Limits of State Action

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) was one of the great thinkers in the history of the German nation and language, a leading light of the German liberal school that is now being rediscovered by a new generation of libertarians. This is his great treatise - an essential read for any lover of freedom.

He was a friend of Goethe and Schiller, a philosopher, a diplomat, an educator, and a specialist in language. He was also the inspiration for many generations of true lovers of liberty in the German-speaking world and beyond. In some ways, his spirit pervades even the works of Mises and Hayek and their contemporaries.

In fact, when Mises listed the five architects of classical liberalism, he named four English thinkers and one German: Humboldt.

"The true end of man — not that which capricious inclination prescribes for him, but that which is prescribed by eternally immutable reason — is the highest and most harmonious cultivation of his faculties into one whole. For this cultivation, freedom is the first and indispensable condition."

Ralph Raico writes: "If we ask what are the primary contributions of Humboldt to libertarian thought, we will find the answer in his ideas on the value of the free, self-sustaining activity of the individual, and of the importance of the unhindered collaboration — often unconscious — of the members of society."

The Limits of State Action, by "Germany's greatest philosopher of freedom," as F. A. Hayek called him, has an exuberance and attention to principle that make it a valuable introduction to liberal political thought. It is also crucial for an understanding of liberalism as it developed in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Humboldt explores the role that liberty plays in individual development, discusses criteria for permitting the state to limit individual actions, and suggests ways of confining the state to its proper bounds. In so doing, he uniquely combines the ancient concern for human excellence and the modern concern for what has come to be known as negative liberty. - J. W. Burrow is Professor of History at the University of Sussex.