[In early drafts, Herder began his essay with a question. He initially formulated the question as follows: “What sorts of virtues or unvirtues have governed human beings at all times, and has the tendency of human beings been improved or worsened with time, or always remained the same?” In a subsequent early draft the question was reformulated to read: “Have human beings' inclinations changed from time to time, and what are the virtues and vices that have governed them here and there more or less?” Responding to this question, Herder then made the following introductory observations before giving a version of the text which he would eventually publish in 1774 and which is translated next.]

To develop this question metaphysically seems to me entirely beyond our purpose and out of place. The human heart has always remained the same in inclinations, just as the mind has in abilities, and, whatever sorts of angelic or devilish forms people have sometimes wished to imagine in it, has always been only human. Recalcitrant and faint-hearted, striving in need, languishing in rest and luxury, nothing without stimuli and exercises, through these with gradual progress almost everything that has been wished – a monster or the most important hieroglyph of all the good and bad of which history is full – what painter of the soul could paint it with one stroke?