THE extracts contained in this volume reveal a mode of thinking which
is unfamiliar to the English reader, for it differs sharply from the
dominant tradition of English political thought. Nevertheless there
are affinities between English thinkers and the German Romantics
whose ideas came to England by different routes. Coleridge, ¹ the
Oxford Movement, ² and the group of historians called the Liberal-
Anglicans ³ drew inspiration and support from German Romanticism.
The historical School of Law to some extent derived from German
Romanticism, and John Austin and Sir Henry Maine acknowledged
their debt to Savigny. Through Hegel whose philosophy contains a
considerable body of Romantic thinking their ideas reached the
British Idealists. Indeed, this stream of thought has not dried up even
to-day, for does not Professor Michael Oakeshott's mode of political
thinking, in spite of his profound indebtedness to British empiricism,
reveal Romantic features?

The aim of this volume is to introduce the political thought of the
German Romantics to the English reader by representative selections
from their leading political theorists. Selection from so vast a body of
writing must be to some extent arbitrary. It can merely be hoped that
the extracts will intimate something of the flavour of German Roman-
tic thinking on politics and may, perhaps, stimulate the reader to pursue
the subject further. Space has limited the lists for further reading at
the end of the introduction and of each section.

This volume would never have been written but for the constant
interest shown by my colleagues at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. Foremost, I must acknowledge my gratitude to
the late Professor Harold Laski who first encouraged my interest in
the history of German Political Thought. I also owe thanks to
Professor K. B. Smellie for first suggesting that I should produce this
volume, and to Mr. Julius Gould, Professor Otto Kahn-Freund, Mr.
Donald G. MacRae, Professor Michael Oakeshott, Mr. William Pickles,
and Professor Karl Popper for their kind advice and help. I should

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