Adam Heinrich Muller

Muller, Adam Heinrich, publicist and political economist, convert, b. at Berlin, June 30, 1779; d. at Vienna, January 17, 1829. It was intended that he should study Protestant theology, but from 1798 he devoted himself in Gottingen to the study of law, philosophy, and natural science. Returning to Berlin, he was persuaded by his friend Gentz to take up political science. After working for some time as referendary in the Kurmarkische Kammer in Berlin, he travelled in Sweden and Denmark, spent about two years in Poland, and then went to Vienna, where he was converted to the Catholic Faith on April 30, 1805. From 1806 to 1809 he lived at Dresden as tutor of a prince of the Saxe Weimar family and lecturer on German literature, dramatic art, and political science. In 1808 he edited with Heinrich von Kleist the periodical “Phoebus”. In 1809 he returned to Berlin, and in 1811 to Vienna, where he lived in the house of Archduke Maximilian of Austria-Este and became the friend of Clement Maria Hoffbauer. In 1813 he was appointed imperial commissioner and major of the rifle-corps in Tyrol, and took part in the wars for liberty and later on, as counsellor of the government, in the reorganization of the country. In 1815 he was called to Vienna, and went to Paris with the imperial staff. On the conclusion of peace, he became Austrian consul-general for Saxony at Leipzig, and agent for Anhalt and Schwarzburg. He edited here the periodicals: “Deutscher Staatsanzeiger” (1816-18) and “Unparteiischer Literatur and Kirchenkorrespondent, and attended the ministerial conferences at Carlsbad and Vienna (1819-20). In 1826, at the instance of Prince von Metternich, he was ennobled as Ritter von Nittersdorf, was recalled to Vienna (1827), appointed imperial counsellor, and employed in the service of the chancery.

Muller was a man of great and versatile talents, an excellent orator, and a suggestive writer. Several of his works were based upon his own lectures; the most important (besides the above-mentioned periodicals) are: “Die Lehre von Gegensatz” (Berlin, 1804); “Vorlesungen fiber die deutsche Wissenschaft u. Literatur” (Dresden, 1806; 2nd ed., 1807); “Von der Idee der Schonheit” (lectures; Berlin, 1809); “Die Elemente der Staatskunst” (lectures; 3 parts, Berlin, 1809); “Ueber Konig Friedrich II. u. die Natur Wurde u. Bestimmung der preussischen Monarchie1 (lectures; Berlin, 1810); “Die Theorie der Staatshaushaltung u. ihre Fortschritte in Deutschland u. England seit Adam Smith” (2 vols., Vienna, 1812); “Vermischte Schriften fiber Staat, Philosophie u. Kunst” (2 vols., Vienna, 1812; 2nd ed., 1817); “Versuch einer neuen Theorie des Geldes, mit besonderer Rucksicht auf Grossbritannien” (Leipzig, 1816); “Zwolf Reden uber die Beredsamkeit u. deren Verfall in Deutschland” (Leipzig, 1817); “Die Fortschritte der nationalokonomischen Wissenschaft in England” (Leipzig, 1817); “Von der Notwendigkeit einer theologischen Grundlage der gesamten Staatswissenschaften u. der Staatswirtschaft insbesondere” (Leipzig, 1820; new ed., Vienna, 1898); “Die Gewerbe Polizei in Beziehung auf den Landbau” (Leipzig, 1824); “Vorschlag zu einem historischen Ferien-Cursus” (Vienna, 1829). A critical pamphlet, which was written in 1817 on the occasion of the Protestant jubilee of the Reformation and entitled, “Etwas das Goethe gesagt hat. Beleuchtet von Adam Muller. Leipzig den 31 Oktober, 1817″, was printed but not published (re-printed in Vienna, 1910). Nevertheless, Traugott Krugs reply, entitled “Etwas das Herr Adam Muller gesagt hat uber etwas, das Goethe gesagt hat, and noch etwas, das Luther gesagt hat” (Leipzig, 1817), appeared in two editions.

In the field of literature and wsthetics, Muller belongs to the Romantic school. He is a Romanticist even in his specialty, politics and political economy. As Eichendorff says in his “Geschichte der poetischen Literatur Deutschlands” (new ed., by W. Kosch, Kempten, 1906, p. 352), Muller “mapped out a domain of his own, the application of Romanticism to the social and political conditions of life.” Muller himself declares: “The reconciliation of science and art and of their noblest ideas with serious political life was the purpose of my larger works” (Vermischte Schriften, I, p. iii). His chief work is the “Elemente der Staatskunst”, originating in lectures delivered before Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and an assembly of politicians and diplomats at Dresden in the winter 1808-09. It treats in six books of the state, of right, of the spirit of legislation in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, of money and national wealth, of the economical factors of the state and trade, of the relation between the state and religion. Muller endeavored to comprehend the connection between political and social science, and, while using the historical method, to base them upon philosophy and religion. (Cf. the preface to the first volume of the “Elemente”, where he treats exhaustively of the differences between his work and Montesquieus “Esprit des lois”; cf. also the sixth book of this work, and the above-mentioned work of 1820.) With Edmund Burke, Friedrich von Gentz, Joseph de Maistre, and Karl Ludwig von Haller, he must be reckoned among the chief opponents of revolutionary ideas in politics. In his work, “Von der Notwendigkeit einer theologischen Grundlage der gesammten Staatswissenschaften” (1820), Muller rejects, like Haller (Restauration der Staatswissenschaften, 1816), the distinction between constitutional and civil law, which rests entirely on the false idea of the states omnipotence. His ideal is medieval feudalism, on which the reorganization of modern political institutions should be modeled. His position in political economy is defined by his strong opposition to Adam Smiths system of materialistic liberal (so called classical) political economy, or the socalled industry system. He is thus also an adversary of free trade. In contrast with the economical individualism of Adam Smith, he emphasizes the ethical element in national economy, the duty of the state toward the individual, and the religious basis which is also necessary in this field. Mullers importance in the history of political economy is acknowledged even by the opponents of his religious and political point of view. His reaction against Adam Smith, says Roscher (Geschichte der National-Oekonomik, p. 763), “is not blind or hostile, but is important, and often truly helpful.” The reactionary and feudalistic thought in his writings, which agreed so little with the spirit of the times, prevented his political ideas from exerting a more notable and lasting influence on his age, while their religious character prevented them from being justly appreciated.

FRIEDRICH LAUCHERT