The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance [33]
on legal security and on freedom of thought and individual opinion as upon discipline, obedience, and subordination. Had he not combined these rare qualities in himself, he had not been the great king, and on his death the Swabian peasant would not have asked the naive question "Then, who is to govern the world?" The yelping curs, the men astride of principles, who did not understand him when he died, understand him and his policy no better now. They will still less understand the great problem of the creation of states and national economies. It lies in this: that as civilisation advances, the state and the national economy diverge more and more the one from the other, each a separate circle with its own organs; and yet that this separation must again constantly make way for a unifying guidance, a growing interaction, a harmonious joint-movement. And the secret of great times and great men consists in their taking account of this twofold development; in their leaving individuals to form themselves, in their allowing free play to individual life in its various shapes, and yet in their being able to bring the newly emerging as well as the old forces into the service of the whole. As states get larger, as social relations become more complicated, it will be increasingly difficult to reach this ideal: - that economic forces, while living for themselves should yet entirely serve the state, and that the state, pursuing its own ends, should at the same time place all its might and all its members in the true service of the national economy. The Prussian state, - in its own fashion and after the manner of the eighteenth century, - more nearly arrived at this ideal than any of the other states of the time. We may well ask whether we to-day, under conditions so much more difficult, have approached it more nearly.
NOTES:
1. Something of this kind survived even in the towns. Thus, according to a rule of 1204, the men of Lubbeck are not passim et sine necessitate to sell their ships and build new ones at home, nor are they to export wood for sale -- because of their right to cut wood. Lub. Urkundenbuch, p. 17, Urk. xii.
2. We may remember the armed forays of gildsmen to hund down those who ventured to work surrepititiously at crafts in the country districts (Bonhausen, as they were called in low German), the innumerable military expeditions, sieges and devastations of towns, caused by mutual trade jealousy, as well as the destruction of suburbs for the same reason, such as must be laid to the charge of Danzig in 1520, 1566, and 1734, and of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years' War.
3. 1484: Riedel, Cod. dipl. brandenb. ii, 5, 417. 1501; ib. ii, 6, 177.
4. Ib. ii. 5, 305.
5. Ib. ii. 5, 302.
6. Ib. iii. 3. 248 and ii. 6, 258.
7. Ib. i. 23, 426 and ii. 6, 346.
8. Ib. iii, 387.
9. Oelrich, Beitrage sur brandenburgischen Geschichte, 265.
10. Berl. St. Archiv. R. 78, 29, Fol. 62.
11. Riedel, i. 23, 224.
12. ib. i, 11, 118.
13. Acts of the Prussian Assembly of Estates (Standetag), I, 160, 605, 655, et al.
14. Resolution of the local assembly (Landtagsabschied) of 1536 and 1540; Mylius vi, I, 36, 59.
15. See on this point the instructive essay of H. Reimann, The Scots in Pomerania in the 16th and 17th centuries,and their conflict with the gilds, Aeitschr. f. preuss. Gesch. iii. 597-613.
16. Riedel, i, 12, 380.
17. See on this point my remarks in the Zeitschr. f. preuss. Gesch. xix, 207-221.
18. Thiede, Chronik der Stadt Stettin, 464.
19. Magdeburg Archives.
20. Mylius, Riedel and Scheplitz, Consuetudines Electoratus et Marchia Brand. (1617), have a pretty extensive collection of material on this subject.
21. Die Wirthschaftspolitik der Florentiner Renaissance (1878).
22. Dis Agrat-, Alpen- und Forstverfassung der deutschen Schweriz in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (1878).
23. Baader, Nurnberger Polissiverordnungen, 201.
24. Jager, Schwab, Stadtewesen, 728.
25. Schmoller, Die Strassburger Tucher- und Webersunft (1879), 506.
26. The state archives in Berlin
NOTES:
1. Something of this kind survived even in the towns. Thus, according to a rule of 1204, the men of Lubbeck are not passim et sine necessitate to sell their ships and build new ones at home, nor are they to export wood for sale -- because of their right to cut wood. Lub. Urkundenbuch, p. 17, Urk. xii.
2. We may remember the armed forays of gildsmen to hund down those who ventured to work surrepititiously at crafts in the country districts (Bonhausen, as they were called in low German), the innumerable military expeditions, sieges and devastations of towns, caused by mutual trade jealousy, as well as the destruction of suburbs for the same reason, such as must be laid to the charge of Danzig in 1520, 1566, and 1734, and of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years' War.
3. 1484: Riedel, Cod. dipl. brandenb. ii, 5, 417. 1501; ib. ii, 6, 177.
4. Ib. ii. 5, 305.
5. Ib. ii. 5, 302.
6. Ib. iii. 3. 248 and ii. 6, 258.
7. Ib. i. 23, 426 and ii. 6, 346.
8. Ib. iii, 387.
9. Oelrich, Beitrage sur brandenburgischen Geschichte, 265.
10. Berl. St. Archiv. R. 78, 29, Fol. 62.
11. Riedel, i. 23, 224.
12. ib. i, 11, 118.
13. Acts of the Prussian Assembly of Estates (Standetag), I, 160, 605, 655, et al.
14. Resolution of the local assembly (Landtagsabschied) of 1536 and 1540; Mylius vi, I, 36, 59.
15. See on this point the instructive essay of H. Reimann, The Scots in Pomerania in the 16th and 17th centuries,and their conflict with the gilds, Aeitschr. f. preuss. Gesch. iii. 597-613.
16. Riedel, i, 12, 380.
17. See on this point my remarks in the Zeitschr. f. preuss. Gesch. xix, 207-221.
18. Thiede, Chronik der Stadt Stettin, 464.
19. Magdeburg Archives.
20. Mylius, Riedel and Scheplitz, Consuetudines Electoratus et Marchia Brand. (1617), have a pretty extensive collection of material on this subject.
21. Die Wirthschaftspolitik der Florentiner Renaissance (1878).
22. Dis Agrat-, Alpen- und Forstverfassung der deutschen Schweriz in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (1878).
23. Baader, Nurnberger Polissiverordnungen, 201.
24. Jager, Schwab, Stadtewesen, 728.
25. Schmoller, Die Strassburger Tucher- und Webersunft (1879), 506.
26. The state archives in Berlin