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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The history of social and political ideas is often brilliantly illuminated by personal intellectual confrontations. Our understanding of the concept of progress is enhanced by consideration of the divergences between Diderot and Rousseau; our attitudes to revolutionary change cannot fail to be influenced by the debate between Burke and Paine; our appreciation of communist and anarchist ideals is refined by contemplating the dispute between Marx and Bakunin. Similarly our view of certain questions important to mid-nineteenth-century social philosophy may be sharpened by an examination of another confrontation, less famous though scarcely less revealing than the foregoing, embodied in the exchange of letters between Alexis de Tocqueville and Arthur de Gobineau. The present discussion of some aspects of their correspondence makes no attempt at a full-scale comparison of the two figures. Rather, it places an emphasis upon him who is now the lesser known—a stress which is all the more defensible in view of much of the debate's previous treatment at the hands of historians. Into such historiographical questions there is no need to venture—at least, not beyond stating the two broad considerations which seem to justify an essay in reinterpretation along the lines suggested here.
2 This line of thought is pursued explicitly, though with debatable effect, in the series of imaginative reconstructions presented in Cranston, M., Political Dialogues (London, 1968).Google Scholar
3 It is possible to illustrate this from a simple count of the full-length studies devoted to him in the period 1924–37: by M. Lange (1924), M. Brion (1927), J. de Lacretelle (1927), J. Kaufmann (1929), A. Rowbotham (1929), J. N. Faure-Biguet (1930), G. Spring (1932), L. Gigli (1933), G. Raeders (1934), R. StreidI (193s) and A. Combris (1937). To these must be added numerous articles, as well as reissues of his own work.
4 ‘Tocqueville et Gobineau’, Nouvelle Revue Française (1 February 1934), p. 216.
5 Schemann, L. (ed.), Correspondance entre Alexis de Tocqueville et Arthur de Gobineau, 1843–59 (Paris, 1908).Google Scholar
6 Such recognition inspired in 1966 the foundation of an annual publication entitled Études Gobiniennes, admirably edited by J. Gaulmier and A. B. Duff and published by Klincksieck in Paris.
7 E.g. Wach, J., ‘The Role of Religion in the Social Philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville’, Journal of the History of Ideas, VII, I (01 1946), 81–2.Google Scholar
8 E.g. Nef, J., ‘Truth, Belief, and Civilisation: Tocqueville and Gobineau’, Review of Politics, XXV, 4 (10 1963), 468.Google Scholar Further articles commenting substantially on the correspondence are Seillière, E., ‘Alexis de Tocqueville et Arthur de Gobineau’, Revue Internationale de Sociologie, XXIV, 4 (04 1916), 193–205;Google ScholarRolland, R., ‘Le Conflit de Deux Generations’, Europe: Revue Mensuelle (1 10 1923), pp. 68–80;Google ScholarSalomon, A., ‘Tocqueville, Moralist and Sociologist’, Social Research, II, 4 (11 1935), 405–27;Google ScholarRichter, M., ‘The Study of Man: a Debate on Race—the Tocqueville—Gobineau Correspondence’, Commentary, XXV (1958), 151–60.Google Scholar
9 Vols. I and II (Paris, 1853); vols. III and IV (Paris, 1855). A second edition, unchanged except for the addition of a new foreword, was posthumously published in two volumes at Paris in 1884. There were subsequent reprintings, abridgements and translations. The complete French text is now conveniently available in a one-volume edition introduced by H. Juin (Paris, 1967), to which subsequent references relate. Some essential extracts from the Essai, as well as relevant passages from certain other writings, are presented in English translation in Biddiss, M.D. (ed.), Gobineau: Selected Political Writings (London, 1970).Google Scholar
10 The most detailed biographical account of the early years is Buenzod, J., La Formation de la Pensée de Gobireau (Paris, 1967).Google Scholar For the period until the mid-1850s it supersedes the hagiographic tract of Ludwig Schemann, but the latter's work Gobineau: eine Biographie (2 vols. Strassburg, 1913–16) remains the only major overall life-study. The early biographical background is sketched more briefly in Biddiss, M.D., Father of Racist Ideology: the Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau (London, 1970), pp. 11 ff.Google Scholar
11 A coincidence, he remarked much later, ‘qui prouve que les contraires se touchent’ (letter to his sister, 23 July 1877, in Duff, A.B. (ed.), Correspondance de Gobineau avec Mère Bénédicte, 1872–82 (2 vols. Paris, 1958), I, 266).Google Scholar
12 His memoirs, ‘écrits pour mes enfants’, illustrate the atmosphere in which his son was reared. Cf. Puraye, J. (ed.), Les Mémoires du Comte Louis de Gobineau (Bruxelles, 1955).Google Scholar
13 Cf. especially the letters to his father and sister conserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire, Strasbourg (cited henceforth as ‘BNUS’), MSS 3518–19. They form part of the Gobineau Archives, the bulk of which comprises MSS 3477–3569. The contents are listed in Wickersheimer, E. (ed.), Catalogue Général des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France, XLVII, Strasbourg (Paris, 1923), pp. 610–23.Google Scholar
14 The original letters from Tocqueville are kept as BNUS MS 3529; those from Gobineau are conserved in the Archives Tocqueville, mainly in Dossier 22. Schemann's original published edition had important omissions and misreadings. More recently M. Degros has added newly discovered letters and other relevant material to complete an excellent edition: Correspondance d'Alexis de Tocqueville et d' Arthur de Gobineau (Paris, 1959),Google Scholar being vol. 9 of the Oeuvres Complètes of Tocqueville under the general editorship of J. P. Mayer. This volume, which also contains a helpful introduction by J. J. Chevallier, is cited henceforth as ‘CTG’.
15 Cf. Gaulmier, J. (ed.), ‘Charles de Rémusat et Arthur de Gobineau’, Travaux du Centre de Philologie et de Littératures Romanes, Strasbourg, II, 2 (1964), 69Google Scholar n. 15; also, Formation de la Pensée, p. 248.
16 April 1843, BNUS MS 3518, item 99.
17 To his sister, 10 May 1843, ibid. item 101.
18 ibid. 23 July 1843, item 104.
19 August 1843, CTG, p. 43.
20 To his sister, 15 April 1843, BNUS MS 3518, item 99.
21 5 September 1843, CTG, p. 45.
22 Ibid. p. 46.
23 Ibid. p. 48.
24 Upon this point there has been of course considerable debate. The present author would follow the broad lines of argument laid down in Lively, J., The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford, 1962),Google Scholar ch. VI. Its point concerning Tocqueville's deathbed behaviour (p. 183 n. 1) should be supplemented by reference to Chevallier's discussion in CTG, p. 13 n. 5.
25 2 October 1843, CTG, p. 57.
26 Cf. for example Wach, art. cit., and Lukacs, J., Tocqueville: ‘The European Revolution’ and Correspondence with Gobineau (New York, 1959),Google Scholar pp. 25 ff. Even more extraordinary is Nef, art. cit., in which the author uses these debates as a justification for his personal belief that Christianity rather than Science provides the best basis for programmes of human conduct. However we view this proposition, it is none the less clear that to use Gobineau as the representative of Science is about as fair as epitomizing Christianity in terms of Torquemada.
27 8 September 1843, CTG, p. 49.
28 Ibid. p. 50.
29 Ibid. p. 51.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid. pp. 52–3.
32 Ibid. pp. 53–4.
33 Ibid. p. 54.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid. p. 55.
36 Ibid.
37 2 October 1843, ibid. p. 60.
38 22 October 1843, ibid. p. 68.
39 16 October 1843, ibid. p. 65.
40 Cf. most generally his work on Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale (Paris, 1865);Google Scholar the point is briefly explained in Father of Racist Ideology, pp. 185–6. His pursuit after 1850 of hierarchical order led him to dismiss Buddhism also; but, understandably, he found something more praiseworthy in the practices of the Brahmins (cf. Essai, Book in, chs. I–III).
41 These were brought to light by J. P. Mayer and are published as appendices to CTG.
42 Ibid. Appendix I, pp. 309–28.
43 Ibid. p. 309.
44 Ibid. p. 311.
45 Ibid. p. 312.
46 Ibid. p. 313.
47 Ibid. Appendix III, p. 334.
48 Cf. Seillière, art. cit. p. 195.
49 Letter of 26 November 1843 in Gaulmier (ed.), ‘Charles de Remusat et Arthur de Gobineau’, loc. cit. p. 72.
50 4 October 1844, CTG, p. 74.
51 Cf. letter of 29 April 1868 in Gaulmier, J. (ed.). ‘Lettres d'Arthur de Gobineau au Comte de Circourt’, études Gobiniennes, no. 2 (1967), p. 95.Google Scholar
52 8 August 1843, CTG, p. 43.
53 Cf. Formation de la Pensée, pp. 615–18 for a convenient listing. To these articles must be added a number of fictional works in the genre of the roman feuilleton: Le Prisonnier Chanceux (1846), Mademoiselle Irnois (1847), Nicolas Belavoir (1847), Ternove (1847) and L'Abbaye de Typhaines (completed before 1848; published 1849).
54 These matters are considered at length in Father of Racist Ideology, pt. I, chs. 7–10 and pt. 2, ch. 1; and, from another viewpoint, in Formation de la Pensée, chs. XI–XII.
55 BNUS MS 3502; now published in Ambri, P. Berselli (ed.), Poemi Inediti di Arthur de Gobineau in Biblioteca dell' ‘Archivum Romanicum’, LXXV (Firenze, 1965), 125–213.Google Scholar Cf. also Formation de la Pensée, pp. 299 ff.; Father of Racist Ideology, pp. 64 ff.
56 29 November 1856, CTG, p. 272.
57 Cf. Gobineau's letters, ibid. pp. 79 ff.; also Degros, M., ‘Les Souvenirs, Tocqueville et la Question Romaine’, in Tocqueville: Livre du Centenaire, 1859–1959 (Paris, 1960), pp. 157–70.Google Scholar
58 The investigation of Gobineau's official activities in Switzerland, Hanover, Persia, Newfoundland, Greece, Brazil and Sweden-Norway is greatly assisted by the valuable work of H. Miramon-Fitzjames and A. Outrey (eds.), Inventaire de la Correspondance Diplomatique du Comte de Gobineau. Its three volumes, in typescript, are conserved, together with the original dispatches, in the Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris.
59 Cf. CTG, pp. 104 ff.; also, Father of Racist Ideology, pp. 82 ff., and Dttrr, E., ‘Arthur de Gobineau und die Schweiz in den Jahren 1850–1854’, in Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, XXV (1926), 137–271.Google Scholar
60 Essai, pp. 29–30. There is a useful summary of argument in Book I, ch. XVI; this is translated in Selected Political Writings, pp. 134 ff.
61 There is no general study of its reception in France. The German reaction is examined in an unpublished doctoral dissertation available in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: Steinkühler, M., Gobineau au Jugement de ses Contemporains d'Outre-Rhin (University of Paris, 1961).Google Scholar There too can be found a brief account, again unpublished, by the same author, entitled L' ‘Essai’ dans l'Enseignement du Troisième Reich: Contribution à I'Étude du Gobinisme en Allemagne (1961).
62 11 October 1853, CTG, p. 200.
63 30 July 1856, ibid. p. 266.
64 7 November 1853, ibid. p. 204.
65 3 November 1853, in Mayer's CEuvres Complètes, VII, 3 (ed. A. Jardin), 164.
66 January 1854, ibid. p. 181.
68 In ‘The Study of Man’, loc. cit. p. 154, Richter makes substantially the same point in suggesting that the work required from the past the sort of corroboration ‘which could not be supplied by any records then existing or likely ever to be found’.
69 17 November 1853, CTG, p. 202.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid. p. 203.
72 December 1853, ibid. p. 205.
73 Ibid.
74 15 October 1854, ibid. p. 221. This form of elitism continues most notably in his novel Les Pléiades (1874); cf. for example the extracts in Selected Political Writings, pp. 185 ff.
75 8 January 1855, CTG, p. 222.
76 20 March 1856, ibid. p. 261.
77 January 1856, ibid. p. 245.
78 20 March 1856, ibid. pp. 259–60.
79 30 July 1856, ibid. p. 267.
80 24 January 1857, ibid. p. 276.
81 Ibid. p. 277.
82 Ibid. p. 280.
83 It is noteworthy that Book I of the Essai was almost immediately translated and published in an American edition, though one which by its selectivity and emendations did justice neither to Gobineau's assessment of the general failure of ‘the great experiment’ nor to his complex views on the question of Negro slavery. The edition was prepared by Hotz, H. (with a lengthy appendix by J. C. Nott) under the title The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races… (Philadelphia, 1856),Google Scholar and it carried the following Dedication: ‘To the Statesmen of America this work, the first on the races of men contemplated from the point of view of the Statesman and Historian rather than the Naturalist, is respectfully dedicated by the American Editor.’
84 Essai, p. 854.
85 Tocqueville:… Correspondence with Gobineau, pp. 19–20.
86 24 January 1857, CTG, p. 280.
87 ‘Tocqueville et Gobineau’, loc. cit. p. 220.
88 The original title (1939) of Mayer's, J.P. work later reissued as Alexis de Tocqueville:a Biographical Study in Political Science (New York, 1960).Google Scholar
89 Cf. letter to Gobineau, 30 July 1856, CTG, p. 267: Les Allemands, qui ont seuls en Europe la particularité de se passionner pour ce qu'ils regardent comme la vérité abstraite, sans s'occuper de ses conséquences pratiques, les Allemands peuvent vous fournir un auditoire véritablement favorable…'
90 17 November 1853, ibid. p. 203.
