searching for ways of reformulating or even reinventing the cosmopolitan ideals of Freemasonry without having to refrain to the strategies and functions of secrecy effective in these orders and lodges. I’m going to finish my paper by giving two examples of how he considers this to be possible. In these examples two central ideals of the German Enlightenment in general and of Herder’s work in particular – Humanität and Bildung – are being reformulated as functions of secrecy.


IV. In 1791 Herder broke off his work with the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte


der Menschheit, because he wanted to write something more explicitly practical and political. Immediately he started to work on a collection of letters that he first planned to publish under the title Briefe, die Fortschritte der Humanität betreffend. Later they were revised, made less politically explicit and published with the title Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität. In the late 18th century Humanität was a highly ambivalent concept: on the one hand, it brought with it meanings of politeness, friendliness and good manners from the representative culture of the Ancien Regime; on the other hand, however, Humanität had become what Koselleck in his Begriffsgeschichte calls a concept of movement, ein Bewegungsbegriff or a concept formulating a utopian goal, ein Zielbegriff. This conceptual change can be observed in the title of Herder’s letters. However, the most explicit discussion of the concept Humanität is to be found in the third collection, in the first three letters, entitled “Über das Wort und den Begriff Humanität”. Herder begins by asking if this word couldn’t be replaced by another: “Menschheit, Menschlichkeit, Menschenrechte, Menschenpflichten, Menschenwürde, Menschenliebe?”11 Why does he consider changing it? Because – and this is the opening line of the first letter - “Sie fürchten, dass man dem Wort Humanität einen Fleck anhängen werde.”12 This is indeed a strange statement. Indeed it seems impossible to understand what it is referring to, until we spot the editor’s – Herder’s – footnote, referring us to the preceding letter, the last letter of the second collection, in which we find the almost exactly the same sentence , this time in the form of a question, posed by one of the two discussants, indicated as “Er”: “Glaubst du aber nicht, daß man auch dem Wort Humanität einen Fleck anhängen werde?” “Ich” answers – tounge in cheek: “Das wäre sehr inhuman. Wir sind nichts als Menschen; sei der Erste unserer Gesellschaft.13” Of, course there are several possible reasons why the concept of Humanität doesn’t appear to be completely without spots, Flecken. As a normative ideal it could indeed be considered as conservative, as French, as elitist and so on. In the letter in question, however, the 26th letter of the Humanitätsbriefe, the concept of Humanität is developed, deduced even, from a concept of secrecy. The heading of this letter is “Gespräch über eine unsichtbar-sichtbare Gesellschaft” and the content is for the most part copied – word by word – from the first dialogue in Lessing’s work Ernst und Falk. Gespräche für Freimaurer, published in 1778 – the work that first awoke Herder’s theoretical and historical interest in Freemasonry. Parallel to the debate with


11Werke 7, s. 147. 12 Ibid. 13Werke 7, s. 141, 13 7, s. 13.


55


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