“Hegel’s system is the philosophical home of the spirit of the Prussian restoration.”1 Rudolf Haym turned this proposition into a self-evident fact, and a lasting one. Through a kind of historical overwriting, the presentation of the rational state has been made to appear as an anticipatory apology for a conservative, warlike, Bismarkian Prussia. In reality, things are more complex. True, Hegel went to teach in a state that in his eyes had become the “center” of Germany,2 but of a changing Germany, in contrast to reactionary Austria. What attracted him to Prussia—when he was anything but Prussian in mind or manner3—was that since 1805–1806 that country had not only gained power but, in a Germany dominated by Metternich, was at the forefront of progress. Hegel joined a state carrying out an ambitious policy of social and political reforms: serfdom was abolished, primary education was made mandatory, the privileges of the old corporations were curtailed in view of introducing free enterprise (which Hegel criticized), and a system of community self-administration was established. Humboldt provided the sciences with prestigious institutions, thus allowing them to escape from the overly restrictive oversight of the authorities (i.e., the university and the Academy of Sciences in Berlin). Finally, Prussia was on the point of inaugurating a constitutional regime, which for Hegel was the eminent expression of the “eternal rights of reason.”4 Thus, the state to which Hegel offered the support of his philosophical speculations was, within a Germany in the midst of Restoration, a center of resistance, of “French ideas” (e.g., the principles of 1789).
However, at the very moment of his move to Berlin, Prussia, in the wake of the 1819 Carlsbad decisions made by the Germanic Confederation, adopted a clearly retrograde course that could not have suited the new professor of philosophy, well known for his liberal ideas. From the moment of his arrival in Berlin, where the hunt for “demagogues” (as liberals were called, in particular the leaders of student ‘corporations, whose positions, tainted with anti-Semitism, were rather ambiguous) was going full throttle, Hegel found himself somewhat at odds. He did not openly oppose the authorities’ repressive measures; thus, shortly after arriving, he refused to take part in raising funds for his colleague De Wette, who had been fired for making imprudent statements. But, in his teaching, he attempted to save what could be saved and to distance himself from certain aspects of the new politics. An example: when, in 1819, the king abandoned his repeatedly made promise to give the country a constitution (this would not happen until 1851, following the great movement that swept through Europe in 1848), Hegel described constitutional monarchy as “a constitution of developed reason.”5 From this example and the many others like it we see how distorted the image of Hegel as a reactionary philosopher of the Prussian state is.
In dedicating a copy of the Philosophy of Right to Chancellor Hardenberg (who was on the way out at the time), Hegel affirmed that his intent was to make philosophy “of immediate assistance to the beneficial intentions of the government.”6 But he was addressing the last great minister of the era of reforms, the head of a government that would disappear with him; Humboldt, the symbol of the temporary alliance between power and knowledge, had already been forced to resign. From then on, it was no longer Hardenberg, Humboldt, or Altenstein, Hegel’s protector, who had the favor of the court, in particular of those in the entourage of the future Frederick William IV. They listened instead to the reactionary Haller, whom Hegel attacked virulently;7 to Ancillon, an ideologue of the Restoration and soon to be minister of foreign affairs;8 and to Savigny, Hegel’s colleague and enemy and a fierce opponent of the codification about which Hegel said that to believe a nation incapable of it would be “among the greatest insults one could offer.”9 Even at the height of his glory, the “philosopher of the Prussian state” was never in the Prussian court, and he gave the “benediction of the concept,” to use Haym’s expression, to ideas that had either been discredited or remained distant dreams. From the height of his Berlin chair, Hegel maintained his old conviction: “the world spirit of the time has given the order to advance.”10
1. Haym, Hegel und seine Zeit, 359.
2. “I came here to be in a center, and not in a province.” See Hegel’s letter to his friend, Niethammer in 1821, in Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, 2:271.
3. See Otto Pöggeler, “Hegels Begegnung mit Preussen,” in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie im Zusammenhang der europäischen Verfassungsgeschichte, ed. H. C. Lucas and O. Pöggeler (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1986), 311–51.
4. Wurtemberg, W 4, p. 496; Proceedings, in Hegel’s Political Writings, 274.
5. Enzykl, § 542, GW 20, p. 516 (Encyclopedia 241).
6. Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, 2:242.
7. RPh, § 258 Anmerkung, GW 14.1, p. 204 ff. (Elements, 278 ff.; see Outlines, 231ff).
8. In January of 1820 Hegel was advised not to attack him “since (1) he lives under the same roof as him, (2) he has more influence than him, and (3) because he is beneath all criticism.” See Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, 2:223.
9. RPh, § 211 Anmerkung, GW 14.1, p. 177 (Elements, 287; see Outlines, 200).
10. Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, 2:231, 85–86.