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Dying for the fatherland: Thomas Abbt's theory of aesthetic patriotism

2008; Routledge; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2008.09.003

1873-541X

Eva Piirimäe,

Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought

Abstract This article aims to dissect Thomas Abbt's (1738–1766) theory of aesthetic patriotism as laid out in his On Dying for the Fatherland (1761) and his prize-essay On Mathematical, Metaphysical and Moral Certainty (1763). Aesthetic idioms, such as the emphasis on the intrinsic pleasure from the order and beauty of virtue, had been invoked throughout the eighteenth century to vindicate the morally optimistic view of humanity against the sceptical vision of an exclusively utility-centred mankind. In the post-Montesquieu debates on the moral foundations of modern politics, German-speaking authors in particular, from both republics (Switzerland) and monarchies (Prussia), appropriated the aesthetic idioms in order to reject those theories which grounded patriotism in some sort of self-interest or proclaimed it redundant in modern society. Thomas Abbt was one of the most prominent representatives of this intellectual position. Combining the general emphasis of Shaftesbury on the role of aesthetic appreciation in moral and political agency with the more specific German Baumgartenian analysis of 'beauty' as a central principle in human 'empirical psychology', Abbt argued that patriotism in modern monarchies could be grounded in an aesthetic passion of enthusiasm generated through sensuous examples of great virtue. The example of a king fighting for his country on the battlefield could inspire monarchical subjects to follow his example as well as regenerate patriotism among them. Abbt was adamant that patriotism based on aesthetic foundations had to be supported and stabilised by a pervasive patriotic culture of remembrance and emulation of dead heroes through the fine arts, as well as by a system of meritocratic honour in the army. Keywords: Thomas AbbtAesthetic patriotismModern monarchyMoral beautyHonour Acknowledgements I am grateful to Istvan Hont, Iain McDaniel, Nigel Desouza and Pärtel Piirimäe for their comments on earlier versions of this essay. The research for this article has been funded by the research grant No. 7584 of the Estonian Science Foundation. I gratefully acknowledge this support. Notes 1 For Abbt's personal and professional biography see Hans Erich Bödeker, 'Thomas Abbt: Patriot, Bürger und bürgerliches Bewußtsein,' in Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, ed. Rudolf Vierhaus (Heidelberg, 1981), 221–53. 2 Moses Mendelssohn, 'Über Vom Tode für das Vaterland,' in Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe (henceforth: JubA), 5.1 (Rezensionsartikel in Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (1759–1765)) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1991), 412–21, 412. For Mendelssohn's general account of the unfolding of the discourse of patriotism see also his reviews of Johann Georg Zimmermann's and Isaak Iselin's works in JubA, 4 (Rezensionsartikel in Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste (1756–1759)) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1977), 329–47 and JubA, 5.1, 102–4, 321–30, 330–7. All translations from German or French works, unless otherwise stated, are mine. 3 In his second work Vom Verdienste (On merit) (1765) Abbt attempted to develop a comprehensive moral system by achieving a synthesis between the aesthetic and consequentialist theories of merit. 4 Thomas Abbt, 'Vom Tode für das Vaterland (henceforth: Vom Tode),' in Aufklärung und Kriegserfahrung. Klassische Zeitzeugen zum Siebenjährigen Krieg, ed. Johannes Kunisch (Bibliothek der Geschichte und Politik, 9) (Frankfurt/Main, 1996), 606, 642f. 5 Rudolf Vierhaus, "'Patriotismus" – Begriff und Realität einer moralisch-politischen Haltung,' in Die Bildung des Bürgers: Die Formierung der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft im 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Ulrich Herrmann (Weinheim and Basel, 1982), 119–31; Christoph Prignitz, Vaterlandsliebe und Freiheit. Deutscher Patriotismus von 1750 bis 1850 (Wiesbaden, 1981); Zwi Batscha, 'Thomas Abbts politische Philosophie,' in idem, Despotismus von jeder Art reizt nur zur Widersetzlichkeit (Frankfurt/Main, 1989), 127–68; Klaus Bohnen, 'Von den Anfängen des Nationalsinns. Zur literarischen Patriotismusdebatte im Umfeld des Siebenjährigen Krieges,' in Dichter und ihre Nation, ed. Helmut Scheuer (Franfurt/Main, 1993). Updating this framework of interpretation into a more modern 'Habermasian' idiom is Benjamin Redekop, Enlightenment and Community. Lessing, Abbt, Herder and the Quest for a German Public (Montreal, London and Ithaca, 2000). For a recent interpretation of Abbt's theory of monarchy as advancing a notion of 'enlightened absolutism' see Simone Zurbuchen, 'Theorizing Enlightened Absolutism: The Swiss Republican Origins of Prussian Monarchism', in Monarchisms in the Age of Enlightenment. Liberty, Patriotism, and the Common Good, ed. Hans Blom, John Christian Laursen, and Luisa Simonutti (Toronto, Buffalo, London, 2007), 240–66. 6 See e.g. Eckhart Hellmuth, 'Die "Wiedergeburt" Friedrich des Grossen und der "Tod für das Vaterland". Zum patriotischen Selbstverständnis in Preussen in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,' in Nationalismus vor dem Nationalismus, ed. Eckhart Hellmuth and Reinhart Stauber (Aufklärung 10: 2) (1998), 23–54; Hans Peter Herrmann, 'Individuum und Staatsmacht: Preussisch-deutscher Nationalismus in Texten zum Siebenjährigen Krieg,' in Machtphantasie Deutschland. Nationalismus, Männlichkeit und Fremdenhaß im Vaterlandsdiskurs deutscher Schriftsteller des 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. idem, Hans-Martin Blitz and Susanna Mossmann (Frankfurt/Main, 1996), 69–79; Wolfgang Burgdorf, "'Reichsnationalismus" gegen "Territorial-nationalismus": Phasen der Intensivierung des nationalen Bewußtseins in Deutschland seit dem Siebenjährigen Krieg,' in Föderative Nation. Deutschlandkonzepte von der Reformation bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Dieter Langewiesche and Georg Schmidt (Munich, 2000), 157–91; Hans-Martin Blitz, Aus Liebe zum Vaterland. Die deutsche Nation im 18. Jahrhundert (Hamburg, 2000), 302–38. 7 This interpretation can be found in Burgdorf, "'Reichsnationalismus" gegen "Territorial-nationalismus",' 167f. 8 For critique of the dichotomy of 'enlightened' versus 'nationalist' in interpreting Abbt's theory of patriotism and a contextualisation of Abbt's ideas in French debates in particular see Eva Piirimäe, 'Thomas Abbt's Vom Tode für das Vaterland (1761) and the French Debates on Monarchical Patriotism', Trames: Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences vol. 9, No. 4 (2005), 326–47. 9 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws [1748], ed. and trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge, 1989), books V and VII. The reconstruction of Montesquieu's, Rousseau's and Helvétius's ideas below draws on Eva Piirimäe, 'Thomas Abbt (1738–1766) and the Philosophical Genesis of German Nationalism' (University of Cambridge PhD thesis, 2006), ch. 2 and 3. An excellent recent discussion of Montesquieu's theory of moral principles underlying republics and monarchies is in Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution (Princeton and Oxford, 2007), 102–8, 149f. 10 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, II: 2, 10. 11 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, XX: 4, 340. 12 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, V: 2–7, 43–50. 13 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, II: 4, 17f. 14 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, V: 9, 55f. and XX: 21, 350. 15 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, VII: 4, 99 and XIX: 9, 312. 16 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, III: 7, 25. 17 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, XXVIII: 17, 552; XXVIII: 20, 560; IV: 2, 33. 18 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, VII: 1, 97. For discussion see Hont, 'The Early Enlightenment Debate,' 13f. 19 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, IV: 2, 34; XX: 21–2, 350–1. 20 England constituted a special case, as it wedded a commercial society and inequality of wealth with a constitution that was able to maintain itself simply through its intricate system of checks and balances. Since all the intermediate powers distinctive of a monarchy were abolished there, the resulting state form was a 'republic, disguised under the form of monarchy'. As long as the constitutional mechanism functioned, Montesquieu argued, liberty was secure (and indeed, extreme) in England; yet he harboured great suspicion with regard to its long-term ability to be so. For a detailed discussion of Montesquieu's comparison of the two different kinds of government see Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 41–9. 21 Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 150. 22 See Ulrich Adam, 'Nobility and Modern Monarchy – J.H.G. Justi and the French Debate on Commercial Nobility at the Beginning of the Seven Years War,' History of European Ideas No. 29 (2003), 141–57 and Eva Piirimäe 'Thomas Abbt's Vom Tode für das Vaterland (1761) and the French Debates on Monarchical Patriotism', Trames: Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences vol. IX, No. 4 (2005), 326–47, 329–36. The centrality of Montesquieu's theory of monarchy for the French political theory in the eighteenth century in general is highlighted in Sonenscher, Before the Deluge. 23 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 'Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men or Second Discourse' (='Second Discourse'), in idem, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and trans. by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge, 1997), 111–222. 24 Rousseau, 'Second Discourse', 170. 25 Rousseau, 'Preface to "Narcissus"', in idem, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and trans. by Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge, 1997), 92–106; 100; idem, 'Second Discourse' [Rousseau's notes], 198. 26 Rousseau, 'Second Discourse', 175, 182. 27 Rousseau's radically sceptical view of modern politics in Second Discourse is demonstrated by Kapossy, Iselin contra Rousseau, passim and Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 222–39. See also Arthur M. Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man. On the System of Rousseau's Thought (Chicago, 1990). 28 I disregarded this aspect of Helvétius's thought in my interpretation of Helvétius (in my 'Thomas Abbt's Vom Tode', 333–36). The summary here also attempts to incorporate the most important insights from Sonenscher's interpretation of Helvétius in his Before the Deluge, 266–80. 29 Helvétius, De l'esprit [1758] (Paris, 1988), 77–80. 30 Helvétius, De l'esprit, 251, 184, 369, 324–29. 31 Helvétius, De l'esprit, 186–91, 357, 373. 32 For a reconstruction of this argument in Helvétius's theory see Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 276–7. 33 Helvétius, De l'esprit, 373–5. 34 On Iselin's critique of Montesquieu see Kapossy, Iselin contra Rousseau, 137–73 and 295–99 and Piirimäe, Thomas Abbt (1738–1766), 122–30. 35 Kapossy, Iselin contra Rousseau, 247–304. 36 Eva Piirimäe, 'The Vicissitudes of Noble National Pride: Johann Georg Zimmermann's (1728–1795) Theory of Patriotism', in Human Nature as the Basis of Morality and Society in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Eva Piirimäe and Juhana Lemetti (Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol. 83) (Helsinki, 2007), 121–41. 37 'Vom Tode', 595; cf. Abbt, 'Vom Verdienste', 332. 38 On neo-Colbertist theories of modern monarchy see Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 28–30 and Isaac Nakhimovsky, 'Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and the Anti-Machiavel in historical context' (University of Cambridge MPhil thesis, 2002). 39 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 589–650, 971–1008; 597, 601. 40 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 601. 41 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 595. 42 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 603. 43 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 597f. 44 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 598f.; cf. Charles de Montesquieu's, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, ed. and trans. David Lowenthal (Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1965), IX: 91. 45 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 603f. 46 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 600. 47 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 600; 634–6. 48 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 608. 49 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 606. 50 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 618. 51 See particularly 'Vom Tode', 643. 52 Abbt continued to engage with Helvétius's ideas after the publication of the essays analysed in this article. In a letter to Mendelssohn, Abbt argued that he would like to complement Helvétius's 'beautiful book' on the mind with one on the 'heart', Abbt to Mendelssohn (undated), in Thomas Abbt, Vermischte Werke, ed. Friedrich Nicolai, vol. II: 3 (Berlin, 1978 (reprint of 1782 edition)), 48. In a letter to Mendelssohn of 16 March 1765, Abbt expressed the same idea in a more critical tone: 'Voltaire und Helvetius haben […] die Folgen aller feinern Empfindung in den bürgerlichen Gesellschaften misshandelt. Ich für meinen Theil denke steif und fest dabei zu bleiben, meine Freunde zu lieben, und so viel Gutes zu thun als ich kann', ibid Abbt, Vermischte Werke, vol. II: 3, 334. 53 See Abbt's letter of 2 Feb. 1762 to Mendelssohn and Nicolai, in Moses Mendelssohn, JubA, 11 (letter 176), 270f. 54 This is particularly clear in the essay he submitted to the Berlin Academy Essay competition in 1763. 55 Unfortunately, these arguments have often been collapsed into one single argument about man's natural goodness, see, most recently, Frederick Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination (Oxford, 2005), 93. 56 For the lesser-known early responses to Hobbes, see Isabel Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2000), passim. 57 Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 'An Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit', in idem, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Times [1711, 1714], ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge, 1999), 163–230; 171. For ease of reference, I shall refer to the essays collected in this work separately. 58 For a standard description of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson as sentimentalists, see D. D. Raphael, The Moral Sense (London, 1947), 2, 17. The differences between Shaftesbury and Hutcheson have been emphasised and analysed by Stanley Grean, Shaftesbury's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics (Athens, OH, 1967) and Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal Ought (Cambridge, 1995), ch. 7–8. 59 Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 93. 60 See Istvan Hont, 'The Early Enlightenment Debate on Luxury and Commerce', in Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge, 2006), 395f. 61 Shaftesbury 'Miscellanies', in Characteristics, No. I–V, 339–483; II, 353. 62 Shaftesbury 'Sensus communis, an essay on the freedom of wit and humour' [1709], in Characteristics, 56. 63 Shaftesbury, 'Sensus communis', 63; 'Miscellanies', No. I, 352, III, 413, IV, 422. 64 Shaftesbury, 'Inquiry', in Characteristics, 191. 65 For further discussion see Eva Piirimäe, 'Shaftesbury on Moral Motivation', in Great Works of Ethics. Dozen Acts of Reading, ed. Margit Sutrop and Kadri Simm (Tallinn, forthcoming). 66 Shaftesbury, 'Sensus Communis', in Characteristics, 29–69; 50–3. 67 Shaftesbury, 'Inquiry', in Characteristics, 201. 68 Shaftesbury, 'Miscellanies', II, 353. 69 For Shaftesbury's methods of detecting 'false enthusiasm' see his 'A letter concerning enthusiasm' [1709], in Characteristics, 4–28 and 'Miscellanies', III, 414f. 70 It is in this respect that Francis Hutcheson diverged from Shaftesbury. Hutcheson believed that self-love, even if based on the 'aesthetic' qualities of the self and one's actions, was not a proper form of moral motivation. He emphasised the need to expand and 'enlighten' men's first-order benevolent affections about the maximal possible good (pleasure) that they wished and pursued for others. For Hutcheson's critique of psychological hedonism see Henning Jensen, Motivation and Moral Sense in Francis Hutcheson's Ethical Theory (The Hague, 1971), 80–105, Robert Stewart, 'John Clarke and Francis Hutcheson on Self-Love and Moral Motivation', Journal of the History of Philosophy vol. XX (July, 1982), No. 3, 261–77 and Darwall, The British Moralists, 207–43. 71 Quoted from Paul Guyer, Values of Beauty. Historical Essays in Aesthetics (Cambridge, 2005), 3; Guyer uses the term 'sensitive' instead of the more widely used 'sensuous' for translating the German 'sinnlich'. 72 Norton, The Beautiful Soul, 85f.; cf. Guyer, Values of Beauty, 32. 73 Meier was Abbt's favourite teacher during his studies in University of Halle, see Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, 100. 74 Georg Friedrich Meier, Theoretische Lehre von den Gemüthsbewegungen überhaupt (Halle, 1744). 75 Meier, Theoretische Lehre, § 217f. 76 Meier emphasised this was actually a great advantage of such cognition, since many objects were simply beyond human distinct representation, and the amount of perfection laying in them would have remained unknown for man, Theoretische Lehre, § 110. 77 Meier, Theoretische Lehre, § 84–88, 130. On the role of the imagination in the German theories of enthusiasm see Dürbeck, Gabriele, 'Fiktion und Wirklichkeit in Philosophie und Ästhetik. Zur Konzeption der Einbildungskraft bei Christian Wolff und Georg Friedrich Meier', in Faktenglaube und Fiktionales Wissen. Zum Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Kunst in der Moderne, ed. Daniel Fulda and Thomas Meier (Frankfurt/Main, 1997), 25–42, and idem, Einbildungskraft und Aufklärung. Perspektiven der Philosophie, Anthropologie und Ästhetik um 1750 (Studien zur deutschen Literatur, 148) (Tübingen, 1998). 78 Meier, Theoretische Lehre, § 321, 181. Meier referred directly to the martyrs. 79 See Robert Norton, The Beautiful Soul. Aesthetic Morality in the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca and London, 1995), 72–83. Cf. Panajotis Kondylis, Die Aufklärung im Zeitalter des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (Munich, 1986), 545–62 and Patrick Riley, Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence (Cambridge, MA and London, 1996), passim. 80 Moses Mendelssohn, 'On Sentiments', in idem, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrohm (Cambridge, 1997), 15. The 'aesthetic' dimension in Leibniz's and Wolff's moral philosophy as well as in the Baumgartenian developments of it is explored by Robert Norton, The Beautiful Soul. Aesthetic Morality in the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca and London, 1995), 72–83. Cf. Panajotis Kondylis, Die Aufklärung im Zeitalter des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (Munich, 1986), 545–62 and Patrick Riley, Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence (Cambridge, MA and London, 1996), passim. 81 Mendelssohn, 'On Sentiments', 24 and 30. 82 'On the main principles of the fine arts and sciences', [1758] in Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrohm (Cambridge, 1997), 172. 83 Mendelssohn, 'On the main principles of the fine arts and sciences', 169. On Mendelssohn's further engagement with the problem of moral motivation (and his evaluations of Hutcheson's 'moral sense' theory) in early the 1760s, see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohns Frühschriften zur Metaphysik (Tübingen, 1969), 342–91; idem, Moses Mendelssohn. A Biographical Study (London, 1998), 125–30. 84 See particularly Moses Mendelssohn's 'On Sentiments' and 'Rhapsody, or additions to the Letters on sentiments', both in idem, Philosophical Writings, 7–95 and 192–232. 85 Cf. the discussion of Paul Guyer, Kant and the experience of freedom. Essays on aesthetics and morality (Cambridge, 1993), 81–93. 86 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 616. 87 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 616, cf. Pope, An Essay on Man, 131. 88 Cf. Moses Mendelssohn's and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's mock-essay 'Pope, ein Metaphysiker!' where they denied the compatibility of Leibniz' and Pope's natural theology. On this essay see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn. A Biographical Study (London and Portland, Oregon, 1998), 46–8. Abbt referred specifically to Vincent de Toussaint's Moeurs (1747) and Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1742). 89 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man [1733–4], ed. Maynard Mack (London, 1950), 53 (II: 6), 67 (II: 101). 90 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 626–7 (n.). 91 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage: Ob die metaphysischen Wahrheiten überhaupt einer solchen Evidenz fähig sind, als die mathematischen?', in idem, Vermischte Werke, ed. Friedrich Nicolai, vol. II: 4 (Hildesheim and New York, 1978 [reprint Berlin, 1780]), 59–134. 92 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 127. 93 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 133. 94 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 133. 95 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 133. 96 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 126. 97 In an earlier essay, Abbt had expressed a similar idea, ascribing it (misleadingly) also to Shaftesbury: 'Die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses der Handlungen zur Ordnung oder Vollkommenheit des Ganzen, macht […] die Welttugend aus; welches der höchste Grad der Tugend ist, den ein Geschöpfe erlangen kann. Und wenn ich mir bey dieser Tugend alle Schönheit denke, die aus einer solchen Ordnung entspringet, so wird es die liebenswürdige Tugend, über die Shaftesbury in schwärmerische Entzückungen geräth.' [Abbt] Anon., 'Von des Herrn von Moser Beherzigungen', 19f. 98 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 130. 99 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 128. 100 Abbt, 'Versuch einer Auflösung der Frage', 131, 132. 101 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 618f. 102 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 614. Abbt voiced a similar idea in his review of Johann Gottfried Süssmilch's Göttliche Ordnung in Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (FXV 1762), LB 250, 117f. 103 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 644. 104 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 647f. In his review of Vom Tode, Moses Mendelssohn endorsed this idea: 'Zu welchen hohen Gesinnungen ruft uns das erhabene Muster nicht, das wir beständig vor unserer Augen haben?' JubA, 5.1, 412–21; 415. Cf. also Moses Mendelssohn's critique of Johann Georg Zimmermann's 'variation on the same theme' in his review of Zimmermann's Vom Nationalstolze: '[W]enn man durch ein grosses Beispiel angefeuert, die wahre Seelengrösse kennen, lieben und selbst darnach streben lernt […] ist dieses Nachahmung, oder nicht vielmehr die uns angeborene Liebe zum Erhabenen, die jetzt durch die Macht des Beispiels, einen neuen Trieb bekommt?' in idem, JubA, 5.1, 330–7; 332. 105 Like Shaftesbury, Abbt did not distinguish between 'sublime' and 'beautiful'. We can understand from the context that a 'sublime idea' for him was a 'supremely' or 'strikingly beautiful idea'—something that caused excitement and wonder together with the attraction. 106 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 615. 107 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 610. 108 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 632. 109 Shaftesbury held that false enthusiasm was held up by 'solemnity' that prohibited examining the subject. The ability of a subject to 'bear ridicule' was the touchstone of its truth. If ridicule fell on a subject that was not 'deformed', it could not possibly harm it, since ridicule was bound to bounce back on the ridiculer. Shaftesbury, 'A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm', in Characteristics, 8. For Mendelssohn's critique of the view of ridicule as a 'touchstone of truth', see his 'Dialogues' [1755] in Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge, 1997), 96–130, 114. 110 Shaftesbury, 'Miscellany', III, 414f. 111 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 644. 112 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 644. 113 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 646. 114 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 645–6. 115 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 646. 116 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 645f. Cf. Helvétius, De l'Esprit, II: XII. 117 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 648. 118 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 621. 119 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 617, 618f. 120 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 618. 121 In his Spectator, Addison influentially claimed that laughter in modern times was not 'employed to laugh men out of vice and folly' any more, but was 'generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything that is solemn and serious, decent and praiseworthy in human life.' The Spectator, with an introduction and notes by George A. Aitken (London, 1897), vol. 1, No. 47, 243; vol. 3, No. 249, 386. Cf. Isaak Iselin, Politische und Philosophische Versuche (Zürich, 1760), 151–2. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had held a different view. As we saw above, Shaftesbury argued that raillery could do no harm to real virtue. Francis Hutcheson developed this view further, contesting Addison's theory in three essays published in his, Reflections upon Laughter [1725] and Remarks upon The Fable of the Bees (Glasgow, 1750), 54. 122 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 607. 123 This was the view of Joseph Addison in Spectator, No. 47 and 249. 124 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 607. In his Rhapsody (1762), Moses Mendelssohn gave a similar, and more readily intelligible, explanation for why laughter was dangerous even if it did not have any connection with our vanity. Following Hutcheson, Mendelssohn argued that laughter was generally based on a perception of a contrast between a perfection and an imperfection. Yet he also highlighted that it was crucial that the consequences of this contrast were 'of no importance and not […] very proximate to us.' Laughter was based on a playful and detached attitude to the subject matter. A habitual adoption of such an attitude could well lead towards a suppression of a genuine regard to a lofty subject, Mendelssohn, 'Rhapsody or additions to the Letters on sentiments [1762]', in idem, Philosophical Writings, edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrohm (Cambridge, 1997), 131–68, 149. 125 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 609. 126 Shaftesbury, 'Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author', in idem, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Times [1711, 1714], ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge, 1999), 70–162; 108; cf. idem, 'Miscellanies', in idem, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Times [1711, 1714], ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge, 1999), No. I–V, 339–483; III, 398. 127 Shaftesbury, 'Soliloquy', 112. 128 Shaftesbury, 'Soliloquy', 119. 129 Mendelssohn, 'On the Sublime and naïve in the fine sciences', 201. 130 Mendelssohn, 'Über [Abbt's] Vom Tode für das Vaterland', 414. 131 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 637. 132 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 599, n. 133 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 599. 134 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 638. 135 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 640. 136 Abbt, 'Vom Tode', 640–1. 137 Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 124f. and 163 and Douglas Moggach, 'Schiller's Aesthetic Republicanism', History of Political Thought, vol. XXVIII, No. 3. Autumn 2007, 520. 138 Moggach, 'Schiller's Aesthetic Republicanism', 539; cf. Fania Oz-Salzberger, 'Scots, Germans, Republic and Commerce', in Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, ed. Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, 2, 197–226.