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THE INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES OF MODERN GOVERNANCE Just as in the hereditary Austrian Lands, the writings of the Göttingen professor Gottfried Achenwall (1719-1772) were compulsory reading at the university and at the law academies in the Kingdom of Hungary, so an account of his understanding of the discipline is essential for the use of further adaptations. Achenwall made Staatenkunde the empirical study of the structure of one or several states in a historical perspective.’° This was to be differentiated from the philosophical (one would say today “scientific” or “theoretical”) sciences of state, the latter including state law and the discipline of Staatsklugheit (prudentia civilis), the discipline of political decision-making. The goal of the discipline of Staatenkunde was claimed to be a contribution to informed decision-making in the administrative process. Central to the understanding of Achenwall was the concept of the state, which the Göttingen scholar described as follows: “Ein Staat ist eine Gesellschaft von Familien, welche zu Beforderung ihrer gemeinsamen Gliickseeligkeit unter einem Oberhaupte mit einander vereiniget leben.”!! The state is also defined here as the sum total of Land und Leute, the first designating the habitat of the latter. The definition of Land in a human geographic sense involved a detailed description of its geographical, topographic and chorographic details, complete with the products of the soil and its natural riches. In the case of the inhabitants, it was their numerical extension and their characteristics that played an important role: “Die natiirlichen Eigenschaften einer Nation, wodurch sie sich von anderen unterscheidet, nennet man ihren Character. Er zeigt sich im Körper, noch mehr aber im Gemüthe. Wie verschieden sind nicht die Völker in der Farbe, Länge und Stärke! Es gibt so gar Krankheiten, die gewissen Nationen eigen sind. Hier denkt man mehr witzig, dort mehr tiefsinning. Die Neigungen sind eben so wenig überall einerley. Aus deren verschiedenheit erwachen die verschiedene gewohnheiten der Völker, welche man ihre Tugenden und Laster zu nennen pfleget. Man suche diejenigen aus, die durch ihren Einfluss in die Verfassung und das Wohl des Staates merkwürdig machen.” The population was regarded as relevant in a twofold sense, both as the sum total of “natural men” in their private surroundings, and also as the assembly of families, who constituted the so-called “civil society,” linked to the “most 1° ACHENWALL, Gottfried, Staatsverfassung der heutigen vornehmsten Reiche in Grundriße, Götttingen, Vandenhoeck, 1762, 3rd ed. 3. 1° Ibid. 2. * 187 +
