Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind

By Johann Gottfried Herder

"Rome disturbed the balance of the world, and under its sway, a world bled. What new order will rise from this upheaval? What new form will emerge from the ashes of fallen nations?"

Available in a modern translation for the first time, this foundational text of the German Enlightenment offers a profound glimpse into the philosophical landscape of 1788 and beyond.

It was published one year before the outbreak of the French Revolution, and develops a comprehensive theory of human development and a philosophy of progress.

A crucial document for understanding the foundations of our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jean Delaube
• Release date: Apr 22, 2025
• ISBN: 9798231096657

Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was a theologian, philosopher, ethnographer, and historian of the late Enlightenment, whose writings on music have been widely influential during the two centuries since his death. Philip V. Bohlman is Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago, where he is also Artistic Director of the ensemble-in-residence, The New Budapest Orpheum Society.  

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Johann Gottfried Herder

Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind

Translated and Edited by Bastian Terhorst

Voices of the German Enlightenment

This series presents significant texts of the German Enlightenment in new, modernized and accessible translations.

Also available in this series:

Christoph Martin Wieland: The Secret of the Order of Cosmopolitans

ISBN: 978-3-8190-4414-4

This historical text contains a passage that is racist. The editor explicitly distances himself from it but has preserved it unchanged as a document of its time (1788).

HERDER: IDEAS FOR A PHILOSOPHY OF THE HISTORY OF MANKIND

Introduction to the Fifteenth Book

All things in history are transient. The inscription upon its temple might well read: Futility and Decay. We walk upon the dust of our ancestors, tread the ruins of once-mighty kingdoms and vanished social orders. Egypt, Persia, Greece, Babylon, and Rome—they rose and faded like shadows. And like shadows, they rise again from their graves to reveal themselves in history.

And when a political order has outlived itself, who would not grant it a quiet death? Who does not feel a shudder when, amidst a living society, they encounter the petrified remnants of old institutions—blocking light and space, long bereft of purpose?

But these, too, shall vanish. And those who come after will cast aside today’s structures as outdated, sweeping them away—only to find themselves, in time, displaced by new generations.

The source of this transience lies in the nature of things themselves, in the very character of the world we inhabit, in the laws that govern existence. The human body is but a fragile shell, ever renewing—until the day it can no longer do so. Even the mind can act only through the body. We think ourselves independent, yet we are bound to the great weave of nature, caught in the eternal cycle of arising, being, and passing away. The thread that links generations is thin and ever breaking—only to be knotted anew. The wise elder departs, his successor begins again—perhaps heedlessly dismantling what was once carefully built.

Thus, the days follow one another, as generations and empires rise and fall in succession. The sun sets so that the night may begin—and so that mankind may awaken once more to a new dawn.

Where in history is a discernible goal? Everywhere, we see destruction, yet the new does not seem better than what came before. Nations flourish and fade. But when a past bloom withers, a new one does not always follow—let alone one more beautiful. Culture advances, yet not necessarily toward perfection. New abilities arise in new places, while old ones vanish irretrievably. Were the Romans wiser or happier than the Greeks? And are we wiser or happier than they?

The nature of man remains unchanged. In ten thousand years, he will be born with the same passions as in millennia past. He will stray down errant paths, only to reach, in the end, a belated, imperfect, and often fruitless wisdom. Our life is a labyrinth—we traverse it briefly, never knowing whether an exit exists. A sorrowful fate seems bound to the human race: tethered to Ixion’s wheel, doomed to roll Sisyphus’ stone, driven by an insatiable thirst for meaning that can never truly be quenched. We must strive, we must desire—yet we never witness the fulfillment of our efforts.

History does not reveal the outcome of human endeavors. A people may exist in isolation, but time will transform them. If they enter into conflict with others, they are cast into the crucible of history, losing their original form. We build upon ice, we write upon the waves of the sea—and all things pass away. Our planet, our thoughts—everything is fated for oblivion.

What, then, is the purpose of this toil, this burden that God has placed upon man’s shoulders? Why does each one drag himself under its weight toward the grave? No one was asked whether he wished to bear this burden, whether he wished to be born at this time, in this place.

Indeed, most of man’s sufferings do not arise from nature but from disorder, from misrule, from the defiance of oppressors and the weakness of both rulers and the