J. G. Hamann and the Princess Gallitzin an ecumenical encounter
pp. 330-340
in: Robert B Plamer, Robert Hamerton Kelly (eds), Philomathes, Berlin, Springer, 1971Abstract
I want to talk about two Germans, who lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century, in a very different world from ours — two extraordinary people, who can be recognized for what they are only if I succeed in describing their circumstances to you. But in trying to do this, I want at the same time to present them to you as very relevant people for us. There is a twofold assumption here, which I want to exemplify rather than to argue. It is this: first, these two people are not like us; but second, because they are real people, working out their destiny with immense self-consciousness, they can affect us in a quite definite way, if we let them. The first part of this assumption, that they are not like us, is connected with a view of history which sees people wrestling with their own circumstances, which are always unique and unrepeatable. So I consider it naive and misleading to suppose that people are always fundamentally the same, confronting the same kinds of choices, and making the same kinds of decisions, and failing or succeeding in precisely the same way. This part of my assumption I hope to illustrate by the lives of these two. And the other part of the assumption, that such people are nevertheless of immense relevance to us, is connected with a view of history which may be stated quite briefly: history is what happens to people. More precisely, it is what goes on in people now. More precisely still, it is what we are and do.
