The Proper Study of Mankind

by Isaiah Berlin

  The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History (London, 1996: Chatto and Windus; New York, 1997: Farrar, Straus and Giroux):

  Introduction by Patrick Gardiner

  The Sense of Reality

  Political Judgement

  Philosophy and Government Repression

  Socialism and Socialist Theories

  Marxism and the International in the Nineteenth Century

  The Romantic Revolution: A Crisis in the History of Modern Thought

  Artistic Commitment: A Russian Legacy

  Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Nationalism

  Rabindranath Tagore and the Consciousness of Nationality

  Readers who wish to explore the many pieces not yet collected in volume form should consult the complete bibliography of Berlin’s writings by Henry Hardy, who has compiled and edited all the volumes published from 1978 onwards (jointly, in the case of Russian Thinkers, with Aileen Kelly). This bibliography appears in its currently most up-to-date published form in the 1991 impression of the Oxford University Press paperback edition of Against the Current. Those interested in Berlin’s unpublished lectures and broadcasts will find recordings of a number of them, including his 1965 Mellon Lectures on romanticism, at the National Sound Archive in London: the experience of listening to him speaking is highly recommended.

  Writings about Berlin

  The list of publications stimulated by Berlin’s ideas is growing steadily, in many languages. Here I confine myself to publications in English.

  Three collections have been published in his honour:

  Alan Ryan (ed.), The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (Oxford and New York, 1979: Oxford University Press)

  Avishai Margalit and others, On the Thought of Isaiah Berlin: Papers Presented in Honour of Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1990: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities) (a 45-page pamphlet)

  Edna and Avishai Margalit (eds), Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration (London, 1991: Hogarth Press; Chicago, 1991: University of Chicago Press)

  Three book-length studies of Berlin’s thought have so far appeared in English:

  Robert Kocis, A Critical Appraisal of Sir Isaiah Berlin’s Political Philosophy (Lewiston, NY, etc., 1989: Edwin Mellen Press)

  Claude J. Galipeau, Isaiah Berlin’s Liberalism (Oxford, 1994: Clarendon Press), with a specially valuable bibliography

  John Gray, Isaiah Berlin (London, 1995: HarperCollins; New York, 1996: Princeton University Press; paperback, retitled Berlin, London, 1995: Fontana Modern Masters)

  Among the many uncollected articles on Berlin, or on topics treated by him, the following may be of special interest:

  Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘On the Pioneer Trail’ (review of Vico and Herder), New York Review of Books, 11 November 1976, 33–8

  Patrick Gardiner, review of Vico and Herder in History and Theory 16 (1977), 45–51

  Bhikhu Parekh, ‘Isaiah Berlin’, chapter 2 in his Contemporary Political Thinkers (Oxford, 1982: Martin Robertson)

  Roger Hausheer, ‘Berlin and the Emergence of Liberal Pluralism’, in Pierre Manent and others, European Liberty: Four Essays on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Erasmus Prize Foundation (The Hague etc., 1983: Martinus Nijhoff)

  John Gray, ‘On Negative and Positive Liberty’, chapter 4 in Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy (London and New York, 1989: Routledge)

  Eric Mack, ‘Isaiah Berlin and the Quest for Liberal Pluralism’, Public Affairs Quarterly 7 No 3 (July 1993), 215–30

  George Crowder, ‘Pluralism and Liberalism’, Political Studies 42 (1994), 293–305 (reply by Berlin and Bernard Williams, ibid., 306–9)

  Michael Walzer, ‘Are there limits to liberalism?’ (review of John Gray, Isaiah Berlin), New York Review of Books, 19 October 1995, 28–31

  Ian Harris, ‘Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Murray Forsyth and Maurice Keens-Soper (eds), The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin (Oxford and New York, 1996: Oxford University Press)

  In addition, many of the articles critical of ‘Historical Inevitability’ and ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ are mentioned in Berlin’s long and masterly introduction to Four Essays on Liberty.

  Finally, there is a valuable book of interviews with Berlin:

  Ramin Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (London, 1992: Peter Halban; New York, 1992: Scribner’s)

  1 Reprinted here in a shorter version: see p. xix above.

  2 An earlier version of ‘Socialism and Socialist Theories’.

  INDEX

  Compiled by Douglas Matthews

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  Abakumov, V. S., 536

  Abyssinia, 629

  Accursius, 319n

  Acton, John E. E. Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron, 176, 239, 356

  Adamovich, Georgy Victorovich, 543

  Adrastea (periodical), 376

  Aeschylus, 491

  aesthetics: and ideas, 64

  Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, 296, 319

  Agesilaus, 288, 296

  Agrippa, Cornelius, 244, 331

  Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna: post-war status, 526–7; appreciates Hemingway, 530; as 19th-century writer, 532; on Pasternak, 533, 534n, 535–6, 546, 549–50; on Chekhov, 539, 548; I. Berlin meets, 539, 540–52; praises Dostoevsky, 539, 546; translations, 547–8; in Oxford, 548; reputation, 552; Cinque, 547; The Grey-Eyed King, 546; Poem Without a Hero, 544–5, 547, 550; Requiem, 526, 544–5; A Visit to the Poet, 546

  Akhsharumov, Dmitry, 441, 460, 465

  Aksakov, Sergey Timofeevich, Ivan Sergeevich and Konstantin Sergeevich, 532

  Alberti, Leon Battista, 320

  Alcibiades, 34, 614

  Alderisio, Felice, 272, 321n

  Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 134, 245, 346, 359, 366, 489, 562

  Alexander I, Tsar, 448, 452–3, 486, 521

  Alexander II, Tsar, 513–14

  Alexander the Great, 51, 141, 168, 336, 373

  Alfieri, Vittorio, 273

  algebra, 86

  Ambrose, St, 207n

  anabaptists, 328

  Anarchists, 220

  Anaxagoras, 3

  ancients and moderns controversy, 351, 365

  Andronikova, Salomé, 543

  Annan, Noel, xxv

  Annenkov, Pavel Vasil’evich, 439, 505

  Annensky, Innokenty Fedorovich, 532, 546, 551

  Annunzio, Gabriele d’, 473

  Anrep, Boris, 543

  Anti-Fascist Congress, Paris (1935), 528

  Antigone, 11

  Antiphon, 244

  Antoni, Carlo: Lo storicismo, 362n

  Apion, 589

  Aquinas, St Thomas: and human purpose, 71; and free will, 100; and moral responsibility, 159n; and Machiavelli, 278; and necessity, 310; and unalterable human nature, 347, 350; doctrines, 367; on man as social, 417; Maistre praises, 489

  Aragon, Louis, 528, 538

  archaeology: extrapolation in, 25

  Archilochus, 436

  Aristotelians: and science of politics, 69, 71; and cosmic design, 178

  Aristotle: and causation theory, xxvi, 99; on history, 17, 34, 614; and human purpose, 67, 71, 314; biology, 86; political philosophy, 86–7; on self-fulfilment, 92; and knowledge, 98; on different human institutions, 244, 247; on wicked, 270; and Machiavelli, 278, 298, 300, 306, 384; and moral values, 297; ethics, 309n; and single world-structure, 313, 392, 553; on society as organism, 364; and social units, 380, 417, 586; and isolated man, 384; historical place, 399; as ‘fox’, 437; Politics, 294, 319

  Arkhipenko, A., 525

  Arminius, 369, 407

  Arndt, Ernst Moritz, 376n, 399, 593–4

  Arnim, Achim von, 574, 576

  Arnold, Gottfried, 363

  Aron, Raymond, 602

  art: Herder on
commitment in, 417–23; objective standards in, 559

  asceticism (self-denial), 211

  Aseev, Nikolay Nikolaevich, 531, 550

  Asquith, Herbert Henry, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, 612

  astronomy, 26, 63

  Astruc, Jean, 365

  Athens: Machiavelli on, 287, 291, 303, 307, 312; achievements, 336; and Roman law, 354; Herder admires, 409; see also Greece (ancient)

  Attila the Hun, 141

  Auden, Wystan Hugh, 528, 530, 628

  Auerbach, Erich, 356n

  Anfklärung see Enlightenment

  Augustine, St, 270, 341, 494, 562

  Augustus Caesar, 336

  authority: in political theory, 64–5; objective, 70; and liberty, 71–2, 220, 234, 237, 305; and law, 75; obedience to, 78; choice and acceptance of, 231–3; opposed by romantics, 264–5; Maistre on, 266–8, 482–3, 497; and nationalism, 596

  autocracy: and liberty, 201, 211 & n

  autonomy see self-determination

  Auvergne, Pierre d’, 319

  axioms, 60

  Ayer, Alfred Jules, 100, 141n, 156

  Babbitt, Irving, 87

  Babel’, Isaac Emmanuilovich., 528

  Bach, Johann Sebastian, 8

  Bacon, Francis: Utopianism, 136–7, 557, 558; and Machiavelli, 276, 285; and unified reality, 328; and scientific method, 329, 334; and myths, 351n

  Baglioni, Giovanpaolo, 300, 303, 311, 321n

  Bagration, Prince Petr Ivanovich, 448

  Bagritsky, Eduard Georgievich (pseudonym of Eduard Georgievich Dzyubin), 550

  Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich: and destructive forces, 138; reads Hegel, 505; and 1848 revolutions, 506; reputation, 514; and Herzen, 515n, 516, 518; social predictions, 584

  Baldwin, Stanley, 611

  Balzac, Honoré de, 437, 579

  Baratynsky, Evgeny Abramovich, 532, 550

  Barnard, Frederick M., 374n

  Baron, Hans, 300

  Barrès, Maurice, 155, 496

  Bartenev, Victor V., 473

  Batteux, abbé Charles, 262, 389, 418n

  Baudelaire, Charles, 550, 579

  Baudoin, François, 333

  Bayle, Pierre, 331, 337, 365, 408

  Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 454

  Beaverbrook, William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron, 612

  Beckett, Samuel, 579

  Beerbohm, Max, 614

  Beethoven, Ludwig van, 8

  behaviour, human: understanding of, 42–5, 52–3, 84; and rationality, 92–4; compulsive and uncontrollable, 93–4, 97, 101–2; and outside forces, 95–7, 99–100, 150–3, 160–1; and self-determination, 99–102, 105–6, 135, 140, 146–9; and individual character and endeavour, 122–3

  belief: understanding of, 89

  Belinsky, Vissarion, 197, 440, 500, 502, 505, 552

  Bell, The (Kolokol; periodical), 513–14, 523

  Bellamy, Edward, 557

  Bellarmino, Roberto F. R., Cardinal, 310

  Belloc, Hilaire, 143, 163

  Bely, Andrey (pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev), 529, 531, 549

  Bengel, Johann Albrecht, 253

  Ben-Gurion, David, xii

  Bennett, Arnold, 441n, 451, 614

  Bennigsen, General Levin August T., Count, 450

  Bentham, Jeremy: on human relationships, 75; mocks natural law, 79; Marx rejects political morality, 81; on human enslavement to passions, 209; on liberty, 219n; on law as restraint, 220; on individual interests, 242n; Mill criticises, 318; and Machiavelli, 320; doctrines, 367, 574; rationalism, 583

  Berenson, Bernard, 119

  Bergson, Henri, 72, 251, 261, 459

  Berkeley, George, Bishop, 330, 382n

  Berlin, Isaiah: ideas and principles, ix–xv, xxiv–xxxvi; background, xxiii–xxiv; at British Embassy in Moscow, 525, 527; meets Pasternak, 527–31, 533, 536–8, 552; meets Akhmatova, 539, 540–52

  Bernal, John Desmond, 328

  Bible: on wicked, 270; criticisms of, 365; metaphor in, 404; emotion in, 558

  Biryukov, Pavel Ivanovich, 439n, 441, 478n

  Bismarck, Prince Otto von, xiv, 22, 50, 183, 619, 633

  Blackwell, Thomas, the younger, 365, 389

  Blake, William: radical protest in, 257, 421; attacks constrictions of science, 259–60, 573; on knowledge, 496

  blame see praise and blame

  Blanc, Louis, 507, 515

  Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 437, 529, 531, 533, 546, 549–50, 614

  Boccalini, Traiano, 276

  Bodin, Jean: on freedom and obedience, 72; on family and political life, 75; on universal truths, 244; on Machiavelli, 279; and cultural history, 333, 351–2, 355, 362

  Bodmer, Johann Jacob, 362–3, 389

  Boeckh, August, 355

  Bogoslovsky, E. I., 439n

  Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas, 262, 330, 389, 418n

  Bollandists, 330

  bon sens, le, 327, 338, 428

  Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, vicomte de, 264, 267–8, 592

  Bonnard, Pierre, 532

  Borgia, Cesare, Duke of Valentino, 273, 284, 296, 299

  Borodino, Battle of (1812), 448–9, 455

  Bosanquet, Bernard H., 221

  Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne: and social activities, 19; on objective march of history, 126, 428; and structure of history, 181, 410; on Christian achievement, 336, 364; on social group, 586

  Botkin, Vasily Petrovich, 440, 442

  Boulainvilliers, Henri, comte de, 333, 363, 407, 430n

  Bowra, Maurice, 540

  Boyer, Paul, 472

  Boyle, Robert, 51

  Bradley, Francis Herbert, 110, 221

  Brandeis, Louis D., 189n

  Braque, Georges, 532

  Breitinger, Johann Jacob, 355, 362–3, 389

  Brinton, Crane, 219n

  Britten, Benjamin, 412

  Brodsky, Joseph, 549

  Bruni, Leonardo, 355

  Brutus, Marcus Junius, 288, 307

  Bryusov, Valery Yakovlevich, 531

  Büchner, Georg, 121, 264, 493

  Buckle, Henry Thomas: materialism, 19, 366; and science of history, 20, 21n, 34, 37, 39, 355–6; and unified reality, 328; Tolstoy criticises, 458, 469; History of Civilization in England, 21n

  Budé, Guillaume, 333

  Bukharin, Nikolay Ivanovich, 209n, 534

  Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich, 530, 532

  Burckhardt, Jakob, 278, 301, 356, 380n, 585

  Burd, L., 274–5

  Burke, Edmund: metaphors, 76; and patterns of history,155; on individual in society, 198, 219, 228, 232n, 242n, 569; on compromise, 240; anti-intellectualism, 251, 256; on society as organism, 364, 591–2; opposes Enlightenment, 380, 394; and Herder, 393, 428; on understanding, 460; and knowledge, 496; on nature, 564; conservatism, 568; attacks hypocrisy, 596

  Burton, Sir Richard, 402

  Bury, John Bagnell, x

  Butler, Joseph: Fifteen Sermons, 127n

  Butterfield, Herbert: on ‘human predicament’, 158, 160n, 162n; on Machiavelli, 186, 275

  Byron, George Gordon, 6th Baron, 8n, 262, 264, 572–3; Don Juan, 543

  Cabanis, Pierre Jean Georges, 487

  Cabet, Étienne, 137, 517, 557

  Caesar, Julius, 51, 141, 288, 373, 634

  Calepio, Count Pietro, 362

  Callicles, 270

  Calvin, Jean, 562

  Camillus, 296

  Campanella, Tommaso, 137, 557

  Camus, Albert, 530

  capitalism: and nationalism, 588

  Capponi, Gino: Storia della repubblica di Firenze, 321n

  Caprariis, Vittorio de, 274

  Carducci, Giosuè, 579

  Carlyle, Thomas: and creative spirit, xii, 72; and abstract forces in history, 125; historical view, 159, 356; and authoritarianism, 222; anti-rationalism, 261, 328; on lifelessness of modern man, 395; influence on Germans, 400; and knowledge, 496; Herzen meets, 516; on Muhammad, 573; on heroes, 574; repelled by rational order, 583

  Carneades, 270, 317, 4
25

  Carpaccio, Vittorio, 609

  Carr, Edward Hallett, x, 157n, 162n, 508n

  Carritt, E. F., 116

  Cassirer, Ernst, 273–4, 275n, 277n

  Castelar, Emilio, 511n

  Cathars, 328

  Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia, 445, 502

  Catholic Church see Roman Catholic Church

  Catullus, 558

  causation, xxvi, 99–101; see also determinism

  Cesarotti, Melchior, 362, 365

  Chaadaev, Petr Yakovlevich, 551

  Chabod, Federico, 274, 297, 299

  Chagall, Marc, 525

  Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 125

  Chamberlain, Neville, 615

  Chamisso, Adelbert von, 575

  Charlemagne, Emperor, 187, 373

  Charron, Pierre, 244, 331

  Chateaubriand, François René, vicomte de, 264, 496

  Châtelet, Gabrielle Emile, marquise du, 335

  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 421

  Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 423, 437, 533, 539, 545

  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gerasimovich, 14, 469, 557

  Chertkov, Vladimir Grigor’evich, 521n

  Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 495, 614

  children: and obedience, 218, 220; compulsory education of, 240

  China: Voltaire on, 362

  choice (individual): and freedom, xxvii, 95–7, 100–1, 105–8, 111, 116, 141n, 203, 205; and march of history, 128, 140, 141n, 145–6; and responsibility, 141n, 147; and determinism, 149, 186–7; under threat, 202n; freedom of, 239, 456, 458, 471; of values, 242; Kant and, 433; Tolstoy disbelieves in, 456, 458, 485, 489–90

  Christian Democrats, 85

  Christianity: and revealed truth, 4; virtues, 7; Machiavelli and values of, 289–94, 297–9, 306, 308, 309n, 310–12, 312–3; and unity of world, 313; and rise of science, 329; Herder on, 372, 397n; mysticism, 382n

  Chrysippus, 99–101

  Chukovskaya, Lydia, 526

  Churchill, Randolph, 541–2

  Churchill, Sir Winston: qualities, xii, xiv, xxxv, 614, 616–22, 627; and Akhmatova, 542; prose style, 606–10, 619, 626–7; historical imagination, 608–9, 614–17, 621, 625; beliefs and principles, 610–13, 625; relations with Roosevelt, 613–17, 619, 622, 624–6; and American viewpoint, 624

  Cicero: and free will, 100; as lawyer, 142; on Carneades, 270; Machiavelli and, 283, 295, 300, 309; and political method, 319; Herder on, 404n; on man as social, 417; disparages Jews, 589