by Max Weber
This shows a lack of specialist knowledge. He simply does not know that the sources (which are crucial for my study of the influence on the conduct of life) arose from collections of responses which are directly based on quite concrete practical inquiries to the minister (who was at that time simply the most universal counselor known to history) and have nothing whatever to do with “edifying” or “dogmatic” purposes. They are concerned with the problems of everyday living, which they therefore illustrate as few other sources can do. Except where the nature of the concrete problematic [Fragestellung] required other sources, these were the only ones I used. His “methodological” views on what a literature of which he was totally ignorant could or could not “at best” prove to him are therefore likely to be of little significance. He dismisses as insignificant (because too “general”) my comment regarding the difficulty that modern man has in putting himself in the place of someone in those days dealing with practical questions of life under the influence of religious motives. I now say to him that I propose to be more precise and tell him that he lacks the ability to do this. Furthermore, I have little hope of even winning him over to my views in the future. For he himself has a very simple answer to the question as to why, despite the plausibility of the arguments, “one” should hesitate to acknowledge an influence such as that which I had proposed. The firm conviction that he himself holds in his hand—in the form of what he calls “psychology”—an infinitely simple means of establishing historical “psychogeneses,” was, naturally enough, hardly likely to be conducive to the impartiality of his judgment of the efforts of others (which he regards as unduly complicated and laborious). One needs no assistance from “psychology” to see this.
A discussion that is not based on any knowledge of the subject can, however, even with the best “methodological” intentions, hardly lay claim to being a verification of historical investigations. For instead of his ostensibly “methodological” assertions, we are constantly presented with substantive [sachlich] assertions, which, moreover, have merely been thrown in at random on the basis of ignorance. For example, the suggestion that “adaptation” by the religious framework of ideas to the existing economic conditions had to be “presumed” and all similar suggestions are matters of fact [sachlich]. They are on a completely different plane from the historical problematic of today that forms my starting point, and are completely empty of meaning. [1] These questions have, in any case, been discussed from this very point of view in a not inconsiderable range of literature, by writers ranging from Kautsky to Dilthey. The main point here, contrary to the assertion of my critic with which we began, is: such suggestions simply ignore the fact that I myself, in accordance with my explicit declarations and the whole tenor of my investigation, by no means regard the question of the influence of the economic processes on religious movements as resolved. My critic now thinks he can simply disregard my explanations as irrelevant, on the grounds that I had allegedly not acted (indeed, nowhere acted) in accordance with them. Of course, nowhere in his “Critical Contributions” did he make the attempt to propose this rather strong claim, let alone to substantiate it by an analysis of my arguments. Instead, he “relies upon”—or rather “clings to”—“words.”2
It will be clear to every reader of my essay from its content what precisely is meant by the expression “derive” (and I deliberately put the word in quotation marks), as in to “derive” the ethic of the calling from the Protestant form of asceticism, and to “derive” certain economically relevant components of the modern style of life from the “ethic of the calling.” But even for the nonreader it really should be abundantly clear from the words quoted by my critic himself three lines later (the “effect” of religious consciousness on cultural life) that it did not occur to me to find “the driving factor of the historical action” of any era, or to find any “truly driving forces”—for me, such specters do not exist in history. It should be clear that I was in fact investigating, precisely in accordance with my declared intention, the direction in which conduct of life was influenced (where such influence existed) by the religious characteristics [Eigenarten] of the various ascetic branches of Protestantism—characteristics which were crucially determined (at least in part) by fundamental metaphysical presuppositions.
Faced with these simple facts, my critic had not a shred of evidence for his somewhat rash assumption that I had produced, as it were, an idealistic historical construction [Geschichtskonstruktion]. My “vigorous” protest, however, was directed against the suggestion (which is without foundation) that I was acting contrary to my own statements. For the perhaps even wilder allegations that I had given no consideration to the possibility of influence from other motives, particularly economic ones, I hardly need to point out to those who have read my essays what we are to think of this. I should merely like to recall to mind the following. In my opinion, which I have justified above, the degree of influence by religious motives was often very great. I have, however, not shown that it was everywhere equally great, nor that it could never have been modified or completely nullified by other circumstances, and have never claimed to do so. I have, though, set out to prove my sole contention, namely, that the orientation of that influence was in decisive points the same in Protestant countries with very widely differing political, economic, geographic, and ethnic conditions—New England, German diaspora, southern France, Holland, England (the “Scotch-Irish,” Friesland, and numerous other German territories could be added to the list)—and in particular, that this orientation existed independently of the degree of development of capitalism as an economic system. On the other hand, I have established that even in the area of the highest development of capitalist economy before the Reformation, namely, in Italy (similarly in Flanders)—the “capitalist” spirit (in my sense of the word!) was lacking—and that this (as I would now like to add) did not fail to have the profoundest consequences for “style of life.” [2]
One may regard my attempt to prove the similarity of that “influence”—a similarity which derives from the religious character [Eigenart] of ascetic Protestantism—as incomplete or as lacking in rigor, or it may be attacked by a competent [sachkundiger] theologian. However, in view of firstly my argument, secondly my repeated statements (linked with this argument) regarding the meaning of my thesis, and thirdly my statements on the orientation of the planned further investigations to complement, interpret, and further test the thesis [3], it should be perfectly understandable that the opinion of my critic (which he has now explicitly expressed) that I had failed to see those rather simple “methodical” principles of which he speaks, and that my work shows no signs whatever of any methodical “consider-ations” of this nature, inevitably seemed rather flippant, and that this caused me to reply in what he calls a rather “vigorous” manner, that is, without making any special allowances. [4] I missed then, and I miss now, not just expert knowledge, but also the “good will” to examine the issue closely before expressing disagreement. Admittedly, if my critic, in his holy (and in this case at the same time so “cheap”) “methodological” zeal, now says that I should have been required to “exclude” “every possibility” of any other causal connection, so that no other interpretation whatsoever was permissible and “conceivable,” other than simply and solely the one that I proposed, then the historian will, of course, scarcely be able to recognize such a burden of proof for a negative result as a general “norm” for his work. Normally, the historian will, conversely, approach the question from the positive angle and investigate the other factors, namely, those that were likely to be causal components, seeking to discover the nature of their influence, in order to arrive at an evermore comprehensive (but scarcely ever completely conclusive) causal regress [kausalen Regressus]. All this I have already explicitly stated as my intention and have begun to carry it out in the articles that have appeared so far.
Most of all, that ideal criterion by which my critic is so keen to judge the arguments of others is in
marked contrast to the modest standards that he applies to his own argument. Consider for a moment. He himself has stated that he intends to “show” (!) what constitutes the “psychogenesis” of the “duty of the calling,” of the “capitalist spirit,” and of the “spirit of the methodical conduct of life.” How has he fared (over ten pages) in this, on his own admission, unusually difficult attempt—one in which I totally failed? We can read this in his “Critical Contributions”: he has done it by “proceeding”—“beyond” Sombart [5] and me—to a higher synthesis, that is, as he puts it, “to a psychological explanation” of those processes. Let us recall what this explanation is. “If we express (p. 238) the idea of acquisition of money, . . . purely as an end in itself, in psychological terms, we may understand it as the pleasure of the individual in his powerful activity . . . pleasure in powerful activity is in no way religiously determined; it is directly connected with the powerful activity itself.” (Anyone may read for themselves here, op. cit., his findings—which are on the same sort of level—on the “psychogenesis” of the sense of duty in general, and of the sense of duty toward the calling in particular that, according to him, came about because “the idea of fulfilment of the calling had a higher validity than the idea of neglecting the activity of the calling,” in other words, almost exactly as poverty comes from lack of money. My critic is quite right: these adages are not worthy of the name of “abstractions” and “psychological schemata” that I attributed to them. They are nothing but a harmless playing around with definitions, from which further deductions are made, irrespective of whether the point of the phenomenon “defined” in this way is lost in the process—as I have shown in my reply as far as it seemed necessary to do so.
If he now in all seriousness wishes to present such generalizations of imprecisely reproduced mundane trivialities as “historical psychology,” then all psychologists worthy of the name will probably have to smile, just as we economists [Nationalökonomen]3 can only smile at the quotation of the words of John Stuart Mill (no doubt “excellent” in their day but now surely somewhat out-of-date) on the historical rise of the importance of money (arising from the supposedly original idea of money as a “means to happiness”). I must confess that I have neither tried to “refute” these words nor have I so far felt tempted to do so. If in the final sentence of my reply I spoke specifically of exact research into religious pathology—but not simply, as the critic alleges, research into hysteria [6]—as perhaps being significant sometime in the future, I was merely hinting at something that any informed person knows, namely, that in spite of all its imperfections and tendency to jump to conclusions, the “psychology of religion” which deals with the “experienced” and irrational aspects of the religious process and treats them as a “pathological process” is likely to do more in the future (and occasionally has already done more) for the explanation of the relevant “characterological” effects of certain kinds of piety than the work of “ordinary” theologians can achieve. These, however, are of course precisely the kind of questions that are relevant to my problems. Naturally, I have no intention whatever of trespassing on the territory of genuine “exact normal psychology” [Normalpsychologie]. “Psychology” of the type represented by my critic’s exposition, on the other hand, can, it seems to me, at best only provide a well-merited opportunity for him to show his ignorance in this area.
I would scarcely have dwelt so long on these matters if it did not appear here once more how a superstitious belief that “psychology” has a quite specific meaning for history, a belief that is, I am happy to say, no longer shared by the most eminent psychologists themselves, is inclined on the one hand to prejudice the impartiality of historical research, and on the other hand virtually to discredit scientific psychology (for which I have the greatest respect in its own field), and to make the historian suspicious of its help even in those circumstances—which are not unusual—where he would be well advised to have recourse to it. I, too, could not help laughing at the supposedly “psychologically” based “historical laws” of a man as distinguished in his own field as Wundt—and I believe I had every right to do so. And we unfortunately know (I shall return to this later) what happened when a writer who once gave us “Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter”4 attempted to utilize for history this so-called psychology (and subsequently an assortment of other kinds of psychology of varying origins).
The findings of specialized psychology can occasionally be of relevance for history in exactly the same sense as those of astronomy, sociology, chemistry, jurisprudence, theology, engineering, anthropology, etc., etc. There is a popular view that because history is concerned with “intellectual processes,” it must therefore—as people believe and as the fashionable common expression has it—“arise from psychological presuppositions.” The conclusion is then drawn that history must rest to a particularly unique degree on “psychology” as a specialized discipline like any other. This assumption is no more tenable than the assumption that because the great deeds of “historical personalities” are today tied without exception to the “medium” of sound waves or ink, acoustics and the physics of liquids are the sciences that underlie them, or because history takes place on the planet Earth, the relevant science should be astronomy; or, because history is about people, anthropology. “I’m sorry,” history makes “general psychological assumptions” only in the same sense as, for example, it makes general “astronomical assumptions.” Anyone who has not at least thought through this series of seeming “paradoxes” does not have the right to get on his high horse and pontificate pedantically about “epistemology” or “methodology.” And if my critic, from his lofty perch, imagines that he can emphasize the “higher standards” that he has applied to his “criticism” (as compared with the lower ones that I have applied to the methodology of my work), then I regret to say that I must refer him to my earlier comment that the “standards” that he applies to himself, from the standpoint of method as well, do in fact fall below those that any criticized writer must demand from a “critique.” If in his forthcoming book he would be so good as to provide us with writings that actually relate to his area of expertise, instead of rapping others over the knuckles for what they have to say about areas with which he is not sufficiently familiar, then, however substantial the difference of views, he could be assured of a most ready hearing and a more respectful reception than has been possible in this case, I regret to say, after the way in which he has been arguing. Formal “courtesy” is not necessarily incompatible with arrogance in matters of fact. And, by the way, even the words of praise that my critic saw fit to include in his “critique” [7] were not without arrogance. I will not accept even these words from a man who is incompetent. I should add that in this I go along with the great G. F. Knapp, who in a similar situation once said: “I certainly do not like to read in print that I am an ass. But I am not pleased either if someone feels it necessary to write that I am not an ass.”
WEBER’S NOTES
1) In historical life, everything—or nothing—can be said to be “adapted” to everything else, if that concept is not precisely defined. Mormonism is “adapted” to the economic “conditions” of Utah, just as the forms of life [Lebensformen] of the other states of the Rocky Mountains would be; the Jesuit state in Paraguay was adapted to the primeval forest there, just as the life of the Indians was before and after it; the economic conduct of life of the Skoptsy, Stundists, and other sectarians in Russia is adapted to the conditions of existence there, as is the way of life of the neighboring Orthodox Mushiks, despite the quite marked differences between all three. Calvin’s the-ocracy, when it was created, was not adapted to the economic conditions in Geneva, if we consider the economic decline (or the striking, but easily explicable, stagnation) that followed it. And so on and so forth. Indeed, I could formulate the theme of my investigations as an attempt to answer the question: In what sense can one speak of “adaptation” (of the various cultural elements to each other) in the
se contexts?
2) The tension between economic form and ethical style of life—tension that resulted from the absence of the “ethic of the calling” (in my sense of the word)—had consequences for the character of the Florentine bourgeoisie [Bürgertum] which have been analyzed by a highly sensitive art historian right down to the distinctive characteristics [Eigenart] of the artistic motives.
One simply must know these (and a good many other) historical problems and facts before attempting, as my critic does, casually to make the suggestion (N. B.!: this was once again factual in character) that the methodical conduct of life had “of course” (!) “appeared in the human race” before the advent of Puritanism. Would he kindly tell me where? And of what kind it was? For it should be clear by now that I am speaking of “methodical conduct of life” as a component of the modern “ethic of the calling” in the sense (analyzed over dozens of pages in my essays) in which it has influenced life. I am not talking about the “method” [Methodik] of (for example) the Japanese samurai, nor of the “Cortigiano,” nor of the chivalrous medieval concept of honor, nor of the Stoics, nor of the “objective treatment” of life in the attitudes of the Renaissance in the sense in which Burckhardt coined this term, and not even of certain ideas (which in this respect are close to Puritanism) of Bacon, who stands midway between the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation, nor, finally, of the Counter-Reformation. All of these had their specific “method,” and therefore elements of all of them have entered the style of life of leading modern nations (I shall be speaking of some of these in due course). But—and I have already explicitly stressed this for one case closely related to my theme—they are rationalizations of life of a quite different orientation and sense from those with which I have been concerned.
