedof the Duc de Luynes, "but
they that have chosen him" (SB 29), and in the remarkableeulogy of
Streuber:
In thedecisivemoments
ofourliveswe seldomfreely
determine
ourownactions.
Whatappearstobe ourworkhas itsultimate
originin a higherdesign.We believe
we chooseourvocation,butin factwe are chosenby it. Thereinlies itshigher
thereinthe sourceof the joy withwhichwe carryit out and the
justification,
blessingthatitbringsto us (WTSvi-vii).
Toward theend ofhis lifeBachofentoldJosefKohlerthathe felthimself
a hermit-one cannot help recallingBurckhardt'ssympatheticportrayal
of the early Christianhermitsin Die Zeit Konstantins
des Grossen(1853)
and, thoughBachofenused the term"Einsiedler,"one is also reminded
of the subtitleof H6lderlin'sHyperion:"Der Eremitin Griechenland"and thathe was convincedneitherhis ideas northekindofanthropological
evidence he was collectingforthemwould be accepted by the academic
establishmentof his time.But it is unlikelythathis isolationever led him
to question his position; on the contrary,it seems, as in the case of an
earlierSwiss Jean-Jacques,
to have been interpretedby him as a sign of
the rightnessof his cause. In the religiouscontextwhich appears to have
been that of nearly all Bachofen's thoughtand experience,persecution
and martyrdomare confirmation
of the purityof faith.
Afterhis resignationfromthe universityin 1844 Bachofenceased, as
we have already observed,to regardhis vocation as that of teacherand
educator of the youth of his city,and saw himselfratheras a lonely
witnessto the truthin a fallenworld,in which a small numberat best,
if it were the will of Providence,mightheed his words. Increasingly,as
he felthimselfbecoming more and more eccentricwith respect to the
interestsand activitiesof academic philologists,he sought to associate
himselfwith othermarginalfiguresand to discernin themfellow spirits
possessed by the same vision of truthor responding,as if throughthe
of divine grace,to his call.
intervention
der Alten (1859) to
He dedicated his Versuchuiberdie Griabersymbolik
Ludwig Ross, who shared his isolation and exclusion fromthe contem-

57
porarycirclesof scholarship,his passionate enthusiasmforthe land and

landscape of Greece and Asia Minor, which Ross knew well and had
describedin numeroustravelaccounts,and, above all, his fierceopposition
to Niebuhr,his rejectionof the "fanatic overestimationof the Greeks"
(Hellenika,Halle, 1846), and his insistenceon the priorityof the Oriental
peoples as teachersof the Greeks and Romans. He also sought encouragementand supportoutside the ranks of professionalphilologists,and
indeed outside the world of German-speakingscholars,fromearly anthropologistsand sociologistslike Lewis Henry Morgan, Alexis GiraudTeulon, and JosefKohler,fromthe literaryhistorianFelix Liebrechtin
Utopian, and amateursoLiege, fromElie Reclus, the Frenchlitterateur,
ciologist,and ProsperBiardot,a Parisiancollectorwho shared some of his
ideas about Greekvases. In them,he triedto discerna band of electwhom
he could oppose to Mommsen and the academic establishment.Having
come across an essay on funeraryurnsby an unknownFrenchman(Brogdes terrescuitesde rapportfuneraire)in a
niart,Explicationdu symbolisme
bookshop on the Quai Voltairein Paris, he tells Meyer-Ochsnerthat he
has succeeded in establishingcontactwiththe author,who has ideas very
similarto his own. "I have the greatestrespect," he wrote, "for such
people, who belong to no clique, and receive no professionalsalary,yet
spend yearafteryear . . . livingonlyfortheirwork" (C 189, 1864). Years
later,withthe same patricianpridein his amateurstatus,he wroteto Elie
Reclus that
n'etantpointhommed'ecole,je n'ecrispointpourdes savantstelsque les grands
in Paris],maispour
du PontNeuf[oftheAcademiedes Inscriptions
Academiciens
versles origines
de notre
nontitr'es,
deshommesintelligents
qui aimentse reporter
especeet d'etudier[sic]un etatde barbariedontnousn'avonspas le droitd'etre
honteux(C 305, 1880).
At least two membersof Bachofen'spriesthood,Morganand Liebrecht,
did not share his antique conservatism.As a group,it was by no means
made up of like-mindedsouls, as Bachofen would have liked to think.
On the contrary,it was utterlyheteroclite;and it held togetheronly as
a lonely old man's imaginaryrefugefroma hated, contemporaryreality
which was symbolizedfor him by the academic establishmentand the
conceptionsof antiquityand of scholarshipthatit fostered.

V. BACHOFEN AND THE NEOHUMANIST

TRADITION
B
5
achofen'sopposition
totheacademicscholarship
thathad gradually
emergedin Germany,notablyunder Prussian leadership,by the

1850s and 60s, was no doubt violent, one-sided, and perhaps
taintedby paranoia. It has been shown,quite convincingly,
thatin general,
as a personality,Bachofenhad greatdifficulty
relatingto realitynot only
in his scholarlyactivitybut also in his personal relations.His essentially
religiousideal of immediatepresenceto the otherwas bound to meetwith
constantshipwreckin the world of everydaysocial reality.In a fairand
sensitivestudy,the Swiss classicistThomas Gelzer has argued thatboth
Bachofen's scholarshipand his personal life were characterizedby repeated efforts
to adjust the empiricalworld,in which he did not feel at
home, to a visionaryworld of his own making,by the repeated failure
of theseefforts,
and, followingthe experiencesof failure,by repeatedacts
of withdrawal,whichaggravatedand deepened the originalestrangement
fromreality.87
Thereis not much doubt thatBachofendislikedthe realityof the world
aroundhim and felthimselfan exilein it. "Mihi ipsi exul in propriapatria
videor," he once wrote to AgostinoGervasio,not simplyout of a desire
to his Italian correspondent(C 19,
to say somethingelegantand flattering
There
is
doubt
1844).88
not much
eitherthathe constantlysoughtrefuge,
in scholarship,in thepast,in imaginaryworlds,froma present
in literature,
with which he felthimselfout of tune and out of sympathy."Equidem
semperobscuratocaelo et luce occulta ad litteras,tamquamad aram confugi," he wrote Gervasio seven years later (C 69, 1851); and fromthe
Paris of Louis Napoleon in 1864: "How contemptibleall that imperial
brillianceseemed to me! But the Campana Museum was there,and so,
in the year 1864, I was able to spend many days among the Etruscans"
(C 188).89 The world he claimed to have found in the remoteantiquity
of the race may well have been in some measure an ideal construction
Zeitschrift
far Geschichte19 (1969): 779-869.
Schweizerische
"Die Bachofen-Briefe,"
agam exilium?"
Cf. C 39, 1846: "Semperne in patriatristissimum
89 Cf. C 84, 1856, in whichhe tellsMeyer-Ochsner
of a journeyto Vienna,Dresden,Berlin
and Munich and of conversationswith scholarsthere:"Im Ganzen aber habe ich mich mit
den Todten besser unterhalten,und ich muss gestehn,ich wuirdesie auch jetztungernean
die Lebendentauschen."SimilarlyC 189, 1864: "Aus Uberdrussan all dem modemenGefasel
lese ich nur noch die Alten;" and C 261, 1869: "Darum ist mirdas Alterthumso lieb, weil
auf sehrschlechtemFusse stehe,so schlechtals nurimmer
ich mitdermodernenHerrlichkeit
das Pabstthum."Bachofenmay well have been saved froma moredestructiveestrangement
irony.
by his self-directed
87
88
58

BACHOFEN AND THE NEOHUMANIST TRADITION
59
that served to console him for an empiricalrealityin which-"prince

d'Aquitainea la tourabolie"-he feltreduced to impotence,and to justify
in his own eyes his distasteand contemptforthatreality.It was his futile
attemptto combinethe two realmsof the empiricaland the visionary,the
real and the imaginary,to presenthis visions as founded on empirical
damaged
observations,accordingto ProfessorGelzer, that irretrievably
Bachofen'sreputationas a scholar and reduced the value of his contriHis greatestworks,
bution to the scientificstudy of social institutions.90
Gelzer holds, are those that are least scholarly,or least burdened by an
apparatus of evidence thatis never trulyintegratedinto his text:the autobiographicalsketch,the journal of the journeyto Greece, the introducand to Tanaquil. If only Bachofenhad accepted
tions to the Mutterrecht
thepoetic,visionary,and nonempiricalnatureofhis work,Gelzersuggests,
everythingwould have gone much betterforhim.
Thereis much thatis tellingin thisargument.Nevertheless,the import
of Bachofen'sworkis drasticallyreducedby treatinghim as a pathological
case of maladjustmentto reality.A similarargumentcould easily be applied to H6lderlin,forinstance,whose intenseunhappinesswiththe present-"ein Totengarten"(Hyperion,
I)-and whose ardentlongingforwhat
he definedvariouslyas nature,the divine,and the world of the glorious
dead, so strikingly
anticipatesBachofen.Yet it cannot seriouslybe maintained that an explanationin termsof his personalitycan do justice to
H6lderlin'spoetic achievement.Bachofen'sprotestwas directedprecisely
at the distinctionof two truthsand two realms-one soberlyscientific
and
theotherpoeticor visionary-that ProfessorGelzer thinkshe would have
done well to recognize.Indeed, it could be arguedthatthemostimportant
effectof Mommsen's dominationof the fieldof classical philologywas to
have driven a wedge between the detailed and "scientific"labor of the
scholar and the synthesizingand "poetic" work of the historianproper.
Mommsenhimselfregardedthe latter,the supposed goal and culmination
of the scholar's endeavors,in the way some skepticsthinkof God, alternatelywith ironyas illusoryand unattainable,and with awe as an ideal
reservedfora few privilegedsouls.91Bachofen,on the otherhand, was
not willing,it seems, eitherto accept a formof peaceful coexistence,with
a division of spheres of influence,or even to claim absolute superiority
forthe spiritualover the material.All his workis a protestagainstdivision
and discontinuity-betweenthe materialand the spiritual,earthand sun,
90 Baeumleralso pointsto Bachofen'srefusalor inabilityto distinguishbetween the mythical and the historicalas the principalflaw of his work: "He raises once more the barrier
between mythicaland historicaltimewhich Schellinghad so shrewdlyand prudentlylowered. Beginningand end, mythand historyare one forBachofen.He who would understand
and enjoy Bachofen,withoutat the same time puttinghis criticalfacultiesto sleep, must
himselfreintroduceinto his work the barrierbetween mythand history.Bachofen'swork
can be read as purelymythological-and thisis the conditionthatmakes it possible to love
itwithouta sacrificium
intellectus"("Bachofenund die Religionsgeschichte,"
in Das mythische
Weltalter,
233).
91 See Heuss, TheodorMommsen,
116-27.

60
theAsiatic(or Christian)and the Greek,the sacred and the profane,myth

and history,motherand father,natureand law, the past and the present,
the dead and the living;and also against everyrevolutionaryattemptto
restoreunityby violentlysuppressingone of the terms.
In takingthispositionBachofenwas not,I believe,a renegadefromthe
traditionof Germanphilologynor an aberrantfigurewhose work is disof personal psychology;and it is possible to
tortedby fatefuldifficulties
as he appears to have seen himself:
see him,withconsiderablejustification,
that is, as the faithfulknightof an abandoned, beloved cause. For the
greattraditionof Germanneohumanistand Romanticphilology,in which
he had been raised and nourished,almost certainlytook its place in his
eyes alongsidethoseothervictimsof timeand man's cruelingratitudethat
he took it upon himselfto champion and to redeem: the Mothers,the
dead, vanished or vanishingcommunitiessuch as those of the Engadine,
which he describedin one of his lettersto Savigny,and of the Hebridean
islands,whichhe visitedduringhis sojournin the BritishIsles (C 78, 1854;
SB 24). All, in his eyes, had been repudiatedby the childrenthey had
raised and nourished;all were the object of his pious, filialattention.
His eulogy of Streuberleaves no doubt of the significancethe years in
Berlinhad had forBachofen,of "the magic which the FriedrichWilhelm
Universityexerciseson young,receptive,and eager spirits,"as he put it.
"As one new born," he declared, "Streuberwas blessed in Berlinwith
what no subsequenttimeof lifeever bringsback"-a feelingof harmony
withthepresentand confidencein the future,a sense of therightnessand
of enthusiasmand idealism.When he finallyleftBerlin,"his mood
efficacy
was thatof a man who has been flyinghigh in a dream world and now,
on awakening,feelshimselfsinkingdown to the harsh terrainof reality"
(WTS vi, vii, xii). In 1857 the memoryof a Berlinthat had been a focus
ofthemostgenerousidealismwas obviouslystillfreshin Bachofen'smind,
painfullyfreshas he beheld it now, usurped and invaded, as he believed,
by a generationof crass,self-seekingmaterialists.
This does not mean that comingafterthe greatdays of German philology,afterHumboldt and Bockh and Muller, in whom, as in ancient
Italy,he seems to have perceived "a sense of the measure and fullness
of all things,the supreme human harmony,"(M, 10) Bachofen did not
emphasize certainaspects of the traditionhe had inheritedat the expense
of certainothers.The tradition,afterall, was broken and lost for him,
alreadyan object of nostalgia.Nor does it mean that factorsof personal
psychologydid not affecthis work,at least as the conditionof an acute
to certainfeaturesof contemporary
reality.This is trueof most
sensitivity
or of H6lderlin,withboth
artists,notleast of an earlierSwiss Jean-Jacques
shows
affinities.
of whom Bachofen
Moreover,it must be acsurprising
inside a familyand a
that
a
develops
personal psychology
knowledged
fromthem.I would
in
abstraction
viewed
be
and
cannot
easily
community
thereforeclaim not only thatBachofen'spositionis intelligiblein the contextof the philologicaltraditionhe was raised in, but that it opens up

61
questionswhichare notspiritedaway by pointingto his own psychological

peculiarities.
In oppositionto the criticaland positivistschool, which he saw everywhere ascendant,Bachofen may have given undue emphasis to certain
aspects of the philologicaltradition.Most of his basic positionscan, however,be foundin the essentialwritingsof the greatphilologistswho were
his masters.In his autobiographicalletterto Savignyhe himselfdeclared
thatphilologywas the beginningand the end of all his studies(M 3); and
he presentedthis as the essential difference
between his own approach
to the studyof law and the moresystematicapproach of Savignyhimself.
I was drawnto thestudyoflaw byphilology.
It is herethatI startedand hither
towardmyfieldhas
thatmylegalstudiesled meback.In thisrespectmyattitude
alwaysremainedunchanged.Romanlaw has alwaysstruckme as a branchof
of Latinphilology,
henceas partof a vastfieldencomclassicaland particularly
Whatinterested
mewas theancientworld
passingthewholeofclassicalantiquity.
ofitslessonsto present-day
itselfand nottheapplicability
needs;it was ancient
and notmodernRomanlaw thatI reallywantedto study.Withtheseattitudes
I oftenfoundmyselfin a painfuloppositionto the
takenoverfromphilology,
instructors
and books I had chosenas my guides.More and moreI came to
themodernpointofviewand subordinate
I feltan
itto ancientcriteria.
disregard
distasteforall modernsystems.I wantedto see the materialin its
increasing
to adjustit to modernconceptions
as
originalformand lookedon all attempts
of a sortthatwereboundto frustrate
meremisrepresentations
any trueunderofancientlife.It struck
me as an unwarranted
thatcould
standing
dogmatization
I was also dissatisfied
withthecurrent
method
onlyresultin errorand perplexity.
whichstruckme as no betterthanJustinian's
dream
of resolving
controversies,
Itseemedtomemuchmore
freefromdoubtand contradiction.
ofa jurisprudence
fruitful
toinvestigate
theprofound
reasonswhyequallydistinguished
jurists
could
cometo entirely
different
conclusions
(M 3-4).
Whatever Bachofen's personal and intellectualsympathywith Savigny-as expressed,for instance,in his Inaugural Lecture at the Universityof Basle on Das Naturrechtund das geschichtliche
Recht(1841)the views expressedin the 1854 letterare, as he himselfindicates,at odds
with those of the addressee. In his Systemdes heutigenromischenRechts
(1840-1849), Savigny formulatedhis principles and intentionsvery
clearly,placing "the essence of the systematicmethodin the knowledge
and exhibitionof the innate connexion or of the relationshipby which
the singleideas and rulesof law are attachedto a greatunity."92Savigny's
primaryinterestlay in modernRoman law and while he saw law as the
creationand expressionof the life of a people, in the same way that his
close friendand formerstudentJacob Grimmlooked on language, he
92 Systemof theModernRomanLaw, trans.WilliamHolloway (Madras: J. Higginbotham,

1867), xix.On Savigny,see Giuliano Marini,Savignye il metododella scienzagiuridica(Milan:
A. Giuffre1966), especially120-23, 137-38, 158-59, 167-69; and Aldo Mazzacane, Savigny
e la storiografia
giuridicatrastoriae sistema(Naples: Lignori,1976), especially28-29, 32-35.

62
of thelegal traditionitselfand thecreativefunction

stressedthecontinuity
of the constantadaptationand reformulation
of Roman law by systematic
legal scholarsover the centuries.The aim of his own workwas to achieve
a new systematization
which,unlike rationalistnaturallaw codes, would
remainfaithfulto the legal traditionand the popular spiritembodied in
it. Hermann Kantorowicz,among others,has even argued that Savigny
was a Romanticonlysuperficially,
in his programmatic
or theoreticaldeclarations,and thatin his concreteresearchhe treatedRoman law not as
the productof the organicevolutionof a people, but as an abstractand
universallyvalid system.93
Savigny'spositionis in theend, likeRanke's,one of moderateoptimism
and confidence;and his ideal is "a calm becoming,a movementin which
historyis transformed
into a kind of nature,and changes appear imperceptible,as in the naturalorderof things."94In many respectsit is characteristicof the period of the Regenerationand the liberal Restoration.
Writingin the wake of the hardeningof attitudesand the sharpeningof
conflictsthatfollowedthe revolutionsof 1848, Bachofenin contrastwas
acutelysensitiveto the immensegulfseparatingthe past and the present,
thelost worldof ancientsocietyand what he experiencedas "the poverty
and barrennessof the modernworld" (M 10). For him,thisgulfcould no
longerbe bridgedby adaptingthe past to the presentor, forthatmatter,
the presentto the past,but onlyby a radicaltransformation
or conversion
of the present-that is, in the hermeneuticcontext,of the inquirer.
As it happens, moreover,the effectof Savigny's work in law was to
encouragesystematics;and by 1887 we findJosefKohler,the friendand
admirerof Bachofen in his later years, complaining,fromthe point of
view of the comparativestudyof law and institutions,
thatGermanjurists
had become themostinexorableof systematizers
and thatthe fateof their
disciplinewas tied,in the firstinstance,to the decomposingof factsinto
theirelementsand theclassification
oftheseelementsaccordingto abstract
propertiesand functions.95
In affirming
thecentralimportanceofphilology
to his thoughtand work, Bachofen thus seems to have been tryingto
locatehimselfwithina traditionthathe perceivedas significantly
different
fromthatestablishedby Savigny.
In the lectureson the studyof philology,which August Bockh gave at
Berlinover the years from1811 to his retirement
in 1865, and of which
Zeitschrift,
108, 1912:
93 H. Kantorowicz,"Volksgeistund historischeSchule," Historische
313-19.
94 Mazzacane, Savignye la storiografica
giuridica,29.
f.d. Dogmatikdesheutigenrdmischen
95 "Die schopferische
KraftderJurisprudenz,"
Jahrbuch
unddeutschen
Privatrechts,
25 (1887): 263, quoted by Mazzacane, 35. See also the interesting
of Roman law in lettersto Bachofen
discussionof the historicaland the systematictreatment
withwhom Bachofenhad become
fromthe distinguishedlegal scholarRudolfvon Jhering,
friendlyduringJhering'stenureof a chair in law at the Universityof Basle: "Unbekannte
fur
BriefeR. von Jheringsaus seinerFruhzeit,1846-1852," ed. AlbertBruckner,Zeitschrift
schweizerisches
Recht,neue Folge,53 (1934): 34-71, especiallythe long letterof 26 Oct. 1852.

63
Bachofentook copious notes when he was a studentat the Universityof

Berlinin 1835-37, philologywas presentedas a fundamentallyhistorical
discipline,aimingat knowledgeof the contentsof human consciousness,
and having,like philosophy,no practicalobjective,only the goal of understanding.It did, however, maintainrelationswith many other disciplines,includingthestudyof law. "The jurist,"accordingto Bockh,"needs
philologyin order to arriveat a full knowledge of the sources through
criticismand explanation;the philologist,on the other hand, needs the
the legal relationsof a people, even
conceptof law in orderto reconstruct
to understanditslanguage."96 This does notmean thatthejurist'sobjective
is an immediatepracticalone, but that,as his goal is the understanding
of the laws as such, the historicalor philologicalmomentin his analysis
or the philosophyof the
is a propaedeuticto the discoveryof the 11spirit"
The philologist'svision,however,
law as theseare manifestedin history.97
remainstrainedon the object itself,as the sign of a particularmoment
of culture.It was doubtlessthisaspect of philologythatappealed to Bachofen with his intensesense of the difference
between the ancient world
and themodernone and his intenselongingto immersehimselfcompletely
in thatancientworld.
Justas the philologicallyinspired study of legal historyattemptsto
arriveat an understandingof the spiritof the law and to assist it in its
evolution,the studyof historyitselfmay attemptto derive fromthe investigationof past circumstancesand eventsan understandingof thespirit
and directionof human history.This is the goal ascribedto Bachofenby
Those who have emphasized this
certainof his scholarlyinterpreters.98
aspect of his work, however, may have dismissed too quickly Klages's
claim thatit is tacked on to a more fundamentallove and longingfora
lost past,99if indeed theyhave not totallymisinterpreted
it. The accommodation of the past to the present,the desire to justifythe presentby
exhibitingit as a natural outgrowthof the past was probablyno more
acceptable to Bachofenin historicalstudiesthan it had been in the study
of the law. Moreover,as was argued earlier,Bachofen'svision of man's
destiny-to pass fromthe originaldivine darknessof swamp life to the
finaltriumphof divinelight,fromthe law of matterto thatof spirit-was
a drama played out again and again in historywithoutever being concluded; it did not definethe inevitableshape of universalhistory.Indeed
one completeplayingout of it was visiblein the historyof Rome, which
was thus to be consideredexemplaryratherthan as a momentin a synto the present.
tagmaticseries leading inevitablyand uninterruptedly
19.
Bockh. Encyklopadie,
K. F. Koehler,
ed. GerhardWesenberg(Stuttgart:
Methodenlehre,
Cf. Savigny,Juristische
1951), 48: "Alles Systemfuhrtauf Philosophiehin. Die Darstellungeines bloss historischen
Systemsfuhrtauf eine Einheit,auf ein Ideal, worauf sie sich griindet,hin. Und dies ist
Philosophie."
(Munich:
98 See especially Georg Schmidt,JohannJacobBachofensGeschichtsphilosophie
C. H. Beck, 1929).
Eros,in his SamtlicheWerke,3: 496.
9 See Ludwig Klages, Vomkosmogonischen
96

64
It is probablythis sense of an irretrievableloss, of a world infinitely

remotefromthe presentand only partiallyaccessible to a tinyelect prepared to risk theirall in order to reestablishcontactwith it, that most
effectively
distinguishesBachofen'soutlookfromthe moderateconfidence
and idealismof his masters.Alreadyin the closingyearsof the eighteenth
centurythedesperateintensityof Hblderlin'sexperienceof alienationand
of his yearningforpresencehad led to a markedcooling of the relations
between the young poet and the then leaders of German neoclassicism,
Goethe and Schiller.In an unsympatheticappraisal of classical German
philologyand philosophy,writtenfromthe hostileand criticalviewpoint
of Nietzsche,AlfredBaeumlercastigatesthem-not withoutsome justification-forproposingan insipidlyoptimisticreconciliationof paganism
and Christianity,
heroicpast and bourgeoispresent.Such a reconciliation
was the essentialgoal of Hegel, he claims,but Hegel realized it only "in
the sphere of ideas." Classical philologymoved withinthe same orbitof
ideas as Hegel: thephilologistwas at once Christianand pagan-the latter
only in mattersof taste,of course. In thisway a gutless,mildlydomestic
was joined to a well-meaningestheticism.The studyof anChristianity
tiquitywas tamed by being transformed
into an historicaldiscipline,and
at the same time Christianity
lost its tensionsby becominga simple historicalcondition."Historicism,'culture'," Baeumler concludes, "means
thatneitherthepagan northe Christianis takenreallyseriouslyany more.
This is the contentof the 'general state culture'on the Prussian model,
of that culturewhich Nietzsche was the first,in his Basle lectures,to
combat."100Baeumlernotes thatNietzsche and Bachofenwere at one in
theiroppositionto Hegelian culturaloptimism;and I have suggestedthat
his rejectionof the moderateoptimismof Savigny was also at the root
of Bachofen'sdisillusionmentwith the legal studies of the latter,despite
his deep respectforthe man and forthe ethicalseriousnessof his work.
Baeumler's discussion of the characteristicsynthesisof antiquityand
Christianity
worked out by the leading philologistsand philosophersof
the neohumanistperiod raises the question of Bachofen'sown reconciliationof his passion forantiquity,on the one hand, and his Christianpiety
on theother.Accordingto Baeumler,Bachofen'srelationto antiquitywas,
in the end, a contemplativeone. Like Burckhardt,
he wished to contemplate antiquityand not, like Nietzsche, to live it: "On the basis of the
security[of his Christianfaith]the new synthesis,specificto Bachofen,
was possible-i.e. Christianity
was broughtinto harmonywith antiquity
of ancientapollonianismthrougha
by being conceived as the fulfilment
higherRevelation."Such a reconciliationis possible, however,according
to Baeumler,onlyto the contemplativeintellect,and in thissense, "to the
degreethatBachofenbringsthe oppositionsin his personand in his work
to a harmoniousequilibrium,he is a bourgeois.'"101
100 Baeumler,"Bachofenund
Nietzche," 226-27.
101Ibid., 241. Cf. also

Baeumler's later formulationof the role of Bachofen's Christian
faithin his thought:"Weil er Christist,weil er sich einem historischenSymbol verpflichtet

65
On the whole, thisargumentis convincing.As has been shown, Bachofenacceptedman's conditionof alienationin historywitha kindof pious
resignationand, rightlyor wrongly,consideredthatall attemptsto break
out of it,to live the divine lifewhich was the object of his longing,in the
world, were not only doomed to fail but certainto produce monstrous
consequences. The ideal we love, if we tryto realize it will turninto a
dehumanizinghorror.The beauty of primitivecommunismis irrecoverable. What men will get if theytryto recoverit is a new bestiality.The
taboo on contactwith the Mothergoddess, in short,may not be lifted.
At the same time,contemplationof the ideal was not simplyforBachofen,as Baeumlerimplies,a formof estheticism,a bourgeoisindulgence.
It was also, to a greaterextentperhaps in Bachofen'scase than in thatof
Burckhardt,
againstwhom a similaraccusationhas been leveled,a catalyst
of moral protestand a guide to conduct.To be a ChristianforBachofen
seems not to have been a passively received,secure,historicalcondition
fromwhich the wild joys and ecstasies of paganism could be safelycontemplatedwithpleasure,but a constantlyrenewed dedication,a struggle
and engagementofthewhole being.As a studentat theBasle Padagogium,
Bachofenhad been introducedto Pascal by his FrenchteacherAlexandre
Vinet,probablythe leading Pascal scholar of the nineteenthcenturyand
himselfa latter-dayPascal who refusedtheeasy compromisesoftheliberal
theologyof his time.102(As a ministerof the ReformedChurch, Vinet
foughtto bring about the separation of church and state in his native
cantonof Vaud). In general,Pascal appears to have been read attentively
at Basle-in contrastwith Germanywhere, according to Nietzsche, he
was hardlyknown-and to have served as a counterpoiseboth to Pietist
and to the bland optimismof liberals,such as Mommsen's
sentimentalism
friend,the BerlintheologianAdolf Harnack,whose chiefaim was to acto modernscience,modernphilosophy,and modcommodateChristianity
ernbourgeoismorality.To FranzOverbeck,forinstance,themutualfriend
of Nietzscheand Bachofenand a professorof theologyat Basle, the liberal
theologiansof Berlinwere a kind of latter-dayJesuits,against whom the
It may thereforehave
austerefaithof Pascal was a valuable astringent.103
been in a farmore strenuousChristianspiritthan Baeumlersuggeststhat
Bachofenreflectedon the divine world of originsand on the nature of
the redemptionin which he apparentlybelieved. It is hard to imagine,
given the religiousintensityof his vision of antiquity,that it simplycoit nor affectedby
existed alongside his Christianfaith,neitheraffecting
both implicitand explicit,to rememberthe
it. The repeatedexhortations,
rightsof the Mothers and to use paternal power with compassion and
fiihlt,ist er imstande,auch den Symbolengerechtzu werden,die geschichtlichuberwunden
337).
worden sind" ("Bachofen und die Religionsgeschichte,"
828-29, n. 70. On Alexandre
note in Gelzer,"Die Bachofen-Briefe,"
102 See the important
347-54.
Vinet,see Kaegi, JacobBurckhardt,
Theozurmodernen
103 Franz Overbeck,Christentum
undKultur:GedankenundAnmerkungen
logie . . . Aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben von Carl AlbrechtBernoulli(Basle: Benno
Schwabe, 1919), 125.

66
restraint,forinstance,are surelyintimatelyrelated to the concernwith

which the modern Christianviewed the Prometheanismand self-deification of modernindividualistman and the modernindustrialstate.
Bachofen,at all events, appears to have accepted the antique, nonliberalChristianview that,as the gulfbetween man and God is infinitely
great,the providentialgovernmentof historyis inscrutable,and to have
resignedhimself,forthis reason, to a public life that broughthim little
happiness.Despite frequentescapades to Italy,he always returnedto Basle
and seems to have believed profoundlythat his destinymust be played
out in the greyold cityof his birth,thatalienation,loss, and exile in the
wildernesswere the inescapable lot of modern,historicalman, and that
only glimpses of another life, whetherpre-historicalor post-historical,
Edenic or Paradisiac, were withinhis reach. "The firstphenomenon in
history,"he wrote in 1865, "the most permanentand the most general,
is wandering;migration. . . and wanderingwill continueto be the common lot foras long as lifeitselfendures" (GW 6: 412).
Bachofen no longer shared, in sum, the optimisticconfidenceof his
teachers-Hegel certainly,
but also, to some degree,Ranke and Savignythatthe outlinesof the divine plan and even its fulfilment
could be discernedin his own timeor thathistorywas an inevitableand predictable
progressiveevolution. On the contrary,as we have now seen, both his
scholarlywritingsand his privatecorrespondencegive every indication
thathe foresawno homecomingand that he submittedto what seemed
like a dismal historicaldestinyin faith,in fear,and with a deep sense of
his own ignoranceofthewillof Providence.Ifhistory,forhim,was always
essentiallya theatrein which men must seek to realize spiritualvalues,
not the scriptof theirinevitablerealization,the historicalconditionsof
his own time appeared to him so bleak and unpromisingthat he could
conceive no other task forthe individual than the minimalone of preservingvalue in the world in his own person. It is clear that Bachofen
conceivedhis own destinyas lyingnotin historicalaction-he interpreted
his own bitterexperienceto mean thatthe timeforactionwas over-but
in personal and individualsalvation,a kind of spiritualegoism that was
the counterpart,
in a world withoutcommunity,of the materialistegoism
of thevast majority,exceptthatunlikethe latterit stillservedhigherends
beyondtheindividual."An sich selberarbeitenistam Ende das Hochste,"
he declared(C 77, 1852). "Im Seelenleben ist der Egoismusgerechtfertigt,
ja Pflicht"(C 82, 1855). ["To cultivateourselvesis, in the end, our highest
obligation.""In the lifeof the soul, egoismis justified,it is even a duty."]
I have triedto explainwhat I concede to be some importantdifferences
separatingBachofenfromhis teachersand makinghis workappear sometimesalien fromor even opposed to theirs.Nevertheless,it would be a
mistake,I think,not to recognize the deep affinities
between Bachofen
and his masters.He no longerhad theirconfidence;but in many respects
he continued,desperately,to share theirideals, and many of his attitudes
and preoccupationsare rootedin theirintellectualworld. We should not

67
forgetthatHegel, the philosopherwho discoveredreason in the historical

world and H6lderlin,the poet who lost his reason to it,were the dearest
of friends.
It was by no means a uniformworld; therewere many diverse,often
competingstrandsin it, but on the whole much openness and, among
some of the leading figuresat least, a genuine desire to embrace and
accommodateotherviews thanone's own. Savigny,forinstance,was close
not only to the HeidelbergRomantics-his wife Kunigundebeing a sister
of Clemens Brentano-to Creuzer,and to his own studentJacobGrimm,
but to Goethe and to Niebuhr, of whom he wrote a fine appreciation.
withVoss over the translationof Homer,CreuzerUntilthe controversy
whom we tend to thinkof as the leader of the syncretistmythological
school04- and Niebuhr-whom we know as the leader of the critical school-were on excellentterms.Creuzer looked forwardto hearing
Niebuhrlectureand declaredthathe recognizedthe immenseimportance
of Niebuhr'swork.105
By 1808 Bockhwas indicatinghis reservationsabout
Creuzer's syncretismand what he judged his uncriticalconfoundingof
heterogeneousmaterials;yet both he and Welcker-along with Carl OtfriedMiller, his most successfulstudent-continued to regard the Heidelberg scholar with affectionand respect,as a dedicated, learned, and
highlyimaginativestudent of antiquity,whose aims were basically in
theymighthave on points of
harmonywith theirs,whateverdifferences
detail or method. Characteristically,
GottfriedHermann and his friends,
the inheritorsand champions of a narrower,linguisticand textualconceptionof philology,lumped Creuzer,Bockh,Welcker,C. 0. Muiller,and
Schleiermachertogetheras "'mystics."106
Hegel's positionwas similarto Bockh's. Hegel and Creuzer had been
friendsand colleagues at Heidelbergand theykept up the relationafter
Hegel was called to Berlin.Hegel fullysupportedCreuzer's symbolicinof mythagainstthe narrow,historicalinterpretations
of Voss
terpretation
and Lobeck,the studentof Hermann.The philosopherand the philologist
were agreed on the essential point that the symbolicis the essence of
mythology.Like Bockh,Hegel had reservationsabout Creuzer'sanalogies
and combinations;and he also rejected,as Creuzer's dedicated French
translatorGuigniautwas to do, Creuzer's underlyingthesisof an original
104 Creuzer'sSymbolik
undMythologie
deraltenVolkerbesonders
derGriechen(1810-12) was
Religions
enormouslyinfluential,
especiallythroughtheFrenchtranslationand reformulation,
de l'antiquite(1825-51) to which J.D. Guigniaut,the permanentsecretaryof the Paris Academie des Inscriptionsand the longtimechampionof Champollion,devoted mostof his life.
(London: Weidenfeldand Nicolson,
On Creuzer,see A. Momigliano,StudiesinHistoriography
1966), 75-90; E. Howald, Der Kampfum CreuzersSymbolik
(Tubingen:J.C. B. Mohr, 1926);
285-334, and Guigniaut'sexcellente'logein Me'moires
W. Rehm,Griechentum
und Goethezeit,
de lInstitutNationalde France,Acade'miedes Inscriptions,
25, pt. 1 (1877): 317-60.
105 Briefe
FriedrichCreuzersan Savigny,1799-1850,ed. HellfriedDahlmann (Berlin:Erich
SchmidtVerlag, 1972), 309, 317, lettersof 4 May 1811 and 24 Jan. 1813.
106 Hoffmann,
AugustBockh,220. Cf. Bravo, Philologie,69-70, 81. Bockh's criticismof
Creuzerin Hoffmann,226, 367.

68
religionof mankind.Butwhen Creuzersenthim thesecond editionof the

Symbolik,
Hegel went throughit carefully,makingmany excerpts,which
are easily recognizable in his own esthetics and in his lectures on
religion.107
In BerlinBockh and Hegel, thoughtheyappear not to have been personallyfriendly,had much in commonintellectually.Bockh,in common
with otherphilologists,was always on the watch forwhat he called the
a prioriconstructionof factsby philosophy,having been temptedby it
himselfin his youth;108
but he also acknowledgedthe necessaryguiding
of philologicalunderstanding,
role of philosophicalschematain any effort
and he shared the German idealistphilosophers'conceptionof Spiritin
general:
notfrom
ideas;butitsultimate
goalis nevertheless
Philology
constructs
historically,
it cannotreproduce
thetotality
of the
of theidea in thehistorical;
therevelation
in the
thecreative
ofphilosophy
ofa peoplewithout
participation
understanding
thusculminates
in philosophy,
and at thesametime
ofit;philology
construction
in thehistorical
unlessthephilologist
itseemsthattheidea cannotbe recognized
thusbothpresupposes
the
himself
towardit. . . . Philology
has alreadydirected
idea and aimsto bringit forthoutof thehistorical
philosophical
material.'09
WhileBockhsometimescriticizesphilosopherslikeSchellingor Hegel who
"iconstruct"
historywithouttakingaccount of philology,he is even more
persistentin his criticismof narrow-minded,technicalphilologistswho
claim to be able to do withoutphilosophy.It has in factbeen suggested
thatthe rapid decline of Bockh's influenceand of interestin his work as
early as the 1860s was related to a widespread turningaway of professionalphilologistsfromphilosophyand fromquestionsofhermeneutics.110
Both Bockh'sidea of philologyand his own careerare exemplaryof an
earlierage of philologyin thattheyrepresentan attemptto reconcileand
hold togethertwo aspects of the work of the philologistand two approaches to the disciplinein general.As we indicated,Bockh himselfhad
experiencedthe tensionbetween the two in his youth.As the studentof
Wolf,he felthis teacher'sworkwas too close to the surfaceof thingsand
he was attractedto Schelling's headier philosophical speculations. But
Wolfhimself,as we saw earlier,alreadyrepresentedan expanded notion
of philology as the study of all the aspects of ancient life-the term
107 JohannesHoffmeister,
far Literatur"Hegel und Creuzer," DeutscheVierteljahrsschrift
8 (1930): 260-82.
und Geistesgeschichte,
wissenschaft
108 Bockh,Encyklopadie,
617; Bravo, Philologie,70. In a letterto E. Meier of 1824 Bockh
recountsthatbetween 1803 and 1806, he draftedan outlineof philologybased on Schelling
and directedagainst Wolf, with whom he was studyingand whom he then found "too
"profound." Though he planned to publish it, he relates,"mein
external,"not sufficiently
guterGeist hat miraber abgeraten."
17. Cf. Bravo,Philologie,90-91.
110ManfredLandfester,"Ullrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
und die hermeneutische
Zur Gesim 19. Jahrhundert;
in Philologieund Hermeneutik
Traditiondes 19. Jahrhunderts,"
derGeisteswissenschaften,
ed. H. Flashar,K. Grunder,A. Horstmann
chichteundMethodologie
(Gottingen:Vandenhoeckand Ruprecht,1979), 156-57.

69
is his-in oppositionto the narroweridea of it,

"Altertumswissenschaft"
as pure text-ualcriticism,upheld by Hermann at Leipzig. Bockh's innovation,as he himselfexplained in the prefaceto volume 1 of his Corpus
what withhis teacherwas still
was to transform
Graecarum,
Inscriptionum
an aggregateinto a unifiedwhole, to perceive the controllingideas of a
unifiedculture(i.e. metaphoricrelations),where Wolf,as a child of the
stillsaw partsexternallyor causallyrelated(i.e. metonymic
Enlightenment,
relations).Throughouthis careerBockh triedto strikea balance between
the claims of criticismand those of imaginativeunderstanding;and he
was able to establish good relationswith certainstudentsof Hermann,
such as Kochly,whom Bachofenknew at Zurich,and Thiersch.But the
withtheirbroad interconflictbetween the new Altertumswissenschaftler,
of
estsin thesociety,religion,and institutions antiquity,and thetraditional
Bockh and his
of pure textualcriticismwas not resolved.111
practitioners
to those Bachin
almost
identical
colleagues continuedto complain, terms
ofen was to use againstMommsen,of "Notengelehrsamkeit"and "gramand in 1825 Bockhwroteto Welckerof theneed
matischeKleinmeisterei,"
an alliance to defend philologyagainst the
to
form
forthe like-minded
old
school.'12 In a passage of his Encyklopadie
of
the
tendencies
trivializing
after1830, he deplores the situation
lectures
reflects
given
thatprobably
of classical philologyas he then found it.
The core of philologicalstudylies in the analysisof specificmaterials.But in
but
takenbyphilosophy
seekingto turnasidenotonlyfromthewrongdirections
on the analysisof
exclusively
fromphilosophyin general,and to concentrate
Mostofitsprachas becomesplintered.
thestudyofantiquity
materials,
specific
is fragtitioners
lackanygeneralideas,anyoverviewoftheirsubject.Everything
mentedin theirheads.Thustheyhave neitheran idea of therangenora deep
butknowonlydetails.In these,
intothenatureof thestudyofantiquity,
insight
therehas
theirthinking
exhaustsitself.As a consequenceof thisone-sidedness
pseustudies,ofthemostsuperficial
beena burgeoning,
alongsidegenuinecritical
passion
whichexpressesitselfin grammatical
a ridiculous
pedantry,
docriticism,
forconjecture,
and a maniaforatheteses.For the studyof the real natureof
is lacking,
century
erudition
however,thegenerousspiritof sixteenth
antiquity,
Giventhese
ofthefifteenth
century.
and prosaicness
has replacedtheenthusiasm
has declinedin
itis notto be wonderedat thatthestudyofantiquity
conditions,
influence
and prestige."13
In a letterto Welckerin 1852 Bockh again expressedhis concernat the
inordinateplace assumed by manuscriptcollationand emendationin clasIt is not clear whetherthe object of thiscomplaintis Karl
sical studies.114
Lachmann, whose methods of work had already begun theirsuccessful
invasion of the fieldsof both classical and German philology;but it is
Bravo,Philologie,126-27.
Ibid., 92, 108; Hoffmann,AugustBockh,164.
306.
114
Hoffmann,AugustBockh,203.
112

70
worthrecallingthat of all his teachersat Berlin,Lachmann appears to

have been the only one with whom Bachofenhad littlesympathy.115
In the worldof Bockh,Muller,Schleiermacherand the other"mystics"
to whom Bachofen must have looked for inspirationas a young man,
therewas never any question that criticismwas a momentin the larger
hermeneuticalprocess. "It is preferableto guard oneself fromprevious
criticismwhich distortsone's view fromthe start,"Bockh declared.
in orderto prove
A mancan makeverysubtlecritiques
and longdemonstrations
itispossible
a passagecorrupt.
Byentering
deeplyintotheauthor'smind,however,
Thisshowsthatthesubtlest,
to resolveat one blowall thesupposeddifficulties.
critics
becausetheyused onlyundermostcomplicated
mightfailto understand
and notinsight."16
standing
The ultimategoal of philology was thus not to establish texts,but to
understandthem,and that meant understandingnot only the thoughts
and feelingsof othersas theyare communicatedto us by way of linguistic
discourse,but also, and above all, the formative"ideas" of mankindin
whateverembodimentthesemay come down to us-in poems, in myths,
in thelanguage itself.
in worksof art,in customsand politicalinstitutions,
of that manyPhilologyshould be, in Miller's words, "the interpreter
sounded language which the nationsspeak, with all theirlivingbeing,to
" 17
posterity.
It was thisconceptionof philologythatBachofenundertookto defend
at a timewhen it had alreadybeen partlyovertaken,in academic circles,
by somethinghe perceived as spirituallyidenticalwith the "Kleinmeisterei"-and he used the same termto describeit-which his teachershad
If in the heat of polemic,and more seriouslyin his
so oftenlamented.118
own work,he underestimatedthe positive functionof textualcriticism,
thatshould not obscure his essentialfidelityto the philologicaltradition
of neohumanism.He is not an aphilological historian,as Croce called
him,exceptin the specificsense in which Croce uses the termphilology
in the Theoryof Historyand Historiography,
but a witness to a certain
practiceof philology,which he consideredessential and which he saw
being progressivelyabandoned by narrow-minded,bureaucraticprofessionals, interestedmostlyin the advancementof theirown careers.The
stanceCroce consideredaphilologicalwas in factone thatBachofenshared
115Cf. the criticalcommentson Lachmannby C. 0. Miiller'sstudent,Scholl,in 1834 (Aus
und wissenschaftlichen
von Carl OtfriedMuiller,ed. Otto Kern,
dem aYmtlichen
Briefwechsel
Gottingen:Vandenhoekund Ruprecht,1936, 218).
trans.JohnPaul Prit116 On Interpretation
and Criticism[Extractsfromthe Encyklopadie],
slightlyaltered];on Schleierchard(Norman:Univ. of Oklahoma Press,1968), 89 [translation
1: 110, and n. 2.
macher,see Wach, Das Verstehen,
117 Quoted by Bravo,Philologie,116.
118
On the retreatfromneohumanismin Prussia in the 1840s, see Paulsen, Geschichte,
674-77; also Lenore O'Boyle, "Klassische Bildung und soziale Strukturin Deutschland
Sozialgeschichte
im 19tenJahrhundert:
zwischen 1800 und 1848," in Schule und Gesellschaft
ed. UlrichHerrmann(Weinheimand Basle:
derSchuleim Ubergangzur Industriegesellschaft,
Beltz Verlag,1977), 39-40.

71
with almost the whole German neohumanist movement in philology,

beginningwithWinckelmann.Indebtedas itwas to Enlightment,
Platonist,
and Pietistinfluences,neohumanismhad always had an inveterateand
and
seeminglyparadoxicaldistrustof thewrittentraditionof commentary,
a pronounced partialityfor fresh,directreadings,unobstructedby the
eruditionof others.
Even Bachofen's criticismof Niebuhr-which to us seems indefensible-has a respectablepedigree. Hegel's attackson Niebuhr in the Enzyklopaidie
and in the Vorlesungenuiberdie Philosophieder Weltgeschichte
are fairlywell known.119Hegel preferredhistoryas writtenby the historiansto the new historybeing writtenby philologists(by whom he
meant chieflyNiebuhr). The former,he claimed, at least preserve the
broad outlines of the tradition;the latter,on the other hand, have no
instead
respectforthetraditionand destroyitscohesiveness,concentrating
on myriadsof details,which theythenrecombinein an arbitrary
manner.
Presentedat firstas hypotheses,these combinationssoon pass forfacts.
"The resultwas thatthe most ancientRoman historywas declared to be
entirelyfabulous,wherebythis whole area became the provinceof erumostrichlywherethereis leastprofit."'120
dition,whichalways proliferates
Hegel objects most vehementlyto what he considersthe arbitrariness
of Niebuhr's "constructions"and the way they serve to place the critic
himselfat the center of the historicalwork, so that it is his skill and
brillianceratherthan the object itself-the past-that the reader attends
to.121The a prioricharacterwhich the would-be empiricaland philological
historiansclaim to deplore and rejectin the philosophicalreadingof historyis thus turnedby Hegel into an argumentagainst the philologists
themselves.It is these Hegelian objections to the "willkiirlicheVorstellungen" and "Erdichtungen. . . einer . . . gelehrtenund geistreichen
Geschichtschreibung"that Bachofen echoes three and four decades
later.122"The desire for rationalinsight,for knowledge, and not just a
collectionof pieces of informationis, as a subjectiverequirement,a conditionof studyin the sciences," accordingto Hegel. The historian,therefore,seeks notthesuperficialmeaningof events,buttheirhiddenmeaning.
119Hegel, Enzyklopddie
der philosophischen
im Grundrisse,
Wissenschaften
3, ii, c. -y,para.
549, ed. Nicolin and Poggeler(Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1959), 426-27; Vorlesungen,
1, ed. Hoffmeister
(Hamburg:FelixMeinerVerlag,1955): 20-21, 30-32; 3, ed. Lasson (Hamburg Felix MeinerVerlag, 1968): 663.
120 Vorlesungen,
3: 663.
121
1: 20--21.Bachofen'sobjectionswere identical:"Wer kuhn sein Schiffauf
Vorlesungen,
die hohe See hinaussteuert,der kann auf Beifallzahlen. Die Zeitgenossenpreisen ihn als
historischesGenie. Wie verachtlicherscheintihm gegenuiberder furchtsameSchiffsmann,
der, stets behutsam dem Ufer entlang segelnd, das Festland nie aus den Augen verliert
. . .Neues und Pikantesist dem leckernGaumen unsererZeit am erwunschtesten. . . Zu
welcherHohe steigtdas Bewusstseindes Gelehrten,der uiberdie grossenGeschichtschreiber
und Staatsmannerder altenZeit zu Gerichtsitztund ihnenihreIrrtumer,
Missverstandnisse,
Verkehrtheiten,
ja selbst die Quellen derselbennachzuweisen vermag" (GW 1: 449-50).
122 Hegel, Enzyklopadie,
427.

72
thehistorian
mustbringreasontohistory.
Buttorecognize
thegeneral,
therational,
one will
. . . Ifone goesouttowardtheworldonlywithone's own subjectivity,
betterand
findit to be as one is madeoneself;one willalwaysknoweverything
alwayssee how thingsoughtto have been or to have happened.The essential
content
ofworldhistory,
however,is rationaland mustbe rational;a divinewill
thatitdoes notdetermine
theessential
rulesin theworldand is notso impotent
content.
To discoverand learnto knowthissubstantial
elementmustbe ourgoal;
and toknowitone mustbringwithone theconsciousness
ofReason(Vernunft)(Verstand),buttheeye
nottheeyesof thebody,notthelimitedUnderstanding
of theIdea,theeyeof Reason,whichpiercesthesurface.
Certainphilologistsobject that thisis an a prioriprocedure,but such an
objectioncannot be admittedby philosophy.The substantialelementin
historycan only be recognizedif it is approached with Reason.
forthesedistort
One mustnotapproachitwithone-sidedreflections,
and
history,
ariseout of falsesubjective
views.Philosophyhas nothingto do withthem.In
willbe confident
thatevents
theassurancethatReasonruleshistory,
philosophy
thetruth,
as it is thefashionto
followtheorderof theIdea and willnotdistort
acumen
who withtheirso-calledcritical
do today,especiallyamongphilologists
introduce
purea priorinotionsintohistory.123
Niebuhris designatedby name in a note.
claim thathe was not much impressed
Bachofen'smoderninterpreters
it seems
by Hegel. That may be. Fromwhat we know of his own thinking,
in
enthusiastic
Berlin
he
found
years
quite likelythat his optimisticand
than
intuitive
more
insight,
congenial
Hegel's
Schelling'sAnschauung,or
austereVernunft,or Reason, as the ground on which knowledge rested.
He himselfadmits,moreover,that he was attractedto Schelling,even
though,like his teacherBbckh,he also says thathe was fearfulof losing
his way in the all-engulfing
nightof Schelling'smetaphysicsand feltthe
need to emphasize his own commitmentto empiricalinvestigation.124
Nevertheless,it was an essentially"speculative" conceptionof knowledge-a conceptionsharedby Hegel and Schelling-that he opposed both
to the modernizingtendencieshe consideredsuperficialand to the piecemeal, positivisttendenciesof those he referredto disdainfullyas the "literaryproletariat."In addition,in Bockh's lectures,which we know Bachofen attended and studied carefully,the elaborationof the nature and
objectof philologicalinquiryclearlybears thestampofHegelian influence.
It may thereforehave been indirectly,
throughBbckh,thatBachofenfelt
the effectof Hegelianism.
The aim of philology,accordingto Bockh,is "Erkenntnisdes vom mend.h. des Erkannten"("knowledgeofwhatever
schlichenGeistproducirten,
1: 30-32.
Vorlesungen,
know fullwell what dangersbeset me at this time. I mighthave strayedinto metaphysicalbypathsand lostsightof myrightroad forever.And the long circlingabout might
have led to phantasmsof the Huschke variety.I thankthe Lord thatmy soul is too sound
forthatsortof thing"("Autobiography,"M 14-16). The allusion is to a professorof Roman
law at Breslauwho was stronglyinfluencedby Schelling.
123
124 "I

73
the human spirithas produced,i.e. of what once was known"). In other

words, it is the reappropriationby spiritof its own products:"Wiedererkenntnisund Darstellungdes ganzen vorhandenenmenschlichenWisof the totalityof human knowlsens" ("re-cognitionand re-presentation
edge"). Whereasphilosophygoes directlyto itsobject("erkenntprimitiv"),
philologyre-learnsor re-cognizes("erkenntwieder"). Yet,while philology
has as its aim knowledge of another,lost or alienated knowledge, that
does not mean that it does not seek or acquire a knowledge of its own.
The knowledge of philologyis not identicalwith the knowledge that it
knows. The ideas of another,so long as they remain other,are not yet
ideas forme. My task as philologistis to make themproperlymine. The
goal Bockh attributesto philologyseems ultimatelythoroughlyHegelian:
Firstand foremost,
it is thetaskof reproducing
all thatalienthoughtso thatit
oralienremains.
Thusthepurelyaggregative
external
becomesmineand nothing
of traditional
is transcended.
character
philology
[Thatis, philologyand history
At thesame time,however,the
are notsimplya sumof piecesof information]
in sucha waythat,
is to dominatethatwhichithas reproduced,
taskofphilology
thoughithas beenmademine,I can stillholditbeforemelikean objectand thus
be said to have knowledgeof thatsynthesized
knowledgeof knowledge["Ein
Erkenntnis
des Erkannten
Erkennen
dieserzu einemGanzenformirten
habe"],to
knowmyown knowledge
of thelostknowledgeof thepast,or of theother;for
whichis an actofjudgment.
onlythencanI assignititsplacein myownthought,
In otherwords,I appropriatethe otherto myself,but I remainthe master
of thatreappropriatedother,of thatotherwhich has been restoredto the
self.The otherbecomes self,and the self becomes other.125
or knowledge
Bockh's high idea of philologyas a formof Wissenschaft
ratherthan a handmaiden of rhetoricrestson the fundamentalunityof
spiritin all its materialand historicalmanifestations.If the individual
descends below the accretionsof mere "subjective" opinion and day-today evidence, he will discover withinhimselfthe laws that govern the
entireuniverse.This conviction-that "universalhistoryalso stirswithin
man"126 and thatan innerauthenticunderstandingoftheotheris therefore
possible to the trulyhonest and earnest researcher-is what Bachofen
shares withHegel, Schelling,Wilhelmvon Humboldt,and the philologist
with whom he had perhaps the greatestaffinity,
Creuzer. Joseph-Daniel
and comGuigniaut,theFrenchacademicianwho spenthis lifetranslating
formulatedthisessentialpremiseof Germentingon Creuzer'sSymbolik,
man idealism verywell:
le but de l'exegesemythologique,
en
I1 s'agissait,en definitive,
pour atteindre
dans cetetat
Orientcommeen Occident,de se replacer,
d'intuition,
parun effort
conforme
etspontanede l'intelligence,
a la naturememedes mythes,
instinctif
qui
Bockh,Encyklopadie,
16-20.
W. von Humboldt,"Uber die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers,"
GesammelteSchriften
(Berlin:de Gruyter,1968), 4: 47.
125
126

74
a toutesles epoques,dansles
maisqui se retrouve
futpropreaux tempsprimitifs,
de
la
conscience
humaine.127
profondeurs
It is not surprisingthereforethatBockh himselfentertainedmisgivings
derAthener(1817)
about Niebuhr.Afterdedicatinghis Staatshaushaltung
to Niebuhr,Bockh conceded in the bibliographicalsection of his EncyklopadiethatNiebuhr "went too farin his criticismof sources and substitutedfictionsof his own forthe mythicalinventionsof the Romans. Hegel
is not altogetherwrong in protestingthat his methods are often arbiC. 0. Miller anticipated another of Bachofen's reservations
trary."1128
when in 1833, three years afterNiebuhr's death, he turned down an
invitationto continueand completethe RomischeGeschichte."The directionof myinterests,"he declared,"is moreand moretowardthe spiritual
towardthe nerlifeof antiquity,in language,religion,art,and literature,
vous systemof this organism,so to speak, and not the musculatureand
the bone structureof externalevents,with which historyis already too
much concerned." Two years earlier,he had welcomed Welcker's apMuseumon the groundthat
pointmentto the editorshipof theRheinisches
the journal "will now have a warmerfeelingforthe totalityof the study
of antiquitythan it did under Niebuhr."-129
Bachofen'soppositionto Niebuhrand to the criticalmethodin general,
howeverQuixoticit may appear in the contextof the reigningpositivism
of the laternineteenthcentury,was not, in short,an obstinatepigheadedness or stupidity;it was rootedin a fundamentalphilosophicalposition
thatwas absolutelyopposed to positivismand in the general orientation
of his interestsand of his conceptionof what philologyshould be. It is
in this connection,that he thoughtvery well of
entirelycharacteristic,
Herodotus,who did not enjoy a good pressamong thecriticalphilologists,
but whom Creuzer, at the very beginningof his career,had defended
as an earliertypeof historianthan Thucydidesand as faithenergetically
the world as his contemporariessaw and experiencedit.
fullyreflecting
The Greek people loved Herodotus, Creuzer had written,and found in
wahr,getreu
his worka nationalhistorywhichwas "nach seinenBegriffen,
und wiirdig."-130It was in this same spiritthat Bachofentriedto defend
127 "Notice historiquesur la vie et les travauxde Georges-Frederic
Creuzer,"Memoiresde
25, pt. 1 (1877): 342.
l'InstitutNationalde France:Academiedes Inscriptions,
128 Bockh,Encyklopa'die,
349. Likewisehis commentto C. 0. Muller that"Der neue Band
August
der RomischenGeschichtescheintmirviel Hypothetischeszu enthalten"(Hoffmann,
227, n. 3). Niebuhr'soppositionto Welckeras a memberof the editorialboard of the
BoYckh,
Museumled to an estrangementof Bockh fromNiebuhr toward the end of the
Rheinisches
latter'slife.On the otherhand, strikinga moderatepose, Bockh rejectedthe Geschichteder
Romerof Gerlach and Bachofenfirmlyas "eine unkritischeVerteidigungder altestenUber349).
lieferung"(EncyklopaYdie,
129 Muller,Briefwechsel,
ed. Kern,207, letterto C. F. Elvers,26 Sept. 1833. See also Bravo,
Philologie,107, 122.
Versucheinernayheren
Wardigungeinigerihrer
130 G. C. Creuzer,Herodotund Thucydides:
schreibenmasse,'
aufLuciansSchriftWie manGeschichte
mitRuicksicht
GrundsaYtze
historischen
(Leipzig und Marburg:Neue akademischeBuchhandlung,1803), 114.

75
Livy and the Roman historicaltraditionfromthe assaults of the critical

school.
theidea thatunderstandingrequiresan abandonment
Not surprisingly,
of self to the object ratherthan a forcingof the object or an arbitrary
impositionof our own categoriesupon it, is also widespread among the
philologistswho were Bachofen'steachers.We can hope to approximate
an understandingof anothercivilization,accordingto Carl OtfriedMuller
to appropriateit are made with an open
"to the degree that our efforts
to understand
and devotedly(hingebend)
mindand thatwe seek faithfully
tendency
the
caustic
about
philologists'
was
himself
it in itself."'131Hegel
as
was
Schelling.132With
"Gegenwartin die Vergangenheitzu bringen,"
and presentis
between
distance
of
the
past
sense
the
Muller,however,
to bridge
in
reason's
power
confidence
lost
has
Hegel's
that
he
so great
of
archaic
and
societies
especially
of
ancient
Muller
the
"spirit"
To
it.
from
alien
so
seemed
his
utterly
was
which
interest,
special
Greeksociety,
thatof present-daysocietiesthathe was led to assert,against Hegel, the
impotenceof speculativephilosophyto bringthereaderto an understanding of it, and the need forextensivehistoricaland empiricalresearchin
orderto approximatesuch an understanding.In theend, ittooksomething
akin to an act of grace or of poetic insightto grasp the past. "I believe
of a philosophicaltypeor by
resultscannotbe forced,eitherby reflection
philologicalstudy,"he wroteto the Hegelian A. Schbll in 1833. "Fortune
But if Mullerquestioned
and strikingassociationsmustdo everything."-133
the methods by which the boldest speculative philosophers sought to
embrace history,it was preciselyon account of his intense sense of the
difference
between the world of antiquityand that of his own time and
of his conceptionof the historian'stask as thatof understandingthe past
in its difference
fromthe presentand not in its similarityto it.
Finally,both Bachofen's anti-bookishbias, his desire for immediate
contact,and his view of thestudyof antiquityas a deeplypersonal,almost
religiousexperience,a formofindividualredemptionfromthepettypreoccupations of the world, are by no means new. They are rooted in the
philological traditionof neohumanism. Bbckh's impatiencewith books
and critics,his faithin the sudden illuminationthat will come of giving
oneselfup to one's authorhave alreadybeen mentioned.134But Bachofen
Muller,Die Dorier,2: 393.

Studiums(3rded. Stuttgart
and Tiubingen:
Vorlesungen
uberdieMethodedesakademischen
Cotta, 1830), 217.
133
ed. Kern, 165-66. Cf. what Muller says of the Dorians' way of
Muiller,Briefwechsel,
thinkingand writing:it is marked,he writes,not by "eine besondereWeisheit,sondem eine
tuchtigeGesinnung,die sich ihrereignen Grundsatzebewusst wird,und dies wieder nicht
durch Reflexion,sonderndurchein plotzlichesEinleuchten"(Die Dorier,2: 382).
134 In his Encyklopaidie,
Shandy:" 'Sagt mirdoch, ihrGelehrten,
Bockhquotes fromTristram
sollen wir denn nur immerin kleinereMiinze verwechselnund das Capital so wenig vermehren?Sollen wir denn ewig neue Biichermachen, wie die Apothekerneue Mixturen,
indem wir bloss aus einem Glase ins andere giessen? . . .' " and answers: "Dies ist wohl
zu beherzigen,aber es passt nur auf die schlechte Philologie . . . In Wahrheithat die
131
132

76
found the model for both in Winckelmannhimself.In his richlydocumentedand illuminatingintroductionto Bachofen,Der Mythusvon Orient
undOccident,Baeumleremphasizes the romantic,religiousstrainin Bachofen and contrastsit with the esthetic,neoclassical attitudeof Winckelmann. Bachofen himself,however, as we saw, made no secret of the
profoundinfluencehis readingof Winckelmannhad on him; and he was
by no means insensitiveto the beauty of classical works of art. On the
contrary,he believed that antiquityspoke directlyto the heart through
its artand thata properunderstandingof it requiredthe collaborationof
theheartand theunderstanding(M 10). He even ventureda mildcriticism
of C. 0. Muller on the ground that he was less open than a classical
scholar must be to the beauty of the art of the ancients(SB 28). On the
itself
otherhand, he praisedWinckelmann'sHistoryofArtformanifesting
the kind of beautyWinckelmannadmiredin the ancients.It had, he said,
the charm "der antiken edeln, nicht der modernen tanzmeisterartigen
Grazie" (SB 29). In Winckelmann'smind the ideal of "edle Einfaltund
stilleGrosse," which he foundrealized in antiquity,stood opposed to the
the "pedantry,"theexhibitionof learningand erumanneredaffectation,
of the derivativeand oftenparodistic
ditionwhichhe saw as characteristic
rococo art of his own time:the Greeks in theirbest period, he claimed,
showed no interestin appearing learned-that is, in showing that they
knew what othersknew-but appreciatedonly the unaffectedexpression
of nature:"There was one vanityfewerin the world then,the vanityof
knowingmanybooks." For thisreason Winckelmannturnedhis attention
to pre-AlexandrianGreekart,conceivedas a culturefreeof eruditionand
close to nature.135
The pedagogical function,which Winckelmannascribed to the study
of Greek art,and men as varied as Herder,Humboldt,Ast, Hegel, and
Bachofen'sown teachersGerlach and Bbckhto the studyof antiquityin
general,is well known.136Winckelmannhimselfdescribed his own encounterwith the works of classical art in Rome in termsof a shattering
To the genexperience,by which his whole being was transformed.137
erationof Humboldt the studyof antiquitywas no narrow technicalor
scholarlyexercise:it was conceived as an essentialstage in the education
and reconstructionof the
of German youth and in the transformation
Philologie einen hoheren Zweck; er liegt in der historischenConstructiondes ganzen Erkennens und seiner Theile . . ." (14).
135 Quoted by Bravo, Philologie,

57. On Winckelmann'sdislike of bookleaming,see J.J.
ed. WalterRehm,introd.Hellmut SichVorreden,
Winckelmann,KleineSchriften,
Entwarfe,
terman(Berlin:de Gruyter,1968), xvii.
Charakteruberhauptund
136 For Humboldt,see, forinstance,his "Von dem griechischen
der idealischenAnsichtdesselben insbesondere"(1808) in Wilhelmvon Humboldt,Auswahl
am Main: FischerBucherei,1957), 73und Einleitungvon HeinrichWeinstock(Frankfurt
91. Fora good generalsurveyofneohumanismin Germaneducation,see Paulsen, Geschichte,
especially514-66.
und Briefen,
ed. F.
Auswahlaus seinenSchriften
137 J.J.Winckelmann,
EwigesGriechentum:
Forschepiepe(Stuttgart:AlfredKroner,1943), xxviii-xxix,195.

77
Germannation; and forthisreason it was builtinto the new educational

systemthatHumboldtand his collaboratorsdevised forthe new Prussia.
"We do not hesitate to claim," one philologistwrote, "that we believe
learningGreek is indispensable to our entirepeople, withoutrespectto
birth,rank or futureoccupation."'38For Bockh,forinstance,the studyof
antiquitywas importantnot because modernknowledgeis dependenton
it-"this view," he declared, "is untenable . . . it is entirelypossible to
be educated,as the Greeksthemselveswere,throughone's own language,
throughmathematics,philosophy and poetry"-but because in Greek
culturewe findthepure beginningsof all poetry,philosophy,and science,
and "beginningsare important;in them,as a rule,lies thespiritualelement,
the arche,the principle,which is oftensubsequentlyobscured,unless one
constantlyreturnsto the origins."1139It is entirelyconsistentwith these
ideas that BachofenpresentedStreuberas "born anew" on coming into
contactwith classical philologyat Berlinin the 1830s.
Humboldt'sideal accommodatedboth traditionaltextualphilology,inheritedfromthe Dutch and Englishschools of the seventeenthand eighHermannand
teenthcenturies,and thenew Altertumswissenschaft-both
Wolf-though therewas, as we saw, considerabletension between the
two schools. As early as 1803, indeed, when he wrote his influential
Vorlesungen
iuberdie Methodendes akademischen
Studiums,Schellingwas
complaining,in termsthat strikinglyanticipateBachofen's criticismof
Mommsen,of a narrowoutlookthatdiminishedantiquityby applyingto
it the measurementsof moderntimes,instead of elevatingmoderntimes
by remindingthem of the model of antiquity-the expressaim of Humboldt:
In Germany,
wherestudyis moreand morea matterof industry,
it is precisely
the mostspiritually
on history.
emptyheads thatexercisethemselves
Whata
repulsive
picture
thatis ofgreattalentsand characters
beingreflected
in theorgan
of a shortsighted,
uncultivated
man,especiallywhenhe forceshimselfto have
practical
understanding
(Verstand)
andfanciesthatthelatterconsists
inmeasuring
thegreatness
of ages and peoplesaccording
to thenarrowest
ofviewpoints-for
theplaceoftrade,orofthisorthatusefulordestructive
instance,
invention-and
in generalin measuring
everything
elevatedby themostbase criteria;
or,on the
otherhand,whenhe fanciesthathistorical
in makinghimself
consists
pragmatism
interesting
by reasoning
interminably
aboutevents,or ornamenting
thematerial
withemptyrhetorical
flourishes
aboutthecontinuous
progress
of humanity,
for
example,and thewonderfully
longway we have come.'40
Holderlin,of course,was even morebitterin his denunciationof "all those
barbarians,who imaginetheyhave wisdom because theyno longerhave
hearts,all the crude,unlovelybeings,strangersto Reason, who withtheir
Quoted by Paulsen, Geschichte,

559.
Bockh,Encyklopadie,
31-32.
140 Vorlesungen,
218.
138
139

78
sociallyacquiredproprietiesfinda thousandways to destroy

meanspirited,
and murderthe beauty of youth."-141
almost
To Bachofenthe study of antiquitystill had the transforming,
redemptivefunctionthat Goethe, Schiller,Humboldt,Hegel, Holderlin,
Schelling,Bockh, Creuzer,and theirwhole generationhad attributedto
theymay have conceivedthecharacterof thetransit,howeverdifferently
And itwas probablypreciselyforthisreason that
formationto be effected.
his hatred of those who had turnedit into a mere career,a technical,
bookish pedantryand 'Schulmeisterei'was so intense.The new classical
scholarship,withits increasinglypositivistorientationand growinginstitutionalization,must have struckhim as a betrayalof everythingthat
classical scholarshiphad stood forto the generationof his teachersand
predecessors,to Creuzerand Zoega, as well as to Winckelmann,to those
who inclined to the "'Nachtseite"of antiquity,as the Germanyliterary
historianssay, as well as to those who adored in it the perfectionof form.
The emergenceof the modernstate,modem industry,modem war, and
the change in the tone and characterof classical scholarshipwere peraspects of the same failureand of the
ceived by Bachofen as different
same drasticfallingaway fromthe high ideals of the past.
In such conditionsfidelityto the old ideals was possible only if the
individual,personalaspect of the redemptivefunctionof scholarshipwas
emphasized at the expense of its social function,since clearlythe latter
had to be despairedof. "Happiness consistsin greatequanimity,"he wrote
to Meyer-Ochsnerin 1863,
to
in particular
to outwardcircumstances,
I am temptedto say in indifference
Whatavailsit to growold in
applause-thealmsbeggedbyourcontemporaries.
is therein pleasingan
knowledgeand not in wisdom?And what satisfaction
who
amonga fewindividuals
unknownand alienpublic?Spiritualcommunion
themostrewarding
pleasureany
sharea commonviewoflifeis unquestionably
sensiblemancan wishfor.Ifitcannotbe had,thenthebestsocietyis thatofthe
(C 171).
greatwriters
The sentimentsexpressedhere would have strucka responsivechord in
Burckhardtwho, as is well known, stopped publishingin 1860, turned
his back on the world of academic historicalscholarship,and devoted
himselfexclusivelyto his teachingat the Universityof Basle. Whatever
Bachofenand Burckhardtboth saw the studyof history
theirdifferences,
as a path to wisdom in a darkeninguniversemore and more given over
to the blind pursuitof power by colossal, warringstates.
The generationof Humboldthad soughtto formthe youthof Germany
anew by isolatingitin a certainmeasurefromthe decadence and pettiness
conditionsand fillingit withthe lightof ancientGreece,
of contemporary
in the hope thatit would then,in turn,act upon and elevate the nation
141 Hyperion,
Book I, HolderlinsWerke,ed. ManfredSchneider,4 vols. (Stuttgart:Walter
Hadecke Verlag,1922). 1: 70.

79
as a whole. By the middle of the centuryof blood and iron,such dreams

musthave seemed naive and remoteindeed. The actual contentof Bachfromthat of Winckofen's vision of antiquitymay have been different
elmann or Goethe and closer to thatof Zoega or Creuzer;but he had the
same highview of what thestudyof antiquityshould be and should mean
were
to a person and to a community,and his bitternessand disaffection
in largemeasuredue to the failureof an ideal thatwas social and political
as well as scholarly.Henceforth,the functionof the truephilologistcould
only be to turnaway fromthe presentworld and to stand up, alone if
need be, and testifyto values thatthe modernworld had renouncedand
thatwere everyday being desecratedby the verypersons-the philologists-who ought to have been preservingthem. Once again, however,
Bachofen was not alone. In a letterdated December 13, 1834, Welcker
noted thatthe influenceand prestigeof philologyhad suffereda marked
declineand added thatin theprevailingclimateof disrespect,even among
conservatives,for old standardsand values, it would no doubt be considereddangerous.In a periodof ferment,
accordingto Welcker,philology
can only serve as a witness to past values; forit is "a foundationstone
of the existingorderof things,and a fundamentalconditionof the preservation of a sense of the past against the miserable rationalismand
142
ephemerismof the Americanway of feeling."
142 Quoted in Hoffmann,
AugustBockh,181. C. 0. Muller was not more favorableto the
liberalismof the middle classes in 1830: "If only the wretchedhalf-knowledgeand liberal
way ofreasoninghad nottakenhold ofeveryone in Germanytoo. WhenI hear thephilistines
holding forthin the Zivilkluband I imagine these people takingpart in electionsand assemblies-God preserveour old governments.Constitutionalwisdom seems to me a great
folly"(letterto C. F. Elvers,in Muller,Briefwechsel,
ed. Kern,130).

VI. Bachofenversus Mommsen Today

havetriedtoshowthat,farfrombeinga maverick
amongphilologists,
even aphilological,as Croce would have it, Bachofenwas above all

faithfulto a certaintraditionof German philologicalstudyrunning
fromWolf and Winckelmannto his own teachersor masters-Creuzer,
Bockh, Gerlach,C. 0. Muller-and embracinga varietyof strandsthat
subsequentlycame to seem opposed or incompatibleand to be characterizedas eitherneoclassical or Romantic."43
His piety as a scholar was
no less than his pietyas a son. The aspect of the traditionthat he emphasized, because it was the most threatened,was the pedagogical and
spiritualone-the idea of philologyas a restorativeand reformative
contactwiththe origins,withthe a&pxj7,
as Bockhput it. To be sure,Bachofen
had a somewhat different
conceptionof the originsfromBockh. He rejected the model, which many of his predecessorsupheld, of a self-enclosed Greek civilizationand opened up the study of antiquityto the
Orient and, ultimately,to comparativemethods, using materialdrawn
fromAfricaand America.But even forthis therewere precedents.
WhatBachofenwas defending,in the end, againstan increasinglypowerfulpositivistcurrentin scholarshipwas the idealist philosophical tradition-the traditionof Hegel and Schelling and Schleiermacher-that
had profoundlymarked German philologyin its heyday. His ideal was
the longstandingwestern one of immediacy,inheritedfromPlato and
and the task of philology,as he understoodit, was to overChristianity;
come discontinuity
and alienation,to abolish thegulfof timeand to allow
the philologistto stand again-and to bringhis readersto stand-in the
livingpresenceof the dead, to recognizethe underlyingcommonnessof
thehuman conditionat all times.What he wroteof theancientburialsites
in the autobiographicalletterto Savigny could have been said of his approach to the studyof antiquityin general.It was "the utterremoteness
and forlornnessof the ancientburial sites," he declared (M 12), thatimpressedhim.To reach them,in short,itwas necessaryto freeoneselffrom
from"ephemerism,"as Welcker
contemporary-andtemporary-concerns,
had put it, fromthe dark cave, as Bachofensaw it, of the "smoke-filled
rooms" of professionalized,Prussianized philologists,from"unsere beschrankte,engherzige,durch tausend Fesseln der Willkiirund der Gewohnheit gedriickte,durch zahllose kleinliche,nirgendstiefins Leben
143
of the various strandsof
Baeumler,of course,emphasizes the essentialincompatibility
German neoclassicism(Der Mythus,xcvi et passim), but it is importantto insistthat they
were not always perceivedor experiencedas incompatible.
80

BACHOFEN VERSUS MOMMSEN: TODAY
81
eingreifendeBeschaftigungen
zersplitterte
Lage," in thewords of Wilhelm
von Humboldt."44This release, this returnto originsis accompanied by
"a sense of discovery"(M 12). The successfulpilgrimfindsthat all the
barriershave fallen,and that he stands in the presence of the dead, of
Spirit,of the Divine. "Nothing intervenesbetween them and us." The
smoke-filled
roomsvanish and are replacedby a worldsuffusedwithlight,
as the last obstaclesand enclosuresfall,those thatseparatelifeand death.
"The sun warmsand illuminatesthose restingplaces of the dead so wonderfully,and infusesthe abodes of horrorwith the magic of joyous life."
The dead letteris replaced by the livingwaters of life: "All these necropolises are situatedbeside streams.The lappingwatersseem to intonethe
eternalpraises of the dead" (M 12).
One of Bachofen'smost recentcommentatorsin German has demonstratedhow this ideal of immediacymarks the scholar's attitudeto his
own writing.All the artifactsBachofenstudied were forhim "keys that
open many locks" (M 16), windows on to "a highertruth,essentiallythe
onlyreal spiritualtruth,whichrisesabove all ephemeralthingsto an idea
that is manifestedin them" (Tanaquil, M 246). Everything,in the end,
whetherbooks, sculptedmonuments,or natureitself,was a sign of somethingbeyond it. "Alles Verganglicheist nur ein Gleichnis." Its function
was fulfilledonce it had set the viewer in the presence of the formative
Idea of which it was the sign. In itselfthe sign was but a "husk" (M 15).
This is the source of Bachofen'santi-estheticism-thoughwe should not
forgetthat thereare many passages in his writing,notablythe autobiographicalletterto Savigny,the GreekJourney,
and the descriptionof the
Roman campagna in the Geschichteder Romer, where his delightin the
beauty of classical objects and classical landscape is patent,and that,in
general,the Germanidealistsof the generationof Hegel and Schellingdid
not always findit easy to draw a line between an idealism that tended
to dissolveall mediationsin a vast pantheismand an idealismthatsought
to preservethemin theirconcretereality.Goethe's contrastof Winckelmann and Zoega, his scathingattackon those forwhom Betrachtung
has
given way to Deutungand ended in Deuteleien,his criticismof the flight
of certainspiritsinto "agyptischeund indische Fernen," are indications
of this tension.145
There seems littledoubt thatBachofenleaned toward Schellingrather
than Hegel, toward Zoega ratherthan Winckelmann.It is not surprising
thereforethathis own writingis markedby the difficulties
thatmediating
formspresentedto him. His greatscholarlyworks are partlymarred,as
literarytexts,by his failureto integratethe scholarlymaterialinto the
mainbody of the work.The scholarshipis piled up in cumbersomemasses
thatare illuminatedfromtime to timeby a beautifulrestatementof the
centraltheme.Were it not forthe introductions,
in which he undertakes
144
145
Wilhelmvon Humboldt,Auswahl und Einleitungvon HeinrichWeinstock,73.

Letterto S. Boisseree,16 Jan. 1818, quoted by Baeumler,Der Mythus,xcvi.

82
to explain the meaningand argumentof his work,withoutany scholarly

and Tanaquil would be arduous
apparatus at all, both the Mutterrecht
readingindeed. Bachofenhimselfadmittedthatthe scholarlyapparatusthe"husks" ofhis ideas-weighed heavilyon him."I would liketo write,"
he told Meyer-Ochsner,"if only it could be done withoutthe appendage
of scholarlylearning"(C 93, 1857). Thus he planned his finalwork-the
Antiquarische
Briefe-as a series of lettersfroma young antiquarianto a
friend(C 173, 1863). If these turnedout to be more scholarlyin some
respectsthan Bachofenno doubt intended,it was probablybecause, in
the course of composition,the fictionof theiresotericnature,as an immediate communicationbetween friends,became harder and harder to
sustain. Bachofen'sstrongpartialitywas neverthelessforthe esotericas
opposed to the exoteric,forintimatecommunicationamong a tinygroup
of the electto whom the giftof insighthad been granted,ratherthan for
the evangelizingmission-perceived as essentiallyhopeless in the prevailingcircumstances-amongthe heathen.His greatestliteraryachievements-the so-called Selbstbiographie
or letterto Savigny and the GriechischeReise,writtenfora friend-were in factesotericworks,which he
neverpublished;and his deepest attractionwas to the confessionalmode,
whichhe conceivedof as a communicationof souls distinguishedby elective affinities.
Ultimately,of course, the mediationof the writtenword,
even in thisform,provedinadequate and had to be supplementedby the
spoken word, perceived as closer to immediatecommunication.Behind
Bachofen'simpatiencewith everyformof mediationlies, in the end, the
Platonicand Christiandream of presence,intensified
in all probabilityby
the influenceof eighteenthand nineteenth-century
pietism,which was
feltat Basle as in otherpartsof Germanyand Switzerland,and which is
bestexemplified
in fictionalliterature,
perhaps,by thecelebrated"matinee
a l'anglaise" in Rousseau's La NouvelleHeloise.Any one of the heroes of
thisnovel would have recognizedhimselfin Bachofen'swordsto Savigny:
"I derive real enjoymentand true satisfactiononly froman immediate
spiritualrelation with another" (C 82, 1855). Between the two JeanJacques,indeed, over the distancefromthe eighteenthto the nineteenth
are striking.
centuries,and fromGeneva to Basle the affinities
By situatingBachofen'soppositionto Mommsen and to the philology
of themid-nineteenth
centuryin a socio-politicalcontextand in a cultural
and philosophicaltradition,I have triedto presentit as less aberrantthan
it has sometimesbeen made to seem. Despite some exaggerationand an
obsessiveness that clearlyreflectsthe mobilizationof profoundpsychic
energies,Bachofenrepresentsa certainvisionofscholarshipthatwas more
commonat the timeof his youththan at the timeof his maturity.Moreover, the obvious relationbetween Bachofen's intellectualinterestsand
and the deepest springsof his psyche would probablynot
commitments
have been reprovedby him: on the contrary,the indifference,
the pure
the anonymityand, to his way of thinking,superficiality
professionalism,

83
of the scholarshipof most of his contemporarieswas what he most vehementlydeplored.

At the same time,I have not intendedto save Bachofen'sview of scholthatcomes of being classed
arshipfromtheirrelevanceand ineffectiveness
that
as aberrantin orderto inflicton it the irrelevanceand ineffectiveness
comes of being securelylocated historically.If I myselfhave been drawn
to Bachofen,it is because I share his concernsin some measure, as this
intrusionof the confessionalmode into a scholarlyessay may in itself
indicate.Standingback fromtheseconcerns,I can perceivetheirhistorical,
political,and philosophical foundations,and-with some degree of detachment-my own rootednessin these foundations.I cannot subscribe
to Bachofen'selitismor to his Platonic and Christianspiritualism;and it
is hard nowadays, thanksnotablyto JacquesDerrida,to remainunaware
of the pervasiveness,the fascination,and the implicationsof the ideal of
presencein westernthought.The ease with which Bachofen'swork can
and repressivepolitical
be and has been pressedintoserviceby irrationalist
ideologies is also disturbingand casts a shadow over it. Nevertheless,it
is impossible,I have found,to read thisworkwithoutbeing deeplymoved
by the values it representswith unparalleled fervorand conviction,and
by the profoundlongingforhuman communion,the hatredof violence
and exclusion,and the radical distrustof power and dominationthatare
its leitmotifs.
It is true that if Bachofen questions power, he stronglysupportstraditional,inheritedauthority,which he presentsas essentiallybenevolent
and protective.Any power that cannot justifyitselfby that kind of authorityor does not serve it is mere violence, in his view, whetherit be
the dominationof men in the relationsof the sexes, the dominationof
dictatorsand strongmen, such as Napoleon III or Bismarck,in national
politics,or the dominationof states,such as Prussia, in internationalrelations.His ideal was a religiouslygroundedhierarchicalcommunityreminiscentboth of Alt-Basel,withits serious-minded,pious, and paternalist
patriciate,and of his own family,which was firmlyruled by the rather
formidablefigureof JohannJacobBachofensenior and united in veneration of the latter'sdedicated wife Valeria Merian duringthe forty-one
years of theirmarriageand, afterher death in 1856, in the cult of her
memory.Bachofenregrettedthe disappearance of the first,even though
he claimed thathe did not idealize it,and he submittedwithoutquestion
to the second, remainingin his father'shouse until his own marriageat
The perfectfatherforBachofen,one mightsay, is a kind
the age of fifty.
mother;the perfectmothera wise and benevolentfather.
There are obvious limitationsto this ideal. As a response to the twin
and relatedmenaces, as Bachofensaw them,of uncontrolleddemocracy
and of the Machtstaat,it seems irrelevantto any practicalpoliticalaction.
Because of this,it tends to lend support to the Machtstaat.Indeed, the
exerciseof power in the late nineteenthand the twentiethcenturieshas

84
oftenhidden behind devotion to an ideal of community-la merepatrie,

as the French picturesquelyput it.146Nevertheless,though Bachofen's
politicalstance of old-styleconservatismis now totallyobsolete,his work
stillenunciatesa protestagainst a certaincult of power that one cannot
hear today with indifference.
Some of the most poetic passages of that work, moreover,evoke a
harmonythatis theresultnot of renunciationand restraint
but of freedom
and abandon. On one hand, it seems, thereis a modest ideal, to which
Alt-Baselcomes quite close, and which is probablythe best thathistorical
man can hope to achieve; on the other,thereis a conditionof joy and
community,an essentiallyeroticideal, which apparentlylies beyond the
scope ofhistory,but forwhichman's longingis incurable.In ancienttimes
an attemptwas made to bringthis conditionabout, to restorethe communityof man and nature,the profaneand the sacred,throughorgiastic
religiouscults,but the necessarybalance between self-preservation
and
self-abandonment,spiritualityand sensuality,life and death, could not
be maintained. Death triumphsin the end over life in the Dionysian
religions.In placing this ideal of a joyful communityknowing neither
repressionnorguiltbeyondall historicalhope, Bachofenwas faithfulboth
to his essentialpoliticalconservatismand to his Christianfaith;by refusing
itin glowinglanguage
to abandon it,on theotherhand, and by portraying
of greatpower and pathos,he keptUtopia alive in an age thathad settled
for"progress"and, involuntarily
perhaps,revivedtheeschatologicalstrain
in a Christianity
thatwas on the way to becominga bloodless and conventionalspiritualism.
In addition,if it was a deeply conservativegestureto hold Utopia at
arm'slength,therewas also in thatgesturea certaincourageand honesty.
Bachofenrefusedto yield to the seductiveand exhilaratingbelief that a
returnto the mythicalage is possible. He loathed and fearedwhat he saw
as the wild, atavisticpassion of the socialistsand communistsof his day,
but he also stood back fromthose who proposed to correctthe conflicts
and disordersof modern societyby sacrificingto the new ideologies of
nationalism.His attractionto the German culturecritic,Paul de Lagarde,
forinstance,was short-lived.Even while acknowledgingBachofen's essentialconservatism,
itis difficult
notto admirethesteadfastness
therefore,
withwhich he clung to two contradictory
positions,refusingto abandon
or to compromiseeither:the desireto breakout of thehistoryof alienation
intoa Utopia of love and fellowship,whichhe saw as the sourceof man's
higheststriving,and the prudentrecognitionthat alienation is also an
146 On thepoliticaland social signficance
see theimportant
ofthetheoryof "mother-right,"
Zeitarticleby ErichFromm,"Die sozialpsychologischeBedeutungder Mutterrechtstheorie,"
in capitalist
schriftfur
Sozialforschung
3 (1934): 196-227; theambivalenceofthemother-image
societyis discussedon 220-21. See also thechapterentitled"Frauenkultund Nationalgefiihl:
zwischen Sexismusund Rassismus,"in M. Janssen-Jurreit,
Sexismus,74-93.

85
of human life,which it is alinescapable and determiningcharacteristic

ways dangerousto attemptto overcome.
To the literaryscholar and the historian-the philologistin Bockh's
sense-Bachofen's textis particularlychallenging,since it forceshim to
confrontthe question of the meaning of his activityas a scholar. The
conditionsdescribed and deplored by Bachofen have certainlynot dismore professionalismin
appeared. There is more institutionalization,
scholarshipthan ever before.The world of learningis also closer to the
stateand moredependenton itand at thesame timeitselfmorethoroughly
politicizedthan it has ever been. The evolution that Bachofen clearly
foresaw,especiallyin the Germanyof his day, has spread farand wide
withthe fameand influenceof the Germanuniversitiesof the nineteenth
of engagement
to maintainthe kind of authenticity
century.It is difficult
withthematerialthatBachofendemanded,when scholarshipand writing
are elementsin the constructionof a careerand a livelihood,and when
institutionalpressures-of universities,journals, learned societies, the
whole apparatus of modernscholarship-are overwhelming.
intellectualtrends,moreover,are notfavorable,as I have
Contemporary
suggested,to the almost religiousattitudeBachofen had toward scholarship.The pedagogicalideal is in disarray;and thereis nothingnowadays
in educationalphilosophythatcan approach the confidencein the human
value of thestudyof antiquitythatwas sharedby at least two generations
of Germans,fromHerder and Winckelmannto Welckerand Muller. Interesthas shifted,moreover,in literaryand historicalscholarship,from
hermeneutics-the studyof an individualor collectivespiritin an effort
to maintainor restorecommunicationwith it and so constantlyto reestablishthe human community-to the studyof the formalpropertiesof
humanartifacts
and therulesor conditionsoftheirproduction(as opposed
to theirmeaning). Language, intellectualand poetic or artisticsystems
(epistemes,mentalite's),and theunconsciousitselfhave come to be thought
of as the relativelyimpersonalconditionsand determinantsof particular
productsor utterances,ratherthan as mereinstrumentalities
by which an
individualor collectivespiritexpressesitself.As such, theyhave moved
to the forefront
of scholarlyinterest.Certainfeaturesof thisshift,which
has usually been accompanied by a movementin philosophicaloutlook
fromidealism to materialismor by a rejectionof Hegelianismand a renewed sympathyfor Kant-but Kant strippedof his universalismand
rationalism-are commonlyreferredto by certainmodernFrenchcritics,
withapproval,as "anti-humanist,"thatis, as destructiveof the tenacious
westernbeliefin an essentialhuman natureor human spiritwhich makes
possible, even if only in short-livedmomentsof illumination,the overand the restorationof unityand prescomingof historicaldiscontinuities
ence. The term"anti-humanist"definesveryclearlythe difference
I have
been outliningbetween Bachofen's expectationsof scholarshipand our
own; forno age, not even the Renaissance perhaps, had a deeper faith

86
in or a higherregardforhumanity(Humanitat), or soughtmore fervently

to promoteit than the age of Herderand Humboldt,Goethe and Hegel,
Creuzerand Bockh.It is not surprisingthatin manyrespectsthe formalist
positionof GottfriedHermann,Bockh's adversary,now seems closer to
our own than the-at the time, more modern-historicistposition of
Bockh.WhereBockh tended to confoundphilologywithhistoryand saw
the studyof literatureas the historicalstudyof the lifeof a people, Hermann definedphilology-against historyand other disciplines-as the
formalstudyof language and of language artifacts.147
Like mostliteraryscholarsof my generation,I myselfhave been influand phenomenologicalschools, which remain,
enced by the existentialist
on the whole, compatiblewith Bockh's or Bachofen'sconceptionof philology and which, indeed, grew up in opposition to the positivismthat
Bachofenwas alreadycomplainingof;but also by therevivalofformalism,
semiotics,and a varietyof other approaches ranging
by structuralism,
froma new and rigorouslymaterialist,anti-LukacsianMarxism to the
of Freud. I suspect I am not alone in
Frenchinterpretation
contemporary
feelingthat I have never fullycome to termswith these competingpositions,some of whichcontinuethe traditionto whichBachofenbelonged,
and some of which oppose it. By its radical postures,its modishness,its
ready access to the media, its prestigeand its influence,contemporary
Parisian criticismseems to duplicatecertainaspects of the chic liberalism
Bachofenassociated in the mid-nineteenthcenturywith Berlin,and like
Berlinthen,Paris today spawns armies of epigones. Reading Bachofen,
one is remindedof the greatnessof the traditionthat is now in eclipse,
and some may be reminded,as I am, of theirown rootednessin it and
of theirdebt to it.
147
Hoffmann,
AugustBockh,53-54.

INDEX
Associationof German Philologists,Teachers and Orientalists,17, 22 n42, 25
Ast, Friedrich,43, 44, 76
Bachofen,Louise Burckhardt(wife), 5 nll,

16
Bachofen,Valeria Merian (mother),14 n25,
30, 48, 83
Bachofen,Wilhelm(son), 16
Baeumler,Alfred,6n14, 7n16; interpretation
of Bachofenby, 5 nll, 6, 6 ni5, 7, 36,
n58, 59 n90, 64-65, 64 nlOl, 76, 80
Bartoli,PietroSanti, 48
Basle, 1, 2, 4, 5 nll, 14, 23, 28, 65; economy
and governmentof, 8-12; humanism at,
8, 39; meetingof Associationof German
Philologistsat (1847), 25; patricianfamilies of, 10; revolt of dependent country
districtsagainst(1830-33), 11, 38-39; social structure
of,9-10; societyand culture
at, 15-18; and Swiss Confederation,8-9;
Universityof, 11, 12, 13 n23, 25, 39 n61,
78
Benjamin,Walter,2 n4, 7, 7 n16
Berlin,5 nll, 6, 18, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30,
32, 37, 39, 51, 58, 60; FriedrichWilhelm
Universityof, 12, 14-15, 21, 60, 62, 63,
67, 68, 86; Royal PrussianAcademyat, 4,
23, 31, 31 n52, 32. See also Prussia
Bernouilli,C. A. (writerand critic),5 nll, 6
nll
Bernoulli,Christoph(naturalist,founderof
PhilotechnicalInstitutein Basle), 9
Berri,Melchior,10
Biardot,Prosper,57
Bischoff,
Achille,9
Bismarck,Otto von, 30, 31, 34, 39
Boas, George,3
Bockh,August,23, 35, 41, 60, 75, 75 n134,
80; Hegelianismof, 72-73; and Niebuhr,
43 n66, 74; opposed to Hermann and
Saxon school, 51, 67, 68-70, 86; on pedagogical functionof philology,76-77, 78;
on relationof philology,history,and legal
studies, 62-63; on relation of philology
and philosophy,68-70; and Ludwig Ross,
43 n66
Books and book learning,50-55, 75-76, 78,
82
Braun,Emil, 52
Brentano,Clemens, 67
Briffault,
Robert,1 nl, 3 n8
Burckhardt,
Jacob,10, 12, 14, 16, 16 n, 48
n77, 56, 65, 78; and Bachofen,18-20, 22;
and Nietzsche,5 nll, 64
Bachofen,JohannJacob:anthropologicalapproach of, 1, 22, 37, 44, 57; appointed

professorof Law at Basle, 12: and Basle,
14-18, 38-39, 58; and Burckhardt,
18-20,
78; characterof, 58; Christianfaithand
religiousoutlookof, 5 nll, 6 ni5, 17-18,
19, 33, 37-38, 45, 50-51, 64-66, 80, 82,
83, 84; conservativepoliticalideas of, 14,
32-33, 36-37; earlyliberalsympathiesof,
12-13, 23; educationof, 12-13; familyof,
10-11; and Hegel, 35, 72-73; influenceof,
1-4, 5-7; interpretations
of, 2 n4, 6-7, 6
ni5, 41, 58-59, 64-66, 70; invitedto teach
at Freiburgand Zurich,17 n25; and neohumanism, 60-79, 80; and Niebuhrian
criticism,
18-19, 41, 42-43; and Nietzsche,
4-5, 5 nll, 7 n16, 64-66, 83-85; opposed
to positivism,54-55, 59, 61, 80; opposed
to professionalizationof scholarship,19,
31, 40-41, 55-57, 77-78, 80-85; orientalism in, 22, 41, 43; philosophyof history
of,33-38, 63-66, 83-85; Platonismof,4041, 49-51, 52-54, 75-76, 80-82; political
disillusionmentof, 13-15; resignsprofessorship,12-13; revivalof, in 1920s, 2, 67, 6 ni5; on scholarshipas vocation, 19,
45-47, 46 n75; travelsto France, 12, 17;
travelsto Great Britain,12, 17; travelsto
Greece, 47; travels to Italy, 16-17, 40;
view of philologyof, 19, 23, 40-41, 4258, 60-62, 80-81; writingpracticeof, 24,
34, 81-82. Works:Antiquarische
Briefe,
22,
Lehrendes romischen
43, 82; Ausgewiahlte
Civilrechts,
25; Geschichteder Romer,25,
28, 42, 53, 74 n128, 81; Griechische
Reise,
47, 48, 59, 81, 82; "Ueber Herkommen
und Zucht," 13; Die Lex Volconiaund die
mit ihr zusammenhangenden
Rechtsinstitute,25; Das lykische
Volk,5 nl 1; Das Mut1 nl, 2, 33, 34, 39, 82; Das Naterrecht,
turrechtund das geschichtliche
Recht,35
n57, 42, 61; Die Sage vonTanaquil,22 n39,
22 n42, 24, 30, 35 n56, 54, 82; Theodor
MommsensKritikder Erzahlungvon Cn.
Marcius Coriolanus,24; "Ueber das Weiberrecht,"22 n42; Versuchaber die Grdbersymbolik
derAlten,5 nll, 6 nl2, 43 n66,
56
Bachofen-Merian,
JohannJacob(father),10, Campbell,Joseph,3
Cesana, Andreas, 11 ni 7
83
87

88
INDEX
22, 22 n40, 38,

Champollion,Jean-Francois,
67 n104
Classical antiquity: Creuzer-Voss controversyover,21-22; estheticversusreligious
conceptions of, 21-22; 44-45; oriental
rootsof, 22, 22 n40, 41, 43; politicalsignificanceof approaches to, 23-24, 26-32,
Neohuman38-40. See also Interpretation;
ism; Orientalism:Philology
Comparatism,37, 44, 80
Coriolanusstory,30, 44
Creuzer,Friedrich,23, 50n, 51, 73, 74, 78,
79, 80, 86; and Hegel, 67-68; opposed to
estheticapproach to antiquity,41, 44; and
of myth,67-68;
symbolicinterpretation
and Voss, 21, 44
Croce, Benedetto,7 n15, 41, 70, 80
Deubel, Werner,6 nl5
Dennis, George,46
Derrida,Jacques,83
Dionysiancults,32, 84
Dormann,Johannes,1 n2, 11 n17
Droysen,JohannGustav, 13 n23
Engels,Friedrich,2
Etruscans,27, 35 n56, 58
Fellows,Sir Charles, 46
Freud,Sigmund,2, 2 n5, 35 n56
Fromm,Erich,2 n4, 2 n5, 7, 7 n16
Fustelde Coulanges, Numa-Denis, 46
Garibaldi,Giuseppe, 17, 55
Geddes, Patrick,3 n7
Geigy,Carl, 9
Geigy-Merian,JohannRudolf,9
Gelzer,Thomas, 21, 46 n75, 58, 59
George,Stefan,6
Gerhard,Eduard, 26
Gerlach,FranzDorotheus,12, 13, 15, 23 n44,
25, 26, 27, 44 n72, 74 n128, 76, 80
Gervasio,Agostino,7 n15, 58
Giraud-Teulon,Alexis, 1 nl, 4, 30 n50, 31,
57
Goethe, JohannWolfgangvon, 64, 67, 78,
79, 81, 86
Gottingenseven, 13
Greece, 37, 41, 57; Bachofen's journey to
(1851), 47
Grimm,Jacob,61, 67
Guigniaut,Joseph-Daniel,67, 67 n104, 7374
Hamilton,Sir William,13
Hammer,Viktor,3 n7
Harnack,Adolf,65
Hegel, Georg WilhelmFriedrich,13, 66, 75,
76, 78, 80, 85, 86; and Bachofen,35, 64,
72; and Bockh, 72-73, 74; and Creuzer,

67-68; and Niebuhriancriticism,71-72
HelveticRepublic,8, 11
Henzen, Wilhelm,53
von, 41, 76, 85, 86
Herder,JohannGottfried
51, 67, 69, 86
Hermann,Gottfried,
Herodotus,74
Heusler,Andreas,55
Historicism,64
Holderlin,Friedrich,47, 56, 59, 60, 64, 66,
77, 78
Homer,21, 43, 55, 67
Hornung,JosephMarc, 30
Howald, Ernst,6 n15, 7 n16
Humboldt,Wilhelmvon, 13, 43, 44, 46, 60,
73, 76, 77, 78, 81, 86
23-24, 31, 38-40, 42-44. See
Interpretation,
also Classical antiquity; Neohumanism;
Philology
Italy, 16-17, 16 n27; Bachofen's 1842-43
visitto, 25, 33, 46-47, 52; contrastedwith
Germany,52-53
Rudolfvon, 14 n23, 16 n95
Jhering,
Jung,Carl Gustav, 2, 2 n5, 6
Kant,Immanuel,85
Kerenyi,Karl,2, 2 n3, 7, 7 n16
Kiessling,Adolf,4, 31
Klages, Ludwig, 5, 5 n12, 7 n16, 63
Kochly,Hermann,55, 69
Kohler,Josef,4, 4 n1O, 56, 57, 62
KosmischeRunde,5, 6 nll
Lachmann,Karl,69, 70
Lagarde,Paul de, 84
22
Lajard, Jean-Baptiste-Felix,
La Roche, Benedikt,9
Lesser,J,7 nl5
22
Letronne,Antoine-Jean,
Liebrecht,Felix,57
Livy,26, 42
Lobeck,Christian,51, 67
Lubbock,John,2 n4, 22
McGuire,William,2 n5
McLennan,JohnFerguson,1 nl, 3 n9
Maine, Sir Henry,2 n4
Mann, Thomas, 5, 7, 7 n16, 17
Marx,Karl,2 n4
Marxism,2, 7
Meuli, Karl,3, 3 n9, 6, 11 n17
Heinrich,15, 16, 16 n27, 17,
Meyer-Ochsner,
19, 19 n31, 24 n45, 25, 26, 27, 28, 42, 49,
53, 54, 57, 78, 82
Micali, Giuseppe, 46
Michelet,Jules,24, 33, 38, 48 n77, 49 n80,
54
Mommsen,Theodor, 1, 4, 7, 21, 24-32, 34,
37, 40, 41, 44, 48, 48 n76, 52, 55, 57, 65,

INDEX
69, 77, 82; associated by Bachofen with
Bismarck,31, 34, 39; influenceof, 21; reviews Bachofen's Lex Voconia and Geschichteder Rdmer,25-26; RdmischeGeschichte,1, 24, 26, 27-29, 30; seen as symbol by Bachofen,23-24, 27
Morgan,Lewis, 1, 22, 22 n42, 44, 57
Mothers,rule of, 1, 2, 30, 32-34, 39, 49
Muller,Carl Otfried,12, 23, 35, 41, 43 n66,
51, 60, 67, 70, 74, 75, 75 n133, 76, 80, 85
Mumford,Lewis, 2-3, 3 n7
Myth:and historyin Bachofen,55, 59 n90;
of, 67-68
symbolicinterpretation
National Socialism,6, 6 n14, 7, 7 n16
Neohumanism,44, 60; A. Baeumler's criticism of, 64; as pedagogical ideal, 76-79;
philosophical foundation of, 48-49, 48
n78; relationof philology to philosophy
in, 67-69. See also Classical antiquity;InPhilology
terpretation;
Niebuhr,BartholdGeorg,21, 25, 26, 27, 28,
42, 43, 43 n66, 57, 71, 74
Nietzsche,Friedrich,4-5, 5 nll, 6, 7 n16,
64-65, 67
Orientalism,22, 41, 43, 57, 80
Overbeck,Franz, 5 nll, 65
Pascal, Blaise, 65
and as
Philology: as Altertumswissenschaft
textualcriticism,51-52, 68-70; and law,
61-63; as means of individualand social
reform,76-79; and philosophy, 67-69;
of, 19, 31, 40-41, 55professionalization
57; as vocation, 19, 45-47, 56. See also
Classical antiquity;Interpretation;Neohumanism
Pietism,4, 65, 71, 82
Platonism,46 n75, 50, 50 n81, 51, 52, 71,
80-81, 82, 83
Plutarch,1 n2
Prussia, 27, 37, 39, 40, 41, 58, 77; seen by
Bachofen as representativeof modern
Machtstaat,2, 3, 31, 32
Ranke, Leopold von, 12, 13, 14, 37, 66
Raoul-Rochette,Desire, 22 n40
Reclus,Elie, 3 n7, 57
Reed, Evelyn,3 n8
Reich,Wilhelm,2 n5
Revolutionsof 1848, 13, 17, 25, 62
89
Museum,74
Rheinisches
Ritter,Carl, 12
Ross, Ludwig, 42-43, 43 n66, 56-57
56, 60, 82
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques,
Savigny,FriedrichCarl von, 12, 13, 14, 26,
34, 45, 46, 47, 50, 54, 55, 60, 61-61, 63
n97, 66, 67, 80, 82
Schelling,Friedrichvon, 68, 72, 73, 75, 77,
78, 80, 81
Schiller,Friedrichvon, 64, 78
Schlegel,Friedrich,38, 44
Friedrich,14, 43, 67, 70, 80
Schleiermacher,
Schmidt,Georg, 7 n15, 63 n98
Schopenhauer,Arthur,4
Schr6ter,Manfred,5 nll, 6, 7
Schuler,Alfred,5
Sonderbund
War, 14, 37
Speiser,Jacob,9
Stael, GermaineNecker,Mme de, 16
Streuber,WilhelmTheodor, 14, 14 n25, 46
n75, 56, 60, 77
Swiss Confederation,8, 13. See also Helvetic
War
Republic;Sonderbund
Tertullian,18 n30, 46, n75, 47
Thierry,Augustin,38
Thiersch,Friedrich,69
Thomson,George,2
Thucydides,74
Tocqueville,Alexis de, 8
Turel,Adrien,35 n56
Tylor,Sir Edward, 22
Vinet,Alexandre,49 n80, 65
Vogt,Carl, 29
Voss, JohannHeinrich,21, 43-44, 67
Weber,Max, 6
Welcker,Friedrich,20 n35, 41, 51, 67, 69,
74, 74 n128, 79, 85
Westermarck,
Edward, 1 nl
Winckelmann,JohannJoachim,21, 41, 44,
71, 76, 76 n135, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85
Wolf,FriedrichAugust,44, 51, 68, 80
Wolfskehl,Karl,5
Wunderlich,Agathon,14 n23
Zoega, Georg,5 nll, 44, 46, 78, 79, 81
13
Zofingerverein,


Bachofen vs. Mommsen

Transféré par

Informations du document

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Bachofen vs. Mommsen

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Orpheus Philologus Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity

Author(s): Lionel Gossman

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

73, PART 5, 1983

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

CopyrightC) 1983 by The AmericanPhilosophicalSociety

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

George and Simone BrangierBoas

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

All translationsare mine unless otherwiseindicated.

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

so ist die Grosswissenschaft,

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

houghTheodorMommsenwas probablyunawareof it,fromthe

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

attentionof a few farseeingcolleagues, like JosefKohler,the legal comand sociologicalinterests,

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

poets and artistsgroupedaround StefanGeorge after1905 continuedthe

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

Nietzsche or Heidegger,not entirelywide of the mark. Nevertheless,it

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

II. THE PROPHET OF BASLE

he clocks of Basle, if we can believe the accounts of English and

one hourbehindthoseof the

neighboringcountries.A fewattempts,inspiredby Enlightenment,

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

mentsthe partriciateitselfhad had to make to changed political,social,

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

The Basle patriciatewas not unaffectedby the repercussionsof the

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

fromboth Bachofenand Burckwere a constantbuttof criticism

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

Humboldt,Ranke,Hegel, Savigny,each in his own way-in thepossibility

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

Basle Univ. Library,Bachofen-Archiv

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

he believed, not in Greece,but in the eternalOrient.Unlike Burckhardt,

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

GOSSMAN: ORPHEUS PHILOLOGUS

fromboth the universityand the Rat he was presentingthe failureof his

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM

THE PROPHET OF BASLE

of his time. He thus ensured that throughoutmost of his life he would

This content downloaded on Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:59:05 PM