Volksgeist (also Volksseele, Nationalgeist or Geist der
Nation, Volkscharakter, and in English “national char-
acter”) is a term connoting the productive principle
of a spiritual or psychic character operating in different
national entities and manifesting itself in various crea-
tions like language, folklore, mores, and legal order.
Connotatively, the German word Geist is related in
meaning to the Hebrew ruah, to the Greek pneuma,
and to the Latin spiritus. Volksgeist is the spirit (Geist)
of a people expressing itself in certain articulated crea-
tions. The shift to spirit as against expression, follows
the shift from the letter of the law to the spirit of the
law as in Saint Paul (II Corinthians 3:6). To the extent
that the term is related to genius or to génie (as a
derivation from genius), it is associated with the Roman
idea of genius loci, the attendant spirit of a place,
household or city, e.g., genius urbis Romae. Along with
other parallel terms, the term Geist and Volksgeist,
however, connote a spirit not outside but inside a
certain entity.
