Introduction
2
1. The function of the necrology
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2. The virtue of impartiality 2.1 Fruin and the virtue of impartiality 2.2 Acquoy and the virtue of impartialty 2.3 Conclusion
13 14 18 21
3. The virtue of having love of truth 3.1 Fruin and the virtue of having love of truth 3.2 Acquoy and the virtue of having love of truth 3.3 Conclusion
22 23 26 29
4. The virtue of industriousness 4.1 Fruin and the virtue of industriousness 4.2 Acquoy and the virtue of industriousness 4.3 Conclusion
30 31 33 35
Conclusion Bibliography
37 40
On the first of June, 1860, Robert Fruin (1823-1899) became professor in Dutch History. This was a significant moment for Dutch historical science, “zoowel om den zaak als om den persoon.”1, as one of his students, Pieter Lodewijk Muller (1842-1904) writes about the famous professor in a necrology. In this necrology Muller goes on to praise Fruin for his greatness in character as well as his scientific achievements. Three years earlier, in 1896, a close friend and colleague of Fruin, Johannes Gerhardus Rijk Acquoy, professor in Theology at Leiden University, had passed away as well. Like Fruin, Acquoy was remembered by one of his students for more than just his scientific skill. Frederik Pijper (1859-1926) praised the professor for his industriousness, his love of truth and for his willingness to aid his students in their own research.2 Love of truth and industriousness are both character traits. As Muller emphasizes in his necrology of Fruin, it was the person and his character that seemed to count just as much as his scientific work. Both Fruin and Acquoy were commended for the same kinds of character traits, all of which can be classified as virtues. According to Julia Annas a virtue can be defined as an active, reliable disposition that is part of one’s character.3 Pijper thought that the two professors were linked through an “eenheid van wetenschappelijke zin en geestdrift voor dezelfde groote zaken.”4 The two men were so intimately connected to one another that they even share a grave on the Groenensteeg cemetery in Leiden. They crossed certain boundaries in their personal relations that are firmly separated today, not just with each other but with their students as well. One of Acquoy his students (Dirk Adrianus Brinkerink) describes how Acquoy would receive his students in his living room to expatiate on subjects discussed during lectures 5 and Fruin’s successor and former student Petrus Johannes Blok explains that Fruin shared rooms for an extended period of time with some of his colleagues well after he became a professor, calling it the ‘professors hotel’. 6
1 Pieter Lodewijk Muller, Levensbericht van Robert Fruin (Leiden 1900), 12. 2 Frederik Pijper, “Levensbericht van Johannes Gerhardus Rijk Acquoy” in: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde 1898 (1898), 290-325. 3 Julia Annas, Intelligent Virtue, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 8-9. 4 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 319. 5 D.A. Brinkerink, “Het onderwijs van Prof. J.G.R. Acquoy” in: Theologisch Tijdschrift 41 (1907), 101-110, 109. 6 P.J. Blok, “Levensbericht van R.J. Fruin” in: Jaarboek van de Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Letterkunde (Amsterdam 1899), 101-178, 113.
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The fact that Fruin and Acquoy came from two different disciplines within the university makes their close connection even more interesting. Today scientists tend to group together within narrow definitions of academic disciplines. In the second half of the nineteenth century in Leiden this wasn’t the case. The whole of the humaniora had succumbed to a philological fever. The ties between disciplines within the humanities were much stronger.7 Close and careful study of primary source materials was one of the most important parts of scholarly research within all of the humanities. This principle stood at the basis of turning the humanities into the modern sciences that they are today. 8 Robert Fruin was instrumental, in the minds of his peers and in the minds of later scholars alike, in bringing about the modernization of the historical sciences in the Netherlands. It was also, among others, Fruin who articulated intellectual ideals in terms of virtues and vices. The ideal critical historian, according to Fruin, had to aspire to obtain certain virtues, such as the virtue of impartiality and the virtue of industriousness. Without striving towards these virtues there was no point in trying to be a scholar according to both Fruin and Acquoy.9 These ideals were broader than the respective disciplines of the scholars who tried to live up to them. Scientists and scholars across the entire university tried to live up to them. This didn’t neccesarily mean producing a lot of work: neither Fruin nor Acquoy left us with major monographs. Nevertheless, they were celebrated scholars among their students and colleagues, not so much for what they did, but, more importantly, for the way they did it. Herman Paul identifies these virtues, articulated by Fruin and Acquoy in the normative books and articles they wrote, as epistemic virtues. Virtues that were geared towards scientific research within the humanities of the second half of the nineteenth century. He wonders what these virtues can tell us about the kind of historian or scientist (Wissenschaftler), men like Fruin and Acquoy wanted to be and what they can tell us about rivaling ways of conducting research within the humanities.
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Virtues, epistemic or
otherwise, are human qualities attributed to human beings and therefore these qualities,
7 During the nineteenth century discipline boundaries grew further apart within the humanties as the historical discipline became more narrowly defined. Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen, “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn: Location and Evidence in Modern Historiography” in: Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008), 425-453, 452-453. 8 Herman Paul, “The scholarly self: Ideals of intellectual virtue in Nineteenth Century Leiden” in: The making of the humanities: Volume 2, from early modern to modern disciplines, ed. Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 397-411, 399. 9 Herman Paul, “Een Leidsch historisch ethos? De epistemische deugden van Fruin en Acquoy” in: Leidschrift 25 (2010), 95-113, 103. 10 Herman Paul, “What is a scholarly persona? Ten theses on virtues, skills and desires” in: History and Theory 53 (2014), 348-371, 349-351.
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these ‘virtues’, might reach beyond the scientific realm.11 In contrast with Paul, who sees Fruin and Acquoy their epistemic virtues as indispensable parts of their ‘ethos’ as scholars12, I will look at these virtues as reliable active dispositions (according to Annas definition) which can be utilized in multiple parts of the scholars’ life and so can be deployed as epistemic, but also as political or moral. In this way we can try to ascertain whether these virtues were brought into the scientific environment through other parts of the scholars’ life and then deployed as epistemic or whether the chain runs the other way around (or is in fact a circle). Necrologies, like the ones written by Pijper, Blok and Muller can tell us more about the ideal kind of scholars and persons Fruin and Acquoy were according to their apprentices and peers. Because science was intertwined with the rest of their lives in a great extend(for instance in their political engagement) it is important to look at the function of virtues within
all aspects of the scholars’ lives. What ideal images of Fruin and Acquoy their virtues, epistemic, moral, political and otherwise, can be found in the necrologies written by their colleagues and apprentices shortly after they passed away, and what does this say about the way we perceive the function of virtues, epistemic and otherwise, within the scholarly world of the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth century? These necrologies were part of a scientific culture that prevailed within the humanities around the time they were written. Academic predecessors, father-figures for the aspiring young scholar, were remembered in yearbooks and articles after they had passed away. The academic world of the 1900s had several important everyday aspects and facets that we still encounter in our academic world of the 21st century, as Jo Tollebeek illustrates in his book “Fredericq en zonen”13. Tollebeek describes how these everyday aspects and facets came into being in the 19th century: science in the humanities became a matter of character and certain practices became protocol among Wissenschaftler. In what kind of historical circumstances were these necrologies written, who wrote them and what was their function? How did the scholarly practice of remembering one’s academic predecessors function within the humanities and what was the role of necrologies within that practice?
11 Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 3. 12 Paul, “Ideals of intellectual virtue”, 405 and Paul, “Een Leidsch historisch ethos?” in: Leidschrift 25, 95-97. 13 Jo Tollebeek is professor of cultural history at the Catholic University of Leuven. The book “Fredericq & Zonen” is a close study of the everyday practices of the modern historian, using the Belgian professor Paul Fredericq as a guide through this culture of domesticity and character traits. Jo Tollebeek, Fredericq & Zonen. Een antropologie van de modern geschiedwetenschap (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker: Amsterdam, 2008)
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When it becomes clear how these necrologies functioned within the academic world the next step is to take a closer look at certain important virtues. This paper will look at the virtues of impartiality, love of truth and industriousness. These virtues are most frequently named in the necrologies written about Fruin and Acquoy and they function as a leading motives in the necrologies. These three virtues are intensely intertwined with one another and looking at them individually therefore proves to be a challenge. For this reason these three virtues will be given a closer look, justly because their coherence with one another hints that they are deemed to be an important part of the character of the scholar. Moreover, they are named by the two scholars themselves as necessary for being a good critical (church) historian. Impartiality especially is a well-known virtue in scientific history. Tollebeek emphasizes that it had become akin to a sort of religious ideal.14Another virtue is objectivity, which is often used as if it is exchangeable with impartiality. In a recent article by Lorraine Daston she argues that the two virtues are a lot less similar than historians sometimes care to admit. Where objectivity is seen as the use source criticism (Quellenkritik), impartiality has to be thought of as the aim to reach just conclusions about past circumstances.15 In what way are these virtues represented in the necrologies written about Fruin and Acquoy? Do the virtues function as a purely epistemic virtue or do they function on a broader level? Research concerning character traits, the persona of the scientist within the humanities and the corresponding function of virtues is relatively new. The history of the humanities is one that has been confined to disciplines. Historians wrote a history of history, literary scholars did the same for their discipline and so on. Recently this has begun to change: in 2010 Rens Bod published a book about the history of the whole of the humanities in which he tries to show that the humanities have made indispensable contributions to human society, just like the natural sciences. 16 In 2012 a series appeared on the institutionalization of the humanities, assembled by Rens Bod, once again, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn in which the authors try to bring to light a certain unity that existed in the
14 Jo Tollebeek, “Een wetenschap van kleine gebaren. Historiografische praktijken in de late negentiende eeuw.” In: Het vaderlandse verleden. Robert Fruin en de Nederlandse Geschiedenis ed. Henk Te Velde and Herman Paul (Bert Bakker: Amsterdam, 2010), 19-37, 28-32. 15 Lorraine Daston, “Objectivity and Impartiality. Epistemic Virtues in the Humanities.” In: Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn ed. The making of the humanities: Volume 3, The Making of the Modern humanities (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 28-38, 28. 16 Rens Bod, De vergeten wetenschappen (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2010), 435.
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humanities throughout the ages.17 This paper will try to make a small contribution to the history of the humanities by comparing and analyzing scholars from two different fields within the humanities; Fruin the historian and Acquoy the theologian. Daston and Sibum have focused more on scholarly persona’s and how they came into being, they argue that scientific personas are a result of historical circumstances and that they emerge and disappear with the emergence and disappearance of certain practices within different scholarly environments.18 In his research Paul focuses more specifically on the persona of the historian: he has looked at both Fruin and Acquoy in detail and his work will be used as reference throughout this paper. Virtues are part of scientific personae. Scientific personae make up the person behind the scientist and, partially, explain what kind of character is needed or wished for in a (great) scientist. Paul, Tollebeek, Daston and Sibum all emphasize that scientific personae are an important factor in determining how science works. So in order for us to have a better grasp of how the humanities function within the scientific world we need to have a better grasp of scientific personae. Virtues (and vices) can be of great use in figuring this out because they show us what was deemed as important and what wasn’t. Because science isn’t conducted within a vacuum, it is important to look at how these virtues function in other realms of the scholar’s life as well. Of course this paper only focuses on a very small case; the ideal image of Fruin and Acquoy’s virtues that existed with their students and colleagues. What these students (and colleagues) wrote about the professors after they passed away can tell us a great deal about how they were perceived. How these students wanted to portray their scientific ‘heroes’ can, in turn, tell us a lot about what the prevailing ideal was at that time. Each of the virtues that will be looked at in this paper will be studied and discussed in a corresponding chapter. They will be examined by using necrologies written about Fruin and Acquoy by their colleagues and students. The amount of necrologies used is relatively small because in order for them to be relevant they need to be of a certain length and they need to have been written before the general consensus about Fruin and Acquoy (if there 17 Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn ed., The making of the humanities: Volume 1, Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn ed., The making of the humanities: Volume 2, from early modern to modern disciplines (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012) and Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn ed. The making of the humanities: Volume 3, The Making of the Modern humanities (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014) 18 Lorraine Daston and Otto Sibum, “Introduction: Scientific Personae and Their histories” in: Science In Context 16 (2003), 1-8, 3.
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ever was one19) changed. These three chapters concerning virtues will be preceded by a single chapter about the historical circumstances in which the necrologies were written. The first chapter will function as a framework within the paper. In this way a clear image of the function that the three virtues played will hopefully emerge and in that way provide a contribution to the answer how virtues functioned within the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth century.
19 Herman Paul and Henk Te Velde, “Inleiding� in Het Vaderlandse Verleden. Robert Fruin en de Nederlandse Geschiedenis (Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker: 2010), 7-15, 10-11.
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The practice of remembering and honoring academic predecessors, which is still in use today20, was of great importance during the lives of Fruin and Acquoy. In a time when the humanities were becoming more ‘scientific’, honoring those who came before you served as a way of consolidating certain values and methods. The creation of these father figures, such as Ranke, took place in such a way: by honoring and remembering them after they retired or passed away. They served as symbols that emulated certain virtues, such as impartiality, love of truth and industriousness. 21 Necrologies were an important part of remembering. They served as a way to present the scholarly world to the outside while at the same time serving the purpose of inner-academic self-understanding about the core values and essentials of the scholarly world of the humanities.22 John Zimman sees academic science as a culture, a sort of tribe that is regulated by unspoken rules. The scientific culture in which we live today came into being in the second half of the nineteenth century, during the time that Fruin and Acquoy were professors. Praising and idealizing their persona’s in necrologies and during manifestations held in their honor served as a way of regulating the culture that emerged within the humanities. 23 Scholars aren’t born with a scientific attitude or certain values, these values and virtues are learned and integrated throughout their academic lives.24 This happened by repeating virtues and ideals in necrologies and normative texts written by eminent scholars, but a scientific attitude was also installed in students by having them come in close contact with their teachers in seminars that were small in numbers and intense in nature.25 These privatissimi or cours pratique d’histoire are praised by Brinkerink, one of Acquoy his students as the times during which Acquoy guided his students through the intricacies of medieval manuscripts. This made them familiar with certain virtues that surrounded the study of primary source material.26 When Brinkerink wrote the piece about Acquoy in which he
20 For instance the yearly Niko Tinbergen lecture. 21 Herman Paul, “Voorbeeld en voorganger“ in: Low Countries Historical Review 126 (2011), 30-53, 32. 22 Anna Echterhölter, Schattengefechte: Genealogische Praktiken in Nachrufen auf Naturwissenschaftler (1710-1860) (Wallstein Verlag: Göttingen, 2012), 10. 23 John Zimman, Real Science. What it is. What it means (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000), 24-31. 24 Annas, Intelligent Virtue, 12. 25 Tollebeek, Fredericq en Zonen, 51-52. 26 Brinkerink, “Acquoy”, 106.
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described these matters he became part of the very thing he is describing: the instatement of certain virtues and character habits that were considered desirable in scholars. Necrologies were essential in perpetuating new found and age-old virtues. The academic culture in which Fruin, Acquoy, but also Brinkerink and Fredericq lived consisted of many habits and practices. Seminars, archival journeys, correspondence between scholars in different countries and the celebration of scholarly ‘stars’ (such as Fruin) were all a part of this. Many of these habits and practices were a consequence of the archival turn, set in motion by Ranke in the early 1800s.27 The widespread use of archives demanded different virtues and methods of historians and thus transformed the way in which they operated.28 In 1885 a manifestation in honor of Fruin, who had been professor of Dutch history for 25 years that year, was organized. This was just one of many manifestations held to honor colleagues. Tollebeek describes these celebrations as if they were family meetings29, thereby emphasizing the closeness between colleagues. Likewise, necrologies (another celebration of a scholar) were not just professional, but served as a remembrance of an (academic) family member, most often a father figure. These father figures often functioned in a national context, Fruin, for instance, became the father of Dutch historiography. 30 The deceased became increasingly important since they were often honored as pioneers within the craft. This becomes abundantly clear when one looks at the amount of necrologies that were published in the yearbooks of the ‘Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde.’31 But the deceased weren’t just remembered by written pieces, speaking at the grave was also a way to pay homage to a recently deceased colleague. A necrology was supposed to portrait someone’s character as well as their academic performance, thereby making it the perfect genre for documenting what was thought of as most exemplary (or not exemplary) in an individual.32 The written necrology was a genre that was practiced by almost every prominent scholar within the humanities in the nineteenth century. Fredericq wrote several and so did Fruin33 and Acquoy. Usually one wrote a necrology about someone
27 Risbjerg Eskildsen, “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn”, 427. 28 Ibidem, 452-453. 29 Tollebeek, Fredericq en Zonen, 193. 30 Jo Tollebeek, “A Domestic Culture. The Mise-En-Scène of Modern-Historiography” in: Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn ed. The making of the humanities: Volume 3, The Making of the Modern humanities (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 126-143, 131. 31 Starting in the 18th century, the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde has published necrologies every year and still did up to 2008. http://www.maatschappijdernederlandseletterkunde.nl/ consulted on 19-12-2014 32 Tollebeek, Fredericq en Zonen, 202. 33 Fruin even wrote a necrology for Leopold von Ranke. P. L. Muller, Fruin, 59.
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with whom a personal connection was evident.34 The necrologies that they wrote chronicled the subject’s life, in some cases starting with the origins of his family.35 The course of the subjects academic career was often the vocal point of a necrology, moreover, the character and personal bond with the subject served as an important theme throughout the necrologies as well. Necrologies as a source for historical research are problematic when the intention behind the research is to find out about the actual character, personality and doings of the subject. As explained in the introduction, this is not the purpose of this paper. The fact that necrologies as a genre are highly idealizing and written from a definite viewpoint is precisely why they are used for this research. Because necrologies idealize father figures and close friends (academic family members), putting them on a pedestal, especially in the case of academic ‘stars’ such as Fruin and Acquoy, they are very useful when one wants to find out what exactly it was that was idealized in these father figures. Necrologies operated on a level of public justification within the scholarly world, they focused on a scientific public and therefore weren’t meant to popularize.36 When we read one of the necrologies written about Fruin or Acquoy we can find out not necessarily what the men were actually like, but rather how they were perceived and idealized by their students and colleagues and what those students and colleagues wanted to propagate towards the rest of the scholarly community about their academic family member. Sometimes they felt the need to justify the behavior of their mentor or friend. It is also important to note that both students and colleagues of the two men were heavily influenced by Fruin’s and Acquoy’s own ideas about the ideals within the humanities. This means that what we learn about virtues in the necrologies tells us more than just what the author thought of them, but also what their respective father figures and/or peers had thought. There are three extensive necrologies that have been written about Fruin. One was written by one of his best students and successor P.J. Blok, and by another of his favorite students, P.L. Muller. These first two necrologies were written by very close apprentices and friends of Fruin, his academic ‘sons’, therefore they are highly apologetic and idealistic in nature. When reading these necrologies we can find out what these two admired in their
34 Tollebeek, Fredericq en Zonen, 203-204. 35 Blok starts his necrology of Fruin with a short history of the professors family and Rogge does the same in his necrology of Acquoy. 36 Echterhölter, Schattengefechte, 20-21.
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professor exactly. The third extensive necrology was written by the librarian of the
Koninklijke Bibliotheek W.G.C Byvanck (1848-1925). Finally there is an homage that was written by Samuel Muller, state archivist, in 1894 when the professor retired. This homage from 1894 will be included in this paper because, like the necrologies, it looks back upon Fruin’s life and reflects on what makes him a great historian and a great person. The most extensive necrology was written by Byvanck, who, in contrast with the Mullers and Blok, was not a fan of Fruin. For that very reason it is an interesting piece, it looks at Fruin’s persona from a completely different angle. Additionally there is one piece written by one of the Tachtigers, Albert Verwey, in 1905 in his magazine De Beweging. Even though this piece was written six years after Fruin passed away, it is still included in the analysis because it was written by a relative outsider, someone who wasn’t as close with Fruin as his students and at the same time someone who wasn’t so clearly in disagreement with Fruin’s legacy, like Byvanck. Sadly, only two extensive necrologies have been written about Acquoy, by Frederik Pijper, Acquoy his most important student and by H.C. Rogge, one of his closest colleagues and friends. These two necrologies are both very clearly written by admirers who had a very close relationship with the late professor. This makes them worthwhile because it enables us to look at what they idealized in the scholars’ professional and personal life, although this is a somewhat anachronistic division. Additionally Rogge also wrote a necrology about Acquoy for a magazine on the history of north-Dutch music. Pijper ,too, did not rest after writing his necrology. In 1906 he wrote a piece about those who he saw as the founders of the Dutch historical school of theology; Kist, Moll and Acquoy. He reflects on their teaching and study of primary source material. Another necrology that reflects on Acquoy as a teacher was written by another student, Dirk Adrianus Brinkerink. The piece was written on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Acquoy’s death. The fact that it was written a decade after Acquoy passed away and still commemorates him for his skills as a teacher is meaningful and therefore the piece is included in this paper. In 1907, moreover, Lambregt Abraham van Langeraad and Hugo Visscher also wrote a necrology about the professor in a yearbook on protestant theologians in the Netherlands. I have chosen to include this article as well, even though it was written eleven years after Acquoy passed away, because it reflects on Acquoy as a theologian and it is the only piece written about him in this specific yearbook (which means it is the first reflection on Acquoy 11
as a theologian by these two men). Moreover, both Van Langeraad and Visscher were students of Acquoy37, which means they were most probably (heavily) influenced by his methods and outlook on what a good theologian ought to be like. By analyzing these necrologies and the way the three virtues, impartiality, having love of truth and industriousness, are being portrayed, we can find out how the men that wrote them (implicitly) thought about the humanities, in much the same way as Anna Echterhölter has done for natural scientists between 1710 and 1860 in her work ‘Schattengefechte’. 38 All these necrologies were written between 1894 and 1907 and therefore they reflect this specific timespan. They look back on the lives of Fruin and Acquoy and it is important to note that they reflect on how the writers and their peers thought at that given time, not how Fruin and Acquoy themselves thought about the notion of virtues. Moreover, an account of these gentlemen’s virtues based on necrologies has not been given before.
37 A. De Groot, “Langeraad, Lambregt Abraham Van” and A. De Groot “Visscher Hugo” in: J. van den Berg et al. ed. Biografisch Lexicon Voor De Geschiedenis Van Het Nederlandse Protestantisme Deel 4 (Uitgeverij Kok, Kampen: 1998), 290 and 373. 38 Echterhölter, Schattengefechte.
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The virtue of impartiality is perhaps the most misunderstood virtue of the humanities. It is often understood as the complete annihilation of one’s own self, the complete and utter disembodiment from one’s subject, associated with a certain temporal distance from the studied subject.39 When reading one of the necrologies written about Fruin or Acquoy it becomes clear that the virtue of impartiality is very different from this ideal. It is seen not so much as a virtue that one has to achieve completely, or even strive to achieve completely. It is presented much more as a kind of character trait that one acquires through careful study of different points of view. In the eyes of Samuel Muller, Petrus Johannes Blok, Frederik Pijper and many more of their contemporaries it is not the elimination of oneself, but rather the distanciation from one’s biases and a serving of the general interest rather than the interest of just one party. The 19th century scholar and every other well-educated citizen, according to the liberal trend, was supposed to reject adhering to one faction or party, he was supposed to rise above the factions and be able to operate between different opinions flexibly.40 Liberalism was seen as a way of thinking rather than as a political allegiance.41 When Blok praises Fruin for his impartiality in political disagreements, he is writing about his ability to not let his own predispositions or the positions of the opposing party influence a legitimate and just opinion on the matter. Paul has characterized impartiality as an Aristotelian virtue, a virtue to which one can aspire, but which can never be achieved.42 In the necrologies written about Fruin and Acquoy the virtue plays a significant role. To get a clear view of each of the different portrayals of the virtue of impartiality within the necrologies written about Fruin and Acquoy we will examine them in categories based on the way the writers portrayed the virtue. First we will look at the portrayal of the virtue of impartiality in the necrologies written about Fruin, followed by Acquoy.
39 Herman Paul, “Distance and Self-Distanciation: Intellectual Virtue and Historical Method Around 1900” in: History and Theory 50 (2011), 104-116, 109. 40 Remieg Aerts, De Letterheren. Liberale cultuur in de negentiende eeuw: het tijdschrift De Gids. (Meulenhof: Amsterdam, 1997), 313. 41 Aerts, De Letterheren, 141-143. 42 Paul, “Distance and Self-Distanciation” in History and Theory 50, 113.
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2.1 Fruin and the virtue of impartiality
Willem Byvanck was a scholar who went against the new ideas surrounding what we now call the scholarly persona in the humanities. Although he still saw virtues as an important and defining part of the scholar, he adhered to different virtues than most others in his time. 43
After being promoted in 1879 he became the head librarian of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
in The Hague from 1895 until 1921. He was a known literary critic and, just like Fruin, editor of De Gids.44 Byvanck did not agree with the way the humanities in Leiden were becoming more and more ‘scientific’ and positivistic, especially in the study of literature. He acted against the prevailing order by writing the piece about Fruin in 1899. 45 In his necrology about Fruin Byvanck states that Fruin lacks a certain familiarity with life. Fruin had no passion and valued self-control and hard work above enjoying himself. Byvanck is very critical about Fruin’s inability to create and imagine.46 Impartiality to him is important, but less so than imagination. He explains that impartiality, however important it might be, isn’t enough to be a historian: ‘Dat was de eerste arbeid van den historicus: hij moet de feiten van zijn geschied-verhaal in hun oorspronkelijke gedaante leeren kenne, voordat zij verminkt of vergroot zijn door de overlevering van de tweede op de derde hand. Een voorwaarde die van zelf spreekt: Om haar te vervullen is geduld, geheugen en wat scherpzinnigheid van noode. …. Maar dan komt de zwaardere taak; de feiten en de documenten zijn op zichzelf niet genoeg. Men moet ze laten spreken.’47
The historian had to not only be impartial, but also to be able to dramatically depict the past, much like Shakespeare, Fruin’s own ideal writer of history, had done.48 Byvanck and Fruin had very different ideas about how one was to emulate Shakespeare. Impartiality, which Byvanck has Fruin depict as learning about the historical circumstances first hand through primary source material, is only the first step of writing history. Byvanck accuses Fruin of being locked in his study and being fixated on his scientific
43 Jo Tollebeek, Mannen van Karakter (Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2011), 62-64 and Paul, “Voorbeeld en voorganger”, 39-41. 44 Tollebeek, Mannen van Karakter, 12. 45 Ibidem, 46-50. 46 Ibidem, 41. 47 Byvanck, W.G.C., “R. Fruin (1823-1899)” in: De Gids. Jaargang 63 (1899), 1-89, 33. 48 Byvanck, “Fruin ”, 34.
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work. Like others in his time he felt that scholars needed to be gentlemen who were engaged in all the facets of nineteenth-century life. He felt that being engaged as an artist was just as important as being engaged as a politician. He articulated that as follows: "Ik spreek nu niet van den historicus als geleerde, als statisticus, economist of politicus, maar van de geschiedschrijver als onderwijzer, psycholoog, als kunstenaar. Historia est multiplex"49
The virtue of impartiality, as follows, was only worthwhile when the historian could understand the condition of the subjects he was studying and for him to be able to do that he needed to be engaged wholly in life as a poet, teacher, artist and in many more pursuits. This is what Fruin lacked. Byvanck did not think impartiality was one of the most important virtues a scholar had to have. Imagination and creativity were more important and the ability to imagine and create came with living, emerging oneself in, life. A completely different figure, much younger (he was born in 1865) and not a scholar, is Albert Verwey. He looks more at Fruin in the way a poet would do; he focuses on Fruin’s creative powers and, much like Byvanck, he wrote about Fruin’s emotional life. He is quite clear about Fruin and the virtue of impartiality, Fruin had little affinity with general claims because they weren’t impartial, although he did make some himself in his earlier work. According to Verwey this shows how Fruin first started thinking about the virtue.50 Blok and both of the Mullers had a vastly different view on the virtue of impartiality than Byvanck. Blok and P.L. Muller were two of the most promising students of Fruin. Blok became his successor in 1894. Somewhat surprisingly he wasn’t a clone of the professor, he was more active and, in a way, more productive. In contrast with Fruin he did go on archival journeys and he did manage to write an extensive monograph.51 P. L. Muller was professor at the university of Groningen, he too had undertaken several archival journeys and he too had produced major works.52 Even so, both men were heavily influenced by Fruin, which shows in their topic of study: constitutional and political history of the
49 Byvanck, “Fruin ”, 34. 50 Albert Verwey, “Robert Fruin” in: De Beweging. Jaargang 1 (1905), 113-131, 117-118. 51 Called ‘Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche volk’ http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/blokpj consulted on 6-11-2014. 52H. Brugmans, “Muller, Pieter Lodewijk’ in Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. Zevende deel. ed. P.C. Molhuysen, P.J. Blok and K.H. Kossmann (N. Israel, Amsterdam: 1974), 898-900.
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Netherlands.53 Samuel Muller was Utrecht’s municipal and state archivist.54 In 1894 he wrote a piece about the retiring professor in honor of him and his career. All three of these men praise Fruin’s impartiality and his ability to transcend the different factions, over and over again in the pieces they write about him. 55 The skills and goods that were associated with the virtue of impartiality, thorough research and the ability to assign worth to different opinions were also utilized in different parts of Fruin’s life, according to P.L. Muller and Blok. The virtue of impartiality was probably first wielded by Fruin, not in his life as a scholar, but in his life as a liberal bourgeois citizen defending those political ideals that he believed in alongside his contemporaries, who shared his impartial liberal attitude. Fruin was a liberal and a fervent admirer of Thorbecke.56 His liberalism stemmed partly from the important year 1848, when the constitution of the Netherlands was drastically changed and the country became a constitutional monarchy, an event that served as wood on the liberal fire. In the years before he became professor in Dutch History, Fruin was actively engaged in the political life of the country. In 1853 he wrote a pamphlet in which he, spurred on by the Aprilbeweging, attacked the historian Groen van Prinsterer and his anti-revolutionary protestant views.57 Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876) was one of the main antagonists of the liberals.58 Fruin was also active in several political societies, in 1853 as well he took part in the establishment of ‘De Zaterdagsche’, a liberal club that was supposed to counterbalance Groen van Prinsterer and other conservatives.59 Even as a professor, Blok states, he was still, al be it less actively, engaged in political debates concerning the kingdom of the Netherlands. ‘Al bleef Fruin de staatkundige ontwikkeling van zijn tijd en zijn land met belangstelling gadeslaan, al gevoelde hij zich nog herhaaldelijk, tot in zijne laatste jaren toe, geroepen om zijne stem in politicis te laten hooren, om zijn invloed ten dezen te doen gelden.’60
53 http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/blokpj consulted on 6-11-2014 and H. Brugmans, “Muller’ in Nederlandsch, 898-900. 54 http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/b/bwn1/mullerfzn consulted on 6-11-2014. 55 For instance here: Pieter Lodewijk Muller, Levensbericht van Robert Fruin (Leiden, 1900) 22 and here: Samuel Muller Fz, “Robert Fruin’ in: De Gids. Jaargang 58 (1894), 353-363, 356. 56 Jo Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin. Denken over geschiedenis in Nederland sinds 1860 (Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam: 1990), 17. 57 Blok, ”Fruin”, 117. 58 Aerts, De Letterheren, 187-188. 59 Blok, “Fruin”, 117. 60 Blok, ”Fruin”, 119.
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This might be an attempt to defend Fruin against accusations (by for instance the likes of Byvanck) that the man was just a solitary scholar who never left his study. A sign that engagement in society, whether political or otherwise, was deemed as important for a scholar. Liberalism, political engagement and nationalism were of the utmost importance in Fruin’s life and this isn’t very surprising; in the time that the necrologies were written, being engaged in politics was not only desirable but very important as well.61 As a true liberal and enlightened scholar, you were to position yourself above the different political factions that waged war on one another throughout Dutch history. Nationalism, to Fruin and his peers, who wrote their thoughts down in their magazine De Gids (the bourgeois magazine of the nineteenth century62) was the vessel, which was to be used to further the cause of humanity in general and the Dutch in particular. Fruin considered his professorship (founded in an effort to treasure the national past) in Dutch history of national importance.63 P. L. Muller states that Fruin always wanted to further the liberal cause because he possessed a considerable amount of patriotism.64 A good citizen was also a patriot in the second half of the nineteenth century. By engaging in the political life of the Netherlands Fruin was simply conveying the (liberal) ideals of his time. Blok praises the fact that Fruin, although a fervent admirer, was still very critical of Thorbecke and thus portrays him as an independent liberal. ‘Thorbecke was ook Fruin's vereerde politieke leider, maar onze zelfstandige denker was nooit een blind vereerder van den grooten staatsman, had een open oog voor diens gebreken als mensch, als staatsman en schroomde niet dit openlijk te laten hooren, wat den autocratischen "Thor" weinig behaagde.’65
Blok also wrote that Fruin was never one of the most fervent liberalists, he was always in the middle, not leaning too much towards one opinion, nor the other.66 Being impartial therefore, meant that you didn’t blindly follow your leaders. Impartiality was a virtue which
61 62 63 64 65 66
Aerts, De Letterheren, 145-146. Ibidem, 377. Blok, “Fruin”, 132. P. L. Muller, Fruin, 22. Blok, “Fruin”, 109. Blok, ”Fruin”, 108.
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Blok recognized was to be found in more aspects of Fruin’s life than just his research and work. Although the virtue of impartiality, according to Blok and the Mullers, is most important in Fruin’s scholarly life, it does not function exclusively in the epistemic realm. It is predominantly Fruin’s political life in which the virtue of impartiality is of the utmost importance as well. In order for his political arguments to be persuasive within the liberal fraction of Dutch politics, they needed to be thoroughly researched and impartial in the sense that they needed to transcend the traditional parties in Dutch political life. Blok and the Mullers show us that Fruin conducted himself in an impartial way in his political life as well, partly maybe to defend him against accusations of being locked up in his study and partly to show that Fruin was an exemplary liberal as well. Fruin was not just an ideal scholar, he was an ideal citizen and moreover an ideal person. Blok emphasizes this as well by stipulating that Fruin’s family was a part of ‘de kern onzer natie’.67 The last few sentences of the necrologies are often used to state concretely what the writer thought of as the most important qualities of the deceased. Blok summarizes his feelings about the man in the closing sentence of his necrology as follows showing that he thought of Fruin not necessarily as a scholar, but as an exemplary citizen:
‘In het graf, dat hij voor zijn vriend Acquoy en zichzelven had bestemd, brachten wij hem ter ruste, met de dankbare gedachte, door de eersten van ons volk gedeeld, aan wat wij verschuldigd zijn aan dezen grooten en veelzijdigen geleerde, dezen voortreffelijken staatsburger, dezen trouwen vriend, dezen edelen mensch.’68
2.2 Acquoy and the virtue of impartiality
Frederik Pijper was an admirer of Acquoy. Acquoy had been his teacher and mentor, a father figure. When he wrote his necrologies about the man it was with great admiration and the ambition to follow in the footsteps of the professor whose life he was looking back on.69 Hendrik Cornelius Rogge was also an admirer of Acquoy’s, but in a different way. He was a contemporary and colleague of the professor and worked with him on a regular basis. He 67 Ibidem, 102. 68 Ibidem, 102. 69 Paul, “Ideals of intellectual virtue”, 404.
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wrote two necrologies about Acquoy and they show us not only admiration, but also that the two men were close friends.70 The virtue of impartiality seems less important to both Pijper and Rogge than it was to Fruin’s admirers. Although Acquoy thought impartiality was as important as Fruin, this hardly shows in the necrologies written about him. Both Pijper and Rogge do emphasize Acquoys close and critical reading of primary source material. The philological ethos that Paul talks about shows in the necrologies, in which hard work and close study of a very broad and detailed nature are discussed. In the necrology written by Lambregt Abraham van Langeraad en Hugo Visscher Acquoy his demand for impartiality in scholarly research does play a bigger role, but mostly as an epistemic virtue.71 Brinkerink mostly speaks of Acquoy his excellent role as a mentor and teacher. Rogge notes that Acquoy was very strict on himself when it came to scientific demands, he would not rest before he had understood every detail surrounding a study.72 Pijper as well underscores that Acquoy was an expert on primary source material that had to do with the history of the Christian church in the Netherlands.73 Although at first hand this seems to be closer to the virtue of industriousness it is also linked to the virtue of impartiality. The reason that Acquoy would not rest until he felt that he had researched the entirety of the matter is because it was necessary to satisfy his demand of impartiality. Because in order to be impartial, according to both Fruin, Acquoy and many of their contemporaries, one had to be well acquainted with every detail concerning a (historical) problem. And Brinkerink too mentions on several occasions that Acquoy trained his students during the privatisimii in primary source research, thereby transferring the virtue of impartiality to them.74 In the closing sentences of nearly all of the necrologies and pieces written, Acquoy’s impartiality, love of truth and other virtues are repeated and implanted as a kind of final judgment on Acquoy’s character. For instance in the piece that Pijper has written about Kist, Moll and Acquoy he uses the last sentence to emphasize what these three men, culminating in Acquoy, stood for: ‘degelijke bronnenstudie, onpartijdige waarheidsliefde, een door-
70 H.C. Rogge, “Levensbericht J.G.R. Acquoy” in Jaarboek (1897), 57-87, 57. 71 Lambregt Abraham van Langeraad and Hugo Visscher, “Johannes Gerhardus Rijk Acquoy” in: Biographisch woordenboek van protestantsche godgeleerden in Nederland. Deel 1. (1907), 11-19, 17. 72 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 71. 73 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 323. 74 Brinkerink, “Acquoy”, 102 and 106.
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dringen tot de inwendige zijde der verschijnselen, nauwkeurigheid in de details en een schoonen vorm.’75 Pijper makes it abundantly clear what he judges to be the most important things about his scientific ‘fathers’, and the virtue of impartiality clearly stands among them. However, impartiality did not only function in the epistemic realm. In 1879 and 1880 Acquoy took part as an advisory member in the Dutch protestant synod. Rogge describes the events and greatly emphasizes the fact that Acquoy positioned himself above the different parties. ‘Hij was geen partijman; partijen, zeide hij, zijn als de golve, zij komen op en gaan weer onder, maar de stroom blijft en voor hem alleen heb ik hart.’76 When it came to politics of the faith, Acquoy, apparently, was very impartial. Like a real liberal he saw the general interest (‘de stroom’) as more important than every party’s own interest (‘de golve’). Rogge tells us that he only wanted what was best for the religious and he believed that is was the duty of the church to ‘godsdienstig [te] handelen door hare deuren wijd op te houden voor allen, opdat de vroomheid een toevlucht hebben.’77By writing this down Rogge is emphasizing Acquoy’s ability to be impartial when it comes to morality as well. Pijper too recounts Acquoy’s influence in the synod. He described Acquoy as an important part of the moderates within the synod. ‘De meer gematigden scheidden zich af en hielden des avonds eene afzonderlijke vergadering, onder voorzitting van Acquoy.’78 According to van Langeraad and Visscher Acquoy had a liberal point of view during the synod, which allowed him to position himself above the different parties and defend the rights of the minorities.79 Rogge and Pijper attached much value to Acquoy’s impartiality during this synod, according to them, it helped to democratize the Prostestant Church during the synod, making it possible for more people to become or remain member of the church. The virtue of impartiality functioned in the religious realm as well. Rogge and Pijper saw Acquoy not just as an impartial person (and so did Van Langeraad and Visscher) but also as someone who strived to better the cause of the religious during his work. In other words, they saw him as moral person, an ideal pastor as well.
75Pijper, “Kist, Moll en Acquoy” 237. 76 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 75. 77 Ibidem, 75. 78 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 309. 79 Van Langeraad and Visscher, “Acquoy” 15.
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2.3 Conclusion
The virtue of impartiality is not simply restricted to the epistemic realm. Both Fruin and Acquoy were seen as impartial in their overall behavior and within all their different doings. Fruin seems to have employed his impartiality in the politics of his times. By doing so he was acting like an ideal citizen as well as an ideal scholar, as engaging oneself in politics was expected. The ideal of impartiality was part of nineteenth century life for the entire well-educated elite. Acquoy too exemplified this ideal and engaged himself in religious politics. The writers of his necrologies observed behavior that hey stipulated as (morally) impartial. Byvanck thought differently about impartiality because his views deviated from those of his peers, even so, he still perceived of impartiality as a vital part of nineteenth century life. The scholarly practices of the nineteenth century were all encompassing, being a professor was more than just a job, it was one’s life. A strict separation of the personal and professional life did not exist like it does today. The practice of the privatissimum is just one example of the vague lines between scholar and person, between students and close friendships. It follows that the virtues that were so important for scholars in their work, were also important in parts of their life that we today would not recognize as scholarly, but that weren’t seen as so separate then. This is especially obvious with the virtue of impartiality, which wasn’t just an academic ideal, but a bourgeois ideal as well.80 The conclusion is that the virtue of impartiality wasn’t epistemic and political or religious in the sense that it functioned on all those levels, but rather that the virtue of impartiality encompassed the scholars’ entire life. Therefore, it could be employed whenever it was needed because scholars in the second half of the nineteenth-century did not perceive of a separation between the different spheres as we do today.
80 Aerts, De Letterheren, 335.
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The virtue of wanting to portray the truth as closely as possible is a virtue that has close ties with the virtue of impartiality. In order to be impartial one has to want to find out the ‘real’ truth and thus have a love of truth. Having love of truth therefore is a virtue that has much to do with critical and careful study of source material and with judging this material in an impartial way.81 This makes sense when one thinks of a virtue in the same way as Plato did; to have virtue is to be excellent at carrying out ones job. 82 In order to be excellent at what Fruin and Acquoy conceived as their job, they needed the virtue of having love of truth because it enabled them to handle primary source material in the right way. It follows that the virtue of having love of truth was a motivator and enabler that allowed the professors to carry out their work. Having love of truth is not a virtue that should be taken literally in the sense that it meant that a scholar should love the truth more than he did, for instance, financial gain. In the studied necrologies the writers are inconclusive about what exactly they mean when they praise their academic heroes for their love of truth. Therefore the virtue is most easily defined by stating what it is not; having love of truth meant restraining oneself from distractions and from the urge to look for convenient answers rather than truthful ones. In the necrologies, even though Blok, Pijper and the others writers remain relatively vague, having love of truth often means wanting to go through great lengths in order to reach the truth. Spending countless hours in an archive or lending oneself to numerous historical societies in order to contribute to the (historical) truth are praised. The virtue seems to come from a drive to find out Wie est eigentlicht gewesen ist, a famous quote from Leopold von Ranke, and to consequently acquire a vast amount of knowledge.83 The virtue has an obvious link with the virtue of industriousness too; in order to find out the truth one needs to work hard and work continuously, without distractions. Finding out the truth was also a critical ideal within the liberal and bourgeois attitude of mind. Truth and only the truth was of importance in order to create unity within the
81 Risbjerg Eskildsen, “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn”, 423-435. 82 G.F. Newey “Political Philosophy Lecture 7.” Lecture for the undergraduate course Political Philosophy at Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, 05-11-2014. 83 Blok, “Fruin”, 133.
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Dutch nation which was perceived as being scattered in different (religious) factions. In order to reach the truth only facts mattered.84 Within the Dutch bourgeois society of the nineteenth century the virtue functioned on a moral level; children were thought to be honest and despise lying.85 As with the virtue of impartiality we will examine the virtue of having love of truth in categories based on different portrayals of the virtue. We will once again start by looking at how the virtue of having love of truth is portrayed in the necrologies written about Fruin, followed by those written about Acquoy.
3.1 Fruin and the virtue of having love of truth.
Willem Byvanck, Fruin’s great critic, describes Fruin’s love of truth as something that brought him joy.86 He also notes that Fruin switched from studying the ancient world to studying Dutch history because the former did not satisfy his demand of truth. Fruin needed to be able to imagine the past in great detail. ‘Hoe zou hij, op zichzelf, met zijn geringe boekenapparaat, van die oudheid een voorstelling hebben kunnen opbouwen die zijn waarheidsgevoel voldoening gaf!’87 Byvanck, however, also points out the problem of how to depict that truth that brought him so much joy and for which he switched his object of study. He asks the question what that ability is that a historian needs to have in order to depict the past in the most truthful way: ‘welk [was] het vermogen waarmede de historicus de gebeurtenissen van het verleden in hun natuurlijk verband herschiep zoodat ze een tweede werkelijkheid werden?.’88 This ability that Byvanck has Fruin looking for isn’t impartiality, it is the ability to imagine and create. Byvanck doesn’t doubt that Fruin possessed a great love of truth, he doubts whether Fruin is able to portray the past in a way that does it justice. Byvanck portrayed the virtue of having love of truth as a crippled virtue in Fruin. He thought Fruin possessed the virtue, but he considered it inadequate without another virtue 84 Aerts, De letterheren, 90. 85 Herman Paul, “Waarheidszin en waarheidsliefde: een vrijzinnige synthese van geloof en wetenschap” in: L.J. Dorsman en P.J. Knegtmans ed., Theologie, Waarheidsliefde en religiekritiek. Over geloof en wetenschap aan de Nederlandse universiteiten sedert 1815 (Verloren: Hilversum, 2014), 25-45, 30. 86 Byvanck, ”Fruin”, 34. 87 Ibidem, 12. 88 Ibidem, 34.
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which Byvanck felt Fruin lacked: imagination, the poetic ability to create. Byvanck did not consider facts as important in order to justly portray the historical truth, as Fruin did.89 Fruin wasn’t engaged enough in life outside of the university buildings as a scholarly gentleman and that is why he lacked the ability to portray the truth in the right way. Byvanck thinks that although Fruin had an ample amount of epistemic motivation (love of truth) he missed epistemic competence (the ability to recognize that truth).90 Albert Verwey also seems to think Fruin secluded himself to his study, nevertheless, he does have critique on Byvanck’s way of depicting Fruin as a victim of his own circumstances.91 Verwey also recognizes that Fruin had a great love of truth, stating that he could not stand disagreements if they were in conflict with his view of reality. He recognizes Fruin’s aspiration towards a positivistic and empirical view on the historical truth as a typical nineteenth-century behaviorism.92 Verwey, who liked to consider the liberal magazine De
Gids as a revolutionary predecessor of his own magazine De Nieuwe Gids93, observes that Fruin used his love of truth for his articles in the magazine as well.94 This is not surprising considering Fruin’s scholarly life was intensely intertwined with his life as an editor of De
Gids. Pieter Lodewijk Muller, Samuel Muller and Petrus Johannes Blok thought very similarly about Fruin as we have seen in the chapter about impartiality. They describe the virtue of having love of truth as almost explicitly connected to primary source research. In order to reach the truth which Fruin so loved, he spend countless hours studying documents without distractions to find out what had happened in that part of the past that had his attention at the given time. Unlike Byvanck, they don’t doubt Fruin his epistemic competence to reach the truth. Samuel Muller describes how Fruin searches for the truth: ‘Met
onuitputtelijk
geduld,
met
eene
scherpzinnigheid,
alleen
geëvenaard
door
zijn
combinatievermogen, spoort hij de juiste toedracht eener gebeurtenis, den samenhang van het schijnbaar ver uiteenliggende na; hij is er dagen en weken onafgebroken mede bezig.’ 95
89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Tollebeek, Mannen van Karakter, 31-32. Herman Paul, “Waarheidszin en waarheidsliefde” , 33. Verwey, ”Fruin”, 129. Ibidem, 115. Aerts, De letterheren, 17. Before Verwey started De Beweging, he was one of the co-founders of De Nieuwe Gids. Verwey, “Fruin”, 129. Samuel Muller Fz., “Fruin”, 358.
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The idea that Fruin had positivistic tendencies, which we can recognize in the article of Verwey, also emerges in the piece written by Blok, who suggests that Fruin showed an interest in the natural sciences when he was younger because they offered ‘beloften van waarheid’. 96 Empirical research is portrayed as being very important to Fruin. He used auxiliary sciences, such as philology, to get to the core business of a historical problem. Only when a historical problem had been solved, or solved as far as was possible with the given sources, his demand for truth was satisfied.97 He thus used what he saw as empirical historical evidence, found in documents, to search for the truth. However, according to Tollebeek, he did not think that historical evidence should amount to the drafting of historical laws.98 This shows in the necrologies written about Fruin by both of the Mullers and Blok. They suggest that Fruin thought historical claims needed to be substantiated by historical evidence, but they do not argue that the professor thought these historical claims amounted to historical laws. The virtue of having love of truth therefore, is primarily displayed as an epistemic virtue in these necrologies, a virtue that is used as a motivator in order to fulfill the desire of finding the truth.99 The virtue of having love of truth does intermingle with other aspects of Fruin’s life, according to both P.L. Muller and P.J. Blok. They describe how Fruin lent his knowledge to historical societies as well as political purposes.100 These causes benefitted from Fruin’s vast amount of knowledge because this knowledge aided them in finding the truth or, in the case of political issues, making the right decision because they were familiar with the truth. ‘En de oogenschijnlijk stroeve man toonde zich dagelijks den welwillenden, altijd gereed staanden raadsman en helper, nu eens met een woord van vriendelijke kritiek terechtwijzend, dan weder leidend en steunend in de goede richting of wel vermanend den ingeslagen weg te verlaten.’101
Further along Blok states that Fruin’s historical and political writings aided the important men in his time in making the right decisions.
96 Blok, “Fruin”, 111. 97 P.L. Muller, Fruin, 30. 98 Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin, 48. 99 P.L. Muller, Fruin, 40-41. 100 In 1885 Fruin became honorary chairman of the Historical society of Utrecht, he also was a member of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, of which he aided the board. Blok, “Fruin”, 133 101 Ibidem.
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‘Herhaaldelijk is hij in beslissende tijdsgewrichten openlijk als politicus opgetreden, met den schat zijner kennis en zijner ervaring van het verledene hen voorlichtend die de leiding onzer binne- en buitenlandsche staatkundige aangelegenheden hadden te voeren.’102
Fruin’s virtue of having love of truth was useful outside of his study, it was used for great things within Dutch political life even. The virtue of having love of truth can also be seen as moral bourgeois virtue in Fruin, which he used to improve society. Not only is Blok, once again, defending Fruin against the claim that he never left his study and didn’t engage himself in life, he is also states that Fruin’s virtue of having love of truth was greater than his academic successes. Moreover, that his academic writing themselves, weren’t just academic writings. Notwithstanding, the virtue of having love of truth was seen mostly in light of primary source research. This does not mean that it is an epistemic virtue necessarily, but rather that it is an epistemic virtue that can be used outside the world of academia.
3.2 Acquoy and the virtue of having love of truth.
Frederik Pijper concludes his necrology about Acquoy by stating that if he had to summarize his entire piece with one word, that word would be ‘love’.103 One of those ways that Acquoy exemplifies love is through the virtue of having love of truth. ‘Wie was Prof. Acquoy als geschiedschrijver? Ten eerste een man van buitengewone nauwkeurigheid en waarheidsliefde. In zijne Handleiding vergelijkt hij den historicus bij een rechter, die met kritischen blik, oordeelkundig, uit persoonlijke getuigenissen en zichtbare voorwerpen moet opmaken of een feit inderdaad heeft plaats gehad, en zoo ja, hoe het heeft plaats gehad.’104
Pijper describes having love of truth as a virtue that has very close connotations with the virtue of accuracy or meticulousness. He also links the virtue of having love of truth to primary source research: ‘Bronnenstudie is de vruchtbare akker, waarop de geheele rijke oogst hunner letterkundige voortbrengselen is gerijpt’ Pijper states about Kist, Moll and
102 Blok, “Fruin”, 133 103 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 325. 104 Ibidem, 322.
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Acquoy. 105 Moreover, Rogge, Pijper and Brinkerink all emphasize that Acquoy used his great abilities when it came to primary source research mostly in his teachings. ‘Bij dit onderwijs was het niet zoozeer zijn doel jeugdigen godgeleerden de noodige kennis bij te brengen, die zij ook uit goede handboeken konden putten, dan wel hen in te wijden in de ware methode van historisch onderzoek.’106
Acquoy’s virtue of having love of truth therefore was used in his role as an educator. According to Brinkerink, Acquoy was the preceptor who would invite his students to his home on the Breestraat and inaugurate them in medieval manuscripts. It was during these
privatissimi that Acquoy introduced them to the virtue of having love of truth, through detailed primary source research.107 According to Rogge, when students showed exemplary talent for the study of documents, Acquoy was delighted and he did not hesitate to encourage these students to put their talents to use.108 Acquoy was an exemplary teacher according to his students Brinkerink and Pijper and his colleague Rogge, and it seems that this was partly because he managed to inspire his students to love the truth in much the same way as he had the virtue of having love of truth himself. Van Langeraad and Visscher (who were also students of Acquoy’s) agree with the other three gentlemen. Acquoy installed his own love of the truth in his students by means of close personal encounters. Students could look up to the way the professor handled the ancient documents and the way he sought out the truth of the matter.109 The virtue of having love of truth was important for Acquoy as an educator, but it seems this was a result of the virtue of having love of truth being very important for Acquoy as a scholar. As both Rogge and Pijper describe in their necrologies, the professor, like Fruin, attempted to discover the truth behind the research of others, only judging something to be the truth when he himself had come to the same conclusion.110 Acquoy only believed ‘facts’ during the everlasting search of the truth. Empiric research of documents was important, however, none of the necrology writers suggest that Acquoy had positivistic tendencies.
105 Frederik Pijper, “Kist, Moll en Acquoy, De Grondvesters der Nederlandsche Historische School” in: Nederlands archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 4 (1906), 237-252, 244. 106 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 78. 107 Brinkerink, “Acquoy”, 107. 108 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 79-80. 109 Van Langeraad and Visscher, “Acquoy”, 14. 110 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 61.
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Acquoy had a vast amount of knowledge concerning a multitude of affairs. Pijper especially praises him for his knowledge of documents concerning the history of Christianity in the Netherlands in the century before the Reformation. Near the end of his live he offered a collection of historical essays to Professor Fruin, to dignify their friendship.111 Pijper is emphasizing Acquoy’s relationship with the great professor of Dutch history, the father of Dutch historiography, most probably to signify Acquoy’s own greatness and Acquoy’s own adeptness in primary source research and critical historical thinking. According to Rogge, it was because of this adeptness and knowledge that many people sought out his council in matters in which he had expertise.112 Acquoy, like Fruin, also employed himself in academic societies so that they could benefit from his knowledge and learning.113 The most notable example of this is his work for the Vereeniging der Noord-Nederlandse Muzieksgeschiedenis. In the small necrology Rogge has written for the society about Acquoy he states ‘Sedert hare oprichting stond hij mede aan het hoofd van onze Vereeniging’.114 Acquoy’s love of truth was of use to others as well. All of the necrology writers seem to think similarly about Acquoy and the virtue of having love of truth: Acquoy primarily exemplified it in his work as a researcher and teacher at the university. Does this make it an epistemic or educational virtue? The virtue functions in a guiding way in Acquoy’s doings on several levels: Acquoy aided others in their search for the truth, as a member of several societies and by answering individual questions, exemplifying the virtue as a moral one as well. According to Pijper science was Acquoy’s whole life115 and this shows an important characteristic of nineteenth century life; one’s occupation wasn’t so easily split from the rest of one’s life and neither was the virtue of having love of truth.
111 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 319-323. 112 Rogge, “Acquoy”, 83. 113 Acquoy was a member of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde and aided its board. He also involved himself with other societies, such as the Commissie voor Geschied en Oudheidkunde in Leiden. Pijper, “Acquoy”, 319323. 114 H.C. Rogge, “Johannes Gerardus Rjik Acquoy, Geb. 3 Jan. 1829. Overl. 15 Dec. 1896” in: Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis (1897), 220-224, 222. 115 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 307.
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3.3 Conclusion
Having love of truth was a virtue that the professors Fruin and Acquoy employed in their primary source research. It was the reason they spend countless hours staring at old documents, trying to figure out what had actually happened on a given day or during a certain historical event. Having love of truth was a virtue that was especially useful now that archival research work had become essential, because it motivated scholars in such a way that they were ready to or even loved to spend hours looking at documents without getting distracted. The drama of how history was uncovered had become as important as the drama of history itself116 and the virtue of having love of truth seemed to be a crucial motivator in this process. However, the virtue was not just epistemic, it functioned as an educational virtue, in the case of Acquoy, and as a political virtue, in the case of Fruin. More importantly, the virtue was broader than even these categories; the virtue of having love of truth was used in varying ways, as a moral bourgeois virtue in the aiding of others, to further a political cause, to teach students how to be good scholars and as a motivation to be a good scholar like yourself. Since virtues aren’t set in stone and are subject to change, instead of trying to fit all these different doings in multiple categories it is better to conclude that the virtue of having love of truth belonged to the scholar as a person and could therefore be deployed in varying areas of the scholar’s life. The virtue functioned differently than the virtue of impartiality, it wasn’t a goal in itself, but functioned as a motivation behind the professors’ work.
116 In a similar way as Ranke had done while writing his book ‘Ueber die Verschworung gegen Venedig’, the necrologies emphasize the drama behind the writing of history rather than the history itself. Risbjerg Eskildsen, “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn”, 435.
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Industriousness, meaning spending every waking moment studying documents in archives, never giving up and always asking more of oneself, seems inhuman. Therefore it is best to think of the virtue as an Aristotelian virtue, a virtue to which one can aspire but never achieve completely. The virtue seems to be easily adaptable to various parts of the scholar’s life, after all, the virtue is more straightforward than, for instance, the virtue of impartiality. One can be industrious in cleaning the house, whereas the concept of being impartial while cleaning the house is harder to grasp. The will and drive to continuously work hard was important as a bourgeois virtue and it has close connotations with the protestant Calvinistic faith. In the nineteenth century Dutch state everyone was expected to work hard, regardless of your profession. It was seen as self-accomplishment, a part of bourgeois lifestyle. Any learned bourgeois man was expected to be industriousness in order to live a fulfilling life. 117 However, to a scholar the template of the hard working professor who had devoted his entire life to his studies was an alluring way to present oneself in its own right. It had been Ranke’s demand that historians would devote their entire lives to the craft. 118 The virtue is connected closely to the virtue of having love of truth. As explained in the last chapter, the virtue of having love of truth functions more or less as a motivator behind the virtues of industriousness. Fruin and Acquoy worked hard and they were meticulous in their work and research because they strived to find the truth. In the necrologies the virtue of industriousness is, unsurprisingly, often linked to primary source research. Yet, in the necrologies written about Acquoy especially, the writers emphasize that the man was industrious in all of his doings, whatever they were, and it was a part of his character. The virtue is portrayed as a glaring example of bürgerliche Lebensführung. As with the other virtues we will examine the virtue of industriousness in categories based on how the different necrology writers portrayed the virtue. We will once again start by looking at how the virtue of industriousness is portrayed in the necrologies written about Fruin, followed by those written about Acquoy.
117 Herman Paul, “ ‘Werken zoo lang het dag is’ Sjablonen van een negentiende-eeuws geleerdenleven” in: De
menselijke maat in de wetenschap. De geleerden(auto)biografie als bron voor de wetenschaps- en universiteitsgeschiedenis ed. L.J. Dorsman and P.J. Knegtmans (Verloren: Hilversum, 2013), 53-74, 63 and 72. 118 Ibidem.
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4.1 Fruin and the virtue of industriousness
Locking yourself away in your study wasn’t exactly Willem Byvanck’s idea of an ideal scholar. He doesn’t mention the virtue much in his necrology about Fruin, except for when he is building up the charge that all what Fruin did was study. To Byvanck it is a negative thing that Fruin spend so much time studying and, in the eyes of Byvanck, not living his life. In the necrology he even conjures up a demon that condemned Fruin to the study of insignificant details119, according to Byvanck, Fruin lost himself in these details and forgot to actually look at the story behind history. ‘Men had gedacht, in zijn onschuld, dat de hoogleeraar de bron was waaruit de geschiedenis zou opwellen; maar hij is slechts de zeef voor al de leerstof uit folianten en papieren.’120 Fruin possessed a great sense of duty, which led him to leave his study and to enter the editorial world of De Gids in 1865.121 In much the same way he only started writing pieces when something in the world outside of his study moved him to do so.122 Byvanck is trying to tell his readers that the virtue of industriousness hampered Fruin’s genius. Whereas the nineteenth century norm had become to present a scholar as intensively and endlessly studying in an autobiography or necrology, even if this was not he actual truth123, Byvanck deviated from this topos. He still formulated the needs of a good scholar in terms of virtues, but the virtues that he adhered to were very different ones than those that were deemed as important by the likes of Blok and the Mullers. The virtue of industriousness could work as a obstacle for Fruin’s greatness. Therefore, even though Byvanck does think that the virtue is important, he is still a product of the nineteenth century: the virtue should not be predominant in any scholar. Verwey did not agree with Byvanck: ‘en het is niet waar dat hij enkel een pluizer is die bizonderheden meedeelt om hunzelfs wil.’124 Fruin did not get lost in details. He had accumulated a great amount of notes and arranged them very carefully.125 According to Verwey the virtue of industriousness is a valuable one for a scholar. However, like Byvanck, Verwey does not mention the virtue outside of the epistemic context. 119 120 121 122 123 124 125
Byvanck, “Fruin”, 49. Ibidem. Ibidem, 58. Ibidem, 55. Paul, “ ‘Werken zoo lang het dag is’”, 60-61 Verwey, “Fruin”, 121. Verwey, “Fruin”, 121.
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Samuel Muller starts his necrology about Fruin by stating that science had been Fruin’s only love: ‘Zijn leven was dat van een geleerde: de wetenschap heeft al zijn tijd vervuld en zij is zijne eenige liefde geweest.’126 Muller is emphasizing exactly that which Byvanck did not like, he is using the topos of the scholar who devoted his entire life to his work. P.L. Muller and Blok agree with Samuel Muller, they too emphasize that Fruin devoted his entire life to his studies.127 Fruin never married and both P.L. Muller and Blok connect this to Fruin’s devotion to his work.128 He was very attached to his study and Samuel Muller even calls him a hermit who cohabitated with his books.129 Whereas earlier in this paper it seemed that Blok was trying to defend Fruin against the claim made by Byvanck that Fruin never left his study, it now comes to light that Blok, although still emphasizing that Fruin was active outside of his study, also relies on the topos of the devoted scholar. Why? Blok uses several narrative templates to describe Fruin, as the nineteenth-century scholar needed to be more than a hermit booklover even though devotion to one’s work and industriousness were applauded and expected. Moreover, industriousness was an important virtue because it helped Fruin reach other virtues. It was thanks to the virtue of industriousness that Fruin was able to reach the truth ánd train himself in impartiality as Blok states: ‘Daardoor juist was zijn veelgeprezen onpartijdigheid een zijner bewonderenswaardigste eigenschappen, omdat zij verkregen was door langdurige oefening en zelf beheersching, door overwinning van eigen neigingen en gemoedsbewegingen.’130
P.L. Muller as well states that through hard work and long hours of studying Fruin had laid the foundation for his vast amount of knowledge.131 But, as is relatively easy to imagine, the virtue of industriousness was more than epistemic. P.L. Muller talks about Fruin’s industriousness in a completely different context as well; the context of his family and dear friends. ‘Hoeveel hij over had voor zijne vrienden en verwanten, hoe hij vooral geen moeite spaarde, als 't
126 127 128 129 130 131
Samuel Muller Fz., “Fruin”, 354. Blok, “Fruin”, 119 and P.L. Muller, Fruin, 18. Ibidem, 131 and ibidem, 60-61. Samuel Muller Fz., “Fruin”, 360. Blok, “Fruin”, 123. P.L. Muller, Fruin, 13.
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er op aankwam een dienst te bewijzen’132
Fruin, according to one of his best students and close relations, was an excellent friend, brother and son, who, consequently, was very close to his mother 133 , because he was prepared to work hard for them. Fruin was industrious in more areas: he worked hard to write articles for De Gids, even though he was not inclined to write a lot; he only wrote when something urged him to do so.134 For instance, when Groen Van Prinsterer published articles he did not agree with. He also, as emphasized in the chapter about having love of truth, did not hesitate to join several societies and was prepared to put in several hours of work for these societies. 135 Even though Fruin never founded a historical school according to Blok, he did teach several important historians, who found work in archives, as scholars or in politics. When Fruin had discovered talent in a young men he would not hesitate to do all he could to help the young gentleman ahead. The young historians needn’t even ask, Fruin would offer help without being asked. 136 In this sense Fruin was industrious as a teacher as well. Fruin was the kind of scholar who had devoted himself to his books and his documents and who spent days and nights studying. He was a sober man of habits and very attached to his study. The Rankean ideal was not lost on him. Even so, Fruin was a human being too, he dearly loved his mother, brother and friends and therefore would go through great lengths for them. And, as an engaged liberal, he also exemplified the virtue of industriousness in the societies of which he was a member and in the writing of his Gids articles. The virtue of industriousness was most helpful in his life as a scholar, but it wasn’t restricted to Fruin’s scholarly doings at all, it, as with the other virtues, was to be used whenever needed. 4.2 Acquoy and the virtue of industriousness ‘Werken, soliede werken, dat hebben wij allen van hem geleerd.’137 All of the necrologies written about Acquoy emphasize the same thing: Acquoy was extremely industrious in
132 133 134 135 136 137
P.L. Muller, Fruin, 60. Blok, “Fruin”, 123. Ibidem, 121. Ibidem, 133. Ibidem, 126. Rogge, “Acquoy”, 80.
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everything that he did. He was industrious as a protestant minister, as a teacher and professor and most of all he was industrious in his primary source research. Even so, the man did not mind spending the precious few hours he had left zealously working for the Maatschappij
der Nederlandse Letterkunde.138 So Acquoy worked hard in all that he did. For instance for the Vereeniging der Noord-Nederlandsche Muziekgeschiedenis, where he put in great effort to get as close as possible to the actual sound of a medieval hymn. The society pledged to work on as industriously as ever, even without Acqouy when the professor passed away.139 Van Langeraad and Visscher attribute Acquoy’s ever-present industriousness to the fact that his ancestors also enjoyed hard work.140 The virtue of industriousness seems to be more important to the necrology writers than any other virtue. Working hard was part of any vocation in the bourgeois Dutch culture of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the Calvinist value of hard and continuous work seems to be an important theme in the necrologies written about the protestant minister Acquoy. Combined with the change in the historian’s persona since the archival turn, as noted by both Paul and Risbjerg Eskildsen141, the importance of the virtue of industriousness in the necrologies written about the professor of theology isn’t so surprising. It was a virtue that was both applauded from a Christian, an academic perspective and above all was a part of nineteenth century bourgeois discourse. ‘Niemand kan in dat ambt hooger plichtsbesef, meer nauwgezetheid, liefderijker toewijding aan den dag gelegd hebben dan hij.’ 142 As a minister in Eerbeek, Acquoy immersed himself in his work. And when he became a minister in Zaltbommel he once again cared immensely for his sermons and spent a good amount of time memorizing them.143 It seems very important to Pijper to convince his readers of Acquoy’s hard work as a minister.144 Rogge underlines this as well, but he does add that, while Acquoy was a minister, he never turned his back to his studies, even sacrificing his night’s rest for them. ‘Ondanks de nauwgezette vervulling van al zijne ambtsbezigheden en overige bemoeiingen, heeft
138 139 140 141
Pijper, “Acquoy”, 316. Rogge, “Acquoy” in: Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis, 220-223. Van Langeraad and Visscher, “Acquoy”, 11. Herman Paul, “The heroic study of records: The contested persona of the archival historian” in: History of the human sciences 26 (2013), 67-83, 76-77 and Risbjerg Eskildsen, “Leopold Ranke’s Archival Turn”, 452-453. 142 Pijper, “Acquoy”, 299. 143 Ibidem, 301. 144 He also emphasizes it in the piece he wrote about Kist, Moll and Acquoy. Pijper, Kist, Moll en Acquoy, 249.
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Acquoy in die jaren tijd gevonden voor belangrijke studien, al moest hij daarvoor menig uur aan zijne nachtrust ontwoekeren.’145
The alternation between the virtue of industriousness as most important to Acquoy as a scholar and as a minister plays an important role throughout the necrologies. The topos of the devoted scholar can also be discerned. Rogge doesn’t hesitate to tell us that Acquoy’s study was his sanctuary, a place where his students could come to receive sound advice and steady help.146 Brinkerink and Pijper both reiterate this observation of Rogge’s. Acquoy was most industrious when it came to helping his students, peers and anyone else who was interested.147 Moreover, as with Fruin, Acquoy’s industriousness showed overwhelmingly in his primary source research according to Pijper. ‘Met welk een ijver verzamelde hij bouwstoffen!’148 Pijper remarks while speaking about one of Acquoy’s great projects: the history of the Christian Church in the Netherlands. Days before the professor passed away he still showed ‘onverflauwden ijver’149, one of Acquoy’s most adored and famous qualities as a scholar and a human being. The virtue of industriousness seems to be almost exchangeable with Acquoy as a person in the necrologies. Acquoy is a prime example of the devoted scholar who spends days and nights poring over documents, but he is also a prime example of a devoted minister, who cares greatly for his community of believers. And, moreover, he is a prime example of a devoted teacher as well. In short; The virtue of industriousness is portrayed as much more than just an epistemic virtue, it is as much a part of Acquoy as a human being as is, for instance, being generous. 4.3 Conclusion
As we have seen in the previous two chapters, creating a division between the scholars different spheres of living does not fit with the way the different virtues are portrayed in the studied necrologies. Because the necrologies were written around the end of the nineteenth century this makes sense, since the writers didn’t conceive of such a separation between the 145 146 147 148 149
Rogge, “Acquoy”, 71. Ibidem, 80. Pijper, “Acquoy”, 321 and Brinkerink, “Acquoy”, 106-108. Pijper, “Acquoy”, 319. Rogge, “Acquoy”, 57.
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scholar’s different roles. The virtue of industriousness functions on multiple levels and, in the case of Acquoy especially, is adaptable to almost every aspect of their lives. Since virtues are human qualities subject to change and the virtue of industriousness especially is easily imagined as being of use outside of the epistemic sphere the virtue is present almost everywhere in both Fruin’s and Acquoy’s lives. Even so the topos of the Rankean scholar, utterly devoted to his studies, plays an important role in all of the necrologies, except the one written by Byvanck, who did not adhere to this ideal. Blok does his best to defend his academic father-figure against the accusations that Fruin was a scholar who had no idea what real life was like, but even so, he too makes use of the template of the devoted scholar, a template that became of rising importance after the archival turn. Moreover, the fact that the necrology writers also emphasize Fruin’s and Acquoy’s industriousness as, for instance, teachers, show that the working hard was important in all of the scholar his doings. This corresponds with the way nineteenth century gentlemen were supposed to behave; being industrious was ingrained in their mind as the primary manner to lead a fulfilling life for any educated man.
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At the beginning of this paper the question was posed whether scholarly virtues functioned solely in the epistemic realm, as a part of the scholar’s ‘ethos’ as Herman Paul has suggested, or were also active outside of that realm. It has been made clear that the discussed virtues were part of the scholar’s character and were useful in all of the scholar’s doings, they were plural active, reliable dispositions.150 The late nineteenth-century scholars who wrote the necrologies did not perceive of an artificial separation of living spheres, therefore the different virtues that we have discussed in this paper surface everywhere in the lives of Robert Fruin and Johannes Gerardus Rijk Acquoy. The question what ideal images of Fruin and Acquoy their virtues can be found in the necrologies written by their colleagues and apprentices and what this says about the way we perceive the function of virtues within the scholarly world of the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth century cannot be answered unambiguously. This is because there is not one ideal image present in the necrologies. The ideal image of the professors that has come into being is one were these learned men upheld certain virtues in all areas of their lives. The virtue of impartiality was wielded by Fruin in his live as an active liberal, as much as it was in his life as a scholar at Leiden University. Acquoy, consequently, was praised transcending the parties of the synod in which he took part. Having love of truth, albeit most important as a motivator behind the changed work environment after the archival turn earlier in the century, functioned on a broader level in Acquoy’s education and Fruin’s political tendencies. Furthermore, as an epistemic virtue it was worthwhile outside of academia as well in the sense that the pieces Fruin wrote were useful to society as a whole. The virtue of industriousness is used as a narrative template to emulate the Rankean ideal of the devoted scholar who spends most of his life in an archive hunting documents on the lookout for the truth. This topos apparently was important enough for the writers of most of the necrologies to not be concerned too much about accusations that could be made against their academic father-figures. For instance, by Willem Byvanck that Fruin was a dusty old man who did not engage in life. Even so, The virtue of industriousness is portrayed as functioning on multiple levels. Acquoy 150 As partly stipulated in Julia Annas her definition.
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was an industrious teacher and spend hours answering inquiries from all sorts of origins. Both Fruin and Acquoy were hardworking members of several societies, the most important of them being De Maatschappij voor Nederlandse Letterkunde. The professors were perceived to be devoted scholars alongside all of their other activities. Paul has identified the virtues studied in this paper as epistemic virtues, however, although I agree that all three of the virtues did function in the epistemic realm, I believe the use of these virtues is broader than the epistemic. The virtues were important for the professors’ academic goals, they enabled them to carry out their work, certainly due to the change in what was perceived as important and needed to be a successful academic due to the archival turn. But secondly, it was also of the utmost importance to be a good bourgeois citizen and a good (morally just) human being. This is why the ideal image of the professors is one were they function as excellent men wherever they go. The virtues function as part of the scholar’s character, to be deployed whenever needed. These virtues weren’t necessarily brought into the scholar’s life via the epistemic realm, nor was it the other way around, they were learned dispositions, which means that they were created in, for instance, encounters with Fruin and Acquoy their own academic father figures, but also by their education and upbringing apart from the academic world. Acquoy might have acquired the virtue of industriousness during his time as a pastor and Fruin learned to be impartial first and foremost as an active citizen engaged in liberal politics. It is therefore too simple to say that these virtues were part of the epistemic realm to be sometimes deployed in other ways. The humanities started developing into the modern sciences that they are today during the nineteenth century. This caused shifts and changes in the way work was done within the humaniora. The archival turn was one of these changes that had influence on both Fruin and Acquoy. As historians and theologians alike started spending more and more time in the archives, the virtues they needed in order to perform as valuable scholars changed. The need to have love of truth emerged as a motivator that was crucial to insure that historians and theologians went through great lengths to find out what the truth was. Consequently, they needed the virtue of industriousness to be able to spend endless hours studying documents. The virtue of impartiality was redefined as the ability to reach just conclusions about past circumstances by doing justice to all different parties involved and both other virtues were needed to achieve the virtue of impartiality. However, these virtues were deeply intertwined with the rest of the scholar’s life. The institutionalization of 38
the humanities was aided by these virtues, but that did not mean that the virtues emerged solely from the epistemic realm, they came from a whole range of various activities within the scholar’s lives. Fruin and Acquoy came from two different disciplines within the humanities, but even so their virtues, their doings, are quite similar. The two men were kindred spirits when it came to their view on the historical sciences. This paper aimed to show that boundaries between disciplines were not yet as strict near the end of the nineteenth-century as they would later be. Although there are differences in the way virtues are portrayed in the necrologies about Fruin and those about Acquoy, the overall resemblance is more predominant. Rogge, Pijper, Blok and the Mullers, among others, all seem to agree on the following: doing primary source research was key in being a good scholar and, moreover, both of their academic father figures, receive praise in almost all areas of their lives, which exemplifies the fact that being a good active engaged citizen was important to all, regardless of discipline. So even though the gentlemen do not always emphasize the same virtues as most important, they do show that some ideals were broader than the respective disciplines in which they were idealized. Byvanck had different thoughts about which virtues were important, he adhered to different ideals all together and thus functions as foreign element within the range of necrology writers. The humanities near the end of the nineteenth-century put great emphasis on the worth of certain virtues. These virtues were broader than the humanities in which they functioned. Their importance had shifted due to a change within the humanities but they hadn’t emerged solely from the epistemic environment, they had possibly come from other areas of the scholars lives. A question that remains is how scholars, like Byvanck, who did not adhere to the new philological ethos thought about the changing role of virtues within the humanities. How did they navigate between virtues that had been accepted as part of the bourgeois discourse of the nineteenth-century and virtues which they thought were fit as epistemic ones? It would be interesting to look at professors who were not put on a pedestal, but who were less enthusiastic about the changing ways of the humanities. Furthermore, to which virtues did scholars from outside the humanities adhere? An interdisciplinary analysis of the function of virtues inside and outside of the epistemic realm would prove to bring about an interesting comparison with the function of virtues within the humanities in the second half of the nineteenth-century. 39
Primary source material Blok, P.J., “Levensbericht van R.J. Fruin” in: Jaarboek van de Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Letterkunde (Amsterdam 1899), 101-178. Brinkerink, D.A, “Het onderwijs van Prof. J.G.R. Acquoy” in: Theologisch Tijdschrift 41 (1907), 101-110. Byvanck, W.G.C., “R. Fruin (1823-1899)” in: De Gids. Jaargang 63 (1899), 1-89 Muller, Pieter Lodewijk, Levensbericht van Robert Fruin (Leiden 1900) Muller, Samuel Fz, “Robert Fruin’ in: De Gids. Jaargang 58 (1894), 353-363 Pijper, Frederik, “Levensbericht van Johannes Gerhardus Rijk Acquoy” in: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde 1898 (1898), 290-325. H.C. Rogge, “Johannes Gerardus Rjik Acquoy, Geb. 3 Jan. 1829. Overl. 15 Dec. 1896” in: Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis (1897), 220224 Rogge, H.C., “Levensbericht J.G.R. Acquoy” in Jaarboek (1897), 57-87 Van Langeraad, Lambregt Abraham and Hugo Visscher, “Johannes Gerhardus Rijk Acquoy” in: Biographisch woordenboek van protestantsche godgeleerden in Nederland. Deel 1. (1907), 11-19 Verwey, Albert, “Robert Fruin” in: De Beweging. Jaargang 1 (1905), 113-131. Secondary source material Aerts, Remieg, De Letterheren. Liberale cultuur in de negentiende eeuw: het tijdschrift De Gids. (Meulenhof: Amsterdam, 1997) Annas, Julia, Intelligent Virtue, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) Bod, Rens, De vergeten wetenschappen (Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2010)
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Lexicon Voor De Geschiedenis Van Het Nederlandse Protestantisme Deel 4 Uitgeverij Kok, Kampen: 1998), 290 De Groot, A “Visscher Hugo” in: J. van den Berg et al. ed. Biografisch Lexicon Voor De Geschiedenis Van Het Nederlandse Protestantisme Deel 4 (Uitgeverij Kok, Kampen: 1998), 373. Echterhölter, Anna, Schattengefechte: Genealogische Praktiken in Nachrufen auf Naturwissenhaftler (1710-1860) (Wallstein Verlag: Göttingen, 2012) Paul, Herman and Henk Te Velde, “Inleiding” in Het Vaderlandse Verleden. Robert Fruin en de Nederlandse Geschiedenis (Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker: 2010), 7-15. Paul, Herman, “Een Leidsch historisch ethos? De epistemische deugden van Fruin en Acquoy” in: Leidschrift 25 (2010), 95-113. Paul, Herman, “Distance and Self-Distanciation: Intellectual Virtue and Historical Method Around 1900” in: History and Theory 50 (2011), 104-116 41
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Zimman, John, Real Science. What it is. What it means (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2000) Online source material http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/blokpj consulted on 6-11-2014 http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/b/bwn1/mullerfzn consulted on 6-11-2014 http://www.maatschappijdernederlandseletterkunde.nl/ consulted on 19-12-2014 Lecture notes
Newey, G.F. “Political Philosophy Lecture 7.� Lecture for the undergraduate course Political Philosophy at Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands, 05-11-2014.
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