BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY.
SCHLEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.
" Were I to pray for a taste which could support me under every
vicissitude of fortune, it would be a taste for reading. Give a man
this taste, and moderately the means of gratifying it, and you can
scarcely fail to make of him a happy man ; unless indeed you place
before him a perverse selection of books. You bring him into contact
with the best society of every age, with the bravest, the noblest, the
purest characters which have adorned humanity ; you make him an
inhabitant of every clime, a denizen of every city." Sir Jn. Hersbhell
THE
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY,
COURSE OF LECTURES,
DELIVERED AT VIENNA
BY FREDERICK YON SCHLEGEL.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,
WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,
BY
JAMES BARON ROBERTSO.N, ESQ.
SECOND EDITION, REVISED.
'?
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1846.
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSK, STRAND.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Advertisement to Second Edition v
Author's Preface ix
Memoir of the Literary Life of Frederick Von Schlegel 1
LECTURE I.
Introduction 65
LECTURE II.
On the dispute in primitive history, and on the division of the hu-
man race 88
LECTURE III.
Of the Constitution of the Chinese Empire. The moral and poli-
tical condition of China. The character of Chinese intellect and
Chinese science , 115
LECTURE IV.
Of the Institutions of the Indians. The Brahminical caste, and the
hereditary priesthood. Of the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls, considered as the basis of Indian life, and of Indian philo-
sophy 138
LECTURE V.
A comparative view of the intellectual character of the four prin-
cipal nations in the primitive world the Indians, the Chinese,
the Egyptians, and the Hebrews; next of the peculiar spirit and
political relations of the ancient Persians 162
LECTURE VI.
Of the Hindoo Philosophy. Dissertation on Languages. Of the
peculiar political Constitution and Theocratic Government of
the Hebrews. Of the Mosaic Genealogy of Nations 182
LECTURE VII.
General considerations upon the Nature of Man, regarded in a his-
torical point of view, and on the two-fold view of history. Of the
ancient Pagan Mysteries. Of the universal Empire of Persia... 207
LECTURE VIII.
Variety of Grecian life and intellect. State of education and of the
fine arts among the Greeks. The origin of their philosophy and
natural science. Their political degeneracy 228
LECTURE IX.
Character of the Romans. Sketch of their conquests. On strict
law, and the law of equity in its application to History, and ac-
cording to the idea of divine justice. Commencement of the
Christian dispensation 250
IV CONTENTS.
PAGE
LECTURE X.
On the Christian point of view in the Philosophy of History.
The origin of Christianity, considered in reference to the political
world. Decline of the Roman Empire 274
LECTURE XI.
Of the ancient Germans, and of the invasion of the Northern
tribes. The march of Nature in the historical development of
Nations. Further diffusion and internal consolidation of Chris-
tianity. Great corruption of the world. Rise of Mahomet-
anism 297
LECTURE XII.
Sketch of Mahomet and his religion. Establishment of the Sara-
cenic Empire New organisation of the European West, and
Restoration of the Christian Empire 320
LECTURE XIII.
On the formation and consolidation of the Christian Government
in modern times. On the principle which led to the establish-
ment of the old German Empire 343
LECTURE XIV.
On the struggles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. Spirit of the
Ghibelline age. Origin of romantic poetry and art. Character
of the scholastic science and the old jurisprudence. Anarchical
state of Western Europe 364
LECTURE XV.
General observations on the Philosophy of History. On the cor-
rupt state of society in the fifteenth century. Origin of Protest-
antism, and character of the times of the Reformation 389
LECTURE XVI.
Further development and extension of Protestantism, in the period
of the religious wars, and subsequently thereto. On the differ-
ent results of those wars in the principal European countries... 410
LECTURE XVII.
Parallel between the religious peace of Germany and that of the
other countries of Europe. The political system of the Balance
of Power, and the principle of false niuminism prevalent in the
eighteenth century 433
LECTURE XVIII.
On the general spirit of the age, and on the universal Regenera-
tion of Society 455
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
TEN years have elapsed since this translation first
issued from the press. A long abode in Germany, and
a more extensive acquaintance with German literature,
have convinced me, that the estimate I had formed of the
genius of the eminent personage who forms the subject of
the following memoir, as well as of the moral and in-
tellectual influence he exerted over his age, was not
exaggerated. In many departments of letters and phi-
losophy, I perceived the deep traces which this remark-
able spirit had left in its passage. From enlightened
Germans, Protestant as well as Catholic, in conversation
as well as in print, I have heard him styled, " one of the
profoundest thinkers our country ever produced."
At Bonn, I had the honour of becoming acquainted
with his celebrated brother, A. W. von Schlegel, whose
recent loss the literary world still deplores, and who had
preserved in his advanced age so much of the vigour
of his great intellectual powers. There also I formed a
friendship with the late excellent Dr.Windischmann,* who
had been F. Schlegel's most intimate friend, and whose
extensive learning and deep philosophic views, were only
equalled by his fervent piety. Later, I learned to know
* Dr. Windischmann was Catholic Professor of Philosophy at the
university of Bonn. His most celebrated work is the " History of
Religion and Philosophy in China and India." He was nominated
to the chair of philosophy at Bonn, in the year 1818, when the
university was founded; and no nomination reflected more credit
on the government of the late King of Prussia, or afforded more
satisfaction to his Rhenish subjects. By the statutes of the mixed
universities of Bonn and Breslau, the Catholic and Protestant
churches, are each entitled to their respective faculties of theology,
and to their several chairs of philosophy and history. The other
professorships may be occupied indifferently by Catholics and Pro-
testants. By an arbitrary measure of the late King of Prussia, the
Catholic chair of history at Bonn was allowed to remain vacant for
the space of fifteen years; but his enlightened successor, on his ac-
cession to the throne, repaired this injustice.
VI ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
that distinguished artist, Veith, who has married a rela-
tive of F. Schlegel's; as also the learned Dr. William
von Schiitz, who had been intimately acquainted with
him from his youth. From these eminent men I learned
interesting particulars respecting the subject of the pre-
ceding memoir.
I said once to Dr. Windischmann, " I thought there
was in Frederick Schlegel stuff enough to produce two
or three great geniuses." " You are right," he replied.
His last works, "The Philosophy of Life," "The Phi-
losophy of History," and " The Philosophy of Language,"
were only the prelude, or the porch, to a vaster system
of philosophy. Of this I have discovered the traces in
his papers, which have been confided to my care. Years
ago, when I wrote to him, that the world was looking
for some other great work from his hands, he replied:
"I am working under ground." " The truth of this
remark," continued Dr. Windischmann, " I now per-
ceive."
I knew only one eminent man, who though a great ad-
mirer of the aesthetic and historical works of F. Schlegel,
yet underrated his metaphysical writings. This was a
Catholic theologian, distinguished for his great dialectic
skill, and whose favourite philosopher was our country-
man, Duns Scotus, the Doctor subtilis of the Middle
Age. Now the talent of dialectic ratiocination was the
least conspicuous of F. Schlegel's intellectual qualities.
This was, perhaps, the only gift, which Nature had dealt
out with a more niggard hand to her much-favoured
child. For this great writer, whose works are a vast
repertory of thoughts, hints, perceptions, and views, on
{esthetics, history, theology, and metaphysics whose me-
mory^ was stored with the riches of all climes, whose
imagination was so vigorous, whose understanding was
profound even to mystical intuition this great writer
seemed not to possess the power of constructing a phi-
losophical system, fastened and bound in by a long chain
of reasoning. Hence he has not founded a metaphy-
sical school. And in the philosophic contest, which for
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. Vll
f
:he last twenty-live years has been going on in Ger-
many a contest which, on the part of the Pantheistic
Hegel and his followers, as well as of their Christian
adversaries, has been conducted in rigid dialectic forms
his influence has, consequently, been less perceptible.
But in opposition to the opinion adverted to above, we
may cite; the authority of the most philosophic spirits
of Germany Staudenmaier (another eminent Catholic
divine), Molitor, Windischmann, a papist, and others,
who have rendered full justice to the richness, variety,
and depth of F. SchlegePs metaphysical views. Had
his genius been more dialectic, it would, probably,
have been less flexible, less plastic, and less universal;
for, in man's limited capacity, there are some talents
which seem mutually incompatible. But if less distin-
guished for logical precision, he has, like his brother,
never been surpassed in the art of rhetorical method or
arrangement.
In the foregoing memoir his poetry was not sufficiently
appreciated. His religious poems, above all, are particu-
larly beautiful, and are marked by that earnest, thoughtful
tone, which runs through all his compositions.
In respect to his personal life, I have one mistake to
correct. It was not in the year 1805, but in 1808, that
F. Schlegel was received into the bosom of the Catholic
Church. Prior to taking this important step, he devoted,
says Professor Windischmann,* days and nights to the
study of the Fathers. In his early days, when he pro-
fessed philosophy at the University of Jena, and enjoyed
the society of a circle of most distinguished men, composed
of his brother, Novalis, Tieck, Ritter, Fichte, Schelling,
Schleiermacher, and occasionally Gbthe ; he was fre-
quently questioned as to his religious opinions, but he
invariably replied, " my answer is not yet ready." On one
occasion he declared in a letter to a friend ; " I regard the
Catholic Church as the greatest historical authority on the
earth." Vague, undefined, and unsettled as were his
* See the interesting introduction he prefixed to F. Schlegel's
posthumous works, published in 1837. 2 vols. Bonn. 1837.
Vlii ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
religious principles in early life, and led away as he then was
by the pleasures of the world, still his strong love for Plato
the most orthodox of heathens, his fervid passion for
Art in all her forms his spirit of historical research, which
acted as a counterpoise to his metaphysical speculations ;
lastly, his eminent sobriety of judgment, served to guard
him not only against the vulgar rationalism, but against
those more seductive errors of a subtle Pantheism, which
then fascinated many of the eminent men with whom he
associated. Though he then delighted in the writings of
that extraordinary mystic, Jacob Behmen, he knew, as
his early philosophical lectures show, how to distinguish
what was sound and excellent in them from what was
erroneous and dangerous.
One of the most amiable traits in this great man's cha-
racter, and which he shared with his illustrious friend,
Count Stolberg, was an unfailing sweetness of charity.
A harsh, intemperate, acrimonious zeal was not only ab-
horrent from his nature, but was regarded by him as most
detrimental to the best interests of religion.
Great as was the influence of his writings over the god-
less generation, in which his destiny was cast, that influence
is likely to increase in the better times that have succeeded ;
and the homage which he wrung for many a reluctant
contemporary, will be cheerfully and spontaneously ac-
corded to him by an unanimous posterity.
October, 3Qlk, 1845.
THE
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
THE most important subject, and the first problem of
philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of
God; so far as this relates to science.
Should this restoration in the internal consciousness be
fully understood, and really brought about, the object of
pure philosophy is attained.
To point out historically in reference to the whole
human race, and in the outward conduct and experience
of life, the progress of this restoration in the various
periods of the world, constitutes the object of the " Phi-
losophy of History."
In this way, we shall clearly see how, in the first ages
(of the world, the original word of Divine revelation
formed the firm central point of faith for the future re-
union of the dispersed race of man; how later, amid the
various power, intellectual as well as political, which, in
the middle period of the world, all-ruling nations exerted
on their times according to the measure allotted to them,
it was alone the power of eternal love in the Christian
religion which truly emancipated and redeemed mankind :
and how, lastly, the pure light of this Divine truth,
universally difrused through the world, and through all
science the term of all Christian hope, and Divine
promise,.Jfvhose fulfilment is reserved for the last period
of consummation crowns in conclusion the progress of
this restoration.
b
x THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Why the progress of this restoration in human history,
according to the word, the power, and the light of God,
as well as the struggle against all that was opposed to
this Divine principle in humanity, can be clearly described
and pointed out only by a vivid sketch of the different
nations, and particular periods of the world; I have
alleged the reasons in various passages of the present
work. With this view, I have, for the purpose of my
present undertaking, availed myself, as far as these disco-
veries lay within my reach, of the rich acquisitions which
the recent historical researches of the last ten years have
furnished for the better understanding of the primitive
world, its spirit, its languages, and its monuments.
Besides the well-known names mentioned with gratitude
in the text, of Champollion, Abel Remusat, Colebrooke,
my brother, Augustus William Von Schlegel, the two
Barons Humboldt; and for what relates to Natural His-
tory, G. H. Schubert ; I have to name with the utmost
commendation for the section on China, " Windischmann's
Philosophy;" and for what relates to the Hebrew Tradi-
tions, drawn from the esoteric doctrines and other Jewish
sources of information, which are here most copiously-
used, I have been much indebted to a very valuable work
which appeared at Frankfort, 1827, entitled, " The Phi-
losophy of Tradition," and which reflects the highest
honour on its anonymous author.* To these I might add
the names of Niebuhr, and Raumer; but in the later
periods of history we are not so much concerned about
new researches on certain special points as about a right
comparison of things already known, and a just conception
of the whole. In the " Philosophy of History," historical
events can and ought to be not so much matter of dis-
cussion, as matter for example and illustration ; and if on
those points, where the researches of the learned into
antiquity are as yet incomplete, any historical particulars
* The author is now known to be Professor Molitor. The second
part of this work has just appeared in Germany. Trans.
THE AUTHOR 8 PREFACE.
should, in despite of my utmost diligence, have been imper-
fectly conceived or represented, yet the main result, I
trust, will in no case be thereby materially impaired.
The following sketch of the subject will show the order
of the Lectures, and give a general insight into the plan
of the work. The first two Lectures embrace, along with
the Introduction, the question of man's relation towards
the earth, the division of mankind into several nations,
and the two-fold condition of humanity in the primitive
world.
The subjects discussed in the seven succeeding Lectures
are as follows the antiquity of China, and the general
system of her empire the mental culture, moral and
political institutions and philosophy of the Hindoos the
science and corruption of Egypt the selection of the
Hebrew people for the maintenance of Divine revelation
in its purity the destinies and special guidance of that
nation next, an account of those nations of classical
antiquity, to whom were assigned a mighty historical
power, and a paramount influence over the world such
as the Persians, with their Nature- worship, their manners,
and their conquests the Greeks, with the spirit of their
science, and dominion and the Romans, together with
the universal empire which they were the first to establish
in Europe. The next five Lectures treat of Christianity,
its consolidation and wider diffusion throughout the world
of the emigration of the German tribes, and its con-
sequences and of the Saracenic empire in the brilliant
age of the first Caliphs. Then follows an account of the
various epochs and the various stages of the progress
which the modern European nations have made in science
and civil polity, according to their use and application of
the light of truth, vouchsafed to them. So the subjects
here treated are the establishment of a Christian imperial
dignity in the old German empire the great schism of
the West, and the struggles of the middle age and the
period of the Crusades down to the discovery of the New
Xll THE AUTHOR S PREFACE.
World, and the new awakening of science. The three
following Lectures are devoted to the Religious Wars, the
period of Illuminism, and the time of the French Revo-
lution.
The eighteenth and concluding Lecture turns on the
prevailing spirit of the age, and on the universal rege-
neration of society.
We have yet to make the following observations with
respect to this undertaking, in which we have attempted
to lay the foundations of a new general Philosophy.
The first awakening and excitement of human con-
sciousness to the true perception and knowledge of truth
has been already unfolded in my work on the " Philosophy
of Life.';
To point out now the progressive restoration in human-
ity of the effaced image of God, according to the gra-
dation of grace in the various periods of the world, from
the revelation of the beginning, down to the middle
revelation of redemption and love, and from the latter to
the last consummation, is the object of this " Philosophy
of History."
A third work, treating of the science of thought in
the department of faith and nature, will, with more
immediate reference to the Philosophy of Language,
comprehend the complete restoration of consciousness,
according to the triple divine principle.
It is my wish that this work should, as soon as circum-
stances will permit, speedily follow the two works " The
Philosophy of Life," and " The Philosophy of History/'
now presented to the Public.
Vienna, Sept. 6th, 1828.
MEMOIR
THE LITERARY LIFE
OF
FREDERICK YON SCHLEGEL.
IN the following sketch of the literary life of the late
Frederick Von Schlegel, it is the intention of the writer
to take a rapid review of that author's principal produc-
tions, noticing the circumstances out of which they grew,
and the influence they exerted on his age ; giving at the
same time a fuller analysis of his political and metaphysi-
cal systems : an analysis which is useful, nay almost ne-
cessary to the elucidation of very many passages in the
work, to which this memoir is prefixed. Of the inade-
quacy of his powers to the due execution of such a task,
none can be more fully sensible than the writer himself;
but he trusts that he will experience from the kindness of
the reader, an indulgence proportionate to the difficulty
of the undertaking.
In offering to the British public a translation of one of
the last works of one among the most illustrious of
German writers, the translator is aware, that after the
excellent translation which appeared in 1818 of this
author's "History of Literature," and also after the ad-
B
2 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
mirable translation of his brother's "Lectures on Drama-
tic Literature," by Mr. Black, his own performance must
appear in a very disadvantageous point of view. But
this is a circumstance which only gives it additional claims
to indulgent consideration.
The family of the Schlegels seem to have been peculiarly
favoured by the Muses. Elias Schlegel, a member of
this family, was a distinguished dramatic writer in his
own time : and some of his plays are, I believe, acted in
Germany at the present day. Adolphus Schlegel, the
father of the subject of the present biography, was a
minister of the Lutheran church, distinguished for his li-
terary talents, and particularly for eloquence in the pulpit.
His eldest son, Charles Augustus Schlegel, entered with
the Hanoverian regiment to which he belonged into the
service of our East India Company, and had begun to
prosecute with success his studies in Sanscrit literature
a field of knowledge in which his brothers have since ob-
tained so much distinction when his youthful career was
unhappily terminated by the hand of death. Augustus
William Schlegel, the second son, who was destined to
carry to so high a pitch the literary glory of his family,
was born at Hanover, in 1769 a year so propitious to
the birth of genius. Frederick Schlegel was born at
Hanover, in 1772. Though destined for commerce, he
received a highly classical education ; and in his sixteenth
year prevailed on his father to allow him to devote
himself to the Belles Lettres. After completing his
academical course at Gottingen and Leipzig, he rejoined
his brother, and became associated with him in his li-
terary labours. He has himself given us the interesting pic-
ture of his own mind at this early period. " In my first
youth," says he, "from the age of seventeen and upwards,
the writings of Plato, the Greek tragedians, and Winkel-
mann's enthusiastic works, formed the intellectual world
in which I lived, and where I often strove in a youthful
manner, to represent to my soul the ideas and images of
ancient gods and heroes. In the year 1789, I was en-
ibled, for tin
FREDEEICK VON SCHLEGEL.
ibled, for the first time, to gratify my inclination in that
capital so highly refined by art Dresden ; and I was as
much surprised as delighted to see really before me those
antique figures of gods I had so long desired to behold.
Among these I often tarried for hours, especially in the
incomparable collection of Mengs's casts, which were then
to be found, disposed in a state of little order in the
Briihl garden, where I often let myself be shut up, in
order to remain without interruption. It was not the
consummate beauty of form alone, which satisfied and
oven exceeded the expectation I had secretly formed ; but
it was still more the life r the animation in those Olympic
marbles, which excited my astonishment ; for the latter
qualities I had been less able to picture to myself in my
solitary musings. These first indelible impressions were
in succeeding years, the firm, enduring ground-work for
my study of classical antiquity."* Here he found the
sacred fire, at which his genius lit the torch destined to
blaze through his life with inextinguishable brightness.
He commenced his literary career in 1794, with a short
essay on the different schools of Greek poetry. It is cu-
rious to watch in this little piece the buddings of his
mind. Here we see, as it were, the germ of the first part
of the great work on ancient and modern literature,
which he published nearly tw r enty years afterwards. We
are astonished to find in a youth of twenty-two an erudi-
tion so extensive an acquaintance not only with the
more celebrated poets and philosophers of ancient Greece,
but also with the obscure, recondite Alexandrian poets,
known to comparatively few scholars even of a maturer
age. We admire, too, the clearness of analytic arrange-
ment the admirable method of classification, in which
the author and his brother have ever so far outshone the
generality of German writers. The essay displays, also, a
delicacy of observation and an originality of views, which
announce the great critic. It is, in shoit, the labour of
an infant Hercules.
* Sammtliche Werke, vorrede, p. 8, vol. 6.
B2
4 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
As this essay gives promise of a mighty critic; so
two treatises, which the author wrote in the following
years, 1795 and 1796 one entitled "Diotima," and
which treats of the condition of the female sex in ancient
Greece the other, a parallel between Cassar and Alexan-
der, not published, however, till twenty-six years after-
wards both show the dawnings of his great historical
genius. Rarely have the promises of youth been so amply
fulfilled rarely has the green foliage of spring been fol-
lowed by fruits so rich and abundant. It is interesting
to observe the fine, organic development of Schlegel's
mental powers to trace in these early productions, the
germs of those great historical works which it w r as re-
served for his manhood and age to achieve. In the latter
and most remarkable of these essays, he examines the
respective merits of Csesar and Alexander, considered as
men, as generals, and as statesmen. To the Macedonian
he assigns greater tenderness of feeling, a more generous
and lofty disinterestedness of character and a finer power
of perception for the beauties of art. To the Roman he
ascribes greater coolness and sobriety of judgment, an
extraordinary degree of self-control, a mind tenacious of
its purpose, but careless as to the means by which it was
accomplished, an exquisite sense of fitness and propriety
in the smallest as in the greatest things, yet little suscep-
tibility for the beautiful in art. With respect to military
genius, he shows that Cassar united to the fire and rapid-
ity of the Macedonian, greater constancy and perseverance ;,
yet that the temerity of Alexander was not always the
effect of impetuous passion, but sometimes the result at
once of situation and deliberate reflection. As regards
the political capacities of these two great conquerors, he
shows that Caasar possessed an over-mastering ascendency
over the minds of men the talent of guiding their wills,
and making them subservient to his own views and inter-
ests in short, a consummate skill in the tactics of a
party-leader. Yet he thinks him destitute of the wisdom
of a law-giver, or what he emphatically calls, the organic
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 5
< enius of state the power to found, or renovate a consti-
iution. To Alexander, on the contrary, he attributes the
plastic genius of legislation the will and the ability to
diffuse among nations the blessings of civilisation to plant
cities, and establish free, flourishing, and permanent com-
munities.
In the year 1797, Schlegel published his first import-
ant work, entitled " the Greeks and the Romans." This
work was, two or three years afterwards, followed by an-
other, entitled " History of Greek Poetry." These two
writings in their original form are no longer to be met
with for in the new edition of the author's works, they
not only have undergone various alterations and additions,
but have been, as it were, melted into one work. Win-
kelmann's history of art was the model which Schlegel
proposed to himself in this history of Greek poetry ; and
we must allow that the noble school which that illustrious
man, as well as Leasing, Herder, and Goethe, had founded
in Germany, never received a richer acquisition than in
the work here spoken of. Prior to the illustrious writers
I have named, Germany had produced a multitude of
scholars distinguished for profound learning and critical
acuteness; but their labours may be considered as only
ancillary and preliminary to the works of men who, with
an erudition and a perspicacity never surpassed, united a
poetical sense and a philosophic discernment that could
catch the spirit of antiquity, reanimate her forms, and
place tli em in all their living freshness before our eyes.
In the first chapter of the " History of Greek Poetry,"
Schlegel speaks of the religious rites and mysteries of the
primitive Greeks, and of the Orphic poetry to which they
gave rise. Contrary to the opinion of many scholars who,
though they admit the present form of the Orphic hymns
to be the work of a later period, yet refer their substance
to a very remote antiquity, Schlegel assigns their origin to
the age of Hesiod. " Enthusiasm," he says, " is the cha-
racteristic of the Orphic poetry repose that of the Ho-
meric poems." His observations, however, on the early
6 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
religion of the Greeks, form, in my humble opinion, the
least satisfactory portion of this work. He next gives an
interesting account of the state of society in Greece in the
age of Homer, as well as in the one proceeding, and shows
by a long process of inductive evidence, how the Homeric
poetry was the crown and perfection of a long series of
Bardic poems.
He then examines, at great length, the opinions of the
ancients from 'the earliest Greek to the latest Roman,
critics, on the plan, the diction, and poetical merits of the
Iliad and the Odyssey ; interweaving in this review of an-
cient criticism his own remarks, which serve either to correct
the errors, supply the deficiencies, or illustrate the wisdom
of those ancient judges of art. After this survey of an-
cient criticism, he proceeds to point out some of the cha-
racteristic features of the Homeric poems. He inquires
what is understood by natural poetry, or the poetry of
nature; shows that it is perfectly compatible with art
that there is a wide difference between the natural and
the rude that Homer is distinguished as much for deli-
cacy of perception, accuracy of delineation, and sagacity
of judgment, as for fertility of fancy and energy of passion.
The author next passes in review the Hesiodic epos, the
middle epos, or the works of the Cyclic poets, and lastly,
the productions of the Ionic, JEolic, and Doric schools of
lyric poetry. The fragments on the lyric poetry of Greece
are particularly beautiful, and comprise not only excellent
criticisms, on the genius of the different lyrists themselves,
but also most interesting observations on the character,
manners, and social institutions, of the races that composed
the Hellenic confederacy.
It was Schlegel's intention to have given a complete
history of Greek poetry; but the execution of this task
was abandoned, not from any want of perseverance, as
some have imagined, but from some peculiar circumstances
in the world of letters at that period. The literary scepti-
cism of Wolf, supported with so much learning and ability,
was then convulsing the German mind; and while the
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 7
purity of the Homeric text, and the unity and intregrity
of the Homeric poems themselves were so ably contested,
Schlegel deemed it a hazardous task to attempt to draw
public attention to any aesthetic inquiries on the elder
Greek poetry. Hence the second part of this work,
which treats of the lyric poets, remained unfinished. The
general qualities, which must strike all in this history of
Greek poetry are, a masterly acquaintance with classical
literature a wariness and circumspection of judgment,
rare in any writer, especially in one so young a critical
perspicacity, that draws its conclusions from the widest
range of observation and a poetic flexibility of fancy,
that can transport itself into the remotest periods of anti-
quity. In a word, the author analyses as a critic, feels as
a poet, and observes like a philosopher.
But a new career now expanded before the ardent
mind of Schlegel. The enterprising spirit of British
scholars had but twenty years before opened a new intel-
lectual world to European inquiry; a world many of
whose spiritual productions, disguised in one shape or
another, the Western nations had for a long course of ages
admired and enjoyed, ignorant as they were of the precise
*ion from which they were brought. For the know-
Ige of the Sanscrit tongue and literature an event in
literary importance inferior only to the revival of Greek
learning, and in a religious and philosophic point of view,
pregnant, perhaps, with greater results; mankind have
been indebted to the influence of British commerce ; and
it is not one of the least services which that commerce
has rendered to the cause of civilisation. In the promo-
tion of Sanscrit learning, the merchant princes of Britain
emulated the noble zeal displayed four centuries before by
the merchant princes of Florence, in the encouragement
and diffusion of Hellenic literature. By dint of promises
and entreaties, they extorted from the Brahmin the mys-
tic key, which has opened to us so many wonders of the
primitive world. And as a great Christian philosopher
8 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
of our age* has observed, it is fortunate that India was
not then under the dominion of the French; for during
the irreligious fever which inflamed and maddened that
great people, their insidious guides those detestable
sophists of the eighteenth century would most assuredly
have leagued with the Brahmins to suppress the truth, to
mutilate the ancient monuments of Sanscrit lore, and thus
would have for ever poisoned the sources of Indian learn-
ing. A British society was established at Calcutta
whose object it was to investigate the languages, historical
antiquities, sciences, and religious and philosophical sys-
tems of Asia, and more especially of Hindostan. Sir
William Jones a name that will be revered as long as
genius, learning, and Christian philosophy command the
respect of mankind was the soul of this enterprise. He
brought to the investigation of Indian literature and his-
tory, a mind stored with the treasures of classical and
Oriental scholarship a spirit of indefatigable activity
and a clear, methodical, and capacious intellect. No man,
too, so fully understood the religious bearings of these in-
quiries, and had so well seized the whole subject of Asiatic
antiquities in its connexion with the Bible. But at the
period at which we have arrived, this great spirit had
already taken its departure ; nor in its flight had it dropped
its mantle of inspiration on any of the former associates of
its labours. For among the academicians of Calcutta,
though there were men of undoubted talent and learning,
there were none who inherited the philosophic mind of
Jones. At this period, too, the fanciful temerity of a
Wilford was bringing discredit on the Indian researches
a temerity which would necessarily provoke a re-action,
and lead, as in some recent instances, to a prosaic narrow-
mindedness, that would seek to bring down the whole
system of Indian civilisation to the dull level of its own
vulgar conceptions
cVi
Schlegcl saw that the moment was critical. He saw
* Count Maistre. See his "Soirees de St. Petersboure."
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 9
that the edifice of Oriental learning, raised at the cost of so
much labour by Sir William Jones, was in danger of
falling to pieces that all the mighty results which
Christian philosophy had anticipated from these inquiries,
would be, if not frustrated, at least indefinitely postponed
that a wild, uncritical, extravagant fancifulness on the
one hand, or a dull and dogged Rationalism on the other
(equally adverse as both are to the cause of historic
truth) would soon bring these researches into inextricable
confusion; in short, that the time had arrived when they
should be fairly brought before the more enlarged philo-
sophy of Germany. Filled with this idea, and animated
by that pure zeal for science, which is its own best reward,
Schlegel resolves to betake him to the study of the
Sanscrit tongue. But for the considerations I have
ventured to suggest, such a resolution on the part of such
a man would be surely calculated to excite regret : we
should be inclined to lament that a mind so original,
already saturated with so much elegant literature and
solid learning, should be thus doomed in the bloom of its
existence, to consume years in the toilsome acquisition of
the most difficult of all languages.
In prosecution of his undertaking, Schlegel repaired in
the year 1802, to Paris, which had been long celebrated
for her professors in the Eastern tongues, and where the
national library presented to the Oriental scholar, inex-
haustible stores of wealth. Here, with the able assistance
of those distinguished Orientalists, M.M. de Langles and
Chezy, Schlegel made considerable progress in the study
of Persian and Sanscrit literature. But while engaged in
these laborious pursuits, he contrives to find time to plunge
into the then almost unexplored mines of Provencal poesy
to undertake profound researches into the history of the
middle age, and to deliver lectures on metaphysics in the
French language. If these lectures did not meet with all
the success which might have been hoped for, this cannot
surprise us, when we consider that the gross materialism
10 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
which had long weighed on the Parisian mind, and from
which it was then but slowly emerging, could ill accord
with the lofty Platonism of the German ; nor when we add
to the disadvantage under which every one labours when
speaking in a foreign tongue, the fact that nature had not
favoured this extrordinary man with a happy delivery.
From Paris, he wrote a series of articles on the early
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provencal poetry. The
article on Portuguese poetry is singularly beautiful, and
contains, among other things, some remarks as new as they
are just, on the influence of climate and locality in the for-
mation of dialects. It comprises, too, an admirable critique
on the noble poem of the Lusiad, which in allusion to the
great national catastrophe that so soon followed on its pub-
lication, and by which the ancient power, energy, and
glory of Portugal were for ever destroyed, he calls " the
swan-like cry of a people of heroes prior to its downfall."
This essay and others of the same period furnish also a
proof how very soon Frederick Schlegel had framed his
critical views and opinions on the various works of art.
His aesthetic system seems to have been formed at a single
cast we might almost say, that from the head of this in-
tellectual Jove, the Pallas of criticism had leaped all armed.
His metaphysical theories, on the contrary, appear to have
been slowly elaborated to have undergone many modi-
fications and improvements in the lapse of years, and
never to have been moulded into a form of perfect sym-
metry, until the last years of his life.
During his abode in France, he addressed to a friend in
Germany, a series of beautiful letters on the different
schools and epochs of Christian painting. The pictorial
treasures of a large part of Europe were then concentrated
in the French capital; and Schlegel, availing himself of
this golden opportunity, gave an account of the various
master-pieces of modern art, contained in the public and
private collections of Paris ; interweaving in these notices,
general views on the nature, object, and limits of Christian
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 11
paintirig. These letters the author has since revised and
enlarged ; and they now form one of the most delightful
volumes in the general collection of his works.
The three arts, sculpture, music, and painting, cor-
respond, according to the author, to the three parts of
human consciousness, the body the soul and the mind.
Sculpture, the most material of the fine arts, best repre-
sents the beauty of form, and the properties of sense :
Music explores and gives utterance to the deepest feelings
of the human soul : but it is reserved for the most spiritual
of the arts Painting, to express all the mysteries of in-
telligence all the divine symbolism in nature and in
man. He shows that the three arts have objects very
distinct, and which must by no means be confounded.
But the respective limits of these arts have not always
been duly observed. Hence, confining his observation to
painting, there are some artists, whom he calls sculpture-
painters, like the great Angelo others again musical
painters, like Correggio and Murillo.
The various schools of art the elder Italian the later
Italian the Spanish the old German and the Flemish,
pass successively under review. The distinctive qualities
of the mighty masters in each school the fantastic and
truly Dantesque wildness of Giotto the soft outline
of Perugino the depth of feeling that characterises Leo-
nardo da Vinci the ideal beauty the various, the
infinite charm of Raphael the gigantic conception of
Angelo the glowing reality of Titian the harmonious
elegance of Correggio the bold vigour of Julio Romano
the noble effort of the Caraccis to revive in a declining
age the style of the great masters the true Spanish ear-
nestness and concentrated energy of Murillo the deep-
toned piety of Velasquez the profound and comprehensive
understanding which distinguishes his own Diirer, whom
he calls the Shakspeare of painting the distinctive quali-
ties of these great masters (to name but a few of the more
eminent), are analysed with incomparable skill, and set
forth with charming diction. I regret that the limits
12 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
of this introductory memoir will not allow me to give an
analysis of these enchanting letters; but I cannot forbear
observing in conclusion, that at the present moment, when
there seems, to be an earnest wish on all sides to revive the
higher art among ourselves, whoever would undertake a
translation of these letters, would, I think, confer a service
on the public generally, and on our artists in particular.
To the friends and followers of art, such a work is the
more necessary, as the illustrious author has, in a manner,
taken up the subject where Winklemann had left off.
These letters are followed by others equally admirable on
Gothic architecture, where the characteristic qualities of
the different epochs in the civil and ecclesiastical archi-
tecture of the middle age are set forth with the same
masterly powers of fancy and discrimination. This sublime
art seemed to respond best to Schlegel's inmost feelings.
But I am now approaching a passage in the life of
Schlegel, which will be viewed in a different light, accord-
ing to the different feelings and convictions of my readers.
By some his conduct will be considered a blameable apos-
tacy from the faith of his fathers by others, a generous
sacrifice of early prejudices on the altar of truth. To
disguise my own approbation of his conduct, would be to
do violence to my feelings, and wrong to my principles;
"but to enter into a justification of his motives, would be
to engage in a polemical discussion, most unseemly in an
introduction to a work which is perfectly foreign to in-
quiries of that nature. I shall therefore confine myself to
a brief statement of facts : noticing, at the same time, the
intellectual condition of the two great religious parties of
Germany, immediately prior and subsequent to Schlegel's
change of religion.
It was on his return from France in the year 1805,
and in the ancient city of Cologne, that the subject of
this memoir was received into the bosom of the Catholic
church. There, in that venerable city, which was so
often honoured by the abode of the great founder of
Christendom Charlemagne which abounds with so
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 13
iy monuments of the arts, the learning, the opu-
lence, and political greatness of the middle age where
the Christian Aristotle of the thirteenth century Aquinas
had passed the first years of his academic course there,
in that venerable minster, too, one of the proudest monu-
ments of Gothic architecture was solemnised in the
person of this illustrious man, the alliance between the
ancient faith and modern science of Germany an alli-
ance that has been productive of such important conse-
quences, and is yet pregnant with mightier results.
The purity of the motives which directed Schlegel in
this, the most important act of his life, few would be
ignorant or shameless enough to impeach. His station,
his character his virtues all suffice to repel the very
suspicion of unworthy motives; and the least reflection
will show, that while in a country circumstanced like
Germany, his change of religion could not procure for
him greater honours and emoluments than, under any
circumstances, his genius would be certain to command;
that change would too surely expose him to obloquy,
misrepresentation, and calumny and what, to a heart so
sensitive as his, must have been still more painful the
alienation perhaps of esteemed friends. Had he remained a
Protestant, he would, instead of engaging in the service of
Austria, have in all probability taken to that of Prussia,
and there, doubtless, have received the same honours and
distinctions which have been so deservingly bestowed on
his illustrious brother. We may suppose, also, that a
man of his mind and character, would not on slight and
frivolous grounds, have taken a step so important ; nor in
a matter so momentous, have come to a decision, without
a full and anxious investigation. In fact, his theological
learning was extensive he was well read in the ancient
fathers the schoolmen of the middle age, and the more
eminent modern divines; and though I am not aware
that he has devoted any special treatise to theology, yet
the remarks scattered through his works, whether on
Biblical exegesis, or dogmatic divinity, are so pregnant,
14 THE LITEKARY LIFE OF
original, and profound, that we plainly see it was in his
power to have given the world a " sy sterna theoloyicum"
no less masterly than that of his great predecessor
Leibnitz. The works of the early Greek fathers, indeed,
he appears to have made a special object of scientific re-
search, well knowing what golden grains of philosophy
may be picked up in that sacred stream. The conversion
of Schlegel was hailed with enthusiasm by the Catholics
of Germany. This event occurred, indeed, at a moment
equally opportune to himself and to the Catholic body.
To himself for though his noble mind would never have
run a-ground amid the miserable shallows of Rationalism,
yet had it not then taken refuge in the secure haven of
Catholicism, it might have been sucked down in the
rapid eddies of Pantheism. To the Catholic body in
Germany, this event was no less opportune; and for the
reasons which shall now be stated.
Germany, which in the middle age had produced so
many distinguished poets, artists, and philosophers, was,
at the Reformation, shorn of much of her intellectual
strength. In the disastrous Thirty Years' War, which that
event brought about, she saw her universities robbed of
their most distinguished ornaments, and the lights, which
ought to have adorned her at home, shedding their lustre
on foreign lands. The general languor and exhaustion of
the German mind, consequent on that fearful and con-
vulsive struggle, was apparent enough in the literature of
the age, which ensued after the treaty of Westphalia. To
these causes, which produced this general declension of
German intellect, must be added one which specially
applies to the Catholic portion of Germany.
Every great abuse of human reason, by a natural revul-
sion of feeling, inspires a certain dread and distrust of its
powers. This has been more than once exemplified in the
history of the church. So, at this momentous period,
some of the German Catholic powers sought in obscu-
rantism, a refuge and security against religious and poli-
tical innovations, and denied to that science that encou-
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 15
ragement which she had a right to look for at their
hands : a policy as infatuated as it is culpable, for, while
ignorance draws down contempt and disgrace on religion,
it begets in its turn, as a melancholy experience has
proved, those very errors and that very unbelief, against
which it was designed as a protection.
Had the court of Austria acceded to the proposal of
Leibnitz, for establishing at Vienna that academy of
sciences which he afterwards succeeded in founding at
Berlin, the glory of that great resuscitation of the German
mind, which occurred in the middle of the eighteenth
century, would have then probably redounded to Catholic,
rather than to Protestant Germany. But the German
Catholics, though they started later in the career of intel-
lectual improvement, have at length reached, and even
outstripped, their Protestant brethren in the race.
Three or four years before Schlegel embraced the Ca-
tholic faith, the signal for a return to the ancient church
was given by the illustrious Count Stolberg. The reli-
gious impulse, which this great man imparted to Ger-
man literature, was simultaneous with that Christian re-
generation of philosophy, commenced in France by the
Viscount de Bonald. And these two illustrious men, in
the noble career which five-and-thirty years ago they
opened in their respective countries, have been followed
by a series of gigantic intellects, who have restored the
empire of faith, regenerated art and science, and reno-
vated, if I may so speak, the human mind itself.*
Forty years ago, the Catholics of Germany, as I said,
were in a state of the most humiliating intellectual infe-
riority to their Protestant brethren they could point to
few writers of eminence in their own body Protestant-
ism was the lord of the ascendant in every department of
German letters ; and yet so well have the Catholics em-
& * The aristocracy of French literature, and a splendid aristocracy
it is, has been for the last twenty years decidedly Catholic. The
enemies of the church are to be found almost exclusively in the
bourgeoisie, and still more in the canaille, of that literature.
16 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
ployed the intervening time, that they now furnish the
most valuable portion of a literature, in many respects the
most valuable in Europe. In every branch of knowledge
they can now show writers of the highest order. To
name but a few of the most distinguished, they have pro-
duced the two greatest Biblical critics of the age Hug
and Scholz profound Biblical exegetists, like Alber,
Ackermann, and, recently, Molitor, who has created a
new era not only in Biblical literature, but in the Phi-
losophy of History divines, like Wiest, Dobmayer,
Schwarz, Zimmer, Brenner, Liebermann, and Mochler,
distinguished as they are for various and extensive learn-
ing, and understandings as comprehensive as they are
acute an ecclesiastical historian pre-eminent for genius,
erudition, and celestial suavity, like Count Stolberg phi-
losophic archaiologists, like Hammer and Schlosser ad-
mirable publicists, like Gents, Adam Muller, and the
Swiss Haller and two philosophers, possessed of vast
acquirements and colossal intellects like Goerres, and the
subject of this memoir. In Germany, and elsewhere,
Catholic genius seems only to have slumbered during the
eighteenth century, in order to astonish the world by a
new and extraordinary display of strength. It is un-
doubtedly true that several of the above-named indivi-
duals originally belonged to the Protestant church, and
that that church should have given birth to men of such
exalted genius, refined sensibility, and moral worth, is a
circumstance which furnishes our Protestant brethren
with additional claims to our love and respect. We hail
these first proselytes as the pledges of a more general, and
surely not a very distant re-union.
The vigorous graft of talent, which the Catholic thus
received from the Protestant community, was imparted to
a stock, where the powers of vegetation, long dormant,
began now to revive with renovated strength. The old
Catholics zealously co-operated with the new in the rege-
neration of all the sciences and the effects of their joint
labours have been apparent, not only in the transcendent
FEEDERICK YON SCHLEGEL. 17
excellence of individual productions, but in the new life
jid energy infused into the learned corporations the
.miversities as well as the institutes of science. The
nixed universities, like those of Bonn, Freyburg, and
others, are in a great degree supported by Catholic talent ;
md the great Catholic University of Munich, which the
present excellent King of Bavaria founded in 1826, al-
ready by the celebrity of its professors, the number of its
scholars, and the admirable direction of the studies,
bids fair to rival the most celebrated universities in Ger-
many.*
Gratifying as it must have been to Schlegel to see by
how many distinguished spirits his example had been fol-
lowed, and to witness the rapid literary improvement of
that community in Germany to which he had now united
himself, he could not expect to escape those crosses and
contradictions which are, in this world, the heritage of the
just. The rancorous invectives which the fanatic Kation-
laist Voss, had never ceased to pour out on his own early
friend and benefactor the heavenly-minded Stolberg,
excited the contempt and disgust of every well- constituted
mind in the Protestant community. This Cerberus of
Rationalism opened his deep-mouthed cry on Schlegel
* The words which the King of Bavaria used at the moment of
founding this university, are remarkable. " I do not wish," said he,
" that my subjects should be learned at the cost of religion, nor reli-
gious at the cost of learning." See Baader's opening speech in 1826.
" Philosophische Scriften," p. 366. These are golden words, which
ought to be engraven on the hearts of all princes. In other words,
the monarch meant to say, I wish to consecrate science by religion,
and I wish to confirm and extend religion by science. This sove-
reign is the most enlightened, as well as munificent, patron of learn-
ing in Europe ; and whether we consider his zeal in the cause of
religion his solicitude for the freedom and prosperity of his subjects
his profound knowledge, as well as active patronage, of art and
science and his true-hearted German frankness and probity ; he is
in every respect, a worthy namesake of the illustrious Emperor
Maximilian. He has assisted in making his capital a true German
Athens ? and, small as it is, it may at this moment compete in art,
literature, and science, with the proudest cities in Europe.
C
18 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
also, as he set his foot on the threshold of the Catholic
church. In this instance, the religious bigotry of Voss
was inflamed and exasperated by literary jealousy. By
his criticisms, and masterly translation of Homer and other
Greek poets, this highly -gifted man had not only rendered
imperishable service to German literature, but had contri-
buted to infuse a new life into the study of classical anti-
quity. Jealous, therefore of his Greeks, whom he wor-
shipped with a sort of exclusive idolatry, he looked with
distrust and aversion on every attempt to introduce the
Orientals to the literary notice of the Germans. He ran
down Asiatic literature of every age and nation with the
most indiscriminate and unsparing violence denounced
the intentions of its admirers as evil and sinister ; and in
allusion to the noble use which Stolberg, Schlegel, and
others had made of their Oriental learning in support of
Christianity, petulantly exclaimed on one occasion. " The
Brahims have leagued with the Jesuits, in order to sub-
vert the Protestant, or (as we should translate that word
in this country) the Rationalist religion.
It was in 1808, after several years spent in the study
of Sanscrit literature, Schlegel published the result of his
researches and meditations in the celebrated work entitled
the " Language and Wisdom of the Indians." This work,
the first part of which is occupied with a comparative ex-
amination of the etymology and grammatical structure of
the Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, Roman, and German lan-
guages, the second whereof traces the filiation and con-
nexion of the different religious and philosophical systems
that have prevailed in the ancient Oriental world, and the
last of which consists of metrical versions from the sacred
and didactic poems of the Hindoos this work, I say,
might not be inaptly termed a grammar, syntax, and pro-
sody of philosophy.
With respect to etymology, Schlegel points out the
number of Sanscrit words identical in sound and significa-
tion with words in the Persian, or the Greek, or the
Latin, or the German, or sometimes even in all those
FREDERICK VOX SCHLEGEL. 19
languages put together. He excludes words which are
imitations of natural sounds, and which, therefore, might
have been adopted simultaneously by nations unknown to
each other ; and selects those words only which are of the
most simple and primitive signification, such as relate to
those intellectual and physical objects most closely allied
to man; as also auxiliary verbs, pronouns, nouns of number,
and prepositions : words which are less exposed than any
to those casual and partial changes which conquest, com-
merce, and religion, introduce into language. With re-
spect to grammatical structure, the author shows that the
mode of declining nouns, and conjugating verbs, of forming
the degrees of comparison in adjectives, of marking the gen-
der and number of substantives, of changing or modifying
the signification of words by prefixed articles, is common to
the Sanscrit, and the other derivative languages above-
mentioned. It is from this strong external and internal
resemblance, these languages have received the appella-
tion of the Indo-Germanic. The prior antiquity of the
Sanscrit the author infers from the greater length and
fulness of its words, and the richness and refinement of its
grammatical forms; for, to use his own expression, "words,
like coin, are clipped by use, and the languages, where
abbreviation prevails, are ever the most recent."
The prescient genius of Leibnitz had foretold, a century
and a half ago, that the study of languages would be
found one day to throw a great light on history. No one
better realised this prediction than Schlegel. In the first
part of this work, he has proved, by his own example,
that language is not a mere instrument of knowledge, but
a science in itself; and when I consider the noble use he
has made of his Sanscrit learning; when I contemplate
all the great and brilliant results of his Oriental researches,
I must recal the sort of regret I expressed a few pages
above. While, in the course of the last fifty years, a
number of distinguished naturalists have carried the torch
of science into the dark caverns of the earth, traced by its
C 2
20 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
light the physical revolutions of our globe, and discovered
the remains of an extinct world of nature; many illus-
trious philologists have at the same time explored the
inmost recesses of language, and, by their profound re-
searches, brought to light the fossil remains of early his-
tory, discovered the migrations of nations and the changes
of empire, and regained the lost traces of portions of our
species. This remarkable parallelism in the moral and
physical inquiries of the age, will be considered fortuitous
by those only who have not watched the luminous course
of that loving Providence, whose hand is equally visible
in the progress of science, as in every other department
of human activity.
But on no branch of historical knowledge have the
recent philological researches thrown more light than on
mythology a science which the present age may be said
to have created. While illustrious defenders of the Chris-
tian religion a Count Stolbcrg* in Germany, and still
more, an Abbe de la Mennaisf in France, treading in the
footsteps of the ancient fathers, and of the abler modern
apologists, like Grotius, Huet, and others, have victo-
riously proved the existence of a primeval revelation, the
diffusion and perpetuity of its doctrines among all the
nations of the world, civilised and barbarous the com-
patiblity of a belie f in the unity of the God-head with
the crime of idolatry, ranked by the apostle, "among the
works of the flesh," the local nature and object of the
Mosaic law, destined by the Almighty for the special
use of a people charged with maintaining, in its purity,
that worship of Jehovah mostly abandoned or neglected
by the nations, who, " though they knew God, did not
glorify him as God" and favoured also with the pro-
mises of " the good things to come," intrusted with the
* " Geschichte der Religion." -1804-11.
f " Essai sur 1' Indifference en Matierede Religion :" 4 vols., 8vo.
Paris, 1823. A work where learning, eloquence, and philosophy
have laid their richest offerings at the shrine of Christianity.
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 21
prophetic records of the life and ministry of that Mes-
siah, of whose future coming the Gentiles had only a
vague and obscure anticipation : while these illustrious
defenders of religion, I say, were proving the agreement
of all the heathen nations in the great dogmas of the pri-
mitive revelation; another class of inquirers (and among
these was Schlegel) laboured to show the points of di-
vergence in the different systems of heathenism, studied
the peculiar genius of each, and traced the influence which
climate, circumstance, and national character have exerted
over all. The object of the former was to point out the
general threads of primeval truth in the fabric of Pa-
ganism that of the latter to trace the later and fanciful
intertexture of superstition. For in that fantastic web,
which we call mythology, truth and fiction, poetry and
history, physics and philosophy, are all curiously inter-
woven. Hence the arduous nature of those researches
hence the difficulties and perils which await the investi-
gator at almost every step.
Of the second part of this work on India, which treats
of the religious and philosophical systems of the early
Asiatic nations, it is the less necessary here to speak, as
the reader will find the subject amply discussed in the
course of the following sheets. It may be proper, how-
ever, to observe that the different philosophic errors men-
tioned by Schlegel, as prevalent in the ancient Asiatic
world, may all be resolved to two systems Dualism and
Pantheism the two earliest heresies in the history of
religion the two gulfs, into which dark, but presump-
tuous, reason fell, when, rejecting the light of revelation,
she attempted to explain those unfathomable mysteries
the origin of evil on the one hand, and the co-existence
of the finite and the infinite on the other.
On the whole, the " Wisdom of the Indians" is an
admirable little book, whether we consider the profound
and extensive philological knowledge it displays the
rich variety of historical perceptions it discloses the
clearness of its arrangement, the elegant simplicity of
22 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
the style. In the seven and twenty years which have
elapsed since this production saw the light, the subjects
discussed in it have undergone ample investigation
many of its observations have passed into the current
coin of the learned world truths which it vaguely sur-
mised, have since been fully established and the know-
ledge of Indian literature and philosophy have been vastly
extended ; yet this is one of those works which will be
always read with a lively interest. It is thus that, in
despite of the progress of classical philology, the writ-
ings of the great critical restorers of ancient literature
have, after the lapse of three centuries, retained their
place in public estimation. It is pleasing to watch the
stream of learning in its various meanderings to trace it
as its winds through a broader, but not always deeper,
channel, sullied and disturbed not unfrequently by acci-
dental pollutions it is pleasing to trace it to its source,
where, from underneath the rock, it wells out in all its
limpid purity. Prior to the publication of this work,
the Semitic languages of the East were alone, I believe,
cultivated with much ardour in Germany ; its appear-
ance had the effect of directing the national energies to-
wards an intellectual region, where they were destined
to meet with the most brilliant success ; and, if Germany
may now boast with reason of her illustrious professors
of Sanscrit ; if France, under the Restoration, made such
rapid progress in Oriental literature ; if England, roused
from her inglorious apathy, has at last founded an Asiatic
society in London, and more recently, the Boden profes-
sorship at Oxford these events are, in a great degree, attri-
butable to the enthusiasm which this little book excited.
In the year 1810, Schlegel delivered, at Vienna,
a course of lectures on " Modern History." This book,
which was in two volumes, 8vo., has long been out
of print ; and the volumes destined to contain it in the
general collection of the author's works, have not yet
been published. Hence no account of it can be here
given a circumstance which I the more regret, as, in
FBEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 23
the opinion of some, it is Schlegel's masterpiece. It em-
bodied in a systematic form the views and opinions con-
tained in a variety of the author's earlier historical essays,
which are also out of print, and have not yet been re-
published. In it, I know, are to be found the detailed
proofs and evidences of many positions advanced in the
second volume of the work, to which this memoir is pre-
fixed.
We should, however, form a very inadequate estimate
of the services this great writer has rendered to literature,
and of the influence he has exerted on his age, were we
to confine our attention solely to his larger works.
Throughout his whole life, he was an assiduous contri-
butor to periodical literature a species of writing which,
in the present age, has been cultivated with signal success
in England, France, and Germany. At the commence-
ment of the present century, he edited, in conjunction
with Tieck, l^ovalis and his brother, a literary journal,
entitled the {l AthenaBum ;" and afterwards successively
conducted political and philosophical journals, such as
the " Europa," the " German Museum," and lastly,
the " Concordia ;" giving, latterly, also, his zealous support
to the " Vienna Quarterly Review." Some of his earlier
critiques have already been noticed. Among the shorter
literary essays, which appeared in the twelve years that
elapsed from 1800 to 1812, I may notice the one entitled
"The Epochs of Literature," 1800; and which may be
considered the first rude outline of those immortal lectures
on the " History of Literature," which he delivered in
1812. Often as he has occasion to treat the same subject,
yet such is the inexhaustible wealth of his intellect, he
seldom tires by repetition. Thus his minutest fragments,
like the sketches of Raphael, are full of interest and
variety, Another essay of the same year, " On the
Different Style in Goethe's Earlier and Later Works,"
shows with what a discriminating eye the young critic
had already scanned all the heights and the depths of
this wonderful poet. Of this great writer, the moral
24 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
direction of some of whose writings lie reprobated in the
strongest degree, he did not hesitate to say that, like
Dante in the middle age, he was the founder of a new
order of poetry that he had been the first to restore the
art to the elevation from which, since the commencement
of the seventeenth century, it had sunk that he united
the amenity of Homer the ideal beauty of Sophocles
and the wit of Aristophanes. The opinion which in
youth he had formed of the great national poet of
Germany, his maturer experience fully confirmed. Eight
years afterwards, he published a long and elaborate critique
on Goethe's lays, songs, elegies, and miscellaneous poems.
Pre-eminently great as Goethe is in every branch of
poetry, in songs he is allowed to stand perfectly unrivalled.
" From the shores of the Baltic, to the frontiers of
Alsace," says the Baron d'Eckstein, " the lyric poetry of
Goethe lives in the hearts and on the lips of an enthu-
siastic people." In this reviewal we find, among other
things, a learned and ingenious dissertation on the various
species of lyric poetry the lay, the romance, the ballad,
and the occasional poem; on the nature, object, and limits
of each their points of resemblance, and points of dif-
ference, together with observations on the fitness of certain
metres for certain kinds of poetry.
From his youth upwards, Schlegel was in the habit of
seeking, in the delightful worship of the muse, a solace
and relaxation from his severer and more laborious
pursuits. Without making pretensions to anything of a
very high order, his poetry is remarkable for a chaste,
classical diction, great harmony and flexibility of versifi-
cation, a sweet elegance of fancy, and, at times, depth
and tenderness of feeling. Friendship, patriotism and
piety, are the noble themes to which he consecrates his
strains. What spirit and fire in his lines on Mohammed's
flight from Mecca ! What a noble burst of nationality
in his address to the Rhine ! How touching the verses
to the memory of his much-loved friend, Novalis that
sweet flower of poesy and philosophy, cut off in its early
D!OC
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 25
loom ! In the lines to Corinna, what lofty consolations
ire administered to that illustrious woman, under the
persecutions she had to sustain from the Imperial despotism
}f France! And in the sonnet entitled " Peace," 1806,
what lessons of exalted wisdom are given to the men of
our time !
The longer poem, entitled " Hercules Musagetes," is
among the most admired of the author's pieces. His ori-
ginal poems equal in number, though not in excellence,
those of his brother; for it would be absurd to expect
that this universal genius should shine equally in every de-
partment of letters. The flexible, graceful, harmonious
genius of Augustus William Schlegel has at different
periods enriched his own tongue with the noblest literary
treasures of ancient and modern Italy, of Portugal, Spain
and England ; and his immortal translations, which have
superior merit to any original poems, but those of the
highest order, are admitted by competent judges to have
done more than the works of any writer, except Goethe,
for improving the rhythm and poetical diction of his
country. The great poetical powers which his short
original pieces, as .well as his translations display, make it
a matter of regret that he should have so much confined
himself to translation, and never venture on the compo-
sition of a great poem.
Both these incomparable brothers are minds eminently
poetical, and eminently philosophical. In one, the
poetic element prevails in the other, the philosophical
element, and, by a great deal, predominates. In their early
productions we can scarcely discriminate the features of
these apparently intellectual twins: but, as their genius
ripens to manhood, the one becomes an etherial Apollo,
full of grace, energy, and majesty the other an intel-
lectual Hercules, of the most gigantic strength and colossal
stature.
It was in the Spring of 1812 that Schlegel delivered,
before a numerous and distinguished audience at Vienna,
his lectures on ancient and modern literature. Of this
26 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
work, which a German critic has characterised "as a
great national possession of the Germans," and which has
been translated into several European languages, and is so
well known to the English reader by the excellent trans-
lation which appeared in 1818, it is unnecessary to speak
at much length. Here were concentrated in one focus all
those radii of criticism that this powerful mind had so long
emitted. Here, at the bidding of a potent magician, the
lords of intellect the mighty princes of literature of all
times
" The dead, yet sceptred, sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns "
pass before our eyes in stately procession each with his
distinct physiognomy his native port and all clothed
with a fresh immortality. Literature is considered not
merely in reference to art but in relation to the influence
it has exerted on the destinies of mankind, and to the
various modifications which the religion, the government,
the laws, the manners, and habits of different nations have
caused it to undergo. The first quality that must strike us
in this work is the admirable arrangement which has
formed so many and such various materials into one har-
monious whole. By what an easy and natural transition
does the author pass from the Greek to the Roman litera-
ture ! With what admirable skill he passes, in the age of
Hadrian, from the old Roman to the oriental literature,
and from the latter back again to the Christian literature
of the middle age ! How skilfully he has interwoven, in
this sketch of oriental letters, the notices of the ancients
and the researches of the moderns on the East ! The next
characteristic of this work is gigantic learning. To that
intimate familiarity with the poets, historians, orators
and philosophers of classical antiquity which his earlier
writings had displayed to the profound knowledge of
Oriental, and especially Sanscrit, literature evinced in the
above-noticed work on India we now see added a know-
ledge of the long-buried treasures of the old German and
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 27
'roven^al poetry of the middle age the scholastic phi-
>sophy the principal modern European literatures in
icir several periods of bloom, maturity and decay.
Vliat a strong light, also, is thrown on some dark passages
i the history of philosophy ! Where shall we find a more
urious, graphic, and interesting account of the mystics of
he middle age, and of the German and Italian Platonists
f the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ! Every page bears
be stamp of long and diligent inquiry, and original inves-
igation. The minute traits the accurate drawing
he freshness and vividness of colouring the truth and
ife-like reality in this whole picture of literature, prove
hat the artist drew from the original, and not a copy.
So better proof can be adduced of the accuracy as well
s extent of learning which distinguished this illustrious
man and his brother, than the fact that their different
works on classical, oriental and modern literature have
eceived the approbation of such scholars, as made those
everal branches of knowledge the special objects of their
tudy and inquiry. Thus their labours on Greek and
Ionian poetry met with the high sanction of a Heyne,
a Wolf, and other distinguished Hellenists their works
on Sanscrit literature have been commended by a Guig-
nault a Remusat a Chezy, and our own academicians of
Calcutta ; and their critiques on Shakspeare and the early
English poets have been approved by the national critics,
and especially by one who had devoted many years to the
study of our elder poetry I mean that able critic and ac-
complished scholar the late Mr. GifFord.
The other and more important characteristics of this
work arc delicacy of taste, solidity of judgment, vigour
and boldness of fancy, and depth and comprehensiveness of
understanding. Here we see united, though in a more
eminent degree, the acuteness, sagacity, and erudition of
Lessing the high artist-like enthusiasm of Winklemann
and that exquisite sense of the beautiful, that vigorous,
flexible and excursive fancy which made the genius of
Herder at home in every region of art, and in every clime
28 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
of poesy. The intellectual productions of every age and
country the primitive oriental world classical antiquity
the middle age and modern times, pass under review,
and receive the same impartial attention the same just
appreciation the same masterly characterisation. In a
work so full of beauties, it is difficult to make selections
but, were I called upon to point out specimens of suc-
cinct criticism, which, for justness and delicacy of discrim-
ination a poetic soaring of conception and depth of ob-
servation, are unsurpassed, perhaps, in the whole range of
literature, I should name the several critiques on Homer
Lucretius Dante Calderon and Cervantes. The
part least well done is that which treats of the literature
of the last two centuries ; but from the vast multiplicity
of details, it was impossible for the author, within his
narrow limits, to do full justice to this part of his sub-
ject. He has not paid due homage to several of the
great writers that adorned the reign of Louis XIV.
He drops but one word on Pascal, and passes Malle-
branche over in silence ; though if ever there were
writers deserving the notice of the historian of literature
and philosophy, it was surely those two eminent men. In
general, Schlegel was too fond of crowding his figures
within a narrow canvass hence many of them could not
be placed in a suitable light or position ; and several of
his heads appear but half-sketched. This is not a mere
book of criticism it is a philosophical work in the widest
sense of the word the genius of the author is ever soar-
ing above his subject ever springing from the lower
world of art, to those high and aerial regions of philoso-
phy still more native to his spirit. To him the beautiful
was only the symbol of the divine hence the tone of ear-
nestness and solemnity which he carries even into aesthe-
tic dissertations. The style too, of this "History of Litera-
ture" leaves little to be desired. To the lightness, clear-
ness, and elegance of diction which had distinguished
Schlegel's earlier productions, was here united a greater
richness and copiousness of expression, and a more harmo-
DUS fuln
FEEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 29
fulness and roundness of period. From this time,
wever, (if an Englishman may presume to offer an
pinion on such a subject,) a decline may, I think, be ob-
rved in his style. His mind, indeed, seemed to gain
rength and expansion with the advance of years the
)rizon of his views was perpetually enlarged and in
istness of conception, and profundity of observation, his
ast philosophical works outshine even those of his early
anhood. Yet to whatever cause we are to attribute the
' ac t whether it be that his last works had not received
rom his hands the same careful revisal or whether some
men as they advance in life, become as negligent in their
yle as in their dress or whether he at last gave in to
IG bad practice so prevalent in Germany, of disregarding
le lighter graces of diction certain it is, that his later
writings, much as they may have gained in excellence of
matter, and presenting, as they do, passages perhaps of
superior power and splendour, are, on the whole, no longer
characterised by the same uniform terseness and perspicuity
of language.
With the " History of Ancient and Modern Literature,"
Schlegel closed his critical career. He never afterwards
mounted the tribunal of criticism, except on one occasion,
when he awarded in favour of the early poetical effusions
of M. de la Martine, a solemn sentence of approbation.*
He now devoted himself with exclusive ardour to the
graver concerns of politics and philosophy. Nor can we
regret this resolution on his part, when we reflect that as
far as regards literature, he had done all that was neces-
sary that he had now only to leave to time to work out
liis aesthetic principles in the German mind and that
* In the beautiful critique inserted in the Concordia on M. de la
Marline's " Meditations Poetiques," (1820) Schlegel observes that
Lord Byron was the representative of a by-gone poesy, and La
Martine the herald of a new Christian poetry that was to come.
Comparing the three greatest contemporary poets out of his own
country, Scott, Byron, and La Martine, Schlegel saw in the produc-
tions of the first, the poetry of a vague reminiscence in those of
the second, the poetry of despair ; and in those of the last, the
30 THE LITERAKY LIFE OF
should further elucidation on these topics be required, the
distinguished Tieck, and his illustrious brother were at
hand to furnish the requisite aid. But in metaphysics
and political philosophy, what German could supply his
place ?
In the four eventful years which elapsed from 1808 to
1812, occupations as new to Schlegel as they were im-
portant and various in themselves, filled up the active life
of this extraordinary man. In the Austrian campaign of
1809, he was employed as secretary to the Archduke
Charles; and it is said that his eloquent proclamations had
considerable effect in kindling the patriotism of the Aus-
trian people. It was about the same time he founded a
daily paper, called " the Austrian Observer," which has
since become the official organ of the Austrian govern-
ment. The establishment of this journal the situation
which Schlegel had previously held at the head-quarters
of the Archduke Charles the diplomatic missions in
which, after the peace of 1814, he was employed by
Prince Metternich, who, be it said to the glory of that
illustrious statesman, ever honoured him with his friend-
ship and patronage and finally the pension, letters of no-
bility, and office of Aulic Councillor, which the emperor
was pleased to confer on him, may induce some of my
readers to suppose that his political views were identified
with those of the government in whose service he was
occasionally engaged ; and that he was an unqualified ad-
commencement of a poety of hope.* Much as he reprobated the
anti-christian spirit and tendency of Lord Byron's muse, and much
as he rejoiced that its pernicious influence was in some degree coun-
teracted by the noble effusions of the French rhapsodist, he still
rendered full justice to the great genius of the British bard. He
calls him in one of his last works, " the wonderful English poet
perhaps the greatest certainly the most remarkable poet of our
times :"f aa encomium which Byron's admirers may learn to ap-
preciate, when they remember who his contemporaries were, and
who the critic was, that, pronounced this judgment.
* See his " History of Literature," vol.2. New edition in Ger-
man.
f " Philosophia des Ebens," p. 21.
FREDEKICK VOX SCHLEGEL. 31
lirer of the whole foreign and domestic policy of Aus-
ia. No conception can be more erroneous. As secre-
iry to the Archduke Charles, he knew he lent his sup-
>ort to a government which had shown itself the most
Lonest, vigilant, and powerful friend of German inde-
>endence he knew he fought the battle of his country
.gainst an unholy and execrable tyranny, which, what-
ever shape it might assume whether that of a lawless
lemocracy or a ruthless despotism was alike inimical to
Christianity alike fatal to the peace, the happiness, and
the liberties of every country it subdued. In the next
)lace, it is not usual, even in the representative system,
still less under a government constituted like that of Aus-
tria, to exact a perfect conformity of political sentiments
between diplomatic agents and the heads of administra-
tion. Again the pension, title, and dignity which Schle-
gel received at the hands of the Emperor of Austria,
were the well-earned recompense of distinguished services,
and not the badges of servility. Lastly, with respect to
to the te Austrian Observer," his motive in establishing
that journal was purely patriotic. To enkindle the war-
like enthusiasm of the Austrian people to unite the
weakened, divided, and distracted states of Germany in a
common league against a common foe to procure for his
country the first of all political blessings that without
which all others are valueless national independence;
such was his object in this undertaking such the object
of every sincere and reflecting patriot of Germany at that
period. The leaning towards a stationary absolutism,
which has marked this journal since Schlegel gave up
the conduct of it, belongs to its present editors ; but that
tone of dignified moderation, which, according to the
express acknowledgment of German Liberals, it carries
into the discussion of political matters that aversion
from all extreme and violent parties and measures in
politics, which distinguishes this journal, betray the illus-
trious hand which first set it in motion.
Nothing, in fact, can be more dissimilar than the policy
32 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
long followed by the Austrian government, and that
which Schlegel would have recommended, and did in
fact recommend. What, especially since the time of the
Emperor Joseph II. , has characterised the general policy
of this government? In respect to ecclesiastical matters,
(though the evil was mitigated by the piety of the
late emperor), we still see that government, by a rest-
less, encroaching spirit of jealousy, hamper the jurisdic-
tion, and cramp the moral and intellectual energies of
the clergy. In relation to the people, its sway is mild
and paternal, indeed, but at the same time, intrusive,
meddling, and vexatious it is, in short, a dead, mecha-
nical absolutism, where all spontaneity of popular action
has been destroyed all equilibrium of powers overturned
and where royalty, by an irregular attraction, has dis-
turbed, deranged, or compressed the movements of the
other social bodies. With respect to science, those best
acquainted with the policy of this government affirm,
that its patronage is too exclusively confined to the me-
chanical arts and the physical sciences. In short, nowhere
has the political materialism of the eighteenth century
attained a more systematic development than in the Aus-
trian government. Yet in that empire are to be found
all the elements of a great social regeneration ; and to a
minister desirous of earning enduring fame, to a monarch
ambitious of living for ever in the hearts of a grateful
people, the noblest opportunity is presented for reviving,
renovating, and bringing to perfection the free, glorious,
but now, alas ! mutilated and half-effaced institutions of
the middle age.
If such is the policy of the Austrian government in re-
lation to the church, to liberty, and to science, it is need-
less to observe how entirely opposed it was to the views
of Schlegel. His whole life was devoted to the cultiva-
tion and diffusion of elegant literature and liberal science;
and any policy which tended to obstruct their progress,
or shackle the energies of the human mind, must have
been most adverse to his feelings and wishes. As a sin-
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 33
e friend to religious liberty, as well as a good Catholic,
must have deplored the bondage under which the
Church groaned ; and how ardently attached he was to
the cause of popular freedom, how utterly averse from
any thing like absolutism in politics, the reader will soon
have an opportunity of judging for himself.
But before I quit this subject, I cannot forbear noticing
the ver;y exaggerated statements sometimes put forth by
party spirit in England, respecting the state of learning
in the Austrian empire. Without pretending to any per-
sonal knowledge of that country, there are, however, a
certain number of admitted and well attested facts, which
prove, that however inferior in mental cultivation Austria
may be to some other states of Catholic as well as Pro-
testant Germany, she yet holds a distinguished place in.
literature and science. The very general diffusion of
popular education in that country the great success with
which all the arts and sciences connected with industry
are cultivated the admirable organisation .of its medical
board the distinguished physicians, theoretical as well as
practical, whom it has produced the great attention be-
stowed on strategy and the sciences subservient to it
the excellence to which the histrionic art has there attained
the universal passion for music, and the unrivalled
degree of perfection the art has there reached the
acknowledged superiority of the " Quarterly Review of
Vienna," (the " Wiener Jahrbucher") lastly, the favour,
countenance, and encouragement extended by the Austrian
public to the oral lectures and published writings of the
eminent literary characters, whether natives or foreigners,
who for the last thirty years have thrown such a glory
over their capital all these incontrovertible facts, I say,
prove this people to have reached an advanced stage of
intellectual refinement. So far from finding among the
Viennese that Breotian dulness of which we sometimes
hear them accused, Augustus William Schlegel (and his
testimony is impartial, for he is neither a native nor resident
D
34 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
of Austria,) confesses* that lie discovered in them great
aptness of intelligence, a keen relish for the beauties of
poetry, and much of the vivacity of the southern tempe-
rament. And the crowded audiences which flocked to
the philosophical lectures Frederick Schlegel delivered on
various occasions at Vienna, a metaphysician of equal
celebrity might in vain look for in another European
capital I could name, and which certainly considers itself
very enlightened. There is no doubt that this Archduchy
of Austria, which in the middle ^ige produced some of
the most celebrated Minnesingers, would, with free insti-
tutions and a more generous policy on the part of the
government, soon attain that intellectual station, to which
its political greatness, and recent as well as ancient military
glory, alike bid it to aspire. If the statesmen that rule
the destinies of that country were to regard the matter
merely in a political point of view, they might see what
moral dignity, weight, and importance, the patronage of
letters has given to the Protestant King of Prussia on the
one hand, and to the Catholic King of Bavaria on the
other.
For several years after the peace of 1814, Schlegel
was one of the representatives of the Court of Vienna at
the diet of Frankfort. These diplomatic functions occa-
sioned a temporary interruption to his literary pursuits
an interruption which will be regretted by those only
who have not reflected on the advantages of active life to
the man of letters. The high dignity with which he was
now invested the commanding view which his station
gave him of European politics the insight he was enabled
to obtain into the political state and relations of Germany
as well as the society and conversation of some of the
most illustrious statesmen of the age, were all of inesti-
mable service to the publicist ; and by making him
acquainted with the excellences as well as defects of
* See the Preface to the " Lectures on Dramatic Literature," in
the French translation.
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 35
axisting governments, the obstacles which retard the pro-
gress of improvement, the ill success which sometimes
attends even well-considered measures of reform, were
calculated to check the rashness of speculation, inspire
sobriety of judgment, and at the same time enlarge his
views of political philosophy. In the year 1818, he
returned to Vienna, and resumed his literary occupations
with renewed ardour. He wrote the following year in
the " Vienna Quarterly Review," (the " Wiener Jahr-
biicher,") a long and elaborate reviewal of M. Rhode's
work on Primitive History. This reviewal, which from
its length may fairly be called a treatise, contains a clear,
succinct, and masterly exposition of those views on the
early history of mankind, which he has on some points
more fully developed in the work, of which a translation
is now given. This article, which alternately delights and
-astonishes us by the historical learning, the philological
skill, the curious geographical lore, and the bold, profound
and original philosophy it displays, may be considered
one of the most admirable commentaries ever written on
the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis ; and in
none of his shorter essays has the genius of the illustrious
writer shone more pre-eminently than in this.*
The year 1820 was marked by the simultaneous out-
break of several revolutions in different countries of
Europe, and by symptoms of general discontent, distrust,
and agitation in other parts. The violent, though tran-
sitory, volcanic irruptions which convulsed and desolated
the south of Europe, scattered sparkles and ashes on the
already burning soil of France, and shook on her rocky
bed even the ocean-queen. In Germany, the wild revo-
lutionary enthusiasm which pervaded a large portion of
the youth the frenzied joy with which the assassination
of Kotzebue had been hailed the wide spread of associa-
tions fatal to the peace and freedom of mankind, and the
pernicious anti-social doctrines proclaimed in many
writings, and even from some professorial chairs, led the
* See " Sammtliche Werke," vol.x. p. 267.
D2
36 THE LITEKAKY LIFE OP
different governments to measures of severe scrutiny and
jealous vigilance, likely by a re-action to prove dangerous
to the cause of liberty. The causes of these various social
phenomena it is not my business here to point out; but
I may observe in passing, that these discontents these
struggles these revolutions, had their origin partly in
natural causes, partly in the errors both of governments
and nations. The general disjointing of all interests
the derangement in the concerns of all classes of society
produced by the transition from a state of long protracted
warfare to a state of general peace the blunders com-
mitted by the Congress of Vienna in the settlement of
Europe the blind recurrence in some European states to
the thoroughly worn-out absolutism of the eighteenth
century, injurious as that political system had proved ix>
religion, to social order, and to national prosperity in
other countries, a rash imitation of the mere outward forms
of the British constitution, without any true knowledge
of its internal organism above all, the deadly legacy of
anti-Christian doctrines and anti-social principles, which
the last age had bequeathed to the present such, inde-
pendently of minor and more local reasons, are the
principal causes to which I think the impartial voice of
history will ascribe the political commotions of that
period. It was now evident that the great work of
European restoration had been but half-accomplished;
and that the malignant Typhon of revolution was
collecting his scattered members, recruiting his exhausted
energies, and preparing anew to assault, oppress, and
desolate the world.
Alarmed at the political aspect of Germany and Europe,,
Schlegel deemed the moment had arrived, when every
friend of religion and social order should be found at his
post. The importance of the struggle the violence of
parties the false line of policy adopted by some govern-
ments the errors and delusions too prevalent even among^
many of the defenders of legitimacy, rendered the
warning voice of an enlightened mediator more necessary
than ever. In conjunction with his illustrious friend,
Adam Miill<
FKEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 37
lamMuller,and some of the Redemptorists a most able,
amiable, and exemplary body of ecclesiastics at Vienna
he established, in 1820, a religious and political journal,
entitled " Concordia." In a series of articles, entitled
Characteristics of the Age, and which contain a most
masterly sketch of the political state and prospects of the
principal European countries, Schlegel has given a fuller
exposition of his political principles, than in any other of
liis writings which have come under my notice. The
extreme interest and importance of the matters discussed
in these articles, and still more, the light they throw on
very many passages in the following translation, have
induced me to lay before the reader a rapid analysis of
such parts as embody the author's political system. I
ehall therefore now proceed to this task, premising that
in this analysis I shall occasionally interweave a remark of
my own, to illustrate the author's views:
There are five essential and eternal corporations in
human society the family the church the state the
guild and the school.
I. The family is the smallest and simplest corporation
the ground- work of all the others ; and on its right
constitution and moral development depend, as we shall
presently see, the freedom, prosperity, and enlightenment
of the state, the guild, and the school.
II. With respect to the church, its constitution under
the primitive revelation was purely domestic; religious
instruction and the solemnisation of religious offices, being
intrusted to the heads of families and tribes. In the
Mosaic law, the Almighty founded a public ministry in
the synagogue, which was an admirable type of the future
constitution of the Christian church. Unlike the local
and temporary synagogue, the Christian church is per-
petual and universal but like the synagogue, it hath a
public ministry. " This church," to use Schlegel's own
words, " is that great and divine corporation which
embraces all other social relations, protects them under
its vault, crowns them with dignity, and lovingly imparts
38 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
to them the power of a peculiar consecration. The
church is not a mere substitute formed to supply or repair
the deficiencies of the other social institutes and corpora-
tions ; but is itself a free, peculiar, independent corporation,
pervading all states, and in its object exalted far above
them an union and society with God, from whom it
immediately derives its sustaining power."*
III. Between these two corporations the family, that
deep, solid foundation of the social edifice below and
the church, that high, expansive and illumined vault
above stands the state. Schlegel defines the state, " a
corporation armed for the maintenance of peace." Its
existence says he, is bound up with all the other corpora-
tions ; it lives and moves in them ; they are its natural
organs; and as soon as the state, whether with despotic
or anarchical views, attempts to impede the natural func-
tions of these organs, to disturb or derange their peculiar
sphere of action, it impairs its own vital powers, and
prepares the way sooner or later for its own destruction."
IV. There are two intermediate corporations the
guild, which stands between the family and the state:
and the school, which stands between the church and the
state. By the guild, Schlegel understands " every species
of traffic, industry, and commerce, bound together in
every part of the world by the common tie of money ."
The object of this corporation is the advancement of the
material interests of the family ; interests which it is the
bounden duty of the state to protect and promote.
V. By the school, the author signifies " the whole
intellectual culture of mankind not merely the existing
republic of letters, but all the tradition of science from
the remotest ages to the present times." This corporation,
I should say, has for its object the glorification of the
church, the utility of the state, and the intellectual activity
of the family, or rather its individual members.
But among these primary corporations, it is the state
which forms the immediate object of the author's inquiries.
* " Concordia," page 59.
FKEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 39
[ shall now proceed to lay before the reader the several
characteristics which, according to the author, distinguish
ihe Christian state, or the state animated with the spirit of
Christianity.
I. The Christian state is without slaves, and honours
the sanctity of the nuptial tie.
Christianity first mitigated, and then abolished slavery.
Slavery is incompatible with the spirit of Christianity,
not only on account of the mal-treatment, injuries, and
oppression to which it subjects men; not only on account
of the dangers to which it exposes female virtue; but
chiefly and especially, because the state of slavery is one
nconsistent with the dignity of a being made after the
ikeness of God. This complete emancipation of the
ower classes from the bonds of servitude pre-eminently
distinguishes the modern Christian states from those of
classical antiquity on the one hand, and those of the
)rimitive Oriental world on the other. In the former,
domestic and predial slavery were carried to the last
degree of harshness and severity in the latter, especially
n India, a totally different form of servitude existed.
There the innocent descendants of those who had been
guilty of certain crimes, or who had contracted unlawful
marriages, were doomed to a state of irremediable oppres-
ion, debarred from all civil rights, and excluded from the
very charities of life. The fate of these hapless beings
was even harder than that of the slaves among the
ancient Greeks and Romans. As the exclusion of a
whole class from the rights of citizenship and the offices
of religion is incompatible with the principles of Christian
love; so the hereditary transmission of the sacerdotal
dignity is inconsistent with the Christian doctrine, which
inculcates the necessity of a divine call to the priesthood.
Hence the incompatibility which exists between the system
of castes and the Christian religion.
The author shows that the various species of vassalage
are clearly distinguishable from slavery ; yet that even
40 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
these have yielded to the benign spirit of Christianity.
The existence of slavery in the Christian colonies nowise
militates against the principle here laid down ; for the
slave-trade has ever been condemned by all Christian na-
tions as wicked and unjust ; and slavery, the introduction
of which into the colonies the church had so strenuously
opposed, was afterwards tolerated by her only as a neces-
sary evil. For, as Schlegel observes with his character-
istic wisdom, " the sudden abolition of an evil that has
become an inveterate habit in society, is mostly attended
with danger, and frequently works another wrong of an
opposite kind."* But this is one of those truths, which
the giddy, reckless spirit of a spurious philanthropy can
never be made to comprehend.
As the Christian state abhors slavery from its incon-
sistency with the dignity of man, so, for the same reason,
it guards with jealous vigilance the sanctity and invio-
lability of the nuptial tie. Polygamy degrades woman
from her natural rank in society destroys the happiness
of private life poisons the very well-springs of education
and connected as it too frequently is with a traffic in
slaves, plunges the male sex into irremediable degra-
dation.! This practice is supposed to have originated
with the Cainites in the ante-diluvian world ; but for
high and prudential reasons, it was tolerated rather than
approved under the patriarchal dispensation and the
Mosaic law. In the ancient Asiatic monarchies, especially
in the period of their decline, this usage sometimes pre-
vailed to a licentious extent ; but in the modem Maho-
metan states, where polygamy is indulged in to the most
libidinous excess, this defective constitution of the family
has proved one of the greatest barriers to political and
intellectual improvement.
In ancient Greece and Rome, how far superior was the
legislation on marriage ! How much more healthful and
vigorous was the constitution of domestic society ! What
* " Concordia," page 363. f See " Concordia."
i fine idea
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 41
ne idea do we conceive of the early Romans, when
we read that though the law sanctioned divorce, yet that
for the first five hundred years, no individual took ad-
vantage of such a law ! In the corrupt ages of Imperial
Rome, divorce, permitted and practised on the most fri-
volous pretexts, was productive of more baneful conse-
quences than polygamy in its worst form.
Polygamy is proscribed in all Christian states. In the
Catholic church, marriage is raised to the dignity of a
sacrament ; and divorce is not permitted, even in the case
of adultery. Hereby woman is invested with the high-
est degree of dignity, and even influence the union and
happiness of the family are best secured and the peace
and stability of the state itself acquire the strongest gua-
rantees. It is well known that some of the ablest divines
of the Church of England also uphold in all cases the
indissolubility of the nuptial tie ; and the British legis-
lature, by according divorce only after adultery, and by
rendering the obtaining of it a matter of difficulty and
expense, has widely opposed limitations to the practice.
Yet, as was truly observed some years ago in parliament,
the increase in the number of applications for divorce,
is one among the many signs of the decline of morality
in this country.
The principal Protestant churches regard marriage as a
religious ceremony ; and so the general proposition of
Schlegel is correct, that all Christian states recognise the
sanctity of the nuptial bond. And here is one of the
main causes of the superior happiness, freedom, and civi-
lisation enjoyed by Christian nations.
II. Christian justice is founded on a system of equity,
and the Christian state has from its constitution, an es-
sentially pacific tendency.
Schlegel observes that the difference between strict
law and equitable law is the most arduous problem in all
jurisprudence. Strict law is an abstract law, deduced
from certain general principles, applied without the least
42 THE LITEEAEY LIFE OF
regard to adventitious circumstances. Equity, on the
other hand, pays due regard to such circumstances,
examines into the peculiar state of things, and the mu-
tual relations of parties ; and forms her decisions not ac-
cording to the caprice of fancy, or the waywardness of
feeling, but according to the general principles of right,
applied to the variable circumstances and situations of
parties.
According to the author's definition, the object of the
institution of the state is the maintenance of internal and
external peace. Justice is the only basis of peace ; but
justice is here the means, and not the end. If justice were
the end for which the state was constituted, then neither
external nor internal peace could ever be procured or
maintained ; for the state would then be compelled to
wage eternal war against all who, at home or abroad, were
guilty of injustice, and could never lay down its arms
till that injustice were removed.
As peace is essentially the end of that great corporation
called the state ; it follows that the justice by which its
foreign and domestic policy must be regulated, is not
that strict or absolute justice spoken of above, but that
temperate or conciliatory equity, which is alone appli-
cable to the concerns of men. The maxim, " a thousand
years' wrong cannot constitute an hour's right," if ap-
plied to civil jurisprudence, would introduce interminable
confusion, hardship, and misery in the affairs of private
life, and if applied to constitutional and international law,
would lead to perpetual anarchy at home, and to endless,
exterminating war abroad.
The Christian religion, as it comes from God, is emi-
nently social hence it abhors the principle of absolute
or inexorable right, whether applied to civil or public
law hence the Christian state, or the state animated with
the spirit of Christianity, is in its tendency essentially
pacific.
This pacific policy of the state, however, so far from
excluding, necessarily implies the firm, uncompromising
FKEDEKICK VON SCHLEGEL. 43
indication of its rights and interests, whether at home
>r abroad ; and the repression of evil doers within, or a
t ust war without, is often the only means of attaining the
object for which the state was constituted to wit, the
maintenance of peace. On the other hand the revolu-
tionary state, or the state where, in opposition to existing
rights and interests, new rights and interests are violently
enforced ; and where, in subversion of all established in-
stitutions, new institutions, conceived according to ab-
stract and arbitrary theories, are violently introduced ;
the revolutionary state, I say, is, from its nature and
origin no matter what form it may assume necessarily
driven to a course of iniquitous policy to disorga-
nising tyranny within, and to fierce relentless hostility
without.
Against the pacific character of the Christian state, the
bloody wars of Charlemagne with the Saxons, the Cru-
sades of a later period, and the religious wars of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are commonly ob-
jected. In the course of the w r ork, to which this memoir
is prefixed, the reader will find these several objections
victoriously answered.
III. The Christian state recognises the legal existence
of Corporations, and depends on their organic eo-opera-
tion.
The author has before shown that the Christian reli-
gion, following the principle of conciliatory equity, recog-
nises, without reference to their origin, all existing rights
and interests. Hence the Christian religion can co-exist,
and has in fact co-existed, with every form or species of
government. But there are some governments which,
from their spirit and constitution, are more congenial
than others to Christianity ; and it is in this sense we
speak of the Christian state.
We have already seen that there are five essential and
eternal corporations the family the church the state
the guild and the school. These great corporations
44 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
have each their several and subordinate institutions
or corporations, which are accidental and transitory by
nature, and consequently vary with time, place, and cir-
cumstances.
The Christian state is that which best secures and pre-
serves to those essential corporations, and all their subor-
dinate institutions, their due sphere of action. Hence
our author shows that, under certain circumstances, and
in certain countries, the republic, whether democratic
or aristocratic, may answer that end as well or even better
than monarchy ; and that it is only because, in great
empires, monarchy is best calculated to maintain the free
development and organic co-operation of corporations,
that it may be called, par excellence, the Christian state.
But what form of monarchy is best adapted for this end ?
The absolute monarchy* is certainly the least : there then
remain only the representative system, and the constitu-
tion of the three estates, or, as the Germans call that
mode of government, Stande-verfassung. Schlegel pro-
ceeds to examine the respective characteristics of those
two forms of government, and to show the points in
which they agree, and in which they differ. The con-
stitution of estates is the old, legitimate constitution of
European states, whether republican or monarchical ; but
in too many countries, this noble institution has been un-
dermined by despotism, or destroyed by revolution. On
the other hand, the representative system is comparatively
modern, and, on the continent, has, amid the great con-
vulsions produced by the French revolution, sprung out
of a defective and superficial imitation of the British
constitution. It is therefore to the latter constitution the
author, when he has occasion to treat of the representative
system, principally directs the attention of his readers.
As to the points of resemblance between this system,
* In a number of the " Concordia" for 1820, Adam Miiller frankly
declared his opinion, that all the friends of social order would soon
concur in the necessity of re-establishing the constitution of the three
estates- This is language which at Vienna is as bold as it is auspicious.
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 45
and the states-constitution, both have legislative assem-
blies in both, petitions and remonstrances are addressed
to the throne, and in both, the grant of subsidies rests
chiefly with the commons ; while to the enactment of every
law, the concurrence of the different branches of the legis-
lature is essentially requisite. But, in many important
points, these two forms of government totally differ. In
the states-constitution, the crown is invested with more
power and dignity. With more dignity, because to the
crown landed estates are annexed ; and the sovereign,
instead of being a pensioner on the bounty of his parlia-
ments, is the first independent proprietor: with more
power, because in the representative system, the king,
with the single exception of choosing an administration,
can perform no act without the sanction of his ministers.
Thus, in this political system, according to the author's
remark, the substantial power of royalty is vested in
the hands of the ministry.
The next point of difference is that the representative
system, particularly in England, rests too exclusively on
the material basis of property; and that intelligence is
there deprived of an adequate share in the national repre-
sentation.* In the states-eonstitution, where the clerical
and scientific classes form a separate estate, or distinct
branch of the legislature, intelligence is invested with all
the dignity and glory which human society can confer.
The clergy, who are the representatives of revealed faith,
or the fixed and immutable part of intelligence, corre-
spond to the aristocracy, or the representatives of fixed
property while the scientific class, representing science,
or the variable or progressive part of intelligence, cor-
responds to the Commons, the representatives of moveable
property. Hence, Francis Baader has ingeniously called
* Those political changes which since Schlegel's death have oc-
curred in the British constitution, while they have deprived property
of much of its legitimate influence, have caused intelligence to be
even less represented than heretofore in the legislature.
46 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
the clergy the Upper House of intelligence, and the
scientific class the Lower House.*
The last point of difference is that, while in many of
the modern representative systems, municipal corpora-
tions are despised and rejected, they form the very key-
stone of the states-constitution. The revolutionists, who
have had so prominent a share in the formation of these
representative governments, know full well that muni-
cipal corporations form the best security of the rights of
the family the firmest ramparts of popular freedom.
They are thus objects of peculiar hatred to men who, so
far from wishing the commonalty to obtain stability or
cohesion in their constitution, are desirous they should
ever remain a loose, shifting mass of disunited atoms,
ready^ to receive any form or impress which despotism
may impose. Hence the war which, at different times
and in different countries, regal or democratic tyranny
has waged against these admirable institutions. In the
English constitution, on the other hand, which has pre-
served so many elements of the old Christian monarchy,
the free, municipal institutions have been carefully main-
tained. "The true internal strength and greatness of
England (says Schlegel), consists, as is now almost uni-
versally admitted by profound political observers, far
more in the vigour and freedom of municipal corpora-
tions, better preserved in that country tlran elsewhere,
than in her admired* political constitution itself."f De-
fective in many parts that constitution appeared to the
author, yet on the whole, he highly valued the vigo-
rously constituted, but temperate and mitigated aris-
tocracy of 1 688. He knew that the remnants of the old
Christian constitution were better there than in any of
the great continental monarchies :J that the British go-
* " Philosophische Schriften," vol. ii. f See " Concordia," p. 66.
f- According to the just remark of Burke, the states-constitution
was, in latter ages, better preserved in the republics than in the
monarchies of Europe. See his " Letters on a Regicide Peace."
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 47
r ernment possessed elements of stability as well as of
.reedom, to which those monarchies, in their existing
degeneracy, could in vain pretend; and that the very
peculiarities in the British constitution, to which he most
strongly objected, had their origin in local circumstances,
deep-rooted wants, and remote historical events. That
extreme jealousy of regal power which that constitution
betrays that undue preponderance of property over in-
telligence that political preponderance of the aristo-
cracy, which, though rendered necessary by the exces-
sive depression of royalty and of the clergy, was certainly
calculated to impede the organic development of the
democracy, and thereby to expose the body politic to
dangerous revulsions in fine, that fierce collision of
parties, which that constitution nurses and encourages
all reveal the fearful struggles by which it came into life.
The imitation of this constitution which, by bringing
back to the European nations the reminiscence of their
ancient freedom, has naturally excited their enthusiastic
admiration the imitation of that constitution, I say,
difficult at all times, has been rendered in some countries
utterly impracticable by the studious rejection of two of
the great hinges on which, for a hundred and fifty years,
it has turned I mean the predominance of the aristo-
cracy on the one hand, and the free, municipal organisa-
tion of the commonalty on the other. In many of the
German states, as the author observes, the representative
system works well ; because the legislators have had the
wisdom to connect the new with anterior institutions.
On the whole, what has been said of the Gothic archi-
tecture, may be applied to the old Christian monarchy
it was never brought to perfection. That lofty ideal
of government, which Christianity had traced to the
nations of the middle age that admirable constitution,
which was a partial reflection of the constitution of the
church itself, and wherein were blended and united the
principles of love and intelligence, stability and activity
in other words, where a paternal royalty, an enlight-
48 THE LITEEARY LIFE OP
ened priesthood, a mild aristocracy," a loyal, yet free-
spirited, commonalty controlled, aided, balanced, and
defended each other that lofty ideal has never been
probably never will be fully realised. Yet there are
many reasons to suppose that a momentous, and not very
distant, futurity will be charged with realising, as far as
human infirmity will permit, this ideal conception of the
Christian state.
Such is an outline of the principal features in Schlegel's
system a system which I have endeavoured, as far as
my feeble powers permitted, to explain, illustrate, and
enforce.
But while in the east of Germany, this great luminary
and his satellite were shedding their mild radiance of
political wisdom, a star of the first magnitude rose above
the western horizon of Germany, and filled the surround-
ing heaven with the splendour of its light. The illus-
trious Goerres, already celebrated for his profound re-
searches in archaeology, and many admirable political
writings, published in 1819 his work, entitled " Germany
and the Revolution," which produced so extraordinary a
sensation, and was at this time so ably translated by Mr.
Black. This work was followed in 1821 by that writer's
still more wonderful production, entitled " Europe and
the Revolution," a production which in the soundness of
its doctrines the generosity of its sentiments the depth
and comprehensiveness of its views and the copiousness,
and variety of historical illustration brought forward in
their support surpasses perhaps all the mighty works in
defence of social order and liberty which the momentous
events of the last fifty years have called forth in different
parts of Europe. With a few slight shades of difference,
the political views of Goerres mainly accord with those
of Schlegel ; but, living under the government of Ba-
varia, the former is able boldly to proclaim truths which
the latter at Vienna was able only to hint. Goerres
unites the strong, practical sense of Gentz the masterly
learning and profound and comprehensive understanding
FKEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 49
of F. Schlegel to great boldness of character, and a
t tyle of peculiar force and condensation. While the po-
.itical glance of Schlegel was mostly directed towards the
past that of Gentz to the present hour the eye of
Goerres is turned more particularly to the future. Had
the counsels of this illustrious man been more generally
followed, the perilous crisis, in which for the last five
years Germany has been involved, would have been
happily averted, or at least better provided against. Him-
eelf and Schlegel may be considered as the supreme
oracles of that illustrious school of liberal conservatives,
founded by our great Burke, and which numbers besides
the eminent Germans, whose names have already been
mentioned, a Baron de Haller in Switzerland a Vis-
-count de Bonald in France* a Count Henri de Merode
in Belgium and a Count Maistre in Piedmont: men
whose writings contain, in a greater or less degree, the
seeds of the future political regeneration of Europe.
While engaged in the editorship of the " Concordia,"
Schlegel gave a new edition of his works, with consider-
able improvements and augmentations. Actively as his
time had been employed, a long period had now elapsed
since he had given any great production to the world ;
and he was now preparing those immortal works, which
were to shed so bright an effulgence round the close of his
life. In the rapid review which has been here taken of his
critical, philological, and historical writings, nothing has
been said of his philosophical pursuits ; and yet philo-
sophy was his darling study philosophy, which the
ancients called" the science of divine and human things,"
was alone capable of filling the vast capacity of Schlegel's
* Among these great conservatives, M. de Bonald is the only one
who can be regarded as favourable to absolutism. As long as this
great writer deals in general propositions, he seldom errs ; but when
he comes to apply his principles to practice, then the political pre-
judices in which hje was bred, and which a too limited course of
reading has failed to correct, lead him sometimes into exaggerations
and errors. On the whole, he is as inferior to Burke as a publicist,
as he is superior to him as a metaphysician.
E
50 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
mind. At the age of nineteen, he had already read all
the works of Plato in their original tongue ; and six-and-
thirty years afterwards, he expressed a vivid recollection
of the delight and enthusiasm which the perusal had ex-
cited in his youthful mind. In 1800, he commenced his
philosophical career at the University of Jena, before an
admiring audience ; we have already seen him at Paris,
amid his philological labours, devoting a portion of his
time to the cultivation of philosophy; and, amid all the
struggles and occupations of his subsequent life, he would
ever and anon snatch some moment to pay his homage
to this celestial maid this mistress of his heart this
object of his earliest enthusiasm and latest worship.
A very distinguished friend and disciple of Schlegel's,
the Baron d'Eckstein, asserts that, towards the close of
the last century, a confederacy was formed among some
men of the most superior minds, for the regeneration of
natural science for the revival of the lofty physics of
remote antiquity, when nature was regarded only as the
splendid and almost transparent veil of the spiritual world.
The members of this intellectual association were Schel-
ling, the two Schlegels, the poet Tieck, Novalis, and the
celebrated geographer, Hitter. This confederacy was
dissolved, when the pantheistical tendency of Schel-
ling's philosophy became more apparent ; and Frederick
Schlegel, in particular, became afterwards the most stre-
nuous and formidable opponent of a philosophic sys-
tem which appeared to him, and rightly enough, only a
more subtle and refined Spinosism. On the true nature
of this philosophy, however, opinion was much divided ;
many religious men among the Protestants ranged them-
selves under its banners ; even some of the orthodox en-
tered into terms of accommodation with it ; and the
great Catholic theologian, Zimmer, thought that, by means
of this system, he could obtain a clearer conception of
the great Christian mystery of the Trinity. Enormous
as may be the errors contained in this philosophy, yet,
as few philosophic systems are entirely erroneous, the
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. * 51
philosophy of Schelling, which appears to have under-
gone a purification in its course, has been attended with
some beneficial results. It has led to a more profound
and spiritual knowledge of nature it has been, to many,
a point of transition from the materialism and rationalism
of the eighteenth century to the Christian religion and,
indeed, this effect it has had on the illustrious founder
Hmself, who has for some years returned to the bosom
of Christianity, and who probably will be remembered
by posterity more for his recent labours as a profound
Christian naturalist, than for the pantheistic reveries of
his youth.*
Schlegel's earlier philosophical, as well as historical, works
are no longer to be met with, and have not yet been re-
published. In the " Corcordia," for 1820, we find an out-
line of those lectures on the Philosophy of Life, which the
author delivered at Vienna, in the year 1827. This work
immediately preceeded the one to which this memoir is
prefixed; and, as it embodies those general philosophical
principles, of which in the latter an application is made
* This view of the matter is confirmed by the high authority of
the great Catholic philosopher Molitor. Speaking of Schelling and
his disciples, he says (in the words of his recent French translator) :
" Quoique leurs premiers ouvrages ne respirent pas encore entierement
Te&pritpur et veritable, mais soient entaches plus ou moins de pan-
theisme ou de naturalisme, comme cela etoit presque necessaire a
une poque encore si profondement enfoncee dans 1'incredulite et
1'orgueil, cependant leurs principes ont eveille 1'esprit religieux, et
donne une base plus profonde aux verites de cet ordre. C'est dans
ce sens qu'on a retravaille toutes les sciences, et Ton pent dire que
ces hommes ont plus contribue a conduire vers la religion, que cette
multitude de compendiums dograatiques du siecle dernier." He then
adds : *', On pent se faire une idee de la direction religieuse de la
physique par les ecrits de Steffens, Schubert, Pfaff, et Baader. Cet
esprit conduira encore a de plus grands resultats ; et bientot de
nouvelles decouvertes faites au ciel etoile, sur la terre et dans son
interieur, aussi bien que dans Torganisme, affermiront et mettront
dans une nouvelle lumiere ces hautes verite's connues des anciens,
mais que le sens stupide des modernes rejetait comme des songes et
des superstitions." pp. 165-6, " Philosophic de la Tradition, tra-
.duite de 1'Allemand." Paris. 1834.
E2
52 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
to history, a rapid analysis of its doctrines, particularly in
the psychological and ontological parts, will be useful, nay,
almost necessary, to the elucidation of many passages in the
following translation. But how can I attempt the analysis
of a work where the arrangement of a formal, didactic
discussion is studiously avoided where the author pours
forth his thoughts with all the freedom of conversation
high, spiritual conversation where such is the exuberant
fulness of his ideas, such the shadowy subtilty of his per-
ceptions, that even the German language, copious and
philosophical as it is, seems at times inadequate to their
expression. Long as Germany had been habituated to
the genius of Schlegel, she herself seems to have been
startled by the appearance of a' work where the boldest,
the most unlocked for, the sublimest vistas of philosophy
were opened to her astonished view.
Bespeaking then the indulgence of the reader, I will
now proceed to lay before him an outline of some of the
principal ideas on psychology and ontology, contained in
the Philosophy of Life.
The consciousness of man is composed of mind, soul, and
body. The soul is the centre of consciousness. The
consciousness of man maybe best understood by comparing
it with that of other created beings. The existence of brutes
is extremely simple they have only a body they have
no mind they have, properly speaking, no soul at least,
their soul is completely mingled with their corporeal frame ;
so that on the destruction of the latter, it reverts to the
elements, or is absorbed in the general vital energy of
nature (Natur-seele). In the scale of existence superior to
man, the angelic spirits are represented in Holy Writ, and
in the traditions of all nations, as pure, intellectual'benrgs,
devoid of a gr oss corporeal frame. But have they no body
whatsoever? Schlegel ascribes to them what he calls in
his beautiful language, " an etherial body of light." This
opinion, it must be confessed, has comparatively few sup-
porters in the modern schools of theology, whether in the
Catholic or Protestant churches; but it was maintained
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 53
by many of tlie ancient fathers, and, in modern times,
it has met with the high sanction of the great Leibnitz.
Schlegel assigns no reason for his opinion; but I have
means of knowing that another great Christian philosopher
of the age has, in his unpublished system of metaphysics,
adduced very cogent arguments in support of this theory.
With the exception of this subtle, etherial, luminous body,
the celestial spirits, according to the author, are nothing
but intelligence or mind. They have, strictly speaking,
no soul; for the distinctive faculties of the soul (as will
be presently shown) are reason and imagination; and
these faculties cannot be ascribed to beings in whom an
intuitive understanding needs not the slow deductions,
and analytic process of reason; nor wants a medium of
communication with the world of sense, like imagination.
Hence the lines of the great German poet fully represent
the difference, as well as the resemblance, in the intellectual
action of man and the angelic spirits :
" Science, O man, tbou shar'st with higher spirits ;
But Art thou hast alone."
Hence the nature of brutes is simple that of angels two-
fold that of men three-fold.
The third part of human consciousness, the body its
organic laws, powers, and properties, the philosopher
must leave to the naturalist. It is only when it has refer-
ence to the higher parts of consciousness that its proper-
ties can be made the matter of his investigation. -The
soul and the mind form the fit and peculiar subject of his
inquiries. To the mind belong the faculties of will and
understanding to the soul, those of reason and imagina-
tion. Schlegel observes it is remarkable that the three
different species of mental alienation correspond to the
three parts of human consciousness. Thus monomania
springs from some error deeply rooted in the mind frenzy
is the disorder of a soul that has broken loose from all the
restraints of reason ; and idiotcy arises from some organic
54 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
defect in the brain. The last is the effect of physical, the
two former the consequence of moral, and frequently
accidental, causes. The author lays it down as a general
principle, subject, however, to many modifications and
exceptions, that in man mind or thought predominates
in woman soul or feeling prevails. Hence in marriage,
which is a sacred union of souls, the deficiencies in the
psychology of either sex are happily and mutually sup-
plied. On this subject, Srchlegel has some of the most
touching and beautiful reflections, which a loving heart
and a noble fancy have ever inspired.
Imagination (Einbildungs-kraft) is the inventive faculty
Reason ( Vernunf) the regulative Understanding ( Ver-
stand) the penetrative, or in a higher degree the intuitive
and the Will (Wille) the moral, faculty. To these
primary faculties, or, as the author styles them, these main
boughs of human consciousness, four secondary faculties
are subservient the memory the conscience the pas-
sions or natural impulses, and the outward senses. The
memory is the intermediate faculty between the under-
standing and the reason the conscience the intermediate
faculty between the reason and the will the passions
or natural impulses the intermediate faculty between
the will and the imagination and the outward senses
form the connecting link between imagination and the
body.
Reason is the regulative faculty implanted in the soul.
In real life, it corresponds to what we commonly call
judgment, and is that faculty by which the transactions
of men are regulated, and the resolutions of the will are
brought to maturity, whether in sacred or secular concerns.
In science, reason is the dialectical or analytic faculty,
by which the discoveries of imagination and the percep-
tions of the understanding receive a definite form the
faculty of analysis, arrangement, and combination. Reason
in itself is not inventive it makes no discoveries it is
rather a negative than a positive faculty but it is the
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. u 55
indispensable arbitress, to whose decision understanding
and imagination must submit their various productions.
Imagination, on the other hand, is the inventive faculty
in art, poetry, and even science. No great discovery, says
the author, can be made even in the mathematics, with-
out imagination. This assertion may strike us as strange ;
but we must remember that Leibnitz declared he was led
to his great methematical discoveries by the aid of meta-
physics ; and that imagination necessarily enters into the
composition of a great metaphysical genius, few will be
disposed to question. Here, however, if I may be allowed
to offer an opinion, Schlegel does not appear to me to have
traced, with sufficient distinctness, the boundaries between
imagination and understanding.
Understanding is the faculty of apprehension it pene-
trates into the inward essence of things, and discerns the
manifestations of the divine or human mind in their
several revelations and communications. Thus the natur-
alist, whose eye searches into the inward life of nature
the statesman, who can fathom the most deep-laid plans
of a hostile policy the theologian, who can discover the
most hidden sense of Scripture, may be said to possess in
an eminent degree, the faculty of understanding.
Will is the other faculty implanted in the mind of man
the faculty on whose good or evil discretion that of all
the other faculties of mind and soul essentially depends.
Independently of the moral direction of the will, its innate
strength or weakness, its steadiness or vacillation, propor-
tionally augment or diminish the power of all the other
faculties. How far moderate abilities, when directed by
a firm, tenacious, perseverant will can avail to what a
degree of success they may sometimes lead, daily expe-
rience may serve to convince us.
Originally all these faculties, will and understanding,
reason and imagination, were harmoniously blended and
united in the human consciousness; but since, at the fall
of man, a dark spirit interposed its shadow betwixt him.
56 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
and the Sun of Righteousness, disorder and confusion
have entered into his mind and soul, and troubled their.
several faculties. Thus the understanding often points
out a course which the will refuses to follow; and the will,
on the other hand, is often disposed to pursue the good
and right path, were the blind or narrow understanding
competent to direct it. Not only are will and under-
standing in frequent collision with one another, but each
is at variance with itself. What the will resolves to-day
it shrinks from to-morrow ! How often does the under-
standing view the same subject in a different light at
different times ! How much do time, circumstance, and
humour, place the same truth in a clearer or obscurer
aspect ! The same opposition is observable betwixt reason
and imagination. Where fancy is the strongest in the
house, how often doth she spurn the warnings of her
more homely and unpretending sister reason. Again,
where reason has the ascendancy, what groundless aver-
sion and paltry jealousy does she not frequently evince
at the superior nature of her brilliant sister ! Or, to drop
this figurative language, how often do w r e behold a man
of lofty imagination very deficient in practical sense ; and
again, in your man of strong sense, how frequently dull
and pedestrian is the fancy ! In real life what a deplor-
able schism exists between poets and artists on the one
hand, and men of business on the other ! What mutual
contempt and aversion do they not frequently exhibit!
Well, this schism is nothing else than the external realisa-
tion of the inward conflict between reason and imagination.
With respect to the four secondary faculties memory
conscience the natural impulses and the outward
senses faculties, which, as the author says, cannot from
their importance be termed subordinate, but should rather
be called susidiary or assigned; Schlegel shows that, as
regards the first, the decay of the memory precedes the
decline of the reason, and its sudden and entire loss brings
about the extinction of the latter faculty. In the same
way the deadness of the conscience argues the utmost
FKEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 57
depravity of the will. The conscience is the memory of
the will, as the memory is the conscience of the under-
"The natural impulses," says Schlegel, le where they
appear exalted to passion, are to be regarded as nothing
else but the motions of a will, that has been overpowered
by the false illusions of imagination. The middle position
of the impulses betwixt the will and the imagination, as
well as the abused co-operation of those two faculties in
any passion or sensual gratification, become habitual, is
apparent particularly in those inclinations which man has
in common with the brute, and where the viciousness lies
only in their excess or violence.* Aspiration after infinity
is natural to man, and belongs essentially to his being.
Whatever is defective or disorderly in his impulses
consists only in their unbounded gratification in the
perversion of that aspiration after infinity towards perish-
able, sensual, material, and often most unworthy objects;
for that aspiration, natural as it is to man, where it is pure
and genuine, can be gratified by no sensual indulgence
and no earthly possession."f In the brute, the gratifica-
tion of the natural appetites is regular, uniform, subject
to no vicissitudes or excesses, and entails no injury on his
nature, because undisturbed and unvitiated by the false
illusions of imagination.
Lastly, with regard to the outward senses, there are,
philosophically speaking, but three, sight, hearing, and
touch for under the last, taste and smell are included;
and it is remarkable how these severally correspond to the
three parts of human consciousness. The sight is pre-
eminently the sense of the mind hearing the sense of the
soul while the touch is peculiarly the sense of the body ;
the sense given to the body for its special protection and
preservation. The loss of the first two senses the body
can survive but it perishes with the utter extinction of
* " Philosophic der Sprache," p. 1 1819. f Ibid - P- 12L
58 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
the last. Those expressions in common parlance, a good
artist-like eye a fine musical ear prove the close con-
nexion which mankind has always felt to exist between
the outer senses and the higher faculties of man.
" Had the soul," says the author, " not been originally
darkened and troubled had it remained in a clear,
luminous repose in its God then the human conscious-
ness would have been of a far more simple nature than at
present ; for it would have consisted only of understanding,
soul, and will. Reason and imagination, which are now
in such frequent collision with the will and understanding,
as well as with each other, would then have been absorbed
in those higher faculties. Even the conscience would not
then have been a special act, or special function of the
judgment but a tender feeling a gentle, almost uncon-
scious pulsation of the soul. The senses and the memory,
those ministrant faculties which, in the present dissonance
of the human consciousness, form so many distinct powers
of the soul, would, in its state of harmony, have been
mere bodily organs."*
So much for the author's psychology let us now
proceed to the ontological part of the work.
To the Supreme Being, will and understanding belong
in a supreme degree; in him they exist in the most
perfect harmony will is understanding, and under-
standing will. But with no propriety can the faculty of
reason be ascribed to the Deity; and " it is remarkable,"
says the author, " that nowhere in Holy Writ, nor in the
sacred traditions of the primitive nations, nor in the
writings of the great philosophers of antiquity, is the
term reason ever used in reference to Almighty God. It
is only among a few of the later, degenerate, and ration-
alist sects of philosophy, the Stoics for example, that the
expression Divine Reason is ever met with. If such an
expression is incorrect or unsound, with still less fitness
* Philosophic des Lebens," p. 142.
FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 59
and decorum can the faculty of imagination be assigned
to the God-head the very term would shock the under-
standings, and revolt the inmost feelings, of all men.
The Deity, reveals himself unto men in four different
ways in Scripture (including of course its running and
necessary commentary, ecclesiastical Tradition); in
Nature in Conscience, and in History.
" Holy Writ," says the author, "as it is delivered to
us, and as it was begun and founded three-and-thirty
centuries ago, does not exclude the elder sacred traditions
of the preceding two thousand four hundred years; or
the revelation, which was the common heritage of the
whole human race. On the contrary, it contains very
explicit allusions to the fact, that such a revelation was
imparted to the first man, as well as to that patriarch who,
after the destruction of the primeval world of giants, was
the second progenitor of mankind. As the sacred know-
ledge derived from this revelation flowed on every side,
and in copious streams over the succeeding generations of
men, the ancient and holy traditions were soon disfigured,
and covered over with fictions and fables; where, amid a
multitude of remarkable vestiges and glorious traits of
true religion, immoral mysteries and Bacchanalian rites
were often intermixed, and truth itself, as in a second
chaos, buried under a mass of contradictory symbols.
Thence arose that Babylonish confusion of languages,
sagas, and symbols, which is universally found among
the ancient, and even the primitive nations. In the great
work of the restoration of true religion, which accord-
ingly we must regard as a second revelation, or rather as a
second stage of revelation, a rigid proscription of those
heathen fictions, and of all the immorality connected with
them, was the first and most essential requisite. But in
that gospel of creation, which forms the introduction to the
whole Bible, that elder revelation, accorded to the first
man and to the second progenitor, is expressly laid down
as the ground- work; and in this introduction we shall find
60 THE LITEKAKY LIFE OF
the clue to the history and religion of the primitive world
nay, it is the true Genesis of all historical science."*
Now 'with respect to the secondary or more indirect
modes, by which the Deity communicates himself to men,
the author observes, that " Nature, too, is a book written
on both sides, within and without, in which the finger
of God is clearly visible : a species of Holy Writ, in a
bodily form a glorious panegyric, as it were, on God's
omnipotence, expressed in the most vivid symbols. To-
gether with these two great witnesses of the glory of the
Creator, Scripture, and nature the voice of conscience is
an inward revelation of God the first index of those
other two greater and more general sources of revealed
truths; while History, by laying before our eyes the
march of Divine Providence a Providence whose loving
agency is apparent as well in the lives of individuals as
in the social career of nations History, I say, constitutes
the fourth revelation of God."j-
We have next to consider the conduct of Divine
Providence in the education of the human race. How
do we educate the boy ? We first endeavour to awaken
his sense then we cultivate his soul, or his moral faculties ;
while at the same time, we aid the gradual unfolding of
his understanding. It is so with the divine education of
mankind. In the primitive relation indeed, the first man
received the highest intellectual illumination; an illumi-
nation, which, though at his fall it was obscured by sin,
still shines with a shorn splendour through all the history
and traditions of the primeval world. \Vhen, however,
by the abuse he had made of his great intellectual powers,,
man was successively deprived of all those high gifts with
which he had been originally endowed; when by the
errors of idolatry he had lapsed into a state of intellectual
infancy; then it was necessary that his sense should first
be awakened to divine things ; and this was accomplished
in the Mosaic revelation. But this revelation was only
* " Philosophic des Lebens," pp. 867. f Ibid., p. So.
FBEDERICK VON SCHLEGEL. 61
preparatory to another, destined to renovate tlie soul of
aumanity, and gradually illumine its intelligence. This
regeneration of the moral faculties of man was achieved
immediately and directly by Christianity; for, without
this moral regeneration, any sudden illumination of the
intellect would have been hurtful rather than beneficial to
mankind. Under the benign influence of Christianity,
the scientific enlightenment of the human mind has been
wisely progressive; but it seems reserved for the last
glorious ages of the triumphant church to witness the
full meridian splendour of human intelligence. Then
the great scheme of creation will be fulfilled; and the
intellectual light which played around the cradle will
brighten the last age of humanity.
Let us now proceed to consider nature in herself, and
in her relations to God, to the spiritual intelligences, and
to man.
Nature was originally the beautiful, the faultless work
of the Almighty's hand. But the rebel angel in his fall
brought disorder and death into all material creation.
Hence arose that chaos, which the breath of creative
Power only could remove. Thus, according to the
author, a wide interval occurs between the first and
second verse of Genesis. " In the beginning," says the
inspired historian, " God made heaven and earth," that is,
as the Nicene Creed explains it. the visible and invisible
world. " And the earth was without form, and void ;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep." But that
void that darkness that chaos proceeded not from the
luminous hand of an all-wise and all-perfect Maker but
from the disturbing influence of that fiend whom Holy
Writ hath called, with such unfathomable depth, the
" murderer from the beginning." Hence Schlegel terms
him in his sublime language, " the author or original of
death" (Erfinder des Todes).
On a subject of such vast importance, I presume not to
offer an opinion : but I must merely content myself with
the humble task of analysis. It may be proper to ob-
62 THE LITERARY LIFE OF
serve, however, that this opinion of Schlegel's would
seem, from a passage in the work of the great Catholic
writer, Molitor, to be consonant with the tradition of the
ancient synagogue. " The Cabala" says he, " was di-
vided into two parts the theoretical and the practical.
The former was composed of the patriarchal traditions on
the holy mystery of God, and the divine persons ; on
the spiritual creation and the fall of the angels ; on tlie
origin of the chaos of matter, and the renovation of the
world in the six days of the creation ; on the creation of
man, his fall, and the divine ways conducive to his re-
storation."*
" Death," says Schlegel, " came by sin into the world.
As by the fall of the first man, who was not created for
death, nor originally designed for death, death was trans-
mitted to the whole human race ; so by the preceding
fall of him, who was the first and most glorious of all
created spirits, death came into the universe, that is, the
eternal death, whose fire is inextinguishable. Hence it is
said : ' Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the
earth was without form, and void' as the mere tomb-
stone of that eternal death ; but the Spirit of God moved
over the waters, and therein lay the first vital germ of
the new creation.' "f
But if such is the origin of nature, how is its existence
perpetuated, and what will be its final destiny ?
Nature, as was said above, is a book of God's reve-
lation, written within and without. The outer part of
this sacred volume attests the supreme power, wisdom,
and goodness of the Creator in characters too clear and
luminous to be unperceived or misread by the dullest or
the most vitiated eye. The inner pages of this book
comprise a still more glorious revelation of God but
their language is more mysterious, and much which they
contain seems to have been wisely withheld, or rather
* See " Philosophie de la Tradition, traduite de I'Allemand," p. 26.
Paris, 1834.
f " Philosophie des Lebens," p. 126.
withdrawn :
FKEDEKICK VON SCHLEGEL. 63
withdrawn from the knowledge of mankind. It was
this acquaintance with the internal secrets of nature, de-
rived partly from revelation, and partly from intuition,
which gave the men of the primitive, and especially the
antediluvian, world such a vast superiority over all the
succeeding generations of mankind. But it was the abuse
of that knowledge, also, which brought about in the
primeval world a Satanic delusion, and a gigantic moral
and intellectual corruption, of which we can now scarcely
form the remotest idea. But this key to the inward
science of nature, which was taken away from a corrupt
world," that had so grossly abused it, seems now about to
be restored to man, renovated as his soul and intelligence
have been by a long Christian education. The physical
researches of the last fifty years, especially in Germany,
lead the inquirer more and more to the knowledge of this
Important truth, stamped on all the pages of ancient tra-
dition, and never effaced from the recollection of man-
kind, to wit, the action of spiritual intelligences on the
material world. The nature of this action is briefly
adverted to in the following passage (among many others
to the same purport), in the " Philosophy of Life." " It is
especially of importance," says the author, " for the
understanding of the general system of nature, to observe
how the modern chemistry mostly dissolves and decom-
poses all solid bodies, as well as water itself, into different
forms of elements of air, and thereby has taken away
from nature the appearance of rigidity and petrifaction.
There are everywhere living elemental powers hidden and
shut up under this appearance of rigidity. The quantity
of water in the air is so great that it would suffice for
more than one deluge ; a similar inundation of light
would occur, if all the light latent in darkness were at
once set free ; and all things would be consumed by fire,
if that element, in the quantity in which it exists, were
suddenly let loose. The salutary bonds, by which these
elemental powers are held in due equilibrium, one bound
by the other, and kept within its prescribed limits, I will
64 d THE LITERARY LIFE OF
love and respect of mankind, partly by an admirable trans-
lation of portions of Plato, partly by luminous critiques,
and partly again by the example of his own philosophy,
in form as well as spirit so eminently Platonic: then,
in the field of modern history, to have traced the rise and
progress of the European states, the genius of their civil
and political institutions, the causes and effects of their
moral and social revolutions, with an extent of learning, a
spirit of impartiality, and a depth and comprehensiveness
of understanding, unsurpassed by preceding writers, and
in his own age rivalled only by his illustrious countryman
Goerres: lastly, to have put the crowning glory to
a life so full of glorious achievement by his last philoso-
phical works, where a strong and broad light is thrown
upon the masteries of psychology, where the most im-
portant questions of ontology are treated with equal bold-
ness and sublimity of thought, and magnificence of fancy,
while even on physics many bright hints are thrown out,
which a deeper science will know one day how to turn to
account: such are the services which this illustrious man
has rendered to the cause of literature and philosophy.
Living in an age which is only an epoch of momentous
transition from the adolescence to the virility of the
human mind, he was evidently, together with some other
chosen spirits of his time, the precursor of an era of
Christian philosophy, when, to use the language of a
young, but very distinguished French writer (the Abbe
Gerbet), " the sterile dust of futile abstractions will be
swept away, and the antique faith will appear crowned
with all the rays of science." " Already," continues the
writer just quoted, " even infidel science, astonished at
her own discoveries, which disconcert alike ideology and
materialism, begins to suspect
" There are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamt of in that philosophy."
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTION.
And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon
the face of the deep; but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters." GEN. i. 2.
BY philosophy of history must not be understood a series of
remarks or ideas upon history, formed according to any con-
certed system, or train of arbitrary hypotheses attached to
facts. History cannot be separated from facts, and depends
entirely on reality; and thus the Philosophy of history, as it
is the spirit or idea of history, must be deduced from real his-
torical events, from the faithful record and lively narration of
facts it Jiuigt_be_the pure_e^nanationjof the great whole -jthe.
on ejconnected^ whole jof history ,"and-foip4h-right.-understajid-
ing of tliis connexion a clear arrangement is an essential con-
dition and an important aid. For although this great edifice
of universal history, where the conclusion at least is still want-
ing, is in this respect incomplete, and appears but a mighty
fragment, of whu'h_Avpn particular parts are less known to us
than others^ yet is this" edifice sufficiently advanced, and
mauy~6T~its great wings and members are sufficiently unfolded
to our view, to enable us, by a lucid arrangement of the dif-
ferent periods of history, to gain a clear insight into Jthe ge-
neral plan of the whole.
"It i^Tlms^^n^eiriron to render as intelligible as I possibly
can the general results and the connexion of all the past trans-
actions in the history of the human race ; to form a true judg-
ment on the particular portions or sections of history, accord-
F
66 PHILOSOPHY OF
ing to their intrinsic nature and real value in reference to the
general progress of mankind, carefully distinguishing what
was injurious, what advantageous, and what indifferent; and
thereby, as far as is possible to the limited perceptions of man,
to comprehend in some degree that mighty whole. This per-
ception this comprehension this right discernment of the
great events and general results of universal history, is what
might be termed a science of history ; and I would have here
preferred that term, were it not liable to much misconception,
and might have been understood as referring more to special
and learned inquiries, than the other name I have adopted to
denote the nature of the present work.
If we would seize and comprehend the general outline of
history, we must keep our eye steadily upon it ; and must not
suffer our attentions to be confused by details, or drawn off by
the objects immediately surrounding us. Judging from the
feelings of the present, nothing so nearly concerns our interests
as the matter of peace or war ; and this is natural, as in a prac-
tical point of view they are both affairs of the highest mo-
ment ; while the courageous and successful conduct of the one
insures the highest degree of glory, and the solid establish-
ment and lasting maintenance of the other may be considered
^as the greatest problem of political art and human wisdom.
\ But it is otherwise in universal history, when this is conceived
tin a comprehensive and enlarged spirit. Then the remotest
\Past, the highest antiquity, is as much entitled to our atten-
jtion as the passing events of the day, or the nearest concerns
(of our own time.
When a war, indeed, carried on more than two thousand
years ago, in which the belligerent parties have long ceased to
exist, when every thing has been since changed when a long
series of historical catastrophes has intervened between that
period and our own ; when such a warfare, offering as it does
but at best a remote analogy to the circumstances of nearer
times, and consequently possessing no immediate interest, has
been investigated by the mighty intellect of a Thucydides,
portrayed by him in the highest style of eloquence, and un-
folded to our view with the most consummate knowledge of
mankind, of public life, and of the most intimate relations of
Government ; such a warfare then retains a permanent interest,
and is a lasting source of instruction. We love to dive into
the minutes
HISTORY. 67
minutest details of an event so widely removed from us
and such a study is to be regarded and prized as highly use-
ful, were it only as an exercise of historical reflection, and a
school of political science. This remark will equally hold
good, when the internal feuds of a less powerful state have
been analysed and laid open by the acute perspicacity and
delicate discrimination of a Machiavelli. And still more, per-
haps, when a great system of pacification, like that which Au-
gustus gave, or promised to give to the whole civilised world,
and established for a certain period at least, has been fathomed
by the searching eye of a Tacitus, and by his masterly hand
delineated in its ulterior progress and remote effects ; showing,
as he does, how that surface, apparently so calm, concealed
numberless sources of disquiet an abyss of crime and destruc-
tion how that evil principle in the degenerate government
of Rome became more and more apparent, and under a suc-
session of wicked rulers, broke out into paroxysms more and
more fearful.
As a school of political science and historical reflection, the
study of these and similar classical historical works is of inesti-
mable advantage. But independently of this, and considered
merely in themselves, all those countless battles those endless,
and even, for the greater part, useless wars, of which the long
succession fills up for so many thousand years the annals of all
nations, are but little atoms compared with the great whole of
human destiny. The same, with a slight distinction, will hold
good of so many celebrated treaties of peace in past ages, when
these have lost all interest for real life and the present order of
things; treaties, which though brought about by great labour,
and upheld by consummate art, were yet internally defective,
and sooner or later, and often quickly enough, fell to pieces and
were destroyed.
From all these descriptions of ancient wars, and treaties of
peace, no longer applicable or of interest to the present world,
or present order of things, historical philosophy can deduce but
one, though by no means unimportant, result. It is this that
the internal discord, innate in man and in the human race, may
easily and at every moment break out into real and open strife
nay, that peace itself that immutable object of high political
art, when regarded from this point of view, appears to be no-
thing else than a war retarded or kept under by human dexte-
68 PHILOSOPHY OF
rity ; for some secret disposition some diseased political matter,
is almost ever at hand to call it into existence. In the same
way as a scientific physician regards the health of the body, or
its right temperature, as a happy equipoise a middle line not
easy to be observed between two contending evils we must
ever expect in such an organic imperfection a tendency to, or
the seeds of, disease in one shape or another.
V Political events form but one part, and not the whole, of
human history. j^jnowj.ejd|pij^d^
Yarious iLma:yJbei constitutes^nQ^g^iencain-the philosophic sense
ofjhe. .wordjjjpr it is in t^rjg^iiLjangLcon^prehensive conception
""""As the greater part of the nine hundred millions of men OD
the whole surface of the earth, according to the highest estimate
of a hazardous calculation, are born, live, and die, without a
history of them being possible, or without their reckoning a
fraction in the general history so that the extremely small
number of those called historical men, forms but a rare excep-
tion so there are nations and countries, which in a general
comparative survey of nations, serve but as a mark or evidence
of some particular stage of civilisation, without of themselves
holding any place in the general history of our species, or con-
ducing to the social progress of mankind, or possessing any
weight or importance in the scale of humanity.
There is a point of view, indeed, from which the matter ap-
pears under a different aspect, and is really different. To the
all-seeing eye of Providence, every human life, however brief
its duration, however apparently insignificant, presents a point
of internal development and crisis, consequently a species of
history, cognizable and visible to that Eye only, and, therefore,
not entirely without an object. But this point of view belongs
to another order of things, and is no longer historical it has
reference to the immortal destinies of the human soul, and the
connexion of the present life with another world invisible to
us. But^ our historical science is limited to the department of
existencej, and _in_our historical inquiries we must
njrtjose si
, .~" But the internal development of mind, so far as it is histo-
rical, belongs as much as the external events of politics to the
department of human history, and must by 110 means be ex-
cluded from it. Among these rare exceptions of historical men
HISTORY. 69
must be named that ancient master of human acuteness, who
was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and who perhaps holds
not an humbler or less important place in this exalted sphere
than the conqueror himself, although this philosopher, whose
genius embraced nature, the world, and life, was by his own
contemporaries less honoured and celebrated than by a remote
posterity. Here in our western world, and long after the king-
doms founded by the Macedonian conqueror had disappeared,
And were forgotten, Aristotle for many centuries reigned the
absolute lord of the Christian schools, and directed the march
of human science and human speculation in the middle age.
Whether he were always rightly understood and studied in the
right way is another question, for here we are speaking of his
overruling influence and historical importance. Nay, in later
times, he has materially served the cause of the better natural
philosophy founded on experience, in which he himself accom-
plished things so extraordinary for his age, and was originally,
and for a long while, the guide and master.
The first fundamental rule of historical science and research,*
when by these is sought a knowledge of the general destinies
of mankindjjs tojkeep these and every olgect connected with
thm_stadily in view, without losing o\irse^lvesjn_^ejdetails of
special inquiries and particular facts, for the multitude and
variety of these ^subjects is absolutely boundless; and on TiKe
ocetrrrciTRistorical science Uie~mam subject easily vanishes from
the eye. In history, as in every branch of mental culture, the
first elementary school-instruction is not merely an important,
but an essential, condition to a higher and more scientific know-
ledge. At first, indeed, it is merely a nomenclature of cele-
brated personages and events a sketch of the great historical
eras, divided according to chronological dates, or a geographical
plan which must be impressed on the memory, and which
serves as a basis preparatory to that more vivid and compre-
hensive knowledge to be obtained in riper years. Thus this
first knowledge stored up in the memory, and necessary for me-
thodising and arranging the mass of historical learning to be
afterwards acquired, is more a preparation for the study of his-
tory, than the real science of history itself. In the higher
grades of academic instruction, the lessons on history must vary
with each one's calling and pursuits one course of historical
reading is necessary for the theologian, another for the lawyer
70 PHILOSOPHY OF
or civilian. To the physician, and in general to the naturalist,
natural history, and what in the history of man is most akin to
that science, will ever be the most captivating. And the phi-
lologist will find a boundless field for inquiry in special anti-
quarian researches, particularly now when, in addition to clas-
sical learning and the more common Oriental tongues, the
languages and historical antiquities of the remoter nations of
Asia have attracted the attention of European scholars, and the
original sources are becoming every day more accessible.
Even the sphere of modern political history, from which for
the practical business of government so much is to be learned, will
be found equally extensive when, besides the modern classical
works, we look to the countless multitude of private memoirs
and other historical and political writings; especially at a time
and in a world where even periodical publications and news-
papers have become a power and an art or a science, and society
itself falls more and more under the sway of journalism. If in this
department of politics and statistics, we add also the number of
imprinted documents, we shall find that the archives of many a
state would alone furnish occupation for more than a man's life.
In all such special departments of historical science, the great
whole of history is made subordinate to some secondary object;
and this cannot be otherwise. It may even be advantageous
for the profounder knowledge and more skilful exposition of
universal history that we should seriously investigate some par-
ticular branch of history; and, in a science so various, select
some special subject, for more minute inquiry; but this can
never be done without some decided predilection some almost
party bias towards the subject. Yet such special inquiries are
only preparatory or auxiliary to .the general science or philo-
sophy of history but not that science itself. Thus at the out-
set of my literary career, I devoted a considerable time to a
very minute study of the Greeks* and subsequently I applied
myself to the Hindoo language and philosophy, at that time
more difficult of access than at the present day-f In the strug-
gles of life, and amid the public dangers of our times, I was alive to
* Schlegel's first great work was entitled " The Greeks and the Ko-
mans," published in the year 1797.
f The result of our author's researches on Hindoo literature and phi-
losophy was evinced in his work entitled, " The Language and Wisdom
of the Indians," published in IgOS.
HISTORY. 71
a patriotic feeling for the history of my own country, and recent
times; and, perhaps, there are some among my present hearers
who remember the historical lectures I delivered in this spirit
eighteen years ago in this imperial city.* It is now my wish,
and the object I propose to myself, to discard all antiquarian,
Oriental, or European predilections for particular branches of
history, and to unfold to view, and render completely clear and
intelligible, the great edifice, of universal history in all its parts, ;
members, and" degrees. The first fundamental rule here laid
dawn, with respect to the mode of treating general history '
namely, to keep the attention fixed on the main subject, and not
to let it be distracted or dissipated by a number of minute
details concerned more the method of historical science. The "
second rule regards the subject and purport of history, and
stands in more immediate connexion with the first portion of
this work that relating to primitive history. This second
fundamental rule of historical science may be thus simply ex-
pressed: we should not wish to explain everything'. Histo-
rical tradition must never be abandoned in the philosophy of
liistory otherwise we lose all firm ground and footing. But
historical tradition, ever so accurately conceived and carefully
sifted, doth not always, especially in the early and primitive J
ages, bring with ^ n. full anfLA>inr^f t raiivp ggr^amty. In such
cases, we have nothing to do but to record, as it is given, the
best and safest testimony which tradition, so far as we have it,
can afford; supposing even that some things in that testimony
appear strange, obscure, and even enigmatical; and perhaps a
comparison with some other part of historical science or, if I
may so speak, stream of tradition, will unexpectedly lead to the
solution of the difficulty. JExtremely. hazardous is the desire^ to '
expkiiri^every thing, and to supply whatever apgearsa gap in j
JTistory.. for in this propensity lies the first cause and germ o~f
all those violent and arMtrary3ypa
pervert the science of history far more than the "open. avowarbf ;
our ignorarjjce v .or^the uncertainty of our knowledge : hypotheses
which give an obfi^ue direction, or an exaggerated and false
extension, to a view of the subject originally not incorrect. And
even if there are points which appear not very clear to us, or
which we leave unexplained this will not prevent us from com-
* Schlegel alludes to " The Lectures on Modern History," which he
delivered at Vienna in the vear 1810.
72 PHILOSOPHY OF
prehending, so far at least as the limited conception of man is
able, the great outline of human history, though here and there
a gap should remain.
This matter will be best explained by an example that will
bring us at once to the subject we propose to treat. Let us
imagine some bold navigators (and what we here suppose by
way of example has more than once actually occurred) touch-
ing at some island inhabited by wild savages in the midst of
the great ocean between America and Eastern Asia. This
island lies, we suppose, at a very great distance from either
continent, and the same will hold good of it, though there be
a group of islands. These savages have but miserable fishing-
boats made of hollow trunks of trees, by which it is not easy
to conceive how they could have been transported so far. The
Suestion now naturally occurs how has this race of men come
ither?
A pagan natural philosophy, which even now dares often
enough to raise its voice, would be very ready with its answer:
" There, it would say, you see plainly how every thing has
sprung from the pap of the earth the primitive slime there
is no need of the far-fetched idea of an imaginary Creator
these self-existing men of the earth these well-known autoc-
thones of the ancients these true sons of nature have risen
up or crawled out of the fruitful slime of the earth."
A deeper physiological science would, independently of every
other consideration, and looking merely to the natural organi-
sation of man, scout this wild chaotic hypothesis respecting his
origin from slime. For this organic frame of the human body,
which has become a body of death, it still endowed with many
and wonderful powers, and stijl encloses thejiidden lig-ht of its
celestial origin. Without7"however, entering further into this
inquiry, which falls not within the limits here prescribed, let
us rather tacitly believe that although, as the ancient history
saith, man was formed out of the slime of the earth ; yet it
was by the same Hand which invisibly conducts each indivi-
dual through life, and has more than once rescued all mankind
from the brink of the abyss, that his marvellous body was
framed, into which the Maker himself breathed the immortal
spirit of life. This divine in -dwelling spark in man, the
heathens themselves, notwithstanding the opinion about the
autocthones, recognised in the beautiful tradition or fiction of
HISTOEY. 73
Prometheus ; and many of their first spirits, philosophers,
orators, and poets, and grave and moral teachers, have in one
form or another, and under a variety of figurative expressions,
borne frequent, and loud, and repeated testimony to the truth
of a higher spirit, a divine flame, animating the breast of man.
This universal faith in the heavenly Promethean light or as
we should rather say, this spark of our bosoms is the only
thing we must here pre-suppose, and from which all our his-
torical deductions must be taken. With the opposite doctrine
with the absolute unbelief in all which constitutes man.
really man no history, and no science of history, is possible ;
and this is the only remark we shall here oppose to an infidelity
that denies the existence of every thing high and godly. . For
the question respecting the creation of man, or as atheism ]
terms it, the first springing up of the human race, is beyond
the limits of history, and must be left to the decision of re vela- !
tion and faith ; for the question can be reached by no history, I
no science of history no historical research. History begins,
as this will be presently shown, with man's second step ;
which immediately follows his concealed origin antecedent to all
history.
To recur now to the example already given of an island
situated in the middle of the ocean, with its savage inhabitants
and their miserable fishing-boats the real solution, as experi-
ence has really proved, of this apparent difficulty is, on a nearer
acquaintance with the subject, easily found. If, for example,
the language and traditions of this rude, savage, or at least
degraded, tribe, are minutely studied and investigated, then so
striking a resemblance and affinity will be found with the lan-
guages and traditions of the races in either of the remotely
situated continents, that the most sceptical mind will hardly
entertain a doubt respecting the common origin of both ; for
this community in language and traditions is too strong, too
strikingly evident, to be ascribed with any degree of proba-
bility to the sport of accident. This truth now once firmly
established (for a community of language, tradition, and race
among all the nations of the earth is a truth almost unani-
mously received and acknowledged by those historical inquirers
most versed in nature, and most learned in philology of the
present age), it becomes a mere matter of indifference, or one
at least of minor importance, how and in what way this
74 PHILOSOPHY OF
originally savage, or at least barbarised tribe first arrived
hither; and it were a mere waste of labour to select, among
the hundred conceivable or inconceivable accidents and possi-
bilities which may have occasioned or led to this arrival, any
particular one as the best explanation, and to found thereon
some ingenious hypothesis, how the land on both sides may
have been differently situated, before a closer connexion with
this little island was broken off by the destructive floods ; or in
which of the last great catastrophes of the earth that disjunc-
tion may have taken place. We may leave such conjectures
to themselves, and, satisfied with the main result, proceed
further in the historical investigation and survey of the earth.
For, in truth, the earth's surface more narrowly and carefully
examined, furnishes, in reference to man and his primitive
history, far other and weightier problems than those involved
in the example first selected.
It is generally known that in a great many places situated
in various parts of the earth, in the interior of mountains and
even on plains, sometimes near the surface, and sometimes at a
greater or less depth in the interior of mountainous chains
rising to a very great elevation above the level of the sea,
there are found whole strata of scattered bones belonging to
animal species either actually existing, or which formerly
existed and are now totally extinct the chaotic remains of an
all destroying inundation that immediately remind us of the
general tradition respecting the great Flood. In other places
again extensive layers of coral, sea-shells, marine plants, and
other products of the sea, imbedded in the firm soil, prove
these tracts of land to have been an ancient bottom of the
sea. According to all appearance, these are not only monu-
ments of one great natural revolution, but these elemental
gigantic sepulchres of the primitive world offer to the mind
many and various problems which more nearly, indeed, regard
the earth, but as that planet is the habitation of man, have in
consequence an indirect, but proximate, reference to mankind
and their earliest history. A single example will best serve to
point out among so many things, which are no longer perhaps
susceptible of explanation, that which is of most moment to
the historian ; as well as the limits within which he should
keep.
Not long back, about nine years ago, a cave was discovered
HISTORY. 75
a the county of Yorkshire, in England, filled for the most
sart with the bones and skeletons of hyaenas, of the same species
now found in the southernmost point of Africa the Cape of
Good Hope, These bones were intermixed with those of tigers,
bears, wolves, as also of elephants, rhinosceri, and other ani-
mals, among which were found the remains of the old large
deer, that is not now to be met with in England. The pro-
found naturalist, Schubert, whom, in subjects of this kind, I
willingly take for my guide, observes in his natural history
with respect to this newly -discovered cavern (which evidently
belongs to another, long extinct, and anterior world of nature),
that the opinion which would make a whole stratum of bones
to have been swept thither by floods in so sound a state, and
from so remote a distance, is perfectly inadmissible. He shows
it to be much more probable that this cave was the den of a
troop of hyaenas, which had dragged thither the bones of the
other animals ; for this fell and rapacious animal feeds by pre-
ference on bones, which it knows how to break, as it is in the
habit of raking up dead bodies. What an immense interval
separates that now highly civilised state those flourishing
provinces that country abounding, and almost overteeming
with all the fruits of human industry, with all the productions
of mechanic skill ; that cultivated garden, that Island- Queen,
the mistress of every sea ; what an immense interval sepa-
rates her from those savage times, when troops of hyaenas
prowled about the land, together with the other gigantic ani-
mals, of the southern zone, and tropic clime !
Thus it is natural to suppose that in one of the last great
revolutions of nature the climate of the earth has undergone a
total change ; and that originally the now icy north enjoyed a
glowing warmth, a rich fertility, and all the fulness of luxuriant
life. A number of still more decisive facts declare for this
supposition, or, to speak more properly, this certainty ; since
we discover in the upper parts of Northern Asia, and in gene-
ral throughout the Polar regions, entire forests of palm in the
subterraneous strata, as also well preserved remains of whole
herds of elephants, and of many other kindred species of ani-
mals now totally extinct. Long before most of these facts
were discovered, Leibnitz had conjectured that originally the
earth in general, even in the north, enjoyed a much warmer
temperature than in the present period of all-ruling and pro-
76 PHILOSOPHY OF
gressive frost ; and Buffon and others have established on this
idea their hypothesis of a vast central fire in the interior of the
earth. The interior parts of the earth and its internal depths
are a region totally impervious to the eye of mortal man, and
can least of all be approached by those ordinary paths of hypo-
thesis adopted by naturalists and geologists. The region
designed for the existence of man, and of every other creature
endowed with organic life, as well as the sphere open to the
preception of man's senses, is confined to a limited space
between the upper and lower parts of the earth, exceedingly
small in proportion to the diameter, or even semi-diameter, of
the earth, and forming only the exterior surface, or outer skins,
of the great body of the earth. Even at a very slight depth
below the earth's surface, all change of seasons ceases, and an
even temperature eternally prevails, approximating rather to
cold than living heat. Yet on this side the earth is more easy
of access than in the upper regions, where not only the higher
Alps and glaciers are the last attainable limit to human daring,
but even the pure ether of the supernal atmosphere made an
aeronaut, celebrated for his disaster, learn at his own cost, how
very near is that boundary where, in deadening cold, all life
and all observation cease. It is in the physical, as in the
moral world where light and heat should exist, there two
things are necessary a power to give light and communicate
heat, and a substance capable of receiving and absorbing the
one and the other. Where either condition is wanting, there
reigns eternal darkness, and deadly and eternal cold ; and so
the fact, that the whole action of heat, and of all the life it
produces, is confined entirely to this lower atmosphere, should
awake attention rather than create surprise. In all matters,
even of this sort, we cannot be too mindful of the necessity of
confining our researches to that small narrowly circumscribed
sphere inhabited by man, and of never exceeding those limits.
Thus to explain the fact that the habitable earth has not, as
originally, so warm a temperature as the north, we need not
have recourse to any supposition of a central fire suddenly ex-
tinguished, like an oven that becomes cold, or to any other
violent hypothesis of the same kind ; for this fact may be suffi-
ciently accounted for by the last great revolution of nature the
general deluge, which as may be assumed with great proba-
bility, produced a change in the heretofore much purer, balmier,
HISTORY. 77
: nd more genial atmosphere. That towards the equator, the
] >ositions of the earth's axis has undergone a change, and that
1 hereby this great revolution in the earth's climate was occa-
sioned, is indeed a bare possibility ; but until further proof,
i;his must be regarded as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. But
without subscribing to these fanciful suppositions, and mathe-
matical theories, and without wishing to penetrate, with some
geologists, into the hidden depths of the earth in quest of an
imagined central fire, we shall find on the inhabited surface
of the globe, or very near it, many proofs and indications of
the once superior energy of the principle of fire a principle
whereof volcanoes, whether subsisting or extinct, and the kin-
dred phenomena of earthquakes, may be considered the last
feeble surviving effects ; for not basalt only, but porphyry,
granite, and in general all the primary rocks, and those which,
according to the classification of geologists, are more immedi-
ately akin to them, can be proved to be of a volcanic nature
with as much certainty, as we can trace, in the horizontal se-
condary formations, the destructive influence and operation of
the element of water. Hence this layer of subterraneous,
though now in general slumbering fire, with all its volcanic
arteries and veins of earthquakes, may once have been as
widely diffused over the surface of the globe, as the element
of water, now occupying so large a portion of that surface.
As volcanic rocks exist in the ocean, or rather at its bottom,
and as their irruptions burst through the body of waters up
to the surface of the sea ; as their volcanic agency gives birth
to earthquakes, and not unfrequently raises, and heaves up
new islands from the depths of the ocean ; naturalists have
concluded, with reason for these various facts, that the volcanic
basis of the earth's surface, though tolerably near, must still
be somewhat deeper than the bottom of the sea. And without
stopping to examine the hypothesis relative to the immea-
surable depth of the ocean, the opinion which fixes the earth's
basis at about 30,000 feet, or one geographical mile and a half
below the level of the sea, does not exceed the modest limits of a
well-considered probability. In the present period of the globe,
water is the predominant element on the earth's surface. But if
that volcanic power which lies deeper in the bosom of the earth,
and the kindred principle of fire, had at an early epoch of nature,
78 PHILOSOPHY OF
the same influence and operation on the earth, as water after-
wards had, we can well imagine such an influence to have
materially affected the lower atmosphere, and to have rendered
the climate of the earth, even at the north, totally different
from what it is at present.
The strata of bones formed by the old flood, and the buried
remains of a former race of animals, call forth a remark, which
is not without importance in respect to the primitive history
of man ; it is, that among the many bones of other large and
small land animals, which form of themselves a rich and varied
collection of the subterraneous products of nature, the fossile
remains of man are scarcely anywhere to be found. It has
sometimes happened that what were at first considered the bones
of human giants, have been afterwards proved to have been,
those of animals. It is no very rare an instance to meet in
fossile remains with a real human bone, skull, jaw-bone, or
entire human skeleton (as in one particular instance was found
enclosed in a lime-stone, mixed with some few utensils and in-
struments of the primitive world, such as a stone-knife, a
copper axe, an iron club, and a dagger of a very ancient form,
together with some human bones); that the very rareness of
the exception serves only to confirm the general rule. Were
we from this fact immediately to draw the conclusion that
during all those revolutions of nature, mankind had not yet
existence, such an hypothesis would be rash, groundless, com-
pletely at variance with history one to which many even phy-
sical objections, too long to detail here, might be opposed.
That so very few, and indeed scarcely any human bones are
to be found among the fossile remains of the primitive world,
may possibly be owing to the circumstance that by the very
artificial, hot, and highly-seasoned food of men, their bones,
from their chemical nature and qualities, are more liable to
destruction than those of other animals. I may here repeat
what I have already had occasion to remark, and what is here
of especial importance, as applying particularly to the history
and circumstances of the primitive world ; namely, that all
things are not susceptible of an entire, satisfactory, anoT abso-
lutely' certaljTlixplar^^ tole-
rably correct conception of general facts ; thojujh. many of the
particulars may remain for a time unexplained, or at least not
HISTORY.
79
3apable of a full explanation. So on the other hand, it would
je premature, and little conformable to the grave circumspection
of the historian, to reduce all those natural catastrophes (the
vouching monuments and mysterious inscriptions of which are
now daily disclosed to the eye of Science as she explores the
deep sepulchres of the earth) to reduce, I say, all those
natural catastrophes exclusively to the one nearest to the his-
torical times, and which, indeed, is attested by the clear,
unanimous tradition of all, or at least of most ancient nations ;
for several mighty and violent revolutions of nature, of various
kinds, though of a less general extent, may possibly have hap-
pened, and very probably did really happen stimultaneously
with, or subsequently, or even previously to the last general
flood.
The irruption of the Black Sea into the Thracian Eosphorus
is regarded by very competent judges in such matters, as an
event perfectly historical, or at least, from its proximity to the
historical times, as not comparatively of so primitive a date.
A celebrated northern naturalist has shown it to be extremely
probable that the Caspian Sea, and the Lake Aral were origi-
nally united with the Euxine, and that on the other hand, the
North Sea extended very far over land, and even near to those
regions, leaving some marine plants very different from those
of the Southern Seas. The sea originally must have stretched
much further over the earth and even over many places where
now is dry land, as may easily be inferred from the great and
extensive salt-steppes in Asia, Africa, and some parts of
Eastern Europe, which furnish many and irrefragable proofs
that the land was once occupied by the sea.
All these great physical changes are not necessarily and
exclusively to be ascribed to the last general deluge. The
presumed irruption of the Mediterranean into the ocean, as
well as many other mere partial revolutions in the earth and
sea, may have occurred much later, and quite apart from this
great event. The original magnificence of the climate of the
north, as displayed in the luxuriant richness of all organic
productions, is commemorated in many traditions of the primi-
tive nations, especially those of Southern Asia ; and in these
Sagas, the north is ever made the subject of uncommon
eulogy. That the north enjoys a certain natural pre-eminence
80 PHILOSOPHY OF
appears to be matter of certainty, and to be even susceptible
of scientific demonstration. The northern and southern ex-
tremities of our planet appear at least to be very unlike, if \ve
judge the terraqueous globe according to the present state of
geographical knowledge. While the old and new continents,
the north of Asia and of America, extend in long and wide
tracts of land high up towards the North Pole, so that the
boundaries of land cannot be everywhere perfectly defined ;
water is the predominant element around the colder South
Pole, to which even the southernmost point of America, and
the remotest island of Potynesia the extreme verge of land
make no near approach ; and beyond these points, so far
as the boldest navigators have been able to penetrate, they
have discovered only sea and ice, and nowhere a real Polar
region of any great extent. Thus the South Pole is the cold
and watery side, or as we should say in dynamics, the negative
and weaker end of the earth's body, while the North Pole on
the other hand appears to be the positive and stronger extre-
mity ; for, though the centre of the earth's magnetic attraction
and magnetic life, accords not mathematically with the northern
point, yet it lies at no very great distance from it. In other
phenomena of nature, too, the real seat and principle of life
will be found, not at the mathematical point, but a little
removed from it.
Another circumstance worthy of consideration is, that the
northern firmament possesses by far the largest and most
brilliant constellations, and that though the southern firma-
ment is embellished by its own, they are neither in the same-
number, nor of the same beauty. To the impressions made
by such objects, the men of the primitive ages were certainly
far more alive than those of the present day ; and an obscure
feeling for nature, grounded on the real natural superiority of
the north, as well as the poetical Sagas which were in part the
natural offspring of such feelings, may have contributed to
direct the stream of the first migrations of nations towards
the north, and have occasioned the very early colonisation
and settlement of its regions : for, in primitive antiquity, a
certain presentient instinct, it is right to suppose, was much
oftener the primary cause of those migrations than such a
spirit of commercial speculation as afterwards animated the
HISTORY. 81
Phoenicians and their various colonies. We may here also
observe, that even in its present state, the remoter north has
its own peculiar charms and advantages, and that by human
industry it may attain t to a much higher degree of productive-
ness, than we should be at first-sight tempted to suppose. In
this sense ought to be taken the tradition of antiquity, as to
the happy and virtuous people of the Hyperboreans ; and it
is easy to understand it in this sense without inferring thence
too many consequences. If, on the other hand, some able and
learned naturalists, led away by this fact, appear almost inclined
to regard the region of the North Pole, once in the enjoyment
of a warm southern temperature, as one of the earliest, nay,
the very earliest abode of the human race ; I cannot follow
them in their hypothesis, opposed as it is to the positive and
unanimous tradition of many and most ancient nations, pointing
with one concurrent voice to Central Asia as man's primitive
dwelling-place. It appears, indeed, that the tradition of anti-
quity as to the Island of Atlantis ought to be considered
historical ; but instead of regarding this country as an island
of the Blessed situated in the arctic circle, I think it much
more natural to refer the whole tradition to an obscure nautical
knowledge of America, or of those adjacent islands at which
Columbus first touched, and to which the Phoenician pilots (who
beyond all doubt circumnavigated Africa) may not improbably
have been driven in the course of their voyage.
I have laid it down as an invariable maxim constantly to
follow historical tradition, and to hold fast by that clue, even
when many things in the testimony and declarations of tradition
appear strange and almost inexplicable, or at least enigmatical ;
for so soon as in the investigations of ancient history we let
slip that thread of Ariadne, we can find no outlet from the
labyrinth of fanciful theories, and the chaos of clashing
opinions. For this reason I cannot concur in the very violent
hypothesis which a celebrated geologist towards the close of
the last century, M. De Luc, has hazarded respecting the
deluge, and which the excellent Stolberg has adopted in his
great historical work ;* although the author of this theory, so
far from intending to oppose it to the Mosaic account of the
* The History of Beligion by Count Frederick Stolberg; a noble
monument raised by genius and learning to the honour of Keligion.
Trans.
82 PHILOSOPHY OF
deluge, or to set aside the narrative of the inspired historian,
conceived his hypothesis was calculated to furnish the strongest
confirmation and clearest illustration of the sacred text. But
I cannot reconcile his theory either with Holy Writ, or with
the general testimony of historical tradition. The supposition
is this, that the deluge was not a general inundation of the
whole earth, according to the ordinary belief, but a mere
change of the solid and fluid parts of the earth's surface, a dyna-
mical transmutation of land and sea, so that what was formerly
land became sea, and vice versa. This is much more than can
be found in the old account of the Noachian flood, or than a
sound critical interpretation would infer ; and the supposition
that the names of rivers and countries occurring in the Bible,
refer to those objects as they existed in the original dry land ;
and are again to be transferred to similar objects in the new
land that sprung up with, or after, or out of the deluge ; this
supposition, I say, bears too evidently the stamp of arbitrary
conjecture, to gain admission and credit with those who have
taken historical tradition for their guide. If by the geological
facts which offer, or which we think offer, satisfactory proof,
not only of the general Noachian flood, but of more than one
deluge and of still more violent catastrophes of nature ; if by
these geological facts before our eyes, such a total revolution
and dynamic transmutation of land and sea were really proved
(and the character of these proofs I must abandon to the
investigation and judgment of others) ; this great revolution
examined in an historical point of view, and in reference to
the Mosaic history, must then be rather referred to that elder
period, whereof it is said : " The earth was without form and
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; but the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
These words which announce the presage of a new morn of
creation, not only represent a darker and wilder state of the
globe, but very clearly show the element of water to be still
in predoinmant force. Even the division of the elements of
the waters above the firmament, and of the waters below it. on
the second day of creation the permanent limitation of the
sea for the formation and visible appearance of dry land, neces-
sarily imply a mighty revolution in the earth, and afford
addtional proof that the Mosaic history speaks not only of
HISTORY. 83
one, but of several catastrophes of nature ; a circumstance
that has not been near enough attended to in the geological
interpretation and illustration of the Bible. But to the bold
and ill-founded hypothesis above-mentioned, many geological
facts may be opposed, for in the midst of vast tracts and strata
of an ancient bottom of the sea, many spots are found covered
with the accumulated remains of land animals, with trunks of
trees and various other products of vegetation, pertaining not
to the sea, but to dry land.
With the clearest and most indubitable precision, the Mosaic
history fixes the primitive dwelling-place of man in that central
region of Western Asia situate near two great rivers, and amid
four inland seas, the Persian and Arabian gulfs on the one
hand, and the Caspian and Mediterranean seas on the other,
and which is likewise designated for the same purpose by the
concurrent traditions of most other primitive nations. The
ancient tradition of the European nations as to their own origin
and early history, conducts the inquirer constantly to the Cau-
casian regions, to Asia Minor, to Phoenicia, and to Egypt;
countries all of them contiguous to, in the vicinity and even on
the coast of, that central region. Among the primitive Asiatic
nations, the Chinese place the cradle of their origin and civilisa-
tion in the north-western province of Shensee ; and the Indians
fix theirs towards the north of the Himalaya Mountains. Thus
this last tradition points to Bactriana, which, as it borders
on Persia, approximates consequently to that central region ;
whereof the holy and primitive country of the Persian Sagas,
Atropatena or land of fire, now known by the name of Adher-
bijan, forms a part. With a clearness and precision which admit
of no doubt, the Mosaic history designates the two great rivers
of that central region, the Tigris and Euphrates, by the same
names which they have ever afterwards borne; and even the
name of Eden, down to a later period, was affixed to a country
near Damascus, and to another in Assyria. The third river of
Paradise has been sought for by some in a more northerly di-
rection in the region of Mount Caucasus; and though not
with equal certainty as in the other two instances, they have
thought to find it in the Phasis. The fourth river towards the
south, the old interpreters generally took to be the Nile; but
the description of its course is so widely different from the pre-
84 PHILOSOPHY OF
sent situation of that river, and the present geography of the
whole of those regions, that here at least a very great change
must have occurred, in order to occasion this discrepancy be-
tween the old description of this river's course, and the pre-
sent geography of the country.
In another circumstance, also, which has been mostly too
little attended to, this disparity between the Mosaic descrip-
tion and the present conformation of those regions is particu-
larly striking. The geography of the rivers of Paradise, at least
of two or three, may be easily traced, though the fourth remains
a matter of uncertainty ; but the one source of Paradise in
which those four rivers had their rise, in order thence to spread,
and diffuse fertility over the whole earth this one source,
which is precisely the object of most importance, can nowhere
be found on the earth ; whether it be dried or filled up, or how-
soever it has been removed. In attending to some indications
in Scripture, and without transgressing the due limits of inter-
pretation, may we not be permitted to conjecture that the first
chastisement inflicted on man by expulsion from his first glo-
rious habitation and primeval home, may have been accom-
panied by a change in Paradise brought about by some natural
convulsion? To judge by analogy, and from circumstances,
which even a passage in Holy Writ alludes to, this convulsion
must have been rather a volcanic eruption, by which even at
the present day the sources of rivers are dried up, and their
course completely changed, than a mere inundation that we are
ever wont to regard as the sole possible cause of physical revo-
lutions. Many vestiges of such changes may perhaps be proved
from even geological observation; thus to cite only one ex-
ample, the Dead Sea in Palestine itself may be included in the
number of those lakes that bear very evident traces of a volcanic
origin. The supposition, however, which we have ventured to
make, must not be looked upon in the light of a formal hypo-
thesis, but rather as a question dictated by a love of inquiry,
and by a desire for the further elucidation of a subject not yet
sufficiently understood.
Thus have I now taken a general survey of the early condi-
tion of the globe, considered as the habitation of man, and as
far as was necessary for that object; and in this rapid sketch I
have endeavoured, as far as was possible for a layman, to place
HISTORY. 85
in the clearest light the most remarkable and best attested
facts and discoveries of geology, with a constant attention to
the testimony of primitive and historical tradition. No longer
embarrassed by these physical discussions, we may now proceed
to meet the main question : " What relation hath man to this
his habitation earth ; what place doth he occupy therein; and
what rank doth he hold among the other creatures and co-
habitants of this globe, what is his proper destiny upon, and in
relation to, the earth, and what is it which really constitutes
him man?"
The absolute, and, for that reason, pagan system of natural
philosophy spoken of above, has indeed, in these latter times, had
the courage, laudable perhaps in the perverse course which it
had taken, to rank man with the ape, as a peculiar species of
the general kind. When in its anatomical investigations, it
has numbered the various characteristics of this human ape,
according to the number of its vertebrae, its toes, &c., it con-
cedes to man, as his distinguishing quality, not what Vve are
wont to call reason, perfectibility, or the faculty of speech, but
"a capacity for constitutions!" Thus man would be a liberal
ape ! And so far from disagreeing with the author of this
opinion, we think man may undoubtedly become so to a certain
extent, although the idea that he was originally nothing more
than a nobler or better disciplined ape is alike opposed to the
voice of history, and the testimony of natural science. If in
the examination of man's nature we will confine our view ex-
clusively to the lower world of animals, I should say that the
possible contagion and communication of various diseases, and
organic properties and powers of animals, would prove in man
rather a greater sympathy and affinity of organic life and animal
blood with the cow, the sheep, the camel, the horse, and the
elephant, than with the ape. Even in the venemous serpent
and the mad dog, this deadly affinity of blood and this fearful
contact of internal life exist in a different and nearer degree,
than have yet been discovered in the ape. The docility, too, of
the elephant and other generous animals, bears much stronger
marks of analogy with reason than the cunning of the ape, in
which the native sense of a sound, unprejudiced mind will
always recognise an unsuccessful and abortive imitation of man.
The resemblance of physiognomy and cast of countenance in
86 PHILOSOPHY OF
the lion, the bull, and the eagle, to the human face a resem-
blance so celebrated in sculpture and, the imitative arts, and
which was interwoven into the whole mythology and symbolism
of the ancients this resemblance is founded on far deeper and
more spiritual ideas than any mere comparison of dead bones in
an animal skeleton can suggest.
f The extremes of error, when it has reached the height of
\ extravagance, often accelerate the return to truth ; and thus
"to the assertion that man is nothing more than a liberalised
ape, we may boldly answer that man, on the contrary, was
originally, and by the very constitution of his being, designed
to be the lord of creation, and, though in a subordinate degree,
the legitimate ruler of the earth and of the world around him
the vicegerent of God in nature. And if he no longer
enjoys this high prerogative to its full extent, as he might and
ought to have done, he has only himself to blame; if he exer-
cises his empire over creatures rather by indirect means and
mechafriical agency than by the immediate power and native
energy of his own intellectual pre-eminence, he still is the lord
of creation, and has retained much of the power and dignity
he once received, did he but always make a right use of that
power.
The distinguishing characteristic of man, and the peculiar
eminence of his nature and his destiny, as these are universally
felt and acknowledged by mankind, are usually defined to con-
sist, either in reason, or in the faculty of speech. But this
definition is defective in this respect, that, on one hand, reason
is a mere abstract faculty, which to be judged, requires a
psychological investigation or analysis ; and that, on the other
hand, the faculty of speech is a mere potentiality, or a germ
which must be unfolded before it can become a real entity.
We should therefore give a much more correct and compre-
hensive definition, if, instead of this, we said : The peculiar
pre-eminence of man consists in this that to him alone
among ah 1 other of earth's creatures, the word has been im-
parted and communicated. The word actually delivered and
really communicated is not a mere dead faculty, but an histori-
cal reality and occurrence ; and for that very reason, the defini-
tion we have given stands much more fitly at the head of
history, than the other more abstract one.
HISTORY. 87
In the idea of the word, considered as the basis of man's
dignity and peculiar destination, the internal light of con-
sciousness and of our own understanding, is undoubtedly first
included this word is not a mere faculty of speech, but the
fertile root whence the stately trunk of all language has sprung.
But the word is not confined to this only it next includes a
living, working power it is not merely an object and organ of
knowledge an instrument of teaching and learning ; but the
medium of affectionate union and conciliatory accommodation,
judicial arbitrement and efficacious command, or even creative
productiveness, as our own experience and life itself manifest
each of those significations of the word ; and thus it embraces
the whole plenitude of the excellencies and qualities which
characterise man. . ;
Nature, too, has her mute language and her symbolical \
writing; but she requires a discerning intellect to gain the key
to her secrets, to unravel her profound enigmas ; and, piercing
through her mysteries, interpret the hidden sense of her word,
and thus reveal the fulness of her glory. But he, to whom
alone among all earth's creatures, the word has been imparted,
has been for that reason constituted the lord and ruler of the
earth. As soon, however, as he abandons that divine princi-
ple implanted in his breast ; as soon as he loses that word of
life which had been communicated and confided to him ; he
sinks down to a level with nature, and, from her lord, becomes
her vassal ; and here commences the history of man.
END OF LECTURE
88 PHILOSOPHY OP
LECTURE II.
ON THE DISPUTE IN PRIMITIVE HISTORY, AND ON THE
DIVISION OF THE HUMAN RACE.
" In the beginning man had the word, and that word was from God."
THUS the divine, Promethean spark in the human breast, when
more accurately described and expressed in less figurative lan-
guage, springs from the word originally communicated or
intrusted to man, as that wherein consist his peculiar nature,
his intellectual dignity, and his high destination. The preg-
nant expression borrowed above from the New Testament, on
the mystery and internal nature of God, may, with some varia-
tion, and bating, as is evident, the immense distance between
the creature and the Creator, be applied to man and his pri-
mitive condition ; and may serve as a superscription or introduc-
tion to primitive history in the following terms : " In the
beginning man had the word, and that word was from God
and out of the living power communicated to man in and by
that word, came the light of his existence." This is at leasft
the divine foundation of all history it falls not properly
within the domain of history, but is anterior to it. To this
position the state of nature among savages forms no valid
objection ; for that this was the really original condition of
mankind is by no means proved, and is arbitrarily assumed ^
nay, on the contrary, the savage state must be looked upon as
a state of degeneracy and degradation consequently not as
the first, but as the second, phenomenon in human history as-
something which, as it has resulted from this second step in
man's progress, must be regarded as of a later origin.
In history, as in all science and in life itself, the principal
point on which every thing turns, and the all-deciding problem,,
is whether all things should be deduced from God, and God
himself should be considered the first, nature the second exis-
tence the latter holding undoubtedly a very important place j.
HISTORY. 89
or, whether, in the inverse order, the precedency should be
given to nature, and, as invariably happens in such cases, all
things should be deduced from nature only, whereby the
deity, though not by express unequivocal words, yet in fact is
indirectly set aside, or remains at least unknown. This ques-
tion cannot be settled, nor brought to a conclusion, by mere
dialectic strife, which rarely leads to its object. It is the will
which here mostly decides ; and, according to the nature and
leaning of his character, leads the individual to choose between
the two opposite paths, the one he would follow in speculation
and in science, in faith and in life.
Thus much at least we may say, in reference to the science
of history, that they who in that department will consider
nature only, and view man but with the eye of a naturalist
(specious and plausible as their reasons may at first sight
appear), will never rightly comprehend the world and reality of
history, and never obtain an adequate conception, nor exhibit
an intelligible representation of its phenomena. On the other
hand, if we proceed not solely and exclusively from nature, bufc
first from God and that beginning of nature appointed by God,
so this is by no means a degradation or misapprehension of
nature; nor does it imply any hostility towards nature an
hostility which could arise only from a very defective, erroneous-,
or narrow-minded conception of historical philosophy. On the
contrary, experience has proved that by this course of speculation
we are led more thoroughly to comprehend the glory of God in
nature, and the magnificence of nature herself a course of spe-
culation quite consistent with the full recognition of nature's
rights, and the share due to her in the history and progress of
man.
Regarded in an historical point of view, man was created
free there lay two paths before him he had to choose
between the one, conducting to the realms above, and the
other, leading to the regions below ; and thus at least he was
endowed with the faculty of two different wills. Had he
remained steadfast in his first will that pure emanation of the
deity had he remained true to the word which God had com-
municated to him he would have had but one will. He
would, however, have still been free ; but his freedom would
have resembled that of the heavenly spirits, whom we must not
imagine to be devoid of freedom because they are no longer in
90 PHILOSOPHY OF
a state of trial, and can never be separated from God. We
should, besides, greatly err, if we figured to ourselves the Para-
disaic state of the first man as one of happy indolence ; for,
in truth, it was far otherwise designed, and it is clearly and
expressly said that our first parent was placed in the garden of
the earth to guard and cultivate it. " To guard," because an
enemy was to be at hand, against whom it behoved to watch and
to contend. " To cultivate," possibly in a very different man-
ner, yet still with labour, though, doubtless, a labour blessed
with far richer and more abundant recompense than afterwards
.when, on man's account, the earth was charged with malediction.
This first divine law of nature, if we may so speak, by virtue
of which labour and struggle became from the beginning the des-
tiny of man, has retained its full force through all succeeding
ages, and is applicable alike to every class, and every nation,
to each individual as well as to mankind in general, to the
most important, as to the most insignificant, relations of
society. He who weakly shrinks from the struggle, who will
offer no resistance, who will endure no labour nor fatigue ; can
neither fulfil his own vocation, whatever it be, nor contribute
aught to the general welfare of mankind. But since man hath
been the prey of discord, two different wills have contended
within him for the mastery a divine and a natural will. Even
his freedom is no longer that happy freedom of celestial peace
the freedom of one who hath conquered and triumphed but
a freedom, as we now see it the freedom of undetermined
choice of arduous, still undecided, struggle. To return to
the divine will, or the one conformable to God to restore har-
mony between the natural and the divine will, and to convert
and transform more and more the lower, earthly, and natural
will into the higher and divine one, is the great task of man-
kind in general, as of each individual in particular. And this
return this restoration this transformation all the endea-
vours after such- the progress or retrogressions in this path
constitute an essential part of universal history, so far as this
embraces the moral development and intellectual march of
humanity. But the fact that man, so soon as he loses the
internal sheet-anchor of truth and life so soon as he abandons
the eternal law of divine ordinance, falls immediately under
the dominion of nature, and becomes her bondsman, each indi-
vidual may learn from his own interior, his own experience, and
HISTORY. 91
i survey of life ; since the violent disorderly might of passion
lerself is only a blind power of nature acting within us. Al-
;hough this fact is historical, and indeed the first of all histo-
rical facts, yet as it belongs to all mankind, and recurs in each
individual, it may be regarded as a psychological fact and phe-
nomenon of human consciousness. And on this very account
it does not precisely fall within the limits of history, and it
precedes all history ; but all the consequences or possible con-
sequences of this fact, all the consequences that have really
occurred, are within the essential province of history.
The next consequence which, after this internal discord had
broken out in the consciousness and life of man, flowed from
the development of this principle, was the division of the
single race of man into a plurality of nations, and the conse-
quent diversity of languages. As long as the internal harmony
of the soul was undisturbed and unbroken, and the light of
the mind unclouded by sin, language could be nought else
than the simple and beautiful copy or expression of internal
serenity ; and, consequently, there could be but one speech.
But after the internal word, which had been communicated by
God to man, had become obscured ; after man's connexion
with his Creator had been broken ; even outward language
necessarily fell into disorder and confusion. The simple and
divine truth was overlaid with various and sensual fictions,
buried under illusive symbols, and at last perverted into a
horrible phantom. Even Nature, that, like a clear mirror of
God's creation, had originally lain revealed and transparent
to the unclouded eye of man, became now more and more
unintelligible, strange, and fearful ; once fallen away from
his God, man fell more and more into a state of internal con-
flict and confusion. Thus there sprang up a multitude of
languages, alien one from the other, and varying with every
climate, in proportion as mankind became morally disunited,
geographically divided and dispersed, and even distinguished
by an organic diversity of form ; for when man had once
fallen under the power and dominion of nature, his physical
conformation changed with every climate. As a plant or
animal indigenous to Africa or America has a totally different
form and constitution in Asia, so it is with man ; and the races
of mankind form so many specific variations of the same kind,
from the negro to the copper-coloured American and the
92 PHILOSOPHY OF
savage islander of the South Sea. The expression races, how-
ever, applied to man, involves something abhorrent from his high
uplifted spirit, and debasing to its native dignity. This diversity
of races among men no one ought to exaggerate in a manner
so as to raise doubts as to the indentity of their origin ; for,
according to a general organic law, which indeed is allowed to
hold good in the natural history of animals, races capable of a
prolific union, must be considered of the same origin, and as
constituting the same species. Even the apparent chaos of
different languages may be classed into kindred families, which
though separated by the distance of half the globe, seem still
very closely allied. Of these different families of tongues,
the first and most eminent are those by which their internal
beauty, and by the noble spirit breathing through them and
apparent in their whole construction, denote for the most part
a higher origin and divine inspiration ; and, much as all these
languages differ from each other, they appear, after all, to be
merely branches of one common stem.
The American tribes appear, indeed, to be singularly
strange, and to stand at a fearful distance from the rest of
mankind ; yet the European writer,* most deeply conversant
with those nations and their languages, has found in their
traditions and tongues, and even in their manners and cus-
toms, many positive and incontestable points of analogy with
Eastern Asia and its inhabitants.
When man had once fallen from virtue, no determinable
limit could be assigned to his degradation, nor how far he might
descend by degrees, and approximate even to the level of the
brute ; for, as from his origin he was a being essentially free,
he was in consequence capable of change, and even in his
organic powers most flexible.
We must adopt this principle as the only clue to guide us in
our inquiries, from the negro who, as well from his bodily strength
and agility, as from his docile and in general excellent cha-
racter is far from occupying the lowest grade in the scale of
humanity, down to the monstrous Patagonian, the almost im-
becile Peshwerais, and the horrible cannibal of New Zealand,
whose very portrait excites a shudder in the beholder. How,
even, in the midst of civilisation, man may degenerate into-
* Schlegel alludes to Alexander Von Humboldt. Trans.
HISTORY.
the savage state j to what a pitch of moral degradation he
may descend, those can attest who have had opportunities of
investigating more closely the criminal history of great cul-
prits, and even, at some periods, the history of whole nations.
J!n fact, every revolution is a transient period of barbarism,
In which man, while he displays partial examples of the
most heroic virtue and generous self-devotion, is often half a
savage. Nay, a war conducted with great animosity and
protracted to extremities, may easily degenerate into such a
state of savage ferocity: hence it is the highest glory of truly
civlilised nations to repress and subdue by the sentiment of ho-
nour, by a system of severe discipline, and by a generous code of
warfare, respected alike by all the belligerent parties, that ten-
dency and proneness to cruelty and barbarity inherent in man.
Among the different tribes of savages, there are many indeed
that appear to be of a character incomparably better and more
noble than those above-mentioned; yet, after the first ever so
favourable impression, a closer investigation will almost always
discover in them very bad traits of character and manners.
So far from seeking with Rousseau and his disciples for the true
origin of mankind, and the proper foundation of the social com-
pact, in the condition even of the best and noblest savages ;
and so little disposed are we to remodel society upon this boasted
ideal of a pretended state of nature, that we regard it, on the
contrary, as a state of degeneracy and degradation. Thus in
his origin, and by nature, man is no savage: he may, indeed,
at any time and in any place, and even at the present day, be-
come one easily and rapidly, but in general, not by a sudden
fall, but by a slow and gradual declension; and we the more
willingly adopt this view as there are many historical grounds
of probability that, in the origin of mankind, this second fall of
man was not immediate and total, but slow and gradual, and
that consequently all those tribes which we call savage are of
the same origin with the noblest and most civilised nations,
and have only by degrees descended to their present state of
brutish degradation.
Even the division of the human race into a plurality of nations,
and the chaotic diversity of human tongues, appear, from his-
torical tradition, to have become general and complete only at
a more advanced period; for, in the beginning, mention is made
but of one separation of mankind into two races or hostile classes.
94 PHILOSOPHY OF
I use the general expression historical tradition ; for the brief
and almost enigmatical, but very significant and pregnant
words, in which the first great outward discord, or conflict of
mankind in primitive history, is represented in the Mosaic nar-
rative, are corroborated in a very remarkable degree by the
Sagas of other nations, among which I may instance in particular
those of the Greeks and the Indians. Although this primitive
conflict, or opposition among men, is represented in these tra-
ditions under various local colours, and not without some ad-
mixture of poetical embellishment, yet this circumstance serves
only for the better confirmation of the fundamental truth, if we
separate the essential matter from the adventitious details.
Before I attempt to place in a clearer light this first great his-
torical event, which indeed constitutes the main subject of all
primitive history, by showing the strong concurrence of the
many and various authorities attesting it; it may be proper to
call your attention to a third fundamental canon of historical
criticism, which indeed requires no lengthened demonstration,
and is merely this, that in all inquiries, particularly into ancient
and primitive history, we must not reject as impossible or im-
probable whatever strikes us at first as strange or marvellous.
For it often happens, that a closer investigation and a deeper
knowledge of a subject proves those things precisely to be true,
which at the first view or impression, appeared to us as the most
singular; while, on the other hand, if we persist in estimating
truth and probability by the sole standard of objects vulgar and
familiar to ourselves ; and if we will apply this exclusive standard
to a world and to ages so totally different, and so widely remote
from our own, we shall be certainly led into the most violent
and most erroneous hypotheses.
In entering on this subject we must observe that, in the
Mosaic account, primitive and, what we call, universal history,
does not properly commence with the first man, his creation or
ulterior destiny, but with Cain the fratricide and curse of
Cain. The preceding part of the sacred narrative regards, if
we may so speak, only the private life of Adam, which, how-
ever, will always retain a deep significancy for all the descendants
of the first progenitor.
The origin of discord in man, and the transmission of that
mischief to all ages and all generations, is indeed the first
historical fact; but on account of its universality, it forms, at
HISTORY. 95
the same time, as I have before observed, a psychological phe-
nomenon; and while, in this first section of sacred history,
every thing points and refers to the mysteries of religion; the
fratricide of Cain on the other hand, and the flight of that
restless criminal to Eastern Asia, are the first events and cir-
cumstances which properly belong to the province of history.
In this account we see first the foundation of the most ancient
city, by which undoubtedly we must understand a great, or at
least an old and celebrated city of Eastern Asia; and, secondly,
the origin of various hereditary classes, trades, and arts ; espe-
cially of those connected with the first knowledge and use of
metals, and which, doubtless, hold the first place in the history
of human arts and discoveries.
The music, which is attributed to those primitive ages, con-
sisted, probably, rather in a medicinal or even magical use of
that art, than in the beautiful system of later melody. Among
the various works and instruments of smithcraft, and productions
of art which the knowledge of mines and metals led to, the
momentous discovery of the sword is particularly mentioned :
by the brief enigmatic words which relate this discovery, it is
difficult to know whether we are to understand them as the
expression of a spirit of warlike enthusiasm, or of a renewed
curse and dire wailing over all the succeeding centuries of he-
reditary murder, and progressive evil, under the divine per-
mission. In all probability, these words refer to the origin of
human sacrifices, emanating as they did from an infernal design,
which we must consider as one of the strongest characteristics
of this race ; and those bloody sacrifices of the primitive world
seem to have stamped on the rites and customs, as well as on
the traditions and sentiments, of many nations a peculiar cha-
racter of gloom and sadness. From this race were descended
not only the inhabitants of cities, but nomade tribes, whereof
many led, several thousand years ago, the same wandering life
which they follow at the present day in the central parts of
Eastern Asia, where vast remains of primitive mining operations
are frequently found.
It is worthy of remark that, among one of these nations,
the Ishudes, who inhabit a metallic mountain, we find, if we
may so speak, an inverted history of Cain ; mention is made
of the enmity between the first two brothers of mankind, but
all the circumstances are set forth in a party-spirit favourable
96 PHILOSOPHY OF
to Cain. It is said that the elder brother acquired wealth by
gold and silver mines, but that the younger, becoming envious,
drove him away, and forced him to take refuge in the East.*
So is the race of Cain and Cain's sons represented from its
origin, as one attached to the arts, versed in the use of metals,
disinclined to peace, and addicted to habits of warfare and
violence, as again at a later period, it appears in Scripture as a
haughty and wicked race of giants.
On the other hand, the peaceful race of Patriarchs who
lived in a docile reverence of God and with a holy simplicity
of manners, were descended from Seth. This second progenitor
of mankind occupies a very prominent place even in the tradi-
tions of other nations, which make particular mention of the
columns of Seth, signifying no doubt, in the language of
remote antiquity, very ancient monuments, and, as it were, the
stony records of sacred tradition. In general, the first ten
holy Progenitors or Patriarchs of the primitive world are
mentioned under different names in the Sagas, not only of the
Indians, but of several other Asiatic nations, though undoubt-
edly with important variations, and not without much poetical
colouring. But as in these traditions we can clearly discern
the same general traits of history, this diversity of representa-
tion serves only to corroborate the main truth, and to illustrate
it more fully and forcibly. The views, therefore, of those
modern theologians, who represent the concurrent testimony
of Gentile nations to the truths of primitive history as derived
solely from the Mosaic narrative, and, as it were, transcribed
from a genuine copy of our Bible, are equally narrow-minded
and erroneous.
It would be more just and more consonant with the whole
spirit of the primitive world, to assert, what indeed may be
conceded with little difficulty, that these nations had received
much from the primeval source of sacred tradition ; but they
regarded as a peculiar possession, and represented under
peculiar forms, the common blessings of primitive revelation ;
and, instead of preserving in their integrity and purity the
traditions and oracles of the primitive world, they overlaid
them with poetical ornament, so that their whole traditions
v/ear a fabulous aspect, until a nearer and more patient inves-
* See Eitter's Geography, 1st part, page 548, 1st Edition in Ger-
HISTORY. 97
tigation clearly discovers in them the main features of historic
truth.
Under these two different forms, therefore, doth tradition
reveal to us the primitive world, or, in other words, these are
the two grand conditions of humanity which fill the records
of primitive history. On the one hand, we see a race, lovers
of peace, revering God, blessed with long life, which they
spend in patriarchal simplicity and innocence, and still no
strangers to deeper science, especially in all that relates to
sacred tradition and inward contemplation, and transmitting
their science to posterity in the old or symbolical writing,
not in fragile volumes, but on durable monuments of stone.
On the other hand, we behold a giant race of pretended demi-
gods, proud, wicked, and violent, or, as they are called
in the later Sagas of the heroic times, the heaven- storming
Titans.
This opposition, and this discord this hostile struggle
between the two great divisions of the human race, forms the
whole tenour of primitive history. When the moral harmony
of man had once been deranged, and two opposite wills had
sprung up within him, a divine will or a will seeking God,
and a natural will or a will bent on sensible objects, passionate
and ambitious, it is easy to conceive how mankind from their
very origin must have diverged into two opposite paths.
Although this primitive division of mankind is now charac-
terised as a difference of races, this is far from being merely
the case ; and that opposition which distracted the primitive
world had far deeper causes than the mere distinction of a
noble and a meaner race of men. It is somewhat in this manner
a German scholar of the last generation, divided all nations now
existing, or which have appeared within the later historical ages,
into two classes ; wherever he imagined he found his favourite
Celts and their descendants, he had not words strong enough to
extol their romantic heroism ; while he pursued with the most
pitiless animosity, over the whole face of the earth, the unfor-
tunate Monguls, and all those he deduced from that stock.
The struggle which divided the primitive world into two great
parties, arose far more from the opposition of feelings and of
principles, than from difference of extraction. Great as is
the interval which separates those ages and that world from our
own, we can easily comprehend how this first mighty contest of
98 PHILOSOPHY OF
nations, which history makes mention of, was in fact a struggle
between two religious parties two hostile sects, though
indeed under far other other forms, and in different relations
from any thing we witness in the present state of the world.
It was, in one word, a contest between religion and impiety,
conducted, however, on the mighty scale of the primitive world,
and with all those gigantic powers which, according to ancient
tradition, the first men possessed.*
The Greek Sagas represent this two-fold state of mankind
in the primitive ante -historical ages in a very peculiar manner,
as the gradual decline and corruption of successive generations;
of this kind is the tradition of the ages of the world, whereof
four or five are numbered. The Golden age of human felicity
and the Brazen age of all ruling violence form the two essen-
tial terms of this tradition ; and the intermediate ages are
mere links, or points of transition, to render the account more
complete.
In the age of Saturn, the first race allied to the Gods lived
in peace and happiness, and were blessed with eternal youth ;
the earth poured forth her fruits and gifts in spontaneous
* We must not suppose that the impiety of the Cainites was of a
dogmatic kind. How could those primitive men, living so near the
Fountain-head of revelation, conversing with those who had witnessed
the rise and first development of man's marvellous history, endowed
with that quick, intuitive science which, in the operations of external
nature, revealed to them the agency of invisible spirits, witnessing the
wondrous manifestations of God's love and power, the active ministry
of his messengers of light ; and, lastly, engaged themselves in a close
communication with the infernal powers ; how could they, I say, fall
into atheism or any other species of speculative unbelief? Their impiety
was of a more practical nature, displaying itself in a daring violation of
the precepts of Heaven, and in the practice of a dark, mysterious magic.
By the allurements of sense, and the fascination of their false science,
they by degrees inveigled the great mass of mankind into their errors.
Their vast powers, supported and strengthened by infernal agency,
were calculated to introduce disorder and confusion in the economy of
the moral and physical universe, and to let loose on this probationary
world the science of the abyss. What do I say? The barrier between
the visible and invisible world would have been broken down Hell
would have ruled the earth, had not the Almighty by an awful judg-
ment buried the guilty race of men and their infernal knowledge in the
waters of the Deluge. In the race of Cham, however, which perpe-
tuated so many traditions of the early Cainites, some fragments of this
ante-diluvian science of evil were preserved; and traces of it may still
be discerned among the worshippers of Siva in India. Trans.
HISTORY,
99
UM
a
abundance, and even the end of human life was not a real or
nful death, but a gentle slumber into another and higher
orld of immortal spirits. But the next generation in the age
of Silver is represented as wicked, devoid of reverence for the
Gods, and giving loose to every turbulent passion. In the
Brazen age this state of crime and disorder reached its highest
pitch ; lordly violence was the characteristic of the rude and
gigantic Titans. Their arms were of copper and their instru-
ments and utensils of brass, and even, in the construction of
their edifices, they made use of copper ; for as the old poet
says, " black iron was not then known ;" a circumstance which
we must consider as strictly historical, and as characteristic of
the primitive nations. Between this and the following age, the
better heroic race of poetical and even historic tradition is
somewhat strangely introduced ; and the whole series of
generations is closed by the Iron age, the present and last
period of the world the term of man's progressive degeneracy.
This idea of a gradual and deeper degradation of human
kind in each succeeding age, appears at first sight not to
accord very well with the testimony which sacred tradition
furnishes on man's primitive state ; for it represents the two
races of the primitive world as contemporary ; and indeed
Seth, the progenitor of the better and nobler race of virtuous
Patriarchs, was much younger than Cain. However, this con-
tradiction is only apparent, if we reflect that it was the wicked
and violent race which drew the other into its disorders, and
that it was from this contamination a giant corruption sprang,
which continually increased till, with a trifling exception, it
pervaded the whole mass of mankind, and till the justice of
God required the extirpation of degenerate humanity by one
universal Flood.
In the Indian Sagas, the two races of the primitive world are
represented in a state of continual or perpetually renewed war-
fare : wicked nations of giants attack one or other of the two
Brahminical races that descend from the virtuous Patriarchs ;
generous and divinely inspired heroes come to their assistance,
and achieve many wonderful victories over these formidable
foes. Such is the chief subject of all the great epic poems,
and most ancient heroic Sagas of the Indians. In conformity
to their present modes of thinking, and to their present con-
stitution of society, they describe that fierce race of giants as
H2
100 PHILOSOPHY OF
a degraded caste of warriors ; and they even give that de-
nomination to many nations well known in later history, sucK
as the Chinese, who bear the same name with them as with
ourselves ; the Pahlavas, who were a tribe of the ancient Medes
and Persians, corresponding to one of the two sacred languages
of ancient Persia the Pahlavi and the lonians or Yavanas
according to the Asiatic denomination of the primitive Greeks.
It may even be a matter of doubt, whether a regular caste of
warriors, and an hereditary priesthood, according to the very
ancient system of the hereditary division of classes, did not
exist in the primitive world. However great may be the chro-
nological confusion evinced in these poems and Sagas, however
much, perhaps, of later history may have been interwoven into
their ancient narratives, and however much of poetical embel-
lishment and gigantic hyperbole the whole may have received,
the leading features of historic truth may still be distinguished
with certainty in the chequered tablet of tradition. For the
hostility of two rival races in the primitive world, considered in
itself, and independently of adventitious circumstances, must
be looked upon as a positive and well authenticated fact. It
might perhaps be proved before the tribunal of the severest
historical criticism, that poetry, that is to say, primitive historic
tradition clothed with the ornaments of poetry is often much
nearer the truth in its representations of the primitive world*
than a dull reason, that draws its estimate of probability from
mere vulgar analogies, and which sees or affects to see every-
where only stupid and brutish savages.
A circumstance which we must never lose sight of in this
inquiry is that man did not suffer an immediate and entire loss
of those high powers with which he had been endowed at his
origin ; but that the loss was gradual, and that for a long time
yet he retained much of those powers, and that it was indeed
the fearful abuse of those faculties in his last stage of degene-
racy which produced that enormous licentiousness and wicked-
ness spoken of in Holy Writ. And this is the real clue to the
whole purport of primitive history, and to all that appears to
us in it so full of enigma. This leading subject of primitive
history the struggle between two races, as it is the first great
event in universal history, is also of the utmost importance in
the investigation of the subsequent progress of nations ; for
this original contest and opposition among men, according to
HISTORY. 101
the two -fold direction of the will, a will conformable to that of
God, and a will carnal, ambitious, and enslaved to Nature,
often recurs, though on a lesser scale, in later history ; or at
least we can perceive something like a feeble reflection or a
distant echo of this primal discord. And even at the present
period, which is certainly much nearer to the last than to the
first ages of the world, it would appear sometimes as if hu-
manity were again destined, as at its origin, to be more and
more separated into two parties, or two hostile divisions. And
as the greatest of German philosophers, Leibnitz, admirably
observed that the sect of atheism would be the last in Christen-
dom and in the world ; so it is highly probable that this sect
was the last in the primitive world, though stamped with the
peculiar form which society at that period must have given to
it, and on a scale of more gigantic magnitude.
On this important subject we have another observation to
make, which refers more properly to an incidental circumstance
in primitive history ; for our great business is with the moral
and intellectual progress of man. But even in respect to this
more important object, the circumstances which we allude to
should not be passed over in silence, as it tends to exemplify,
illustrate, and confirm the principle we have already had occa-
sion to enforce ; namely, that we ought not to estimate by the
narrow standard of present analogies and vulgar probabilities,
all those facts in primitive nature and in primitive history
which strike us as so strange, mysterious, and marvellous ;
-provided they be really attested by ancient monuments and
ancient tradition. We should ever bear in mind what a mighty
wall of separation what an impassable abyss divides us from
that remote world both of nature and of man. I refer to the
unanimous testimony of ancient tradition respecting the gigan-
tic forms of the first men, arid their corresponding longevity,
far exceeding, as it did, the present ordinary standard of the
duration of human life. With respect to the latter circum-
stance, indeed, there are so very many causes contributing to
shorten considerably the length of human life, that we have
^completely lost every criterion by which to estimate its original
duration ; and it would be no slight problem for a profound
physiological science to discover and explain from a deeper
investigation of the internal constitution of the earth, or of
;astronomical influences, which are often susceptible of very
102 PHILOSOPHY OF
minute applications, the primary cause of human longevity.
By a simpler course of life and diet than the very artificial,
unnatural, and over-refined modes we follow, there are even at
the present day numerous examples of a longevity far beyond
the ordinary duration of human life. In India it is by no
means uncommon to meet with men, especially in the Brahmi-
nical caste, more than a hundred years of age, and in the
enjoyment of a robust, and even generative vigour of constitu-
tion. In the labouring class in Russia, whose mode of living is so-
simple, there are examples of men living to more than a hun-
dred, a hundred and twenty, and even a hundred and fifty years
of age ; and although these instances form but rare exceptions,
they are less uncommon there than in other European countries.
There are even remarkable cases of old men, who after the
entire loss of their teeth, have gained a complete new set, as if
their constitution had received a new sap of life, and a princi-
ple of second growth. What, in the present physical degene-
racy of mankind, forms but a rare exception, may originally
have been the ordinary measure of the duration of human life,
or at least may afford us some trace and indication of such a>
measure ; more especially as other branches of natural science
offer correspondent analogies. On the other side of that great
wall of separation which divides us from the primitive ages in
that remote world so little known to us, a standard for the
duration of human life very different from the present may
have prevailed ; and such an opinion is extremely probable,
supported as it is by manifold testimony, and confirmed by the
sacred record of man's divine origin.
In order better to understand and judge more correctly of
the biblical number of years in human life, we ought never to
overlook the very religious purport of the symbolical relation of
numbers in the divine chronology. We should thus ever keep
ourselves in readiness, as, according to the expression of Holy
Writ, the hairs on a man's head are numbered and how
much more so the years of his life ! and as nothing here musfc
be considered fortuitous, but all things as predetermined and
regulated according to the views of Providence. Again, as
the Scripture often mentions that, in the hidden decrees of his
mercy, the Almighty hath graciously been pleased to shorten
the duration of a determined space of time : as, for example,
a course of irreversible suffering or, on the other hand, hath
HISTORY. 103
added a certain number of years to a determined period of
grace, or prolonged the duration of a man's life ; it behoves
us to examine which of these two courses of divine favour be in
any proposed case discoverable. In the extreme longevity of
the holy Patriarchs of the primitive world a longevity which
as has been long proved and acknowledged, must be understood
with reference only to the common astronomical years, the lat-
ter course of the divine goodness is discernible, and human
life in those ages must be regarded as miraculously and super-
naturally prolonged.* In the duration of Enoch's life, that
holy prophet of the primitive world, whose translation was no
death, but which, as the exit originally designed for man,
should on that account be considered natural, the coincidence
with the astronomical number of days in the sun's course round
the earth is the more striking, as in the number of 365 years
the number 83 is comprised as the root a number which, in
every respect and in the most various application, is discovered
to be the primary number of the earth. For, with the slight
difference of an unit, the number of 365 years corresponds to
the sum of 333, with the addition of 33 ; but the number of
days strictly comprised in those 365 years amounts to four
times 33,000, with the addition of four times 330 days.
With regard to the gigantic stature attributed to the prime-
tive race of men, by the authentic testimony of universal tra-
dition ; a testimony which it is easy to distinguish from mere
poetical embellishment or exaggeration it is singular that
* Noah affords another striking example of a wonderful prolongation
or delay of time. The first nine Patriarchs of the primitive world pro-
pagated their race at the mean or average term of the hundredth year
of their lives: some near that period others considerably earlier
and others again much later. But in the case of Noah we find that,
to the mean term of a hundred years, four hundred were yet added;
and that the Patriarch was five hundred years of age when he propa-
gated his race. The high motive of this evidently supernatural delay
may be traced to the fact that, although during this long prophetic
period of preparation, the holy Seer well foresaw and felt firmly assured
of the judgments impending over a degenerate and corrupt world, it
was not equally clear to him that he was destined by God to be the
second progenitor of mankind, and the renovator of the human race.
But that great doom of the world, already foretold ~by Enoch, Noah
probably expected to be its last end; and hence perhaps might consider
the propagation of his race as not altogether conformable to the divine
will, till the hidden decrees of the Eternal were more fully and more
clearly revealed to him.
104 PHILOSOPHY OF
those who are otherwise so disposed to apply the analogies of
nature to the human species, should in this instance, at least,
hold up the now ordinary scale of human bulk as the only
standard of probability and certainty. The remains, more
than once alluded to, of that primitive world which has
perished, show that of the elephant, rhinoceros, and hip-
popotamus, the largest of all existing animals, there were
originally from twenty to thirty different tribes and species
which are now extinct. Of the mammoth, that gigantic
animal of antiquity, remains of which are found not only in
Siberia and America, but in the different countries of Europe,
near Paris, and even in this immediate neighbourhood, a
great number of various species have been also proved to have
existed from the investigation of these antediluvian remains.
Even of animals more familiar to us, bones and other re-
mains have been discovered of a very unusual and truly
gigantic size. Bulls' horns fastened together by a front-bone
antlers of stags, and elephants' tusks have been found,
which prove those animals to have been of a dimension,
three, four, or five times greater than they usually are at pre-
sent. If in this elder period of organic nature, and of an
animal kingdom which has become extinct, this gigantic style
was so very prevalent, is it not reasonable to infer a similar
analogy in the human species, so far at least as relates to their
physical conformation, especially when this analogy is unani-
mously attested by the primitive Sagas and traditions of all
nations?
As regards our sacred writings, I must observe that they
tacitly imply, and indeed pretty clearly attest, the superior sta-
ture as well as great longevity of the first men; while, on the
other hand, they represent the really gigantic structure of body
as an organic degradation and degeneracy, originating in the
illicit union of the two primitive races the Cainites and the
Sethites an union which was the source of universal corrup-
tion as the all-destroying deluge was a mighty judgment
brought about by the pride and wickedness of those giants, and
was indeed against these principally directed. Even at a later
period, the Scripture speaks of some nations of giants, that,
prior to the introduction of the Israelites into the promised land,
occupied several of its provinces, such as Moab, Ammon,
Bashan, and the country about the primitive city of giants
HISTORY. . 105
Hebron. These tribes are represented as celebrated for valour
indeed, yet as inclined solely to warfare, wild, and wicked; and
even the individual giants, that appear in the age of Moses and
in the history of David, are described as peculiarly monstrous
from their great corporal deformity. The only savage tribe
now existing (as far as our present knowledge of the globe can.
enable us to speak,) possessed of a very uncommon, enormous,
and almost gigantic stature the Patagonians of America, are
at the same time noted for their personal deformity. With
them it is the upper part of the body that is of such a dispro-
portionate length, for when seen on horseback they appear to
be real giants, and hence they were so accounted at first. When
on a closer inspection we see the whole length of their bodies
in the attitude either of standing or of walking, we perceive
indeed they are of the very extraordinary height of from seven
to eight feet, but not of that gigantic stature which the first
impression led us to suppose, and which may so naturally have
given rise to exaggerated accounts.
After all this, and what has been above stated, I need say no
more than frankly declare that, as to these two points, the ex-
traordinary longevity and gigantic stature of the first men,
I never could have the courage to raise a formal doubt against
the plain declaration of Holy Writ, and the general testimony
of primitive tradition. The full explanation, the more correct
conception, and the perfect comprehension of these two facts
are perhaps reserved for a later period, and the investigations of
a deeper physical science.
There exist, also, monuments, or rather fragments of edifices,
of the most primitive antiquity, which, as they are connected
with the subject under discussion, are here deserving of a slight
notice. I allude to those cyclopean walls, which are to be
found in several parts of Italy, and which those who have once
seen will not easily forget, nor the singular stamp of antiquity
they bear. In this very peculiar architecture, we see, instead
of the stones of the usual cubical or oblong form, huge frag-
ments of rock rudely cut into the shape of an irregular polygon,
and skilfully enough joined together. Even the great, and
often admired, subterraneous aqueduct, or Cloaca of ancient
Rome is considered as belonging to this cyclopean architecture,
remains of which exist also near Argos, and in several other
parts of Greece. These edifices were certainly not built by the
106 PHILOSOPHY OF
celebrated nations that at a later period occupied those countries ;
for even they regarded them as the work and production of a
primitive and departed race of giants; and hence the name
which these monuments received. When we consider how very
imperfect must have been the instruments of those remote ages,
and that they cannot be supposed to have possessed that know-
lege in mechanics which the Egyptians, for instance, display
in the erection of their obelisks; we can easily conceive how
men were led to imagine that more vigorous arms and other
powers, than those belonging to the present race of men, were
necessary to the construction of those edifices of rock.
Thus have we now endeavoured to explain, as far as was
necessary for our purpose, the origin of that dissension, which
is inherent in human nature, and forms the basis of all his-
tory. We have, in the next place, sought to unfold and illus-
trate the universal tradition, which attests the hostility between
the virtuous Patriarchs and the proud Titans of the primitive
world, or the different and opposite spirit that characterised the
two primitive races of mankind; assigning, at the same time, to
savage nations, or to the more degraded portions of human
kind, their proper place in history a place important un-
doubtedly, but still secondary in the great scheme of humanity.
These facts, too important to be passed over in silence, form
the introduction, and are, as it were, the porch to universal his-
tory, and to the civilisation of the human species in the later
historical ages. Now that we have seen mankind divided and
split into a plurality of nations, our next task, in the period
which follows, is to discover the most remarkable and most
civilised nations, and to observe what peculiar form the Word,
whether innate in man, or communicated to him the word
which may be considered the essence of all the high pre-
rogatives and characteristic qualities of man ; to observe, we
say, what peculiar form the word assumed among each of those
nations, in their language and writing, 'in their religious tradi-
tions, their historical Sagas, their poetry, art, and science. In
the account of ancient nations, we shall adopt the ethnographi-
cal mode of treating history ; and it will be only in modern and
more recent times that this method will gradually give place to
the syn chronical; and the reasons of this change will be sug-
gested by the very nature of the subject. In this general sur-
vey, we must confine ourselves to those mighty and celebrated
HISTORY. 107
nations who have attained to a high degree of intellectual ex-
cellence; and we shall select and briefly state remarkable traits
or extraordinary historical facts illustrative of the manners,
social institutions, political refinement, and even political his-
tory of every nation, worthy of occupying a place in this
sketch, in order the better to mark the progress of the intel-
lectual principle in the peculiar culture and modes of thinking
of each. It is only^ at a later period that political history he-
comes the main object of attention, and almost the leading
principle in the progressive march, and even the partial retro-
gressions of mankind.
In this general picture of the earliest development of the
human mind, we can select such nations only as are sufficiently
well known, or respecting whom the sources of information are
now at least of easier access ; for were we to comprehend in this
general survey, nations with whom we were less perfectly ac-
quainted, we should be led into minute and interminable re-
searches, without, after all, perhaps, obtaining any new or
satisfactory result for the principal object in view. In the first
period of antiquity will figure the Chinese, the Indians, and the
Egyptians, besides the isolated, and the so-called chosen people
of the Hebrews; and if I commence by the remotest of the
civilised countries of Asia, China, I beg leave to premise that I
mean to determine no question of priority as to the respective
antiquity of those nations, or to adjudge any preference to one
or other amongst them. Indeed, their own chronological
accounts and pretensions, which often deserve the name of
chronological fictions, turn out, on a closer inquiry, to be mere
calculations of astronomical periods; and a sound historical cri-
ticism will not admit that they were originally meant to be
chronological. Suffice it to say that the three nations we have
mentioned belonged to the same period of the world, and at-
tained to an equal, or a very similar, degree of moral and intel-
lectual refinement; and so in respect to that higher object, the
chronological dispute becomes unnecessary, or is, at least, of
minor importance. Among those, however, who take an active
part in these researches, a partiality for one or other of these
nations, and for their respective antiquity, easily springs up;
for even objects the most remote will excite in the human breast
the spirit of party. In order to keep as free as possible from
prepossessions of this kind, I have adopted a species of geo-
108 PHILOSOPHY OF
graphical division of my subject, which, when I come to treat
later of the different periods of modern history, will give place
to a more chronological arrangement. I said a species of geo-
graphical division, for undoubtedly from the special nature of
this historical inquiry, it must be supposed I shall take a dif-
ferent point of view in the geographical survey of the earth than
ordinarily occurs in geographical investigations. The geo-
graphies for common use properly take as their basis the present
situation of the different states and kingdoms now in existence.
But a more scientific geography adopts the direction of moun-
tains, and the course of rivers, the valleys produced by the
former, and the space occupied by the waters of the latter, as
the leading clue to the division and arrangement of the earth.
Thus in the philosophy of history the series of the principal
civilised states will form a high, commanding chain ; and the
philosophic historian will have to follow from east to west, or
in any other direction that history may point out, not merely
rivers transporting articles of commerce, but the mighty stream
of traditions and doctrines which has traversed and fertilised the
world.
As the individuals who can be termed historical form but
rare exceptions among mankind, so in the whole circumference
of the globe, there are only a certain number of nations that
occupy an important and really historical place in the annals
of civilisation. By far the greater part of the inhabited or
habitable globe, however rich and ample a field it may offer
to the investigations of the naturalist, cannot be included in
this class, or has not attained to this degree of eminence. In
the whole continent of Africa, there is, besides Egypt, only
the northern coast stretching along the Mediterranean, that
is at all connected with the history and intellectual progress
of the civilised world. The other coasts of Africa, including
its southernmost cape, furnish points of importance to com-
merce, navigation, and even some attempts at colonisation ;
while the interior parts of this continent, still so little known,
possess much to excite the attention and wonder of the natu-
ralist ; but beyond this, its maritime as well as central regions,
cannot be said to occupy a place in the intellectual history, or
in the moral progress of our species. It is only since it has
formed a province of the Russian Empire, that the vast terri-
tory of Northern Asia has become known to us, and has
HISTORY. 109
been as it were, newly discovered. From central and eastern
Asia, from the south of Tartary and the north of China,
many mighty and conquering nations have issued, that have
spread the terror of their arms over the face of civilisation, as
far as the frontiers of Europe.
But, in the march and development of the human mind,,
these nations are far from occupying the same eminent station.
In tliis respect, also, the fifth continent of the globe, Polynesia
though nearly equal to Europe in extent, counts as nought.
Even America, the largest of those continents, occupies here
a comparatively subordinate rank ; and it is only in later ages,
and since its discovery, that it can be said to belong to history.
Since that period, indeed, the inhabitants of this portion of
the world have adopted, for the most part, the language, the
manners, the modes of thinking, and the political institutions
of Europe ; for the still subsisting remnant of its ancient
savages is very inconsiderable : so that America may be re-
garded as a remote dependency, and, as it were, a continuation,
of old Europe on the other side of the Atlantic. Great as
the re-action may be, which this second Europe, sprung up
in the solitudes of the new world, has during the last fifty
years exerted on its mother-continent, still as this influence
forms a part but of very recent history, it is only in very
modern times that America has obtained any historical weight
and importance.
Even in its natural configuration, the new world is more
widely different from the old, than the principal parts of the
latter are from each other. As in comparing the northern
extremity of the earth with its southern or aqueous extremity,
we observe a striking disparity, and almost complete opposition
between the two ; so we shall find this to be the case, if, in
advancing in the opposite direction from east to west, we
divide the whole surface of the earth into two equal parts. On
one hand that more important division of the earth, extending 1
from the western coast of Africa to the eastern coast of Asia,
comprises the three ancient continents, which, from the upper
to the middle part, occupy almost the whole space of this half
of the globe. Here is the greatest quantity of land, and the
animal kingdom, too, is on a more large and magnificent scale.
It is only at the southern extremity of this hemisphere that
sea and water are predominant ; and here a continuous chain
110 PHILOSOPHY OF
of islands from the southernmost point of Asia reaches to the
fifth and last portion of the globe Australia, making it a sort
of Asiatic dependency. In the American hemisphere, the
element of water is predominant, not only at the southern
extremity, but towards the middle ; for, large as America may
be, it can bear no comparison with the other continents in
respect to extent of surface. Our hemisphere is more remark-
able even for extent of population than for the quantity of land.
Here indeed is the chief seat of population, and the principal
theatre of human history and human civilisation.
The entire population of America, which, as it is for the
most part of European extraction, is better known to us than
that of many countries more contiguous the entire population
of America at the highest computation of the whole number
of inhabitants on the globe, forms but a thirtieth part, and at
the lowest computation, not a four-and-twentieth part of the
whole. Widely extended as this thinly-peopled continent is,
the whole number of its inhabitants scarcely exceeds the popu-
lation of a single great European state, such as either France
or Germany, whose population, indeed, it about equals. Ve-
getation, indeed, is most rich and luxuriant in America ; but
the two most generous plants reared by human culture, and
which are so closely connected with the primitive history of
man corn and the vine were originally unknown in this
quarter of the world. In the animal kingdom, America is far
inferior to the other and more ancient continents of the
globe. Many of the noblest and most beautiful species of
animals did not exist there originally ; and others, again, were
found most unseemly in form, and most degenerate in nature.
Some species of animals indigenous to that continent form but
a feeble compensation for the absence of others, the most
useful and most necessary for the purposes of husbandry and
the domestic uses of man. We may boldly lay it down as a
general proposition not to be taxed with error or exaggeration,
that in the new hemisphere, vegetation is predominant, while
in the old, animal force preponderates, and is more fully
developed. This superiority is apparent, not only in the com-
parative extent of population, but in the organic structure of
the human form. Even the African tribes are far superior in
bodily strength and agility to the aboriginal natives of
America ; and in point of longevity and fecundity, the latter
HISTORY. 1 1 1
are not to be compared with the Malayan race, and the Mongul
tribes in the central or north-eastern parts of Asia, and in
Southern Tartary, races with whom, in other respects, they
seem to bear some analogy.
As the American continent, in other respects so incomplete,
is mostly separated from all the others ; and its form is more
simple and less complex than that of the ancient divisions of
the globe, it well deserves our consideration in that point of
view ; and it may perhaps furnish the general type and true
geographical outline of a continent in its natural state. A
narrow isthmus connects the upper half, stretching in a widely
extended tract towards the North Pole, and the inferior part,
with its southern peak ; and thus both form, according to
general impression, but one and the same continent ; and so
prove, in fact, how totally the northern and southern parts of
a continent may differ. That now in the period when the
Euxine was still united to the Caspian, when the White Sea
stretched further into land, and the Ural Mountains formed
an island, or were surrounded to the north and south by the
sea, Asia and Europe were probably separated towards the
north, is a point to which we have already had occasion to
allude. But if, on the one hand, Europe were separated from
Asia, it might on the other have been easily joined to Africa by
an isthmus, where it is now divided from it by a strait, and
so have formed with it one connected continent ; in the same
way as Australia is united with Asia, if at least we consider the
long chain of islands between them as one unbroken conti-
nuity. Then in truth there would have been but three
continents of a form similar to the above-mentioned one of
America ; except that the two nobler continents closely en-
tangled with one another would not on that account have so
well preserved the original conformation. That it is on the
whole more correct, and more consonant with nature, as well
as with theory, to suppose the existence of only three original
portions of the globe, might be shown by much additional
evidence.
But, laying aside these geological facts and observations,
ideas and conjectures, the philosophic historian can reckon
overthe whole surface of the globe but fifteen historical and
important civilised countries of greater or less extent, which
can form the subject, and furnish the geographical outline of
] 12 PHILOSOPHY OF
his remarks. This historical chain of lands, or this stream
of historical nations from the south-east of Asia to the
northern and western extremities of Europe, forms a tract,
through both continents, which though of considerable breadth,
is not, in proportion to the extent of these continents, of very
great magnitude, and which may be divided into three classes,
coinciding chronologically in their several periods of historical
glory and development with the great eras or sections of
universal history from the primitive ages down to the present
times. In the first class of these mighty and celebrated
civilised countries, I would place the three great magnificent
regions in Eastern and Southern Asia, China, India, between
which the ancient Bactriana forms a point of transition and
connecting link and lastly Persia. In a more westerly and
somewhat more northerly direction than the three countries
just named, the second or middle class is composed of four or
five regions remarkable for extent and beauty, and above all
for their historical importance and celebrity. First of all,
there is that middle country of Western Asia above-mentioned,
which is situate near two great streams the Tigris and the
Euphrates, and bounded by four inland seas, the Persian and
Arabian gulfs, and the Caspian and Mediterranean seas. Upon
this midland country of ancient history, in every respect so
worthy of notice, I have but one observation to add, that in
this great series of civilised countries it occupies nearly the
middle place ; for the southern extremity of India is about
as far removed from it, as in the opposite direction, the north
of Scotland. And the eastern part of China is not much
more distant from this region, than in the opposite quarter
the western coast of the Hesperian Peninsula. Next must
be included in this class the circumjacent countries, Arabia,
Egypt, and Asia Minor, together with the Caucasian regions.
As in the flourishing period of her ancient history, Greece
was in every way far more closely connected with Asia Minor,
Phoenicia, and Egypt, than with the countries of Europe, she
also must be comprised in this division of Central Asia. On
the other hand, there is no country in Europe which, consi-
dered in itself, bears so strongly the distinctive geographical
configuration peculiar to the European continent. This pecu-
liar configuration of Europe, so well adapted to the purposes
of settlement, and to the progress of civilisation, consists in
HISTORY. 113
this that in no other continent does the same given space of
territory present to the sea so extensive and diversified a line
of coast, and furnish it with so many streams, great and small,
as Europe, shut in as it is, between two inland seas, and the
great ocean, and which runs out into so many great and commo-
diously situated peninsulas, and possesses large, magnificent,
and in part, very anciently and highly civilised islands, like
Sicily and the British Isles. What Europe is in a large way,
Greece is in a small a region of coasts, islands, and peninsulas.
Belonging more to one continent in its natural conformation,
and to the other by its historical connexion, Greece forms the
point of transition and the intermediate link between Asia
arid Europe.
The other six or seven principal countries in Europe, taken
according to a strict geographical classification, and without
paying attention to the political variations of territory, whether
in antiquity, the middle ages, or modern times, form the
members of the third class. These are, first the two beautiful
peninsulas, Italy and Spain ; next France on the north and
south washed by two different seas, and towards the north,
jutting- out into a by no means inconsiderable peninsula
further on, the British Isles, the ancient Germany with its
northern coast stretching along two seas, to which must be
annexed from the ancient consanguinity of their inhabitants,
the Cimbric and Scandinavian islands and peninsulas ; lastly,
the vast Sarmatia, towards the north and east extending far
into Asia, in the wide tract from the Euxine to the Frozen
Sea. From Sarmatia, however, must be separated, on account
of their natural situation, the great Danubian countries,
extending from the south of the Carpathian Mountains, down
to the other mountainous chain northward of Greece such
as the ancient Illyricum, Pannonia, and Dacia regions which,
in a strict geographical point of view, must be regarded as
forming a distinct class. In an historical point of view, the
whole northern coast of Africa, stretching along the Medi-
terranean, should be included in this division of European
countries, not only from that early commercial and colonial
connexion, established in the time of the Carthaginian republic,
and in the first period of the Roman wars and conquests ; but
from the prevalence in that country, down to the fourth and
fifth centuries, of European manners, language, and refinement.
114 PHILOSOPHY OF
Even during the existence of the Saracenic empire, a very
close intercourse subsisted for many centuries between this
coast and Spain.
Such, according to a general geographical survey of the
globe, would be the historical land-chart of civilisation, if I
may so express myself, which forms the grand outline I must
steadily keep in view, in the following sketch of nations, in
which I will endeavour to explain with the utmost clearness
and precision, and point out closely in all its particular bearings,
the principle laid down in this work respecting the internal
Word, as the essential characteristic of man.
END OF LECTURE IT.
HISTORY. 115
LECTURE III.
the Constitution of the Chinese Empire the moral and political
Condition of China the Character of Chinese Intellect and Chinese
Science.
" MAN and the earth," this has been the subject of our pre-
vious disquisitions, and might serve as the superscription to this
first portion of the work. In the second part, comprised in
the four or five following lectures, the subject discussed is
sacred tradition, according to the peculiar form which it
assumed among each of the great and most remarkable nations
in primitive antiquity, and as it is known from the visible and
universally scattered traces of a divine revelation. It will be
our duty to trace, with a discriminating eye, the various course
which, in the lapse of ages, this sacred tradition followed
among each of those nations ; and at the same time to point
out, as far as the subject will admit of historical proof, the one
common source whence, as from a centre, issued those different
streams of tradition to diffuse throughout all the regions of the
arth fertility and life, or to be lost and dried up in the sterile
sands of human error. It will be also our task more accurately
to define the share allotted to each of those leading nations in
divine truth, or the heritage of higher knowledge which had
been imparted to them. Closely connected with this subject,
is the designation of the internal Word, constituting as it does
the distinguishing mark and intellectual being of man and
mankind ; and which, as it has been variously manifested and
developed in the language, writings, Sagas, history, art, and
science in the faith, the life, and modes of thinking of each
of those nations, will be described in its most essential traits.
I shall commence with the Chinese Empire, because, among
the fifteen historical countries included in the line of civilisa-
tion we have drawn above, it occupies the extreme point of
Eastern Asia. The names of east and west are indeed purely
relative j and have not the same permanent and definite signi-
i2
116 PHILOSOPHY OF
fication as the Nortli or JSoutli Pole in every portion of the
globe. China lies to the west of Peru ; and to North America,
or Brazil, Europe forms the east or north-east point. We
still, however, adhere to common speech, purely relative as it is,
and take our point of view from this Asiatic and European
hemisphere, in which we dwell. If we would extend in a
westerly direction and to the great continent of America,
which is more and more assuming an important place in the
history of the world, that series of great and civilised states,
stretching from the south-east to the north-west in our mightier.,,
more celebrated, and earlier civilised hemisphere, we might
add to the before-mentioned fifteen ancient and modern coun-
tries three young or rising states in the new world, which,
springing in a three-fold division from British, Spanish, and
Portuguese extraction, would constitute the most recent, or last
historical links in this chain of communities.
The Chinese Empire is the largest of all the monarchies now
existing on the earth, and even in this respect may well chal-
lenge the attention of the historical inquirer. This empire is
not absolutely the greatest in territorial extent, though even in
this respect it is scarcely inferior to the greatest ; but in point
of population it is in all probability the first. Spain, if we
could now include in the number of her possessions her Ame-
rican colonies, would exceed all empires in extent. The same
may be said of Russia, with her annexed colonies, and bound-
less provinces in the north of Asia. But, great as the popula-
tion of this empire may be, when considered in itself and
relatively to the other European states, it can sustain no com-
parison with that of China. England with the East Indies
and her colonial possessions in the three divisions of the globe,
Polynesia, Africa, and America, has indeed a very wide extent,
and, perhaps, when we include the hundred and ten millions
that own her sway in India, comes the nearest in point of popu-
lation to China, Of the amount of the Chinese population,
which is not with certainty know r n, that of India may furnish
a criterion for a conjectural and prbbable estimate. The Bri-
tish ambassador, Lord Macartney, received an official document,
in which the whole population of China was computed at the
monstrous amount of 330 millions. Even if the Chinese pos-
sessed those exact statistical estimates we have in Europe, it
would still be a matter of doubt how far in such cases we could
HISTORY. 117
confide in their veracity, especially in their relations with
foreigners and Europeans. In another and somewhat earlier
statistical work, composed towards the close of the 18th cen-
tury, the population of this empire is estimated at 147 millions;
and the very incredible statement is added, that a hundred and
fifty years before, or about the middle of the 17th century, the
Chinese population amounted only to 27 millions and a half.
This rapid rise, or rather this prodigious stride in the numbers
of a people, would be in utter opposition to all principles and
observations on the growth and progressive increase of popula-
tion, even in the most civilised countries. Thus even the sta-
tistical estimates of the Chinese furnish us with no certain in
formation on this subject. However as this vast region is
everywhere intersected by navigable rivers and canals, every-
where studded with large and highly populous cities, and enjoys
a climate as genial, or even still more genial, and certainly
far more salubrious than that of India ; as, like the latter
country, it everywhere presents to the eye the richest culture,
and is in all appearance as much peopled, or over-peopled, we
may take India, whose total population is not near included in
the 110 millions under British rule, as furnishing a pretty accu-
rate standard for the computation of the Chinese population.
Now, when we reflect that even the proper China is larger
than the whole western peninsula of India, and that the vast
countries dependent on China, such as Thibet and Southern
Tartary are very populous, the conjectural calculation of the
English writer, from whom I have taken these critical remarks
on the early estimates of Chinese population, and who reckons
it at 150 millions, may be regarded as a very moderate compu-
tation, and may with perfect safety, be considerably raised.
Thus, then, the Chinese population is nearly as large as the
whole population of Europe, and constitutes, if not a fourth, at
least a fifth, of the total population of the globe.
I permit .myself to indulge in cursory comparisons of this
kind, and for the reason that the history of civilisation, which
forms the basis, and, as it were, the outward body, of the
philosophy of history, which should be the inner and higher
sense of the whole, is deeply interested in all that refers to the
general condition of humanity. And such an interest, which
does not of itself lie in mere statistical calculations, but in the
118 PHILOSOPHY OP
outward condition of mankind, as the symbol of its inward
state, may very well attach to comparisons of this nature.
The interest, however, which the philosophic historian
should take in all that relates to humanity in general, and to-
the various nations of the earth, ought not to be regulated by
the false standard of an indiscriminate equality, that would
consider all nations of equal importance, and pay equal atten-
tion to all without distinction. This would, indeed, betray
an indifference to, or at least ignorance of, the higher prin-
ciple implanted in the human breast. But this interest should
be measured not merely by the degree of population in a state,
or by geographical extent of territory, or by external power,
but by population, territory, and power combined by moral
worth and intellectual pre-eminence, by the scale of civilisation
to which the nation has attained. The Tongoosses, though a
very widely diffused race, the Calmucks, though, compared
with the other nations of Central Asia, they have much to claim
our attention, cannot certainly excite equal interest, or hold as-
high a place in the history of human civilisation, as the Greeks-
or the Egyptians ; though the territory of Egypt itself is cer-
tainly not particularly large, nor, according to our customary
standard of population, were its inhabitants in all probability ever
very numerous. In the same way, the empire of the Moguls.,,
which embraced China itself, has not the same high interest and
'importance in our eyes, as the Roman Empire either in its rise
or in its fall. Writers on universal history have not however
always avoided this fault, and have been too much disposed
to place all nations on the same historical footing on the
false level of an indiscriminate equality ; and to regard hu-
manity in a mere physical point of view, and according to the
natural classification of tribes and races. In these sketches of
history, the high and the noble is often ranked with the low
and the vulgar, and neither what is truly great, nor what is.
of lesser importance (for this, too, should not be overlooked),
has its due place in these portraits of mankind.
A numerous, or even successive population is undoubtedly
an essential element of political power in a state ; but it is not
the only, nor in any respect, the principle symptom or indica-
tion of the civilisation of a country. It is only in regard to
civilisation that the population of China deserves our consi-
HISTORY. 119
deration. Although in these latter times, when Europe, by
her political ascendency over the other parts of the world, has
proved the high pre-eminence of her arts and civilisation ;
England and Russia have become the immediate neighbours
of China towards the north and west ; still these territorial
relations affect not the rest of Europe ; and China, when we
leave out of consideration its very important commerce, cannot
certainly be accounted a political power in the general system.
Even in ancient, as well as in modern times, China never
figured in the history of Western Asia or Europe, and had
no connexion whatever with their inhabitants ; but this great
country has ever stood apart, like a world within itself, in the
remote, unknown Eastern Asia. Hence the earlier writers on
universal history have taken little or no notice of this great
empire, shut out as it was from the confined horizon of their
views. And this was natural, when we consider that the con-
quests and expeditions of the Asiatic nations were considered
by these writers as subjects of the greatest weight and import-
ance. No conquerors have ever marched from China into
Western Asia, like Xerxes, for instance, who passed from the
interior of Persia to Athens ; or like Alexander the Great, who
extended his victorious march from his small paternal province of
Macedon, to beyond the Indus, and almost to the borders of the
Ganges, though the latter river, he was, in despite of all his
efforts, unable to reach. But the great victorious expeditions
have proceeded not from China, but from Central Asia, and
the nations of Tartary, who have invaded China itself; though
in these invasions the manners, mind, and civilisation of the
Chinese have evinced their power, as their Tartar conquerors,
in the earliest as in the latest times, have, after a few genera-
tions, invariably conformed to the manners and civilisation of
the conquered nation, and become more or less Chinese.
Not only the great population and flourishing agriculture of
this fruitful country, but the cultivation of silk, for which it has
been celebrated from all antiquity; the culture of the tea-plant,
which forms such an important article of European trade; as
well as the knowledge of several most useful medicinal produc-
tions of nature ; and unique and, in their way, excellent products
of industry and manufacture ; prove the very high degree of
civilisation which this people has attained to. And how should
not that people be entitled to a high or one of the highest places
120 PHILOSOPHY OF
among civilised nations, which had known, many centuries
before Europe, the art of printing, gunpowder, and the magnet
those three so highly celebrated and valuable discoveries of
European skill? Instead of the regular art of printing with
transposeable letters, which would not suit the Chinese system
of writing, this people make use of a species of lithography,
which, to all essential purposes is the same, and attended with
the same effects. Gunpowder serves in China, as it did in
Europe in the infancy of the discovery, rather for amusement
and for fire-works, than for the more serious purpose of warlike
fortification and conquest: and though this people are acquainted
with the magnetic needle, they have never made a like extended
application of its powers, and never employ it either in a confined
river and coasting navigation, or on the wide ocean, on which
they never venture.
The Chinese are remarkable, too, for the utmost polish and
refinement of manners, and even for a fastidious urbanity and a
love of stately ceremonial. In many respects, indeed, their polite-
ness and refinement almost equal those of European nations, or
at least are very superior to what we usually designate by the
term of Oriental manners a term which in our sense can apply
only to the more contiguous Mahometan countries of the Levant.
Of this assertion we may find a sufficient proof in any single
tale that pourtrays the present Chinese life and manners, in the
novel, for instance, translated by M. Remusat.* In their pre-
sent manners and fashions, however, there are many things
utterly at variance with European taste and feelings ; I need
only mention the custom of the dignitaries, functionaries, and
men of letters, letting their nails grow to the length of birds'
claws, and that other custom in women of rank, of compressing
their feet to a most artificial diminutiveness. Both customs,
according to the recent account of a very intelligent English-
man, serve to mark and distinguish the upper class ; for the
former renders the men totally incapable of hard or manual
labour, and the latter impedes the women of rank in walking,
or at least gives them a mincing gait, and a languid, delicate,
and interesting air. These minute traits of manners should
not be overlooked in the general sketch of this nation, for they
perfectly correspond to many other characteristic marks and
* Entitled Ju-Kiao-li, or the Cousins.
HISTORY. 121
indications of unnatural stiffness, childish vanity, and exagge-
rated refinement, which we meet with in the more important
province of its intellectual exertions. Even in the basis of all
intellectual culture, the language, or rather the writing of the
Chinese, this character of refinement pushed beyond all bounds
and all conception is visible, while on the other hand it is
coupled with great intellectual poverty and jejuneness. In a
language where there are not much more than 300, not near
400, and (according to the most recent critical investigation),
only 272 monosyllabic primitive roots without any kind of gram-
mar ; where the not merely various but utterly unconnected
significations of one and the same word are marked, in the first
place, by a varying modulation of the voice, according to a four-
fold method of accentuation ; in the next place, and chiefly by
the written characters, which amount to the prodigious number
of 80,000 ; while the Egyptian hieroglyphs do not exceed the
number of 800 ; and this Chinese system of writing is the most
artificial in the whole world. An inference which is not inva-
lidated by the fact that, out of that great number of all actual
or possible written characters, but a fourth part perhaps is really
in use, and a still less portion is necessary to be learned. As
the meaning, especially of more complex notions and abstract
ideas, can be fully fixed and accurately determined only by such
artificial cyphers ; the language is far more dependent on these
written characters than on living sound ; for one and the same
sound may often be designated by 160 different characters, and
have as many significations. It not rarely occurs that Chinese,
when they do not very well understand each other in conversa-
tion, have recourse to writing, and by copying down these ci-
phers are enabled to divine each other's meaning, and become
mutually intelligible. To comprehend rightly this immeasur-
able chaos of originally symbolic, but now merely conventional
signs in other words, to be able to read and write, though this
science involves great and difficult problems even for the most
practised, constitutes the real subject and purport of the scien-
tific education of a Chinese. Indeed it furnishes labour suffi-
cient to fill up the life of man, for even the European scholars,
who have engaged in this study, find it a matter of no small
difficulty to devise a system whereby a dictionary, or rather a
systematic catalogue of all these written characters may be
composed, to serve as a fit guide on this ocean of Chinese signs.
122 PHILOSOPHY OF
But we shall have again occasion to recur to this subject ; and
indeed it is only in connexion with the peculiar bearings of the
Chinese mind this writing system can be properly explained and
understood in its true meaning', or rather its meaningless con-
struction and elaborateness.
Of the external civilisation of China, we have a striking proof
and a standing monument in the construction of so many canals
that intersect the whole country, and in every thing connected
therewith. As the extraordinary fertility of the soil is produced
by the many rivers of greater or less magnitude that intersect
the country, but which at the same time threaten the flat plains
with inundation, it is the first object and most important care
of government, to avert the danger of such inundations, to dis-
tribute the fertilising waters in equal abundance over the whole
country, and thus, by means of canals, to maintain in all parts
the communication by water, which is at the same time of equal
benefit and importance to industry and internal commerce. In
no civilised state are establishments of this kind so extensively
diffused and brought to so high a state of perfection as in
China. The great imperial canal, which extends to the length
of 120 geographical leagues, has, it is said, no parallel on the
earth. Although the construction of canals, and all the regu-
lations on water-carriage could have attained by degrees only
to their present state of perfection, still this alone would prove
the very early attention which this people had bestowed on the
arts of civilised life. Mention is often made of them in the
old Chinese histories and imperial annals ; and the canals of
China, like the Nile in Egypt, were ever the objects of most
anxious solicitude to the government. These annals, whenever
they have occasion to speak of those great inundations and de-
structive floods, which are of such frequent occurrence in Chinese
history, invariably represent the attention bestowed on water-
courses, and water-regulations, as the most certain mark of a
wise, benevolent, and provident administration. On the other
hand, the neglect of this most important of administrative con-
cerns is ever regarded as the proof of a wicked, reckless, and
unfortunate reign ; and in these histories some great calamity,
or even violent catastrophe, is sure to follow, like a stroke of
divine vengeance, on this unpardonable neglect of duty. To-
gether with the imperial canal, the great Chinese wall, which
extends on the northern frontier of China proper, to the
HISTORY. 123
length of 1 50 geographical leagues, is another no less import-
ant, and still standing monument of the comparatively high
civilisation which this country had very early attained. Such
is the height and thickness of this wall, that it has been
calculated that its cubic contents exceed all the mass of stone
employed in all the buildings in England and Scotland ; or
again, that the same materials would serve to construct a wall
of ordinary height and moderate thickness round the whole-
earth. This great wall of China may be considered as a cha-
racteristic, and as it were a symbol of the exclusive spirit
and aversion to every thing foreign in person, manners,
and modes of thinking, which distinguish the Chinese state.
This spirit, however, has been as little able as the great wall it-
self, to defend China against foreign conquests, or even against
the introduction of foreign sects. This wall, which was builfc
about two centuries before the Christian era, is an historical
monument, which furnishes far stronger proof than all the du-
bious accounts of the old annals that even in ancient times,
and long before the conquest of the Monguls, and the estab-
lishment of the present dynasty of Mantchou Tartars, the
empire had been often conquered, or at least was constantly
exposed to the invasions of the Tartar tribes of the north.
The long succession of the different native dynasties of China,
Tchin, Han, Tang, and Sung, down to the Monguls, which fills.
the diffuse annals of the empire, furnishes few important data
on the intellectual progress of the Chinese ; and every thing of
importance to the object of our present inquiries, that can be
gathered out of the mass of political history, may be reduced to-
a very few plain facts. The English writer, whom we have
already cited, though otherwise inclined to a certain degree of
scepticism in his views, fixes the commencement of the historical
history in the ancient dynasty of Chow, eleven hundred years
before the Christian era. The first fact of importance, as re-
gards the moral and intellectual civilisation of China, is that
this country was originally divided into many small principali-
ties, and, under petty sovereigns, whose power was more limited,
enjoyed a greater share of liberty; and that it was formed into-
a great and absolute monarchy only two hundred years before
Christ, The general burning of the books, of which more par-
ticular mention will be presently made, as well as the erection
of the great wall, are attributed to the first general Emperor of
ah 1 China, Chi-hoangti; in whose reign, too, Japan became a.
124 PHILOSOPHY OF
Chinese colony, or received from China a political establish-
ment. At a still later period, as in the fifth century of our
era, and again at the time of the Mogul conquest under Zingis.
Khan, China was divided into two kingdoms, a northern and a
southern. But there is another fact already mentioned that
throws still stronger light on the high civilisation of China it
is, that at every period, when this empire has been conquered
by the Moguls and Tartars, the conquerors, overcome in their
turn by the ascendency of Chinese civilisation, have, within a
short time, invariably adopted the manners, laws, and even lan-
guage of China, and thus its institutions have remained, on the
whole, unaltered. But here is a circumstance in Chinese his-
tory particularly worthy of our attention, In no state in the
world do we see such an entire, absolute, and rigid monarchical
unity as in that of China, especially under its ancient form ;
although this government is more limited by laws and manners,
and is by no means of that arbitrary and despotic character
which we are wont to attribute to the more modern Oriental
states. In China, before the introduction of the Indian religion
of Buddha, there was not even a distinct sacerdotal class
there is no nobility, no hereditary class with hereditary rights
education, and employment in the service of the state, form the
only marks of distinction; and the men of letters and govern-
ment functionaries are blended together in the single class of
Mandarins; but the state is all in all. However, this absolute
monarchical system has not conduced to the peace, stability,
and permanent prosperity of the state, for the whole history of
China, from beginning to end, displays one continued series of
seditions, usurpations, anarchy, changes of dynasty, and other
violent revolutions and catastrophies. This is proved by the
bare statement of facts, though the official language of the im-
perial annals ever concedes the final triumph to the monarchical
principle.
The same violent revolutions occurred in the department of
science and of public doctrines, as in the instance already cited
of the general burning of the books by order of the first general
emperor; when the men of letters, or at least a party of them,
were persecuted, and 460 followers of Confucius burnt. This
act of tyranny undoubtedly supposes a very violent contest be-
tween factions an important political struggle between hostile
sects, and a mighty revolution in the intellectual world. At
the same time, too, a favourite of this tyrannical prince intro-
HISTORY. 125
duced a new system of writing, which has led to the greatest
confusion even in subsequent ages. Such an intellectual revo-
lution is doubtless evident on the introduction of the Indian
religion of Buddha, or Fo (according to the Chinese appella-
tion), which took place precisely three- and-thirty years after
the foundation of Christianity. The conquest of China by the
Moguls, under Zingis Khan, occurred at the same time that
their expeditions towards the opposite quarter of Europe spread
terror and desolation over Russia and Poland, as far as the con-
fines of Silesia. This conquest produced a reaction, and a
popular revolution, conducted by a common citizen of China, by
name Chow, restored the empire; this citizen afterwards as-
cended the throne, and became the founder of a new Chinese
dynasty. The emperors of the present dynasty of Mantchou
Tartars, that has now governed China since the middle of the
17th century, are distinguished for their attachment to the old
customs and institutions of China, and even to its language and
science; and their elevation to the throne has given rise to
many great scientific enterprises, and has been singularly fa-
vourable to the investigations of those European scholars whose
object it is to make us better acquainted with China. But at the
moment I am speaking, a great rebellion has broken out in the
northern part of the kingdom, and in the opposite extremity the
Christians are exposed to a more than ordinary persecution.
These few leading incidents in Chinese history may suffice
to make known the principal epochs in the intellectual progress
and civilisation of this people. As the constitution and de-
velopment of the human mind are in each of those an-
cient nations closely connected with the nature of their
language, and even sometimes (as in the case of the Chinese)
with their system of writing the language of the latter people,
being on account of its amazing copiousness, less fit for con-
versation than for writing, I shall now make a few remarks on
the very artificial mode of Chinese writing, which is perfectly
unique in its kind ; but I shall confine my observations to its
general character, and shall forbear entering into the vast
labyrinth of the 800,000 cipher-signs of speech, and all the
problems and difficulties which they involve. The Chinese
writing was undoubtedly in its origin symbolical ; though the
rude marks of those primitive symbols can now scarcely be
discerned in the enigmatical abbreviations, and in the complex
126 PHILOSOPHY OF
combinations of the characters at present in use. It is no
slight problem, even for the learned of China, to reduce with
any degree of certainty the boundless quantity of their written
characters to their simple elements and primitive roots ; in
this, however, they have succeeded, and have shown that all
these elements are to be found in the 214 symbols, or keys of
writing, as they call them. The Chinese characters of the
primitive ages comprise only such representations indicated
by a few rude strokes, of those first simple objects which sur-
round man while living in the most simple state of society
such as the sun and the moon, the most familiar animals, the
common plants, the instruments of human labour, weapons,
and the different parts of human dwellings. This is the same
rude symbolical writing which we find among other uncivi-
lised nations, the Americans, for example, and among these,
the Mexicans in particular.
The celebrated French orientalist, Abel Remusat, who in
our times has infused a new life into the study of Chinese
literature, and especially thrown on the whole subject a much
greater degree of clearness than originally belonged to it, has,
in his examination of this first very meagre outline of the
infant civilisation of China, wherein he discovers the then very
contracted circle of Chinese ideas, passed many intellectual
observations, and drawn many historical deductions. And if,
as he conjectures, the discovery of Chinese writing must date
its origin from four thousand years back, this would bring it
within three or four generations from the Deluge, according
to vulgar era an estimate which certainly is not exaggerated.
If this European scholar, intimately conversant as he is with
Chinese antiquities and science, is at a loss adequately to
describe his astonishment at the extreme poverty of these
first symbols of Chinese writing, so no one, doubtless, possesses
in a higher degree than himself all the necessary attainments
to enable him to appreciate the immeasurable distance between
this first extreme jejuneness of ideas, and the boundless wealth
displayed in the later, artificial, and complex writing of the
Chinese.
But when, among other things, he calls our attention to the
fact that, in this primitive writing, even the sign or symbol of
a priest is wanting a symbol which together with the class
itself must exist among the very rudest nations I cannot
HISTORY. 127
concur in the truth of the remark ; for he himself adduces,
among- other characters, one which must represent a magician.
Now among the heathen nations of the primitive age, the
one personage was certainly identical with the other, as even
among the Cainites was very probably the case. Even the
combination of several of those simple characters, which generally
serves to denote the more abstract ideas, seems often, or at
least originally not to have been regulated by any profound
principle of symbolism, but to have arisen merely out of the
vulgar perceptions or impressions of every-day life. For in-
stance, the character denoting happiness is composed of two
signs, of which one represents an open mouth, and the other
a hand full of rice, or rice by itself. Here we see no allusion
is made to any very lofty or chimerical idea of happiness, or to
any mystic or spiritual conception of the same subject ; but,
as this written-character well evinces, the Chinese notion of
happiness is simply represented by a mouth filled and saturated
with good rice. Another example of nearly the same kind is
given by Remusat with something of shyness and reserve ;
the character designating woman, when doubled, signifies
strife and contention, and when tripled, immoral and disorderly
conduct How widely removed are all these coarse and trivial
combinations of ideas from an exquisite sense a deep sym-
bolism of Nature from those spiritual emblems in the Egyp-
tian hieroglyphics, so far as they have been deciphered ;
although these emblems may have been, and were in fact
applied to the purpose of alphabetic usage. In the hierogly-
phics there is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbo-
lical inspiration, like a soul of life like the breathing of a high
in-dwelling spirit a deeply felt significancy a lofty and beau-
tiful design apparent through the dead character denoting any
particular name or fact.*
But independently of this boundless chaos of written-charac-
ters, the Chinese undoubtedly possess a system of scientific
symbols, and symbolical signs, which constitute the purport of
the most ancient of their sacred books the I King which
signifies the book of unity, or, as others explain it, the book of
* There are some exceptions to the truth of these remarks respecting
Chinese symbols. For instance, the idea of " dispersion" is expressed
in the Chinese writing by the sign of a tower. What a beautiful and
profound allusion to the great events of primitive history. Trans.
128 PHILOSOPHY OP
changes ; and either name will agree with the meaning of
those symbols which, when rightly understood, and conceived in
the spirit of early antiquity, will appear to be of a very re-
markable and scientific nature. There are only two primary
figures or lines, from which proceed originally the four symbols
and the eight koua or combinations representing nature, which
form the basis of the high Chinese philosophy. These first two
primary principles are a straight, unbroken line, and a line
broken or divided into two. If these first simple elements are
doubled ; namely two straight lines put under each other like
our arithmetical sign of equation, and two broken or divided
lines also put together, the different lines are formed. Accord-
ing as one broken line occupies the upper or the lower place,
there are two possible variations when put together, there are
four possible variations ; and these constitute the four symbols.
But if three lines of these two kinds, the straight and the
broken, are united or placed under each other, so, according to
the number of the upper, middle, or lower place of either species
of line, there are eight possible combinations, and these are the
eight koua, which, together with the four symbols, refer to the
natural elements, and to the primary principles of all things,
and serve as the symbolical expression, or scientific designation,
of these.
What is now the real sense and the proper signification of
those scientific primary lines among the Chinese, which exert
an influence over the whole of their ancient literature, and
upon which they themselves have written an incredible number
of learned commentaries ? Leibnitz supposed them to contain
a reference to the modern algebraical discoveries, and especially
to the binary calculation. Other writers, especially among'
the English, drawing their observations more from real life,
remark, on the other hand, that this ancient system of mystical
lines serves at present the purpose of a sort of oracular play
of questions, like the turning up of cards among Europeans,
and is converted to many superstitious uses, especially for
making pretended discoveries in alchymy, to which the Chinese
are very much addicted. But this is only an abuse of modern
times, which no longer understand this primitive system of
symbolical signs and lines. The high antiquity of these lines,
and of the eight koua can be the less a matter of doubt as
even mythology has ascribed them to the primitive Patriarch
HISTORY. 129
of the Chinese Fohi, who is represented as having espied
these lines on the back of a tortoise, and having thence
deduced the written characters ; which many of the learned
Chinese wish to derive from these eight koua or combinations
of the first symbolical lines. But the French scholar, whom
I have more than once had occasion to name, and who is
well able to form a competent opinion on the subject, is most
decidedly opposed to this Chinese derivation of all the
written characters from the eight koua ; and it would appear,
indeed, that the latter differ totally from the common system
of Chinese writing, and must be looked upon as of a distinct
scientific nature.
Perhaps we may find a natural explanation of the true,
and not very hidden sense of these signs, by comparing the
fundamental doctrines in the elder Greek philosophy and
science of nature. Thus, in the writings of Plato, mention
is often made of the one and of the other, or of unity and
duality, as the original elements of nature and first principles
of all existence. By this is meant the doctrine of the first
opposition, and of the many oppositions derived from the
first ; and also of the possible, and conceivable, or required
adjustment and compromise between the two, and of the re-
storation of the first unity and eternal equality anterior to all
opposition, and which terminates and absorbs in itself all
discord. Thus these eight koua, and mathematical signs or
symbolical lines of ancient China, would comprise nothing
more than a dry outline of all dynamical speculation and
science. And it is therefore quite consistent that the old
sacred book which contains these principles of Chinese science
should be termed either the book of unity, or the book
of changes ; for doubtless this title refers to the doctrine
of an absolute unity, as the fundamental principle of all
things, and to the doctrine of differences, or oppositions
or changes springing out of that first unity. This doctrine
of an opposition in all things, in thought as in nature
will become more apparent if Ave reflect on the new and
brilliant discoveries in natural philosophy. For as in this
science, the oxygen and hydrogen parts in the chemistry of
metals, or the positive and negative end of electrical phe-
nomena, in the attracting and repelling pole of magnetism,
reveal such an opposition and dynamic play of living powers
in nature ; so in this philosophy of China, the abstract
K
130 PHILOSOPHY OF
doctrine of this opposition and dynamical change of existence
seems to be laid down with a sort of mathematical generality,
as the basis of all future science. In our higher natural
philosophy, indeed, all this has been proved from facts and
experience ; and, besides this, dynamic life forms but the one
element, and the one branch of the science to be acquired ;
and a philosophy founded entirely on this dynamical law of
existence, without any regard to the other and higher principle
of internal experience and moral life, intellectual intuition and
divine revelation, would be at best a very partial system, and
by no means of general application ; or if a general application
of such a system were made, it must lead to endless mistakes,
errors, and contradictions. That such a system of dynamical
speculation and science, if extended to objects where it cannot
be corroborated by facts to all things divine and human, real,
possible, or impossible, will undoubtedly lead to such a chaotic
confusion of ideas ; we have had a memorable experience in
the German " Philosophy of Nature " of the last generation ;*
a philosophy which consisted in a fanciful play of thought with
Polarities, and oppositions, and points of indifference between
them, but which has been long appreciated in its true worth
and real nature, and consigned to its proper limits.
Thus this outline of the old Chinese symbols of thought,
which have a purely metaphysical import, would lay before us
the most recent error clothed in the most antique form but the
Chinese system is in itself very remarkable and important. The
fundamental text of the old sacred book on this doctrine of
unity and oppositions, and which may now be easily compre-
hended, runs thus, according to Remusat's literal translation :
" The great first Principle has engendered or produced two
equations and differences, or primary rules of existence; but
the two primary rules or two oppositions, namely Yn and Yang,
or repose and motion (the affirmative and negative as we might
otherwise call them) have produced four signs or symbols ; and
the four symbols have produced the eight koua, or further
* The author alludes to Schelling's philosophy, which is called some-
times the " Philosophy of Nature," and sometimes the " Philosophy of
Identity." M. Cuvier, in his masterly introduction to his great work
on Fossile Kemains, mentions some of the extravagant theories broached
in the department of geology alone by those German naturalists, who
some years ago attempted to apply to natural philosophy, the metaphy-
sical system of Schilling. Trans,
HISTORY. 131
combinations." These eight koua are kien or ether, kui or
pure water, li or pure fire, tchin or thunder, sinn, the wind,
kan, common water, ken, a mountain, and kuen, the earth.
On this ancient basis of Chinese philosophy, proceeding from
indifference to differences, was afterwards founded the rationalist
system of Lao-tseu, whose name occurs somewhat earlier than
that of Confucius. The Taosse, or disciples of Reason, as the
followers of this philosopher entitle themselves, have very much
degenerated, and have become a complete atheistical sect ;
though the guilt of this must be attributed, not to the founder,
but to his disciples only. It is, however, acknowledged that
the atheistical principles of this dead science of reason, have
been very widely diffused throughout the Chinese empire, and
for a certain period were almost generally prevalent.
As it is necessary to keep in view a certain chronological
order, in our investigations of the progressive development of
Chinese intellect, I may here observe that, as far as European
research has been able to ascertain, we may distinguish three
principal and successive epochs in the history both of the reli-
gion and science of China. The first epoch is that of sacred
tradition, and of the old constitution of the Chinese empire,
and discloses those primitive views, and that primitive system
of ethics, on which the empire was founded. The second, which
we may fix about six centuries before our era, is the period of
scientific philosophy, that pursued two opposite paths of inquiry.
Confucius applied his attention entirely to the more practical
study of ethics, with which, indeed, the old constitution, history,
and sacred traditions of the Chinese were very intimately con-
nected ; and the pure morality of Confucius, which was the first
branch of Chinese philosophy known in Europe, excited to a
high degree the enthusiasm of many European scholars, who,
by their too exclusive admiration, were prevented from forming
a right estimate of the general character of Chinese philosophy.
Another system of philosophy, purely speculative and widely
different from the practical and ethical doctrine of Confucius,
was the system of Lao-tseu and his school, whence issued the
above-mentioned rationalist sect of Taosse that has at last fallen
into atheism. As to the question whether Lao-tseu travelled
into the remote West, or in case he came only as far as Western
Asia, whether he derived his system from the Persian or Egyp-
tian doctrines or mediately from the Greek philosophy this
132 PHILOSOPHY OF
restion I shall not here stop to discuss ; for the matter is very
ubtful in itself, and, were it even proved, still all the doctrines
borrowed from the West were invested in a form purely Chi-
nese, and clothed in quite a native garb. Those signs in the
I King, we have already spoken of, evidently comprise the
germ of such an absolute, negative, and consequently atheistic
rationalism a mechanical play of idle abstractions. The third
epoch in the progress of Chinese opinions is formed by the in-
troduction of the Indian religion of Buddha or of Fo. The
great revolution which had previously occurred in the old doc-
trines and manners of China, and the ruling spirit of that false
and absolute rationalism, had already paved the way for the
foreign religion of Buddha, which of all the Pagan imitations of
truth, occupies the lowest grade.
The old sacred traditions of the Chinese are not so overlaid
nor disfigured with fictions, as those of most other Asiatic na-
tions ; those of the Indians, for example, and of the early nations
of Pagan Europe ; but their traditions breathe the purer spirit
of genuine history. Hence the poetry of the Chinese is not
mythological, like that of other nations ; but is either lyrical
(as in the Shi King, a book of sacred songs, composed or
compiled by Confucius) ; or is entirely confined to the repre-
sentation of real life, and of the social relations (as in the
modern tales and novels, several of which have been translated
into the European languages).
The old traditions of the Chinese have many traits of a
kindred character with, or at least of a strong resemblance to,
the Mosaic revelation, and even to the sacred traditions of the
nations of Western Asia, particularly the Persians ; and in
these traditions we find much that either corroborates the
testimony of Holy W^rit, or at least affords matter for further
comparison. We have before mentioned the very peculiar
manner in which the Chinese speak of the great Flood, and
how their first progenitors struggled against the savage waters,
and how this task was afterwards neglected by bad or impro-
vident rulers, who, in consequence of this neglect, were brought
to ruin.
I will cite but one instance, where the parallel is indeed
remarkable. In the I King mention is made of the fallen
dragon, or of the spirit of the dragon that, for his presumption
in wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated into the
HISTORY. 133
abyss ; and the words in which this event is described are
precisely the same, or at least very similar, to those which our
Scriptures apply to the rebel angel, and the Persian books to
Ahriman. However this dragon is whimsically, we might
almost say, artlessly, made the sacred symbol of the Chinese
empire and emperor. The paternal power of the latter is
understood in a much too absolute sense : not only is the
emperor styled the lord of heaven and earth, and even the
son of God ; but his will is revered as the will of God, or
rather completely identified with it ; and even the most deter-
mined eulogists of the Chinese constitution and manners cannot
deny that the monarch is almost the object of a real worship.
Christianity teaches that all power is from God ; but it does
not thereby declare that all power is one and the same with
God. Even a dominion over nature and her powers is ascribed
to the Emperor of China, as the illustrious lord of heaven and
earth.
Moreover, no hereditary nobility, no classes separated by
distinctions of birth, exist in this country, as in India. The
emperor, half identified with the Deity, had alone the privilege
in ancient times of offering on the sacred heights the great
sacrifice to God. Some European writers have, from this
circumstance, conceived the Chinese constitution to be theo-
cratic ; but if it be so, it is only in its outward form, or
original mould ; for it would be difficult to show in it any trace
of a true, vital theocracy. All that pomp of sacred ceremony
and religious titles so strangely abused, forms a striking contrast
with real history, and with that long succession of profligate
and unfortunate reigns and perpetual revolutions which fill
most of the pages of the Chinese annals. We should err
greatly were we to regard all these high imperial titles as the
mere swell and exaggeration of Eastern phraseology. The
Chinese speak of their celestial Empire of the Medium, as
they call their country, in terms which no European writer
would apply to a Christian state, and such indeed as the
Scriptures and religious authors use in reference only to the
kingdom of God. They cannot conceive it possible for the
earth to contain two emperors at one and the same time, and
own the sway of more than one such absolute lord and master.
Hence they look on every solemn foreign embassy as a debt of
homage; nor is this sentiment the idle effect of vanity, or
134 PHILOSOPHY OF
fancy it is a firm and settled belief, perfectly coinciding with
the whole system of their religious and political doctrines.
This political idolatry of the state, which the Chinese identify
with the emperor's person, is a pagan error : all excess, all
exaggeration is sure to produce opposition and reaction, or a
tendency thereto. Hence the pages of Chinese history present
by the side of this high boasted ideal of absolute power, as a
fearful concomitant, and fitting commentary, one continuous
series of political revolutions and catastrophes. Neither |the
pure morality of those ancient books revered by the Chinese as
sacred, whatever be the morality of books in which the principle
of rationalism is so exclusively predominant ; nor all the high
refinement of philosophic speculation in the scientific period
of their history, have prevented this people from falling into
the grossest of idolatries, and adopting a foreign superstition,
which of all false religions is unquestionably the most repre-
hensible. Some persons have sought to trace a certain re-
semblance to Christianity in this religion of Fo, partly on
account of some external institutions, and partly on account
of the fundamental principle of the incarnation, equally
perverted and misapplied in this superstition, as in the rival
mythology of Brahma. The enemies of Christianity, since
the time of Voltaire, have not failed, at the name of Bonzis,
to throw out many malicious epigrams against religion.
The similarity here observed is not real, but is that caricature
Y resemblance the ape bears to man, and which has led many
naturalists into error; for the ape has with man no real
affinity, no true internal sympathy in his organic conformation,
but merely the likeness of a spiteful parody, such as we may
suppose an evil spirit to have devised to mock the image of
God the masterpiece of creation ; and indeed the frailties
and corruption of degenerate men may well give occasion to
such a parody. We may lay it down as a general principle
that the greater the apparent resemblance which a false religion,
utterly and fundamentally different in its spiritual character
and moral tendency, externally bears to the true, the more
reprehensible will it be in itself, and the greater its hostility to
the truth. An example near at hand will place the truth of
this remark in the clearest light. If, for instance, Mahomet,
instead of merely giving himself out as a prophet, had declared
he was the son of God, the eternal Word, the incarnate Deity,
HISTORY. 135
the true and real Christ, his religious system would certainly
have been far more adverse and repulsive to our feelings than
it now is, and would have shocked alike every mind trained in
the intellectual discipline of Europe, brought up with Christian
feelings, and even unconsciously imbued with such. But this
is precisely the characteristic feature, the peculiar doctrine of
the religion of Buddha ; for not only is Buddha himself wor-
shipped as an incarnate divinity, but this prerogative of a
divine incarnation has been transmitted to his chief priests
through every generation ; and thus this personal idolatry has
ever been kept alive. In regard to morals, too, a comparison
between the religion of the Buddhists and of the Mahometans,
would be equally disadvantageous to the former. The injurious
influence which polygamy, and that degradation of the female
sex it necessarily involves, exert on the manners and intellectual
character of Mahometan nations, has been often observed, and
can never be questioned. But that that other and opposite
abuse of marriage, poly-andry, which is legally established
among the Buddhist nations, is infinitely more repugnant to,
and destructive of morality, and more debasing to the male
character, must be perceptible to the feelings of every indi-
vidual, and can require no comment. I do not find, indeed, in
the different accounts of China, any mention made of this
abominable practice ; and it is very possible that in this, as in
other cases, the good old customs of the Chinese have had
the ascendency, and preserved their beneficial influence : but
in Thibet, the chief seat of Buddhism, in many parts of India,
and in other countries where this religion prevails, the unna-
tural custom exists.
The writer* best versed in the language and writings of the
Buddhist Moguls boasts of their superior humanity and mildness
of manners, when compared with the Mahometan nations ; but
this observation must be taken only in a relative sense, and un-
derstood of a mere outward polish," and superficial refinement of
manner ; for history does not show the Moguls to have been at
all more humane in their conduct. The indescribable confusion
in the mythological system of the Buddhists, their innumerable
books of metaphysics, all wearisomely prolix and unintelligible,
according to the explicit avowal of the critic just now cited,
* M. Abel Kemusat
136 PHILOSOPHY OF
M. Remusat, prove the essentially false direction of speculation
and philosophy among the Buddhists a philosophy which, by
a dialectic or rather ideal course, has been led into a chaos of
void abstractions, and a pure nihilism ; and more scientific ob-
servers have ever judged it to be an absolute system of atheism.
It would appear that the Nestorians, or other degenerate
Christian sects, have exerted some influence on Buddhism, and
co-operated in its further development; so we may well
imagine that this exotic influence has not tended to the ameli-
oration or improvement of a religion false in its essence, and
fundamentally corrupt ; but that its vices and absurdities have
remained equally flagrant, or, as it is easy to suppose, have been
aggravated in the progress of time.
This religion of Fo must not be considered as resem-
bling Christianity, because its followers have monastic institu-
tions, and make use of a kind of rosary; but as the political
idolatry of the Chinese for their state and sovereign is widely
different from the true principle of Christian government, that
all power is from God, so this false religion of Buddha is fur-
ther removed than any other from Christianity: it is on the
contrary adverse to our religion, and, so far from being half
similar to Christianity, is a decidedly anti-Christian creed*.
We may thus sum up the result of our inquiries : among
the great nations of primitive antiquity who stood the nearest,
* No Gentile people preserved so long and in such purity the worship of
the true God as the Chinese. This no doubt must be ascribed to the
secluded situation of the country to the great reverence of the Chinese
for their ancestors, as well as to the patriarchal mildness of their early
governments; and, we must add, to the unpoetical character of the
nation itself, which was a safeguard against idolatry. There is histo-
rical evidence that, up to two centuries before the Christian era, idolatry
had made little progress among this people. So vivid was their ex-
pectation of the Messiah " the Great Saint who, as Confucius says,
was to appear in the West" so fully sensible were they not only of the
place of his birth, but of the time of his coming, that, about sixty years
after the birth of our Saviour, they sent their envoys to hail the
expected Redeemer. These envoys encountered on their way the Mis-
sionaries of Buddhism coming from India the latter, announcing an
incarnate God, were taken to be the disciples of the true Christ,
and were presented as such to their countrymen by the deluded ambas-
sadors. Thus was this religion introduced into China, and thus did this
phantasmagoria of Hell intercept the light of the gospel. So, not in the
internal spirit only, but in the outward history of Buddhism, a demo-
niacal intent is very visible. Trans.
HISTORY. 137
or at least very near, to the source of sacred tradition the
word of primitive revelation the Chinese hold a very distin-
guished place ; and many passages in their primitive history,
many remarkable vestiges of eternal truth the heritage of old
thoughts to be found in their ancient classical works, prove
the originally high eminence of this people. But at a very
early period, their science had taken a course completely erro-
neous, and even their language partly followed this direction,
or at least assumed a very stiff and artificial character. De-
scending from one degree of political idolatry to a grade still
lower, they have at last openly embraced a foreign superstition
a diabolic mimicry of Christianity, which emanated from
India, has made Thibet its principal seat, prevails in China,
and, widely diffused over the whole middle of Asia, reckons a
greater number of followers than any other religion on the
earth.
END OF LECTURE III.
138 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE IV.
Of the Institutions of the Indians the Brahrainical Caste, and the he-
reditary Priesthood. Of the Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls,
considered as the Basis of Indian Life, and of Indian Philosophy.
WHEN Alexander the Great had attained the object of his
most ardent desires, and, realising the fabulous expedition of
Bacchus and his train of followers, had at last reached India,
the Greeks found this vast region, even on this side of the
Ganges (for that river, the peculiar object of Alexander's
ambition, the conqueror, in despite of all his efforts, was
unable to reach) the Greeks found this country extensive,
fertile, highly cultivated, populous, and filled with flourishing
cities, as it was, divided into a number of great and petty
kingdoms. They found there an hereditary division of castes,
such as still subsists ; although they reckoned not four, but
seven castes, a circumstance, however, which, as we shall see later,
argues no essential difference in the division of Indian classes
at that period. They remarked, also, that the country was
divided into two religious parties or sects, the Brachmans and
the Samaneans. By the first, the Greeks designated the fol-
lowers of the religion of Brahma, as well as of Vishnoo and
Siva, a religion which still subsists, and is more deeply rooted
and more widely diffused and prevalent in India than any
other religious system ; distinguished as it is by its leading
dogma of the transmigration of souls, which has exerted the
mightiest influence on every department of thought, on the
whole bearing of Indian philosophy, and on the whole arrange-
ment of Indian life. But by the Greek denomination of Sa-
maneans we must certainly understand the Buddhists, as, among
the rude nations of Central Asia, as in other countries, the
priests of the religion of Fo bear at this day the name of Scha-
mans. These priests indeed appear to be little better than
mere sorcerers and jugglers, as are the priests of all idolatrous
nations that are sunk to the lowest degree of barbarism and
HISTORY. 139
superstition. The word itself is pure Indian, and occurs fre-
quently in the religious and metaphysical treatises of that
people ; for originally, and before it had received such a mean
acceptation among those Buddhist nations, it had quite a
philosophical sense, as it still has in the Sanscrit. This word
denotes that equability of mind, or that deep internal equa-
nimity which, according to the Indian philosophy, must pre-
cede, and is indispensably requisite to, the perfect union with the
God-head. In general all the names by which Buddha, the
priests of his religion, and its important and fundamental
doctrines are known, whether in Thibet, or among the Mon-
gul nations, in Siam, in Pegu, or in Japan in general, we
say, all those names are pure Indian words ; for the tradition
of all those nations, with unanimous accord, deduces the origin
of this sect from India.
The name of Buddha, which the Chinese have changed, or
shortened into that of Fo, is rather an honorary appellation,
and is expressive of the divine wisdom with which, in the
opinion of his followers, he was endowed ; or which rather,
according to their belief, became visible in his person. The
period of his existence is fixed by many at six hundred years,
by others again at a thousand years, before the Christian era.
His real and historical name was Gautama ; and it is remark-
able that the same name was borne by the author of one of the
principal philosophical systems of the Hindoos, the Nyaya
philosophy, the leading principles of which will be the subject
of future consideration, when we come to speak of the Indian
philosophy. Indeed, the dialectic spirit, which pervades the
Nyaya philosophy would seem to be of a kindred nature and
like origin with the confused metaphysics of the Buddhists.
But the names, notwithstanding their identity, denote two
different persons ; although even the founder of the dialectic
system, like almost all other celebrated names in the ancient
history, traditions, and science of the Indians, figures in the
character of a mythological personage. But we must first
take a view of the state of manners, and the state of political
civilisation, in India, in order to be able to form a right judg-
ment and estimate of the intellectual and scientific exertions of
its inhabitants, and of the peculiar nature and tendency of the
Indian opinions.
By the manner in which the Greek writers speak of the two
140 PHILOSOPHY OF
religious parties, into which Alexander found the country
divided, it can scarcely be doubted that the Buddhists at that
period were far more numerous, and more extensively diffused
throughout India, than they are at the present day, and this
inference is even corroborated by many historical vouchers of
the Indians themselves. Although the Buddhists are now but
an obscure sect of dissenters in the Western Peninsula, they
are still tolerably numerous in several of its provinces ; while,
on the other hand, they have complete possession of the whole
Eastern and Indo-Chinese peninsula. Besides this sect, there
are many other religious dissenters even in Hindostan ; such
for instance, as the sect of Jains, who steer a middle course
between the followers of the old and established religion of
Brahma, and the Buddhists ; for, like the latter, they reject the
Indian division and system of castes. Even the established re-
ligion itself is divided into three parties, which, though they do
not form precisely separate sects, still are marked by no incon-
siderable differences in their opinions, views, and conduct : ac-
ording as each of these parties acknowledges the supremacy,
or renders a nearly exclusive worship to one or other of the
three principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva.
And, although in the empire of the great Mogul, the number
of the Mahometan conquerors, and of those that accompanied
them into India, was very small, compared with the mass of the
native population, yet, after the total destruction of this empire,
there still remain several millions of Mahometans in the country.
Even the Persian language, or a corrupt dialect of it, which
these conquerors introduced, is still in many places in use as the
language of ordinary life, trade, and business ; in the same way
as the Portuguese in the maritime and commercial cities of
India, or the Lingua Franca in our Eastern factories, serves as
the usual and convenient medium of communication.
The Indian is not the only, or exclusively prevailing, lan-
guage in the whole peninsula ; in several provinces, as for in-
stance, on the southern coast, and in the Isle of Ceylon, quite
a different language prevails ; and the old cultivated and
classical speech of India is there unknown. The name of
Sanscrit, by which the latter is designated, denotes a cultivated
or highly -wrought language ; but the Pracrit, which is em-
ployed together or alternately with the Sanscrit in the theatri-
cal pieces of the Indians, signifies a natural and artless speech,
HISTORY. 141
and is not so much a distinct dialect as a softer pronunciation
of the Sanscrit, which smoothes, suppresses, or melts down the
hard and crowded consonants, and pays less regard to the more
elaborate grammatical forms of this language. The Pracrit,
which is used in dramatic pieces, particularly in the female
parts, stands, from its more simple grammar, in the same relation
to the Sanscrit as the softer Italian or Portuguese does to the old
Latin, without however the same heterogeneous alloy. But,
independently of these variations in the later and beautiful,
language of Indian poetry, the language of that country is
split and divided into a number of dissimilar and widely dis-
similar dialects, such as the Malabar, for example ; and almost
in every province the common language undergoes a variety of
changes; and this is the case even in Bengal. The country of
the Upper Ganges, especially Benares, -is renowned for being
the chief seat of the Sanscrit tongue, the place, at least,
where it is best understood, and spoken with the greatest purity.
Those languages which differ totally from the Indian, belong
in part to quite a different race of men, mostly, perhaps to the
Malays: for, so far is India from being entirely peopled by one
single race of inhabitants, that we find in several of its pro-
vinces tribes of an origin totally different from that of the Hin-
doos. This great variety in the whole life, manners, and poli-
tical institutions of the Indians, forms a striking contrast with
the absolute unity, and internal uniformity of the Chinese Em-
pire. It was perhaps this variety in the moral and political
aspect of ancient India, that gave rise to the denomination
which it has received in the old sacred Median books of Zo-
roaster, where, in the first fargard, or section of the Vendidat,
it is described as the fifteenth pure region of the earth, created
by Ormuzd, and designated by the name of Hapte Heando
a name which signifies the seven Indias. As India is still split
into a multitude of sects and religions, and divided into dif-
ferent tribes, speaking various languages ; so, as Herodotus long
ago observed, it has for the most part been ever composed of a
multitude of great and petty states, although from its natural
boundaries it might easily have been formed into one great
monarchy, and really constitutes but one country in its geo-
graphical circumscription.
The historian of India would have principally to speak of the
successes of a long series of foreign conquerors, who, from
142 PHILOSOPHY OF
Alexander the Great to Nadir Shah, have invaded this country
hy the north-west side from Persia. The Greeks were indeed
told that, before Alexander the Great, no foreign conqueror had
ever invaded India ; and even after this invasion, and on the
death of Sandracottus, when the Indians were liberated from
the transient dominion of the Greeks, they were for a long
lapse of ages governed by native princes ; and their country was
parcelled out into a number of great and petty kingdoms, such
as those of Magadha, Ayodha, &c. It is a striking incident in
the moral and intellectual history of the Hindoos, that amid all
the revolutions under their ancient and native rulers, and amid
all the later vicissitudes of foreign conquest, their peculiar modes
of life and their institution of castes should have been pre-
served, and, despite of all the changes of time and of empire,
should have stood unchanged, like the one surviving monument
of the primitive world. In the administration and government
of this country, the absolute monarchical sway which exists in
China, and the unlimited despotism of other Oriental countries,
could never be realised ; for that hereditary division of classes,
and those hereditary rights belonging to each, which, as they
form a part of the Indian constitution, have taken such deep
root in the soil; and which, as they rest on the immoveable
basis of ancient faith, have become, as it were, the second
nature of this people all these present an unassailable rampart,
which not even a foreign conqueror could ever succeed in over-
throwing. We can hence understand what led the Greeks to
believe and assert that there were republican states in India.
If from prepossessions, which were natural to that people, they
asserted too much, or thought they saw more than a nearer in-
vestigation proves to be actually the case; still their assertion
is not totally without foundation, for the Indian system of
castes is in many respects more favourable to institutions of a
republican nature, or at least republican tendency, than the con-
stitution of any other Asiatic state. When those modern writers,
therefore, who were the declared enemies of all hereditary rank
and hereditary rights, spoke with contempt and abhorrence of
the Indian constitution of castes, represented it as the peculiar
basis of despotism, and even applied the name of caste as a
party- word to the social relations of Europe; their assertions
were false, and utterly opposed to history. The invectives of
these writers may be easily accounted for, from their very
HISTORY. 143
democratic views, r _er from their doctrine of absolute
equality, as this equal^ _y itself is ever the attendant of despotism,
produces it, or proceeds from it, and is one of its most distinc-
tive characteristics. In confirmation of what we have said, we
may observe, that even at the present day most of the cities of
India possess municipal institutions, which are much admired
by English writers, who attest from their personal experience
and observation, their salutary influence on individual and public
prosperity. In general the English have paid very great at-
tention to the jurisprudence and civil legislation of India ; as
the fundamental principle of their Indian government is to rule
that country according to its own laws, customs, and privileges ;
while, on the contrary, the other European powers that once
had obtained a firm footing in India, formed alliances with, and
attached themselves by preference to, the Mahometan sove-
reigns of the country. By this simple but enlightened prin-
ciple in their Indian policy and administration, the English
have obtained the ascendency over all their rivals or opponents,
and have become complete masters of the whole of this splen-
did region.
The scholars of Europe began their Indian researches by the
study and translation of the laws and jurisprudence of the Hin-
doos, the text as well as commentaries, and it w r as only at a later
period they extended their inquiries to other subjects. The
Indian jurisprudence is undoubtedly a standing proof and monu-
ment of the comparatively high and very ancient moral and
intellectual refinement of that people ; and a more minute and
profound investigation of that jurisprudence would no doubt
give rise to many interesting points of comparison, and to many
striking analogies, partly with the old Athenian, or first Roman
laws, partly with the Mosaic legislation, and even in some par-
ticular points with the Germanic constitution. As the caste of
warriors in India, who constitute the class of landed proprietors,
and the aristocracy of the country, are founded on exactly the
same principle as the hereditary nobility of Germany, it cannot
excite surprise, if we find in India, not indeed the elaborate and
complex feudality of the Germans, but a more simple system of
fiefs.
But, according to the plan we have proposed to ourselves, in
the history of all ancient, and especially of the primitive Asiatic
nations, the matter of greatest moment must be to trace their
144 PHILOSOPHY OF
intellectual progress, their scientific labours, and predominant
opinions ; all those views of divine and human things, that have
a mighty influence on life ; and finally the peculiar religious
feelings and principles of each of those ancient nations. In the
second part of this work, when we shall have to speak of the
progress of mankind in modern times, we may perhaps change our
point of view, and find it of more importance to trace the mu-
tual relations between the external state of society and the in-
ternal development of intellect. But in that remote antiquity,
which is contiguous to the primitive ages, the points of greatest
moment, as we have already observed, are the intellectual cha-
racter, the modes of thinking, and the religion of those nations.
On the other hand, their civil legislation, and even their political
constitutions, however important, interesting, arid instructive
the closer investigation of those subjects may be in other re-
spects, can occupy in this history but a secondary place ; and it
will suffice for our purpose to point out some leading points of
legislation that serve as the foundation and principle of the
moral and intellectual character of those nations. In India this
leading point is the institution of castes, the most remarkable
feature in all Indian life, and which in its essential traits existed
in Egypt. This singular phenomenon of Indian life has even
some points of connexion with a capital article of their creed,
the doctrine of the transmigration of souls a doctrine which
will be later the subject of our inquiries, and which we shall en-
deavour to place in a nearer and clearer light. In showing the
influence of the institution of castes on the state of manners in
India, I may observe, in the first place, that in this division of
the social ranks there is no distinct class of slaves (as was indeed
long ago remarked by the Greeks) ; that is to say, no such class
of bought slaves no men, the property and merchandise of their
fellow-men as existed in ancient Greece and Rome, as exist
even at this day among Mahometan nations ; and, as in the
case of the negroes, are still to be found in the colonial posses-
sions of the Christian and European states. The labouring
class of the Sudras is undoubtedly not admitted to the high
privileges of the first classes, and is in a state of great depen-
dance upon these ; but this very caste of Sudras has its heredi-
tary and clearly defined rights. It is only by a crime that a
man in India can lose his caste, and the rights annexed to it.
These rights are acquired by birth ; except in the instance of
HISTORY.
145
the offspring of unlawful marriages between persons of different
castes. The fate of these hapless wretches is indeed hard,
harder, almost, than that of real slaves among other nations.
Ejected, excommunicated as it were, loaded with malediction,
they are regarded as the outcasts of society, yea almost of
humanity itself. This terrible exclusion, however, from the
rights of citizenship occurs only in certain clearly specified
cases. There are even some cases of exception explicitly laid
down, where a marriage with a person of different caste is
permitted ; or where, at least, the only consequence to the
children of such marriage is a degradation to an inferior class
of society. But the general rule is that a lawful marriage can
be contracted only with a woman of the same caste. Women
participate in all the rights of their caste ; in the high prero-
gatives of Brahmins, if they are of the sacerdotal race (although
there are not and never were priestesses among the Indians as
among the other heathen nations of antiquity) ; or in the
privileges of nobility, if they belong to the caste of the
Cshatriyas. These privileges, which belong and are secured to
women, and this participation in the rights and advantages of
their respective classes, must tend much undoubtedly to miti-
gate the injurious effects of polygamy. The latter custom has
ever prevailed, and still prevails, in India ; though not to the
same degree of licentiousness, nor with the same unlimited and
despotic control, as in Mahometan countries ; but a plurality
of wives is there permitted only under certain conditions, and
with certain legal restrictions ; consequently, in that milder
form, under which it existed of old in the warm climes of Asia,
and according to the patriarchal simplicity of the yet thinly
peopled world. The much higher social rank, and better moral
condition of the female sex in India, are apparent from those
portraits of Indian life which are drawn in their beautiful works
of poetry, whether of a primitive or a later date; and from
that deep feeling of tenderness, that affectionate regard and re-
verence, with which the character of woman and her domestic
relations are invariably represented. These few examples suf-
fice to show the moral effects of the Indian division of castes ;
and while they serve to defend this institution against a sweep-
ing sentence of condemnation, or the indiscriminate censure of
too partial prejudice, they place the subject in its true and
146 PHILOSOPHY OP
proper light, and present alike the advantages and defects of
the system.
From its connexion with the general plan of my work, I am
desirous of entering more deeply into the internal principle of
this singular division and rigid separation of the social ranks,
and into the historical origin of this strange constitution of hu-
man society. When the Greeks, who accompanied or followed
Alexander into India, numbered seven instead of four castes in
that country, they did not judge inaccurately the outward con-
dition of things ; but they paid not sufficient attention to the
Indian notions of castes ; and their very enumeration of those
castes proves they had mistaken some points of detail. In tliis
enumeration they assign the first rank to Brachmans, or wise
men ; and by the artisans, they no doubt understood the trad-
ing and manufacturing class of the Vaisyas. The councillors
and intendants of kings and princes do not constitute a distinct
caste, but are mere officers and functionaries j who, if they be
lawyers, belong to, and must be taken from, the caste of Brah-
mins ; though the other two upper castes are not always rigidly
excluded from these functions. The class again that tends
the breeding of cattle, and lives by the chase, forms not a
distinct caste, but merely follows a peculiar kind of employ-
ment. And when the Greeks make two castes of the agri-
culturists and the warriors, they only mean to draw a distinc-
tion between the labourers and the masters, or the real proprie-
tors of the soil. Even the name of Cshatriyas signifies
landed proprietor ; and, as in the old Germanic constitution,
the arriere-ban was composed of landed proprietors, and the
very possession of the soil imposed on the nobility the obliga-
tion of military service ; so, in the Indian constitution, the
two ideas of property in land, and military service, are indisso-
lubly connected. Some modern inquirers have attached very
great importance to the undoubtedly wide and remarkable se-
paration of the fourth or menial caste of Sudras from the three
upper castes. They have thought they perceived, also, a very
great difference in the bodily structure and general physiog-
nomy of this fourth caste from those of the others ; and have
thence concluded that the caste of Sudras is descended from a
totally different race, some primitive and barbarous people whom
a more civilised nation, to whom the three upper castes must
HISTORY. 147
have belonged, have conquered and subdued, and degraded to
that menial condition, the lowest grade in the social scale a
grade to which the iron arm of law eternally binds them down.
This hypothesis is in itself not very improbable ; and it may
be proved from history that the like has really occurred in se-
veral Asiatic, and even European, countries. In the back-
ground of old, mighty and civilised nations, we can almost
always trace the primeval inhabitants of the country, who, dis-
possessed of their territory, have been either reduced to servi-
tude by their conquerors, or have gradually been incorporated
with them. These primitive inhabitants, when compared with
their later and more civilised conquerors, appear indeed in
general rude and barbarous ; though we find among them a
certain number of ancient customs and arts, which by no
means tend to confirm the notion of an original and universal
savage state of nature. It is possible that the same circum-
stances have occurred hi India ; though this is by no means a
necessary inference, for humanity in its progress, follows not
one uniform course, but pursues various and widely different
paths ; and, hitherto at least, no adequate historical proof has,
in my opinion, been adduced for the reality of such an occur-
rence in India. It has also been conjectured that the caste of
warriors, or the princes and hereditary nobility, possessed ori-
ginally greater power and influence ; and that it is only by de-
grees the race of Brahmins has attained to that great prepon-
derance which it displays in later times, and which it even still
possesses. We find, indeed, in the old epic, mythological, and
historical poems of the Indians, many passages which describe
a contest between these two classes, and w r hich represent the
deified heroes of India victoriously defending the wise and
pious Brahmins from the attacks of the fierce and presumptu-
ous Cshatriyas. This account, however, is susceptible of ano-
ther interpretation, and should not be taken exclusively in this
political sense. That in the brilliant period of their ancient
and national dynasties and governments, the princes and war-
like nobility possessed greater weight and importance than at
present, is quite in the nature of things, and appears indeed to
have been undoubtedly the case. From many indications in
the old Indian traditions and histories, it would appear that the
caste of Cshatriyas was partially, at least, of foreign extraction ;
while those traditionary accounts constantly represent the caste
L2
148 PHILOSOPHY OF
of Brahmins as the highest class, and nobler part, nay, the
corner-stone of the whole community.
The origin of an hereditary caste of warriors, when consi-
dered in itself, may be easily accounted for, and it is no wise
contrary to the nature of things that, even in a state of society
where legal rights are yet undefined, the son, especially the
eldest, should govern and administer the territory or property
which his deceased father possessed, and even in those cases
where it was necessary, should take possession, administer, and
defend this property by open force and the aid of his depend-
ents.
But afterwards, when the social relations became more
clearly fixed by law, and an union on a larger scale was formed
by a general league, as the duties of military service were an-
nexed to the soil, so the right to the soil was again determined
by, and depended on, military service ; now, in that primitive
period of history, such a political union might have been formed
by a common subordination to a higher power, or by a confe-
deracy between several potentates ; and this has really been
the origin of an hereditary landed nobility in many coun-
tries.
The hereditary continuance or transmission of arts and
trades, whereby the son pursues the occupation of the father,
and learns and applies what the latter has discovered, has no-
thing singular in itself, and appears indeed to contain its own
explanation. But it is not easy, or at least equally so, to ac-
count for the exclusive distribution and the exact and rigid
separation of castes, particularly by any religious motives and
principles, which are, however, indubitably connected with this
institution. Still less can we understand the existence of a
great hereditary class of priests, eternally divided from the rest
of the community, such as existed both in India and Egypt.
To comprehend this strange phenomenon, we must endeavour
to discover its origin, and trace it back, as far as is possible, to
the primitive ages of the world. If, for the sake of brevity, I
have used the expression, " a class of hereditary priests" I
ought to add, in order to explain my meaning more clearly,
that the word priests must not be taken in that limited sense
which antiquity attached to it ; that the Brahmins are not
merely confined to the functions of prayer, but are strictly and
eminently theologians, since they alone are permitted to read
HISTORY. 149
and interpret the Vedas, while the other castes can read only
with their sanction such passages of those sacred writings as
are adapted to their circumstances, and the fourth caste are
entirely prohibited from hearing any portion of them. The
Brahmins are also the lawyers and physicians of India, and
hence the Greeks did not designate them erroneously when they
termed them the caste of philosophers.
We have already had occasion to observe that the Mosaic
narrative, that first monument of all history, (which a very
intellectual German writer has called the primitive document of
the human race, and which it indeed is even in a mere histo-
rical sense, and in the literal acceptation of the word) that the
Mosaic narrative, we say, ascribes to the Cainites the origin of
hereditary arts and trades. And there are two which are par-
ticularly worthy of remark, and to which I drew your attention
the knowledge of metals, and the art of music. I used the
general expression, the knowledge of metals, because in the
primitive ages of the world, the art of working mines, or of ex-
ploring and extracting metals from the earth, was essentially
connected with the art of preparing and polishing them ; and
this knowledge of metals was very instrumental in forwarding
the infant civilisation of the primitive world, as the art of
working and polishing them has ever contributed to the refine-
ment of mankind. By the music of the Cainites, I said we
were not to understand our own more elaborate and sublime
system of melody. This art was chiefly consecrated, in those
ancient times, to the uses of divine service; still older, per-
haps, was the medicinal, or rather the magical, use and in-
fluence of music. This is at least indicated by the tradition
and mythology of all nations ; and such a supposition is
quite conformable to the spirit of those early ages ; and I
would here remind you that, in the primitive symbolical
writing of the Chinese, the sign of a magician represents
also a priest a character which, as Remusat has observed,
is not to be found in the narrow circle of their symbols. I
added, that the existence of an hereditary caste of warriors
among the Cainites was possible, and even probable; though
not so, in my opinion, the existence of an hereditary sacerdo-
tal caste. But though such an institution did not emanate
from the Ca'mites, it may at least have been occasioned by
them. As I said before, the Mosaic history represents the vast,
150 PHILOSOPHY OF
boundless, prodigious corruption of tlie world in the age imme-
diately preceding the deluge, as produced solely by the union
of the better and godly portion of mankind with the lawless
descendants of Cain. Thus this would suppose a certain dread
and apprehension of any alliance and intercourse with a race
laden with malediction, and pregnant with calamity. And
may not this very circumstance have given rise to the establish-
ment of a distinctly separate and hereditary class, not of priests
in the later signification of that word, but of men chosen and
consecrated by God, and entirely devoted to his service ? and,
consequently, is it not among the later Sethites, we must look
for the origin of this institution ?
We should transport ourselves in imagination to the age of
the patriarchs, and then consider that, with the high powers
which they still possessed, they must have watched with the
most jealous and far-sighted solicitude over the fate of their
posterity, in order to preserve them in their original purity and
high hereditary dignity. The Indian traditions acknowledge
and revere the succession of the first ancestors of mankind, or the
holy patriarchs of the primitive world, under the name of the
seven great Rishis, or sages of hoary antiquity ; though they
invest their history with a cloud of fictions. They place all these
patriarchs in the primitive world, and assign them to the race
of Brahmins ; a circumstance which cannot here appear un-
fitting. It has been often observed that the Indians have no
regular histories, no works of real historical science ; and the
reason is that with them the sense of the primitive world is still
fresh and lively, and that not only do they clothe their ideas in
a poetical garb, but all their conceptions of human affairs and
events are exclusively mythological ; so that all the real events
of later historical times are absorbed in the element of mythology ;
or at least strongly tinged with its colours. It is in the same
way, the panegyrists of the Chinese language remark that the
almost total absence of grammar in that language, among a
people of such highly cultivated intellect, should not be taken
merely to denote the poverty and jejuneness of the infancy of
speech, as this in a great measure originated in the fact that
the profound primitive emotions, which gave birth to those first
languages, were too absorbed in the subject of their contem-
plation, too much bent on giving utterance to the most effec-
tive word, or expressing themselves with the most condensed
HISTORY. 151
brevity, to perplex or trouble themselves with nicer distinctions,
and minor and often superfluous rules.
The providential care of these first patriarchs for the pre-
servation and prosperity of their offspring and race is evinced
in those patriarchal scenes described not only in the Sag-as of
other primitive nations, but also in the sacred writings of the
Hebrews ; and where the hoary grandsire imparts and transmits
to his sons and grandsons, the power of his benediction, which was
not a mere empty form of words, as the special inheritance of each.
We see, too, that, after assigning the first rank to the eldest son, or
to some favourite child, perhaps, originally chosen and pre-
ferred by God, the venerable patriarch utters some words of
warning which the succeeding history but too well justifies;
or darkly indicates a deep presentiment of some great impend-'
ing calamity. But there is, in particular, a passage relative to
the first great progenitor of mankind which deserves to be here
noticed. When the calamitous epoch of the first fraternal con-
test, and the first fatal fratricide had elapsed, it is said in Holy
Writ: " Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image,
and called his name Seth." The first thing that must strike
us in this passage is the great and humiliating inferiority which
it involves. Adam was created after the likeness of Almighty
God ; but Seth is begotten after the likeness of Adam. Yet
there is no doubt that, from the peculiar style and manner of
Holy Writ, a very high pre-eminence was here conferred on
Seth. For in the same way as we have seen that the patri-
archs were wont to impart their blessings to their sons and their
posterity, Adam granted and communicated to Seth, as to his
first-born in this second commencement of the human race, and
as his inheritance and exclusive birthright, all those preroga-
tives and high gifts and powers, which he himself had originally
received from his Creator, and which, on his reconciliation with
his God, he had once more obtained. Nothing similar is said
of the other sons and daughters afterwards begotten by Adam,
and through whom other nations have derived their descent
from the common parent. This circumstance confirms and
explains that high pre-eminence which, according to sacred
tradition, was conferred on the race of Seth. As to the high
powers which the father of mankind had preserved after his fall,
or had a second time received, we may well suppose that, after
the crime and flight of Cain, he would endeavour to retrieve
152 PHILOSOPHY OF
his errors by the establishment of the better race of Seth, and
by a consequent renovation of humanity. This is not a mere
arbitrary supposition, for it is expressly said in Holy Writ that
the first man, ordained to be " the father of the whole earth,"
(as he is there called) became on his reconciliation with his
Maker, the wisest of all men, and, according to tradition, the
greatest of prophets, who, in his far-reaching ken, foresaw the
destinies of all mankind, in all successive ages down to the end
of the world. All this must be taken in a strict historical sense,
for the moral interpretation we abandon to others. The pre-
eminence of the Sethites, chosen by God, and entirely devoted
to his service, must be received as an undoubted historical fact, to
which we find many pointed allusions even in the traditions of the
other Asiatic nations. Nay the hostility between the Sethites, and
Cainites, and the mutual relations of these two races, form the
chief clue to the history of the primitive world, and even of
many particular nations of antiquity. That, after the violent
but transient interruption occasioned by the deluge, the re-
membrance of many things might revive, and the same or a
similar hostility between the two races which had existed in the
ante-diluvian world, might be a second time displayed, is a
matter which it is unnecessary to examine any further. Equally
needless would it be to show that, in the increasing degeneracy
of man, everything was soon more and more disfigured and de-
ranged, and finally became for the most part undistinguishable,
till it was afterwards a problem for the historical inquirer to
reduce to the simple elements of their origin the greatest, most
extraordinary, and most remarkable phenomena which still re
mained, or were remembered, of the primitive ages.
If I think it not impossible that the Indian constitution of
castes, and its most important branch, the Brahminical class
that is to say, the moral and general conception of this an-
cient institution, may be connected with the {Scriptural history
and the sacred tradition respecting the race of Seth ; I must
observe that to this hypothesis an objection can no more be
taken from the present character and moral condition of the
Brahmins, than we can estimate the high gifts, the great men,
and the mighty prophets, that the Almighty once accorded to
the Jewish nation, or such noble natures as those of Moses
and Elias, by the present fallen state of that dispersed people.
These remarks may suffice to give an idea of the most
HISTORY. 153
important feature in Indian society. Before I attempt to
examine the second great characteristic of this people the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a principle which, if it
has not produced, has at least given the peculiar bent to their
whole philosophy ; I wish to take a general view of polytheism,
particularly in our notions of it, chiefly derived from the
Greeks, are by no means perfectly applicable to the primitive
nations of Asia.
We are wont to regard the Grecian mythology, and its
many- coloured world of fables, only as the beautiful effusion of
poetry, or a playful creation of fancy ; and we never think of
inquiring deeply or minutely into its details, or of examining its
moral import and influence. It is the more natural that the
mythology of the Greeks should produce this impression on our
minds, and that we should regard it in this light, as all the
higher ideas and severer doctrines on the God-head, its sovereign
nature and infinite might, on the Eternal Wisdom and Providence
that conducts and directs all things to their proper end, on the
Infinite Mind and Supreme Intelligence that created all things,
and that is raised far above external nature ; all these higher
ideas and severer doctrines have been expounded more or less
perfectly by Pythagoras, or by Anaxagoras and Socrates ; and
have been developed in the most beautiful and luminous manner
by Plato and the philosophers that followed him. But all this
did not pass into the popular religion of the Greeks, and it
remained for the most part a stranger to these exalted doc-
trines ; and, though we find in this mythology many things
capable of a deeper import and more spiritual signification, yet
they appear but as rare vestiges of ancient truth vague pre-
sentiments fugitive tones momentary flashes, revealing a
belief in a supreme Being, an almighty Creator of the universe,
and the common Father of mankind.
But it is far otherwise in the Indian mythology. There,
amid a sensual idolatry of nature more passionate and enthu-
siastic still than that of the Greeks, amid pagan fictions and
conceptions far more gigantic than those of the latter, we find
almost all the truths of natural theology, not indeed without a
considerable admixture of error, expressed with the utmost
earnestness and dignity. We meet too, in this mythology,
with the most rigidly scientific and metaphysical notions of the
Supreme Being, his attributes and his relations ; and it is the
154 PHILOSOPHY OF
peculiar character of the Indian mythology to combine a
gigantic wildness of fantasy, and a boundless enthusiasm for
nature, with a deep mystical import, and a profound philosophic
sense. If the Pythagoreans had succeeded in the design, which
they in all probability entertained, of rendering their lofty
notions on the Deity and on man, on the immortality of the
soul, and the invisible world, more generally prevalent, and of
introducing these ideas into the popular religion ; as it was not
their intention entirely to reject the vulgar creed, but only to
mould it to their own principles, and impart to it a higher and
more spiritual sense (an attempt which was afterwards made by
the New Platonists arid the Emperor Julian, out of hatred to
Christianity, though, as the time had then long gone by, their
enterprise was attended with no permanent effects) ; if the Py-
thagoreans, we say, had succeeded in their design, the Greek
mythology might then have borne some resemblance to the
Indian, and we might have instituted a comparison between the
two. In the Indian mythology this strange combination, this
inconsistent junction of the sublimest truth with the most
sensual error, of the wildest and most extravagant fiction with
the most abstract metaphysics, and even the purest natural
theology (if we may thus call the divine Revelation of the
primitive world); this strange combination, we say, has not
been the effect of artful interpolation, but the fruit of native
growth and of earliest development.
We must now be on our guard not to admit too lightly or
too quickly the coincidence of certain symbols and conceptions
of mythology with truths and doctrines familiar to ourselves.
How much, for instance, would a man err, who would suppose
that there was any analogy in the Indian symbol and notion of
Trimurti, or the divine Triad, I do not say with the Christian
doctrine of the Trinity, but with the opinion of either of the
Platonic schools on the triple essence or the triple Personality
of the one God. In this symbol the heads of the three
principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, the
Gods of creation, preservation, and destruction, are united in
one figure, and this union undoubtedly indicates the primary
energy common to all three. If we examine each in particular,
we shall see that the attributes assigned to Brahma, and the
expressions usually applied to his person, when divested of their
poetical garb and mythic accompaniments, may often, almost
HISTORY. 155
literally, and in strict truth, be referred to the Deity. The
fall-pervading and self-transforming Vislmoo is much more the
wonderful Prometheus of nature, than a real and well-defined
divinity. The third in this divine Triad, the formidable and
destructive Siva, has but a very remote analogy with the Deity
that judges and chastises the world according to justice. This
God of destruction, whose worshippers appear to have been
formerly the most numerous in India, as those of Vishnoo are
at the present day ; this God of destruction, with his serpents
and bracelets of human skulls, appears evidently to be that
demon of corruption who brought death into all creation, and
who here, whimsically and inconsistently enough, has been
introduced into the symbol, and made a part of the Deity
itself. This union or confusion of Eternal Perfection with the
Evil Principle is made in another way by the Indian philoso-
phers ; as some of them explain the doctrine of Trimurti, or
the divine Triad, by reference to the Traigunyan, or the three
qualities. These three different regions, or degrees, into
which, according to the Indian doctrine, all existence is divided,
are the pure world of eternal truth or of light, the middle
region of vain appearance and illusion, and the abyss of
darkness. However, it must be observed that the Indians do
not express the pure and metaphysical idea of the Supreme
Being by either of the names of the two last mentioned
popular divinities ; nor do they even denote this idea by the
name of Brahma, the first person of their trinity, but by the
word Brahm, a neuter noun, which signifies the Supreme
Being.
As there were now two conflicting elements in the breast of
man the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, which
God had imparted to him in the primitive revelation ; and error,
or the foundation for error in his degraded sense and spirit now
turned from God to nature how easily must error have sprung
up, when the precious gem of divine truth was no longer guarded
with jealous care, nor preserved in its pristine purity; how
much must truth have been obscured, as error advanced in all
its formidable might, and in all its power of seduction ; and how
soon must not this have happened among a people, like the
Indians, with whom imagination and a very deep, but still
sensual, feeling for nature, were so predominant ! It was thus
a wild enthusiasm, and a sensual idolatry of nature, generally
156 PHILOSOPHY OP
superseded the simple worship of Almighty God, and set aside
or disfigured the pure belief in the eternal uncreated Spirit.
The great powers and elements of nature, and the vital principle
of production and procreation through all generations, then.
the celestial spirits, or the heavenly host (to speak the language
of antiquity), the luminous choir of stars, which the whole
ancient world regarded not as mere globes of light or bodies
of fire, but as animated substances ; next the Genii and tutelar
spirits, and even the souls of the dead received now divine
worship ; and men, instead of honouring the Creator in these,
and of regarding these in reference to their Creator, considered
them as gods. Such is, when we have once supposed that
man had turned away from God to nature, such is the natural
origin of polytheism, which in every nation assumed a different
form according to the peculiar modes of life, and the prevailing
principles of hfe, in each.
Among the Indians this ruling principle of existence was the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which appears indeed to
be the most characteristic of ah 1 their opinions, and was by its
influence on real life, by far the most important. We must in
the first place remember, and keep well in our minds, that
among those nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis,
which, as with many moderns, needs laborious researches and
diffuse argumentations in order to produce conviction on the
mind. Nay, we can hardly give the name of faith to this pri-
mitive conception ; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling
of one's own being, and of what is actually present ; and this
firm belief in a future existence exerted its influence on all sub-
lunary affairs, and was often the motive of mightier deeds
and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire.
I said above that the doctrine of the transmigration of souls was
not unconnected with the Indian system of castes ; for the most
honourable appellation of a Brahmin is Tvija, that is to say, a
second time born, or regenerated. On one hand this appellation
refers to that spiritual renovation and second birth of a life of
purity consecrated to God, as in this consists the true calling of
a Brahmin, and the special purpose of his caste. On the other
hand this term refers to the belief that the soul, after many
transmigrations through various forms of animals, and various
stages of natural existence, is permitted in certain cases, as a
HISTORY. 157
peculiar recompense, when it has gone through its prescribed
cycle of migrations, to return to the world, and be born in the
class of Brahmins. This doctrine of the transmigration of
souls through various bodies of animals or other forms of exist-
ence, and even through more than one repetition of human life,
(whether such migrations were intended as the punishment of
souls for their viciousness and impiety, or as trials for their
further purification and amendment) this doctrine which has
always been, and is still so prevalent in India, was held likewise
by the ancient Egyptians. This accordance in the faith of
these two ancient nations, established beyond all doubt by his-
torical testimony, is indeed remarkable; and even in the mi-
nutest particulars on the course of migration allotted to souls,
and on the stated periods and cycles of that migration, the
coincidence is often perfectly exact. How strangely now is this
most singular error mixed up, I do not say with truth, but with
a feeling that is certainly closely akin to primitive truth!
When an individual of our age, out of disgust with modem
and well-known systems, or with the vulgar doctrines, and
from a love of paradox, adopted this ancient hypothesis
of the transmigration of souls; he merely considered the
bare transmutation of earthly forms.* But among those
ancient nations this doctrine rested on a religious basis, and
was connected with a sentiment purely religious. In this doc-
trine there was a noble element of truth the feeling that man,
since he has gone astray, and wandered so far from his God,
must needs exert many efforts, and undergo a long and painful
pilgrimage, before he can rejoin the Source of all perfection ;-
the firm conviction and positive certainty that nothing defec-
tive, impure, or defiled with earthly stains can enter the pure
region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to God ; and
that thus, before it can attain to this blissful end, the immortal
soul must pass through long trials and many purifications. It
may now well be conceived, (and indeed the experience of this
* Schlegel here alludes to the celebrated Lessing, who in his work
entitled " The Education of the Human Kace," had maintained the
doctrine of the Metempsychosis, a doctrine douhly absurd in a Deist,
like Lessing, for the metempsychosis was a philosophical, though false,
explanation of the primitive and universal dogma of an intermediate or
probationary state of souls. Trans.
158 PHILOSOPHY OF
life would prove it,) that suffering, which deeply pierces the
soul, anguish that convulses all the members of existence, may
contribute, or may even be necessary, to the deliverance of the
soul from all alloy and pollution, as, to borrow a comparison
from natural objects, the generous metal is melted down in fire
and purged from its dross. It is certainly true that the greater
the degeneracy and the degradation of man, the nearer is his
approximation to the brute ; and when the transmigration of
the immortal soul through the bodies of various animals is
merely considered as the punishment of its former transgressions,
we can very well understand the opinion which supposes that
man who, by his crimes and the abuse of his reason, had de-
scended to the level of the brute, should at last be transformed
into the brute itself. But what could have given rise to the
opinion that the transmigration of souls through the bodies of
beasts was the road or channel of amendment, was destined to
draw the soul nearer to infinite perfection, and even to accom-
plish its total union with the Supreme Being, from whom, in
all appearance, it seemed calculated to remove it further? And
as regards a return to the present state and existence of man,
what thinking person would ever wish to return to a life divided
and fluctuating as it is, between desire and disgust, wasted in
internal and external strife, and which, though brightened by a
few scattered rays of truth, is still encompassed with the dense
clouds of error ; even though this return to earthly existence
should be accomplished in the Brahminical class so highly re-
vered in India, or in the princely and royal race so highly
favoured by fortune ? There is in all this a strange mixture and
confusion of the ideas of this world with those of the next ; and
how the latter is separated from the former by an impassable
gulf, they seem not to have been sufficiently aware. Both
these ancient nations, the Egyptians as well as the Indians, re-
garded, with few exceptions, the Metempsychosis, not as an
object of joyful hope, but rather as a calamity impending over
the soul ; and whether they considered it to be a punishment
for earthly transgressions, or a state of probation a severe but
preparatory trial of purification they still looked on it as a
calamity ; which to avert or to mitigate they deemed no
attempt, no act, no exertion, no sacrifice ought to be spared.
In the manner, however, in which these two nations con-
HISTORY. 159
ceived this doctrine, there was a striking and fundamental
difference ; and if the leading tenet was the same among both,
the views which each connected with it were very dissimilar.
Deprived, as we are, of the old books and original writings of
the Egyptians, we are unable perfectly to comprehend and seize
their peculiar ideas on this subject, and state them with the same
assurance as we can those of the Indians, whose ancient writings
we now possess in such abundance, and which in all main points
perfectly agree with the accounts of the ancient classics. But
we are left to infer the ideas of the Egyptians on the Metempsy-
chosis only from their singular treatment of the dead, and the
bodies of the deceased; from that sepulchral art (if I may use
the expression) which with them acquired a dignity and import-
ance, and was carried to a pitch of refinement, such as we find
among no other people ; from that careful and costly consecra-
tion of the corpse, which we still regard with wonder and asto-
nishment in their mummies and other monuments. That all
these solemn preparations, and the religious rites 'which accom-
panied them, that the inscriptions on the tombs and mummies had
all a religious meaning and object, and were intimately con-
nected with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, can
admit of no doubt ; though it is a matter of greater difficulty to
ascertain with precision the peculiar ideas they were meant to
express. Did the Egyptians believe that the soul did not
separate immediately from the body which it had ceased to ani-
mate, but only on the entire decay and putrefaction of the
corpse? Or did they wish by their art of embalment to preserve
the body from decay, in order to deliver the soul from the
dreaded transmigration? The Egyptian treatment of the dead
would certainly seem to imply a belief that, for some time at
least after death, there existed a certain connexion between the
soul and body. Yet we cannot adopt this supposition to an un-
qualified extent, as it would be in contradiction with those sym-
bolical representations that so frequently occur in Egyptian art,
and in which the soul immediately after death is represented as
summoned before the judgment-seat of God, severely accused
by the hostile demon, but defended by the friendly arid guar-
dian spirit, who employs every resource to procure the deliver-
ance and acquittal of the soul. Or did the Egyptians think that
by all these rites, as by so many magical expedients, they would
160 PHILOSOPHY OF
keep off the malevolent fiend from the soul, and obtain for it
the succour of good and friendly divinities? Now that the
gates of hieroglyphic science have been at last opened, we may
trust that a further progress in the science will disclose to us
more satisfactory information on all these topics.
The Indians, however, who ever remained total strangers to
the mode of burial and treatment of the dead practised in Egypt,
adopted a very different course to procure the deliverance of the
human soul from transmigration : they had recourse to phi-
iosophy to the highest aspirings of thought towards God to
a total and lasting immersion of feeling in the unfathomable
abyss of the divine essence. They have never doubted that by
this means a perfect union with the Deity might be obtained
ven in this life, and that thus the soul, freed and emancipated
from all mutation and migration through the various forms of
animated nature in this world of illusion, might remain for ever
united with its God. Such is the object to which all the dif-
ferent systems of Indian philosophy tend such is the term of
all their inquiries. This philosophy contains a multitude of the
sublimest reflections on the separation from all earthly things,
and on the union with the God-head; and there is no high
conception in this department of metaphysics, unknown to the
Hindoos. But this absorption of all thought and all conscious-
ness in God this solitary enduring feeling of internal and
eternal union with the Deity, they have carried to a pitch and
extreme that may almost be called a moral and intellectual
self-annihilation. This is the same philosophy, though in a
different form, which in the history of European intellect and
science, has received the denomination of mysticism. The pos-
sible excesses the perilous abyss in this philosophy, have been
in general acknowledged, and even pointed out in particular
cases, where egotism or pride has been detected under a secret
disguise, or where this total abstraction of thought and feeling
has spurned all limit, measure, and law. In general, however,
the European mind, by its more temperate and harmonious
constitution, by the greater variety of its attainments, and
above all, by the purer and fuller light of revealed truth, has
been preserved from those aberrations of mysticism which in
India have been carried to such a fearful extent, not only in
speculation, but in real life and practice j and which, trans-
HISTORY. 161
cending as they do all the limits of human nature, far exceed
the bounds of possibility, or what men have in general consi-
dered as such. And the apparently incredible things the Greeks
related more than two thousand years ago, respecting the re-
cluses of India, or Gymnosophists, as they called those Yogis,
are found to exist even at the present day ; and ocular
experience has fully corroborated the truth of their narratives.
END OF LECTURE IV.
162 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE V.
A Comparative View of the Intellectual Character of the four principal
Nations in the Primitive World the Indians, the Chinese, the
Egyptians, and the Hebrews ; next of the peculiar Spirit and political
Relations of the Ancient Persians.
As, after discord had broken out among mankind, humanity
became split and divided into a multitude of nations, races, and
languages, into hostile and conflicting tribes, castes rigidly
separated, and classes variously divided ; as, indeed, when
once we suppose this original division and primitive opposition
in the human race, it could not be otherwise from the very
nature and even destiny of man ; so in a psychological point
of view, the moral unity of the individual man was broken, and
his faculties of will and understanding became mutually op-
posed, or followed contrary courses. The whole internal
structure of human consciousness was deranged, and, in the
present divided state of the human faculties, there is no longer
the full play of the harmonious soul of the once unbroken
spirit but its every faculty hath now but a limited, or, to speak
more properly, one half of its proper power.
The restoration of the full life and entire operation of the
divided faculties of the human soul must be considered now
only as a splendid exception the high gift of creative genius,
and of a more than ordinary strength of character ; and such
a reunion of faculties must be looked upon as the high problem
which constitutes the ultimate object and ideal term of all the
intellectual and moral exertions of man. When in an indi-
vidual, a clear, comprehensive, penetrative understanding,
that has mastered all sound science, is combined with a will
not only firm, but pure and upright, such an individual has
attained the great object of his existence ; and when a whole
generation, or mankind in general, present this harmonious
concord between science on the one hand, and moral conduct
and external life, or, to characterise them by one word, the
HISTORY. 163
general will, on the other, which is often in utter hostility with
science we may then truly say that humanity has attained
its destiny. The great error of ordinary philosophy, and the
principal reason that has prevented it from accomplishing its
ends, is the supposition it so hastily admits that the conscious-
ness of man, now entirely changed, broken, and mutilated, is
the same as it was originally, and as it was created and
fashioned by its Maker; without observing that since the
great primeval Revolution, man has not only been outwardly
or historically disunited, but even internally and psychologically
deranged. The moral being of a man, a prey to internal dis-
cord, may be said to be quartered, because the four primary
faculties of the soul and mind of man Understanding and
Will, Reason and Imagination, stand in a twofold opposition
one to the other, and are, if we may so speak, dispersed into
the four regions of existence. Reason in man is the regulat-
ing faculty of thought ; and so far it occupies the first place
in life, and the whole system and arrangement of life ; but it
is unproductive in itself, and even in science it can pretend
to no real fertility or immediate intuition. Imagination on the
other hand is fertile and inventive indeed, but left to itself
and without guidance, it is blind, and consequently subject to
illusion. The best will, devoid of discernment and understand-
ing, can accomplish little good. Still less capable of good is
a strong, and even the strongest understanding, when coupled
with a wicked and corrupt character ; or should such an un-
derstanding be associated with an unsteady and changeable will,
the individual destitute of character, is entirely without influ-
ence.
? To prove, moreover, how all the other faculties of the soul,
or the mind, elsewhere enumerated, are but the connecting
links the subordinate branches* of those four primary facul-
ties ; how the general dismemberment of the human conscious-
ness reaches even to them ; how they diverge from one another,
and appear still more split and narrowed ; to prove this would
lead me too far, and is the less necessary, as, in the peculiar
character of particular ages or nations, the historical in-
quirer can observe but those four primary faculties mentioned
* The four secondary faculties of human consciousness are, according
to our author, the memory, the conscience, the impulses or passions,
and the outward senses. Trans.
M2
164 PHILOSOPHY OF
above, as the intellectual elements prevalent in each. As in
the intellectual character of particular men, or in any given
system of human thought, fiction, or science (and these can
be better described and more closely analysed than the fleeting
and transient phenomena of real life and the social relations);
as in every such individual production, I say, of human thought
and human action, either Reason will preponderate as a sys-
tematic methodiser and a moral regulator, or a fertile, inventive
Imagination will be displayed, or a clear, penetrative under-
standing, or again a peculiar energy of will and strength of
character will be observed ; so the same holds good in the
great whole of universal history in the moral and intellectual
existence the character, or the mind of particular ages or na-
tions in the ancient world.
This is apparent not only in the very various manner, in which
sacred tradition the external word to man revealed was
conceived, developed, and disfigured among each of those na-
tions ; but in the peculiar form and direction which the internal
word in man that is to say, his higher consciousness arid in-
tellectual life assumed among each. Such an intellectual op-
opsition evidently exists between those two great primitive na-
tions already characterised, that inhabit the extreme East and
South of Asia an opposition between reason and imagination^
In regard to the intellectual and moral character of nations as-
well as of individuals, Reason is that human faculty which is
conversant with grammatical construction, logical inferences, dia-
lectic contests, systematic arrangement ; and in practical life it
serves as the divine regulator, in so far as it adheres to the higher
order of God. But when it refuses to do this, and wishes to
deduce all from itself and its own individuality, then it becomes
an egotistical, over-refining, selfish, calculating, degenerate
Reason, the inventress of all the arbitrary systems of science
and morals, dividing and splitting every thing into sects and
parties. Imagination must not be considered as a mere faculty
for fiction, nor confined to the circle of art and poetry --it in-
cludes a faculty for scientific discoveries; nor did a mind desti-
tute of all imagination ever make a great scientific discovery.
There is even a higher, purely speculative fancy, which finds
its proper sphere in a mysticism, like the Indian, that has already
been described. Even if a mysticism, like that which consti-
tutes the basis of the Indian philosophy, were entirely free from
HISTORY. 165
all admixture of sensual feelings, and were entirely destitute of
images, we should certainly not be right in refusing on that
account to imagination its share in this peculiar intellectual
phenomenon. That in the intellectual character of the Chinese,
reason, and not imagination, was the predominant element, it
would, after the sketch we have before given of that people,
and which was drawn from the best and most recent sources
and authorities, be scarcely necessary to prove at any length
so clearly is that fact established. Originally, when the old
system of Chinese manners was regulated by the pure worship
of God, not disfigured, as among other nations, by manifold
fictions, but breathing the better spirit of Confucius, it was
undoubtedly in a sound, upright Reason, conformable to God,
that the Chinese placed the foundation of their moral and poli-
tical existence ; since they designated the Supreme Being by
the name of Divine Reason. Although some modern writers in
our time have, like the Chinese, applied the term divine reason to
Almighty God ; yet I cannot adopt this Chinese mode of speech,
since, though according to the doctrine from which I start, and
the truth of which has been all along presupposed, the living
God is a spirit; yet it by no means follows thence that God is
Reason, or Reason God. If we examine the expression closely,
and in its scientific rigour, we can with as little propriety attri-
bute to God the faculty of reason, as the faculty of the imagina-
tion. The latter prevails in the poetical mythology of ancient
paganism; the former, when the expression is really correct,
designates rationalism or the modern idolatry of Reason; and
to this, indeed, we may discern a certain tendency even in very
early times, and particularly among the Chinese. Among the
latter people, at a tolerably early period, a sound, just Reason,
conformable and docile to divine revelation, was superseded by
an egotistical, subtle, over-refining Reason, which split into hos-
tile sects, and at last subverted the old edifice of sacred tradi-
tion, to reconstruct it on a new revolutionary plan.
Equally, and even still more strongly, apparent is the predo-
minance of the imaginative faculty among the Indians, as is
seen even in their science and in that peculiar tendency to mys-
ticism which this faculty has imparted to the whole Indian phi-
losophy. The creative fulness of a bold poetical imagination is
evinced by those gigantic works of architecture which may well
sustain a comparison with the monuments of Egypt; by a
166 PHILOSOPHY OF
poetry, which in the manifold richness of invention is not in-
ferior to that of the Greeks, while it often approximates to the
beauty of its forms; and, above all, by a mythology which, in
its leading features, its profound import, and its general con-
nexion, resembles the Egyptian, while in its rich clothing of
poetiy, in its attractive and bewitching representations, it bears
a strong similarity to that of the Greeks. This decided and
peculiar character of the whole intellectual culture of the In-
dians will not permit us to doubt which of the various faculties
of the soul is there the ruling and preponderant element.
A similar, and equally decided opposition in the intellectual
character and predominant element of human consciousness is
observed between the Hebrews and Egyptians ; though this
was an opposition of a different kind, and of a deeper import.
To show this more clearly, I will take the liberty of interrupting-
for a moment the order I have hitherto followed, of characterising
each nation in regular succession, and with as much accuracy
and fulness as possible; in order by a comparative view of the
four principal nations of remote antiquity, to draw such a ge-
neral sketch of the first period of universal history as may serve
at once for a central point in our inquiries, and for the ground-
work of subsequent remarks. Such a comparison will tend to
facilitate our survey of the primitive ages of the world : and in
this general combination of the whole, each part will appear in
a clearer light.
If I wished to characterise in one word the peculiar bearing
and ruling element of the Egyptian mind however unsatisfac-
tory in other respects such general designations may be I
should say that the intellectual eminence of that people was in
its scientific profundity in an understanding that penetrated
or sought to penetrate by magic into all the depths and myste-
ries of nature, even into their most hidden abyss. So thoroughly
scientific was the whole leaning and character of the Egyptian
mind, that even the architecture of this people had an astrono-
mical import, even far more than that of the other nations of
early antiquity. I have already had occasion to speak of the
deep and mysterious signification of their treatment of the dead.
In all the natural sciences, in mathematics, astronomy, and even
in medicine, they were the masters of the Greeks ; and even
the profoundest thinkers among the latter, the Pythagoreans,
and afterwards the great Plato himself, derived from them the
HISTORY. 167
first elements of their doctrines, or caught at least the first out-
line of their mighty speculations. Here too, in the birth-place
of hieroglyphics, was the chief seat of the Mysteries ; and Egypt
has at all times been the native country of many true, as well
as of many false secrets. These few remarks may here serve
to characterise this people ; we shall later have occasion to add
many minuter traits to complete this brief sketch of the Egyp-
tian intellect.
Very different was the character of the ancient Hebrews,
who, in science as well as in art, can sustain no comparison
with those other nations we have spoken of, and to whom we
must apply a very different criterion of excellence. The moral
eminence of this people, or the part aUotted to it in high histo-
rical destiny, lies rather in the sphere of will, and in a well-re-
gulated conduct of the will. Moses himself was, undoubtedly,
as it is said of him, " versed in all the science of the Egyp-
tians ;" for he had received a completely Egyptian education,
which, by the care of an Egyptian princess, was of the highest
and politest kind, and consequently, as the customs of the coun~
try imply, extremely scientific. Even his name, according to
the credible testimony of several ancient writers, was originally
Egyptian, and afterwards Hebraised ; for Moyses,* as he is
called in the Greek version of the Seventy, signifies in Egyp-
tian, one saved out of the water. But the Hebrew people
were far from possessing that Egyptian science of which Moses
was so great a master ; on the contrary, the Jewish legislator
seemed to consider the greater part of that foreign science, in
which he himself was so well versed, as of little service to his
object ; and in many instances sought to withhold this know-
ledge from his nation. Many of the Mosaic precepts, in-
deed, especially such as have a reference to external life, to
subsistence, diet, and health, and which are in part at least
founded on reasons of climate, are entirely conformable to
Egyptian usages, and are found to have been practised among
that people ; for these ancient lawgivers and founders of
Asiatic states did not scruple to give even medical precepts in
their codes of moral legislation, that embraced the minutest
circumstances of life. But to these precepts and usages the
Hebrew legislator has imparted in general a higher import and
* Matvcrrjs.
168 PHILOSOPHY OF
a religious consecration. We must not suppose, however, that
he has taken all his laws from this source, or make this a matter
of reproach to the Jewish lawgiver, as many critics of our own
times have done; for, to minds enslaved by the narrow spirit of
the age, difficult, indeed, is it to transport themselves into that
remote antiquity. It would be a great error, also, to suppose
that all the science which Moses had acquired by his Egyptian
education, he wished to conceal from his nation, and reserve for
the secret use of himself and a few confidential friends. It is
evident, if we regard the subject only in an historical point of
view, that a higher and better element, completely foreign to
the science of Egypt, animated and pervaded all the views and
conduct of this great man, whether we consider him as the
founder and lawgiver of the Hebrew state, or as the guide and
instructor of the Hebrew people. In the forty years' sojourn
of Moses in the Arabian desert with Jethro, one of whose seven
daughters he married, and who has rightly been accounted an
Emir, or petty pastoral prince of Arabia, this higher principle
silently grew up and expanded in the breast of this exalted
man, until it at last burst forth in all the majesty of divine
power. All that appeared to Moses truly sound and excellent
in Egyptian customs and science, or serviceable to his purpose,
he adopted and used with choice and circumspection. But all
that was incompatible with his designs, and which he knew to
be corrupt, he strenuously rejected, or he gave to it a totally
different application, and established a higher principle in its
room.
In the same way he was not disconcerted by the secret arts
of the Egyptian sorcerers, for it was no difficult matter for him
to vanquish them in the presence of the king by the higher
power of God. It is thus we should understand the conduct of
Moses in reference to the science and modes of thinking of the
Egyptians; and that conduct will be found not only perfectly
irreproachable in a human point of view, but entitled to our
warmest admiration. If for instance we suppose that Moses,
the first and greatest writer in the Hebrew tongue, the
founder and legislator of that language also, was, if not the
first that discovered, at least the first that fixed and regulated,
the Hebrew alphabet, we may easily conceive him to have
taken the first ten, as well as the last twelve Hebrew letters
from the Egyptian hieroglyphics; for, even at that early period,
HISTORY. 169
the hieroglyphics, while they retained their original symbolical
meaning, had acquired an alphabetical use. This supposition
is at least extremely probable, for many of the Hebrew letters
are found in precisely the same form in the hieroglyphical al-
phabet; though our knowledge of this alphabet is still so very
imperfect, and though we have deciphered but perhaps a tenth
part of all the various literal symbols which may there exist.
But to continue our supposition, Moses did not wish to take from
the Egyptian hieroglyphics more than the twenty-two literal
signs; he neglected the other hieroglyphs and natural symbols,
for he had no need of them. On the contrary, he studiously
excluded all natural symbols from his religious system, and
prohibited with inexorable severity the chosen people the use of
images and all that was most remotely connected with such a
service. He well foresaw that if he made the slightest conces-
sion on this point, and permitted the least indulgence, or left
the slightest opening to the passion for natural and symbolical
representations, it would be impossible to set any restraint on
this indulgence, and that the Hebrews when they had once
swerved from the path marked out for them, would follow the
same course as the pagan nations. The subsequent history of
the Jewish nation sufficiently proves how important and ne-
cessary was that part of the Mosaic legislation which proscribed
all that was connected with the religious use of images. But
\vherein consisted the peculiar bent of mind, the moral and in-
tellectual character traced out to the Hebrews by their legislator
and all their patriarchs? Completely opposed to the Egyptian
science to the Egyptian understanding, that dived and pene-
trated by magical power into the profoundest secrets and
mysteries of nature, the ruling element of the Hebrew spirit
was the will a will that sought with sincerity, earnestness and
ardour, its God and its Maker, far exalted above all nature, went
after his light when perceived, and followed with faith, with re-
signation, and with unshaken courage, his commands, and the
slightest suggestions of his paternal guidance, whether through
the stormy sea, or across the savage desert. I do not mean to
assert that the whole nation of the Jews was thoroughly, con-
stantly, and uniformly actuated and animated with such a pure
spirit and such pure feelings many pages of their history attest
the contrary, and but too well manifest how often they were in
contradiction with themselves. But this and this alone was the
170 PHILOSOPHY OF
fundamental principle, the first mighty impulse, the permanent
course of conduct which Moses and the other leaders and chosen
men among the Hebrews sought to trace out to their people this
was the abiding character, the great distinctive mark which they
had stamped upon their nation . This, too, was the distinguish-
ing character of all the primitive patriarchs, as represented in
the sacred writings of the Old Testament.
Independently of particular traits of national character, and
the special destiny of nations, it is philosophically certain, or, if
we may so speak, it is a truth grounded on psychological prin-
ciples, that the will and not the understanding is in man the
principal organ for the perception of divine truths. And by
this, we understand a will that seeks out with all the earnestness
of desire the light of truth, which is God, and when that light
has appeared clear, or begins to appear clear, follows with
fidelity its guidance, and listens to the internal voice of truth
and all its high inspirations. I affirm that in man the under-
standing is not the principal organ for the perception of divine
truth that is to say, the understanding alone. On the
understanding alone, indeed, the light may dawn and may even
be received but if the will be not there if the will pursue a
separate and contrary course, that light of higher knowledge
is soon obscured, and soon becomes clouded and unsteady ; or,
if it should stiU gleam, it is changed into the treacherous
meteor of illusion. Without the co-operation of a good will,
this light cannot be preserved or maintained in its purity ; nay,
the will must make the first advances towards truth ; it must
lay the first basis for the higher science of divine truth, and
religious knowledge. In other words, as the God whom we
acknowledge and revere as the Supreme Being is a living God;
so truth, which is God, is a living truth it is only from life
that it can be derived, by life attained, and in life learned. In
the present state of man's existence, in this period of the world
a period of discord, of sunken power, of misery and delusion
a period, which, as the Indians designate our fourth and last
epoch of the world by the name of Caliyug, is the period of
predominant woe and misfortune ; in this present life, the path
marked out for man as leading to the knowledge of divine
truth and to a higher life, is the path of patience, resignation,
and perseverance in the struggle of life a toilsome probation,
cheered and supported by hope. Desire or love is the beginning
HISTORY. 171
or root of all higher science or divine knowledge ; perseverance
in desire, in faith, and in the combat of life, forms the mid-way
of our pilgrimage ; but the term of this pilgrimage is only a
term of hope. This necessary period of preparation, of slow
and irksome preparation, and gradual progression, cannot be
avoided or overleaped by the most heroic exertions of man.
The supreme perfection and full contentment of the soul the
intimate union of the spirit with God and God himself cannot
be thus grasped, wrested, and held fast by a violent concen-
tration of all our thoughts on a single point, by a species of
arrogated omnipotence the self-potency of obstinate and
tenacious thought ; as the Indian philosophy believes, and as
the modern German philosophy* for some time seemed to
believe, or at least attempted.
The real character and even history of the Jewish people
are frequently misunderstood, and ill appreciated ; because the
men of our times, who in all their speculations, and whatever
may be the nature of their opinions, incline ever more and more
to the spirit of the absolute, are unable to seize and enter into
the idea of that epoch of preparation and progressive advance-
ment which was as indispensable for the perfection of intellect
and knowledge, as of moral life itself. The whole historical ex-
istence and destiny of the Hebrews is confined within one of
those great epochs of providential dispensation it marks but
one stage in the wonderful march of humanity towards its
divine goal. The whole existence of this people turned on
the pivot of hope, and the keystone of its moral life projected
its far shadows into futurity. Herein consists the mighty
difference between the sacred traditions of the Hebrews and
those of the other ancient Asiatic nations. When we examine
the primitive records and sacred books of these nations, who
were so much nearer the fountain-head of primitive revelation
than the later nations of the polished West ; when we leave
out of sight the moral precepts and ordinances of liturgy com-
prised in these books, we shall find their historical view is
turned back towards the glorious past, and that they breathe
throughout a melancholy regret for all that man and the world
have since lost. And undoubtedly these primitive traditions
* Schlegel here alludes to that sort of intuitive mysticism in matters
of religion, which was the hoast of the adherents of Schelling's philo-
sophy. Trans.
172 PHILOSOPHY OF
contain many ancient and beautiful reminiscences of primeval
happiness, for even Nature herself was then far different from
what she is at present, more lovely, more akin to the world
of spirits, peopled and encompassed with celestial genii ; and
not only the small garden of Eden, but all creation, enjoyed
a state of Paradisaic innocence and happy infancy, ere strife
had commenced in the world, and ere death was known. Out
of the multitude of these holy and affecting recollections, and
out of the whole body of primitive traditions, Moses, by a wise
law of economy, has retained but very little in the revelation,
which was specially destined for the Hebrew people, and has
communicated only what appeared to him absolutely and indis-
pensably necessary for his nation, and for his particular designs,
or rather the designs of God, in the conduct of that nation.
But the little he has said the insignificant brevity of the first
pages of the Mosaic history, involves much profound truth for
us in these later ages, and comprises very many solutions as
to the great problems of primitive history, did we but know
how to extract the simple sense with like simplicity. But
every thing else, and in general the whole tenor of the Mosaic
writings, like the existence of the Hebrew nation, was formed
for futurity and to this were the views of the Jewish legis-
lator almost exclusively directed. And as all the sacred writ-
ings of the Old Testament, which, by this direction towards
futurity, were even in their outward form so clearly distin-
guishable from the sacred books and primitive records of other
ancient nations ; as all these sacred writings, I say, from the
first lawgiver, who in a high spiritual sense, delivered from
the Egyptian bondage of nature his people chosen for that
especial object, down to the royal and prophetic Psalmist, and
down to that last voice of warning and of promise that re-
sounded in the desert, were both in their form and meaning
eminently prophetic ; so the whole Hebrew people may, in a
lofty sense, be called prophetic, and have been really so in
their historical existence and wonderful destiny.
To these four nations, whom we have compared, in respect
to the different shape and course which the primitive revelation
and sacred tradition assumed among them, as well as in respect
to the diversities in their intellectual development, the con-
trarieties in the internal Word, and higher consciousness of
each ; to these nations, in order to complete the instructive
HISTORY. 173
parallel, we may now add a fifth the Persians ; a people
which in some points was similar, in others dissimilar to one or
other of these nations, and which bearing a nearer affinity to
some in its doctrines and views of life, or even in its language
and turn of fancy, and more closely connected with others in
the bonds of political intercourse, may be said to occupy a
middle place among these nations. In ancient history, the
Persians form the point of transition from the first to the
second epoch of the world ; and in this they hold the first
place, in so far as they commenced the career of universal con-
quest ; a passion which passed from them to the Greeks, and
from these in a still fuller extent to the Romans, like some
noxious humour some deadly disease transmitted with aug-
mented virulence through every age from generation to gene-
ration ; and even in modern times, this hereditary malady in
the human race has again broken out.
But, considered in a spiritual point of view, and with re-
gard to their religion and sacred traditions, the Persians must
be classed with the four great nations of the primitive world,
and can be compared with them only ; for, in this respect,
they so totally differed from the Phoenicians and Greeks, that
no comparison can be instituted between them and the latter ;
and no parallel, where the objects are so unlike, can be pro-
ductive of any useful result. To the Indians they bore the
strongest resemblance in their language, poetry, and poetic
Sagas ; their conquests, which stretched far into the provinces
of Central Asia, brought them in contact with the remote
Eastern Asia, and the celestial Empire of the Chinese, so com-
pletely sequestered from the western world ; with Egypt they
were involved in political contests, till they finally subdued it
and in their religious doctrines and traditions, they more
nearly approximated to the Hebrews ; or their views of God
and religion were more akin to the Hebrew doctrines than
those of any other nation. Of the King of Heaven, and the
Father of eternal light, and of the pure world of light, of the
eternal Word by which all things were created, of the seven
mighty spirits that stand next to the throne of Light and
Omnipotence, and of the glory of those heavenly hosts which
encompass that throne ; next, of the origin of evil and of the
Prince of darkness, the monarch of those rebellious spirits
the enemies of all good ; they in a great measure entertained
174 PHILOSOPHY OF
completely similar, or at least very kindred, tenets to those of
the Hebrews. That with all these doctrines much may have
been, or really was, combined, which the ancient Hebrews and
even we would account erroneous, is very possible, and indeed
may almost naturally be surmised ; but this by 110 means impairs
that strong- historical resemblance we here speak of. A cir-
cumstance well worthy of observation is the manner in which
Cyrus and the Persians are represented in the historical books
of the Old Testament, and are there so clearly distinguished
from all other pagan nations. Among the latter they can
with no propriety be numbered ; nay, they felt towards the
Egyptian idolatry as strong an abhorrence, and in political
life manifested it more violently, than the Hebrews themselves.
During their sway in Egypt, this idolatry was an object of
their persecution, and under Cambyses, they pursued a regular
plan for its utter extirpation. Even Xerxes in liis expedition
into Greece, destroyed many temples and erected fire-chapels
in the whole course of his march ; for it cannot be questioned
but religious views were principally instrumental in giving
birth to the Persian conquests, at least to those of an earlier
date. This is a circumstance which should not be overlooked,
if we would rightly understand the whole course of these events,
and penetrate into the true spirit and original design of these
mighty movements in the world. From their fire-worship, we
must not be led to accuse the ancient Persians of an absolute
deification of the elements , and of a sensual idolatry of nature ;
in their religion, which was so eminently spiritual, the earthly
fire and the earthly sacrifice were but the signs and the em-
blems of another devotion and of a higher power. Symbols
and figurative representations were in general not so rigidly-
excluded from their religious system, as from that of the
Hebrews. Yet, among the Persians, these had a totally differ-
ent character from those in the Indian or Egyptian idolatry.
The generous character of the ancient Persians, their life and
their manners, which display such an exalted sense of nature,
possess in themselves something peculiarly winning and capti-
vating for the feelings. The leading result of the few observa-
tions we have made may be comprised in the following general
remarks :
If a poetical recollection of Paradise sufficed for the moral
destiny of man if the pure feeling, enthusiasm, and admira-
HISTORY. 175
tion for sideral nature were alone capable of revealing- all the
glory of the celestial abodes, and of the heavenly hosts, of open-
ing 1 to mental eyes the gates of eternal light if this were the
one thing necessary, and of the first necessity for man if it
were, or could be conformable to the will of God, that the eter-
nal empire of pure light should be diffused over the whole earth
by the enthusiasm of martial glory, by the generous valour and
heroic magnanimity of a chivalric nobility, such as the Persian
undoubtedly was then, indeed, would the Persians hold the
pre-eminence, or be entitled to claim the first rank among
those four nations that were nearest the source of the primitive
revelation. But it was otherwise ordained; the path alone fit and
salutary for man, and evidently marked out by the will of God,
is the path of patience and perseverance the unremitting
struggle of slow preparation. Thus, as we may easily conceive,
it was not the Persians, distinguished as that nation was by its
noble character, and by its spiritual views of life; it was not
the Egyptians, versed and initiated as they were in all the mys-
teries of nature and all the depths of science ; but it was the
politically insignificant, and, in an earthly point of view, the
far less important, almost imperceptible, people of the Hebrews,
that were chosen to be the medium of transition the con-
necting link between the primitive revelation and the full de-
velopment of religion in modern times, and its last glorious
expansion towards the close of ages. They are now the car-
riers, and, we may well say, the porters of the designs of Pro-
vidence, destined to bear the torch of primitive tradition and
sacred promise from the beginning to the consummation of the
world: while the once magnanimous nation of the Persians
has sunk from that pure knowledge of truth, and those high
spiritual notions of religion it once entertained, down to the
ant i- Christian superstition of Mahomet; and the profound
people of Egypt has become totally extinct, and is not to be
traced even in the small community of Coptic Christians, who
have preserved a feeble remnant of the ancient language.
Since now this general sketch of the various and contrary
directions which the human mind followed in the first ages of
history has been rendered more clear and definite by a compa-
rative view of the five principal nations of the primitive world,
it only remains for us to subjoin some important traits in the
history of each, to complete this picture of the earliest nations ;
in order to pass over, along with the Persians, to the second
176 PHILOSOPHY OF
period of the ancient world a period which is so much nearer to
us, and appears so much more clear and open to our apprehension.
The origin of ancient heathenism we must seek among the
Indians, and not among the Chinese, for the reason we have
before alleged : namely, that in the primitive ages, the Chinese
observed a pure, simple, and patriarchal worship of the Deity ;
and it was only when under the first general and powerful
emperor of China, the rationalism introduced by the sect of
Taosse had brought about a complete revolution in the whole
system of Chinese faith, manners, and customs, that a real
form of paganism the Indian superstition of Buddha was
subsequently introduced into that country. This subversion of
the whole system of ancient government of ancient doctrines
and of what among the Chinese was inseparably allied with
the latter, the early system of writing, was a real revolution in
the public mind. As the general burning of the sacred books,
and the persecution and execution of many of the learned, were
measures directed solely against the school of Confucius, that
adhered to the old system of morals and government, it is by
no means an arbitrary and baseless hypothesis to ascribe to the
antagonist party, the rationalist sect of Taosse, a great share
in this violent moral and political revolution ; inasmuch as the
powerful Emperor Chi-ho-angti must have been quite in the
interest of this party. Although the erection of the great
wall of China, and the settlement of a Chinese colony in Japan,
gave external splendour to his reign ; yet at home its despotic
violence rendered it thoroughly revolutionary. And so this
mighty catastrophe, which occurred two thousand years ago in
the Chinese empire, widely removed as it is from us by the
distance of space and time, and different as is the form under
which it occurred, bears nevertheless no slight resemblance or
analogy to much we have seen and experienced in our own
times. To explain the contradiction which seems involved in
the fact, that on one hand we have commended that pure,
simple, and patriarchal worship of the Deity by the Chinese
in the primitive period ; and much that denoted the compara-
tively high state of civilisation among this people, together
with a science perverted and degenerate indeed, yet carried to
a high degree of refinement ; and that, on the other hand, we
have pointed out many things in their primitive writing -system,
which displayed a great rudeness and poverty of ideas, and a
very confined circle of symbols, we may observe that it is with
HISTORY. 177
China as with many other ancient civilised countries, where,
in the background of a ruling- and highly polished people, a
close investigation will discover a race of primitive inhabitants
more barbarous, or at least less advanced in intellectual refine-
ment. Such a race is mentioned by historians as existing in
different provinces of China under the name of Mino they
are precisely characterised as an earlier, less polished race of
inhabitants, and they have indeed been preserved down to later
times. The historical inquirer meets almost always in the first
ages of the world with two strata of nations, consisting of an
elder and a younger race ; in the same way as the geologist
in his investigation of the earth's surface can clearly distinguish
a twofold formation of mountains and separate periods in the
formation of that surface. Thus, in China, the more polished
new-comers and founders of the subsequent nation and state,
accommodated themselves in many respects to the manners and
customs, the language and even perhaps symbolical writing of
these half savages, as the Europeans have partly done, when
they have wished to civilise and instruct the Mexicans and other
barbarous nations ; and as men must always act in similar
eases, if they would wish success to crown their benevolent
endeavours. All researches into the origin of the Chinese
nation and Chinese civilisation ever conduct the inquirer to the
north-west, where the province of Shensee is situated, and to
the countries lying beyond. Thus this only serves to confirm
the opinion, highly probable in itself, and supported by such
manifold testimony, of the general derivation of all Asiatic
civilisation from the great central region of Western Asia.
Agreeably to this opinion, the Indian traditions, as we have
already mentioned, deduce the historical descent of Indian
civilisation from the northern mountainous range of the Hima-
laya and the country northwards ; and in support of this tradi-
tion, we may cite the vast ruins, the immense subterraneous
temples hewn out of the rock, in the neighbourhood of the old
and celebrated city of Bamyan. Though the latter city be not
in the proper India, but more northward towards Cabul, in
Hindu Cutch, still its ruins present to the eye of the spectator
the peculiar forms and structure of the architecture and colos-
sal images of India, (whereof they contain a great abundance,)
such as are observed in the other great monumental edifices of
the Indians at Ellore, in the centre of the southern province of
N
178 PHILOSOPHY OF
Deccan, in the Isles of Salsette and Elephanta, in the neigh-
bourhood of Bombay, in the island of Ceylon, and near Mava-
lipuram on the coast of Madras. All these immense temples,
which have been hewn in the cavities of rocks, or have been
cut out of the solid rock ; and where often many temples are
ranged above and beside the other, together with the buildings
for the use of the Brahmins and the swarms of pilgrims, occu-
pying in length and breadth the vast space of half a German
mile, and even more ; these temples form the regular places of
Hindoo pilgrimage, whither immense multitudes of pilgrims
flock from all the countries of India ; and an English writer,
who wrote as an eye-witness, estimated the multitude at the al-
most incredible number of two millions and a half. Together
with the colossal imag'es of gods and of sacred animals, such as
the elephant and the nandi, or the bull sacred to Siva, we find
the rocky walls of these subterraneous temples adorned with an
almost incalculable number of carved figures, representing various
scenes from the Indian mythology. These figures jut so pro-
minently from the rock, that it would almost seem as if their
backs alone joined the wall. The multitude of figures is ex-
ceedingly great, and in the ruins near Bamyan, the number is
computed at twelve thousand ; though this calculation may not
perhaps be very accurate, for the thick forests which surround
these now desolate ruins are often the repair of tigers and ser-
pents, and thus all approach to them is attended with danger.
Besides, in the ruins of Bamyan many of the figures, and even
some of the colossal idols, have been destroyed by the Maho-
metans, for whenever their armies chance to pass by these ruins,
they never fail to point their cannon against the images of
those fabulous divinities, which all Mahometans hold in so much
abhorrence.
As to architecture, the perfection which this art attained
among the Indians is evident from the beautiful workmanship
and varied decoration of their columns, whole rows of which,
like a forest of pillars, support the massy roof of upper rock.
Notwithstanding the essential difference which must exist in
the architecture of temples hewn out of rocks, or constructed
in the cavities of rocks, we shall find that the prevailing ten-
dency in Indian architecture is towards the pyramidal form.
On the other hand, it is observed that the art of vaulting ap-
pears to have been less known, or, at least, not to have attained
great perfection, or been in frequent use. We find, too, among-
HISTORY. 179
these monuments, vast walls constructed out of immense blocks
of stone, and rudely cut fragments of rock, not unlike the old
Cyclopean structures. The amateurs of such subjects have
acquired a more accurate knowledge of them by the splendid
illustrations which the English have published ; for a mere
verbal description can with difficulty convey a just notion of
the nature and peculiar character of this architecture. Of the
political history of India little can be said, for the Indians
scarcely possess any regular history any works to which we
should give the denomination of historical ; for their history is
interwoven and almost confounded with mythology, and is to
be found only in the old mythological works, especially in their
two great national and epic poems, the Ramayan and the
Mahabarat, and in the eighteen Puranas (the most select and
classical of the popular and mythological legends of India), and,
perhaps, in the traditionary history of particular dynasties and
provinces ; and even the works we have mentioned are not
merely of a mytho-historical, but in a great measure of a theo-
logical and philosophical purport. The more modern history
of Hindostan, from the first Mahometan conquest at the com-
mencement of the eleventh century of our era, can, indeed, be
traced with pretty tolerable certainty; but as this portion of Indian
history is unconnected with, and incapable of illustrating- the
true state and progress of the intellectual refinement of the
Hindoos, it is of no importance to our immediate object. The
more ancient history of that country, particularly in the earlier
period, is most fabulous, or, to characterise it by a softer, and
at the same time, more correct name, a history purely mythic
and traditionary ; and it would be no easy task to divest the
real and authentic history of ancient India of the garb of my-
thology and poetical tradition ; a task which, at least, has not
yet been executed with adequate critical acumen.
Chronology, too, shares the same fate with the sister science
of history, for in the early period it is fabulous, and in the
more modern, it is often not sufficiently precise and accurate.
The number of years assigned to the first three epochs of the
world must be considered as possessing an astronomical import,
rather than as furnishing any criterion for an historical use.
It is only the fourth and last period of the world the age of
progressive misery and all-prevailing woe, which the Indians
term Caliyug, that we can in any way consider an historical
N2
180 PHILOSOPHY OF
epoch; and this, the duration of which is computed at four
thousand years, began about a thousand years before the Chris-
tian era. Of the progress and term of this period of the world,
considered in reference to the history of mankind, the Indians
entertain a very simple notion. They believe that the condi-
tion of mankind will become, at first, much worse, but will be
afterwards ameliorated. The regular historical epoch, when
the chronology of India begins to acquire greater certainty,
and from which, indeed, it is ordinarily computed, is the age of
King Vikramaditya, who reigned in the more civilised part of
India, somewhat earlier than the Emperor Augustus in the
west, perhaps about sixty years before our era. It was at the
court of this monarch that flourished nine of the most
celebrated sages and poets of the second era of Indian
literature ; and among these was Calidas, the author of
the beautiful dramatic poem of " Sacontala," so generally
known by the English and German translations. It was in the
age of Vikramaditya that the later poetry and literature of
India, of which Calidas was so bright an ornament, reached its
full bloom. The elder Indian poetry, particularly the two great
epic poems above mentioned, entirely belong to the early and
more fabulous ages of the world ; so far at least as the poets
themselves are assigned to those ages, and figure in some degree
as fabulous personages. We may, however, observe, that in the
style of poetry, in art, and even, in the language itself, there
reigns a very great difference between these primitive heroic
poems, and the works of Calidas and other contemporary poets
the difference is at least as great as that which exists between
Homer and Theocritus, or the other bucolick poets of Greece.
The oldest of the two epic poems of the Indians, the Ramayana
by the poet Valmiki, celebrates Rayma, his love for a royal
princess, the beautiful Sita, and his conquest of Lanka, or the
modern isle of Ceylon. Although in the old historical Sagas of
the Indians, we find mention made of far-ruling monarchs and all-
conquering heroes ; still these traditions seem to show, as in the
instance first cited, that in the oldest, as in the latest times prior
to foreign conquest, India was not united in one great monarchy,
but was generally parcelled out into a variety of states; and
this fact serves to prove that such has ever been in general the
political condition of that country. The whole body of ancient
Indian traditions and mythological history is to be found in the
HISTORY. 181
other great epic of the Indians, the Maha-Barata, whose author,
or at least compiler, was Vyasa, the founder of the Vedanta
philosophy, the most esteemed, and most prevalent of all
the philosophical systems of the Hindoos. This leads us to
observe a second remarkable, and singularly characteristic, fea-
ture in Indian intellect and Indian literature, so widely
remote from the relation between poetry arid philosophy among
other nations, purticularly the Greeks. This is the close con-
nexion and almost entire fusion of poetry and philosophy among
this people. Many of their more ancient philosophical works
were composed in metre, though they possess productions of a
later period, which display the highest logical subtilty and analysis.
Their great old poems, whatever may be the beauty of the lan-
guage, and the captivating interest of the narrative, are gene-
rally imbued with, and pervaded by, the most profound philo-
sophy ; and among this people, even the history of metaphysics
ascends as far back as the mythic ages. This, at least, holds
good of the authors, to whom the invention of the leading phi-
losophical systems has been ascribed ; although the subsequent
commentaries belong to a much later and more historical period.
Thus the Mahabarata contains as an episode a didactic poem,
or philosophical dialogue between the fabulous personages and
heroes of the epic, known in Europe by the name of the Bhaga-
vatgita, and which has recently been ably edited and expounded
in Germany, by Augustus William Von Schlegel, and
William Von Humboldt. The leading principles of the Ve-
daiita philosophy are copiously set forth in this poem, which
may be regarded as a manual of Indian mysticism ; for such is
the ultimate object of all Indian philosophy; and of this peculiar
propensity of the Hindoo mind we have already cited some re-
markable traits. For the accomplishment of our more imme-
diate object, and in order rightly to understand the true place
which the intellectual culture of India occupies in primitive his-
tory, a general knowledge of Indian philosophy is far more im-
portant and necessary, than any minute analysis and criticism on
the manifold beauties of the very rich poetry of that country ;
and this philosophy we shall now endeavour to characterise ac-
cording to its various systems, and in its main and essential
features.
END OF LECTURE V.
182 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE VI.
Of the Hindoo Philosophy Dissertation on Languages Of the peculiar
political Constitution and Theocratic Government of the Hebrews
Of the Mosaic Genealogy of Nations.
THE Indian philosophy, from the place it holds in the primitive
intellectual history of Asia, and from the insight it gives us into
the character and peculiar tendency of the human mind in that
early period, possesses a high, almost higher, interest than
that offered by the beautiful and captivating poetry of this
ancient people. However, even the poetry of the Indians con-
tains much that refers to, or bears the stamp of, that peculiar
mystical philosophy which we have more than once spoken of.
"We shall give a more correct and comprehensive idea of the
Indian philosophy, if we observe, beforehand, that the six In-
dian systems which are the most prevalent and the most cele-
brated, and which, though in many points differing from the
Vedas, are not to be regarded as entirely reprehensible or
heterodox, the six Indian systems, we say, must be classed in
couples, and that the first of each pair treats of the beginning
of the subject discussed in the second, and the second contains
the development and extension of the principles laid down in
the first, or applies those principles to another and higher
object of inquiry. In the whole Indian philosophy there are,
in fact, only three different modes of thought, or three systems
absolutely divergent, and we shall give a sufficiently clear idea
of these systems, if we say that the first is founded on nature,
the second on thought, or on the thinking self; and the third
attaches itself exclusively to the revelation comprised in the
Vedas. The first system, which seems to be one of the most
ancient, bears the name of the Sanchya philosophy a name
which signifies "the philosophy of numbers." This is not to
be understood in the Pythagorean sense, that numbers are the
principle of all things, or according to the very similar prin-
HISTORY. 183
ciple laid down in the Chinese books of I King, where we find
the eight koua, or the symbolic primary lines of all existence.
But the Sanchya system bears this name because it reckons
successively the first principles of all things and of all being to
the number of four or five-and-twenty. Among these first
principles, it assigns the highest place to Nature the second
to understanding, and by this is meant not merely human un-
derstanding, but general and even Infinite Intelligence ; so
that we may consider this system as a very partial philosophy
of Nature ; and indeed it has been regarded by some Indian
writers as atheistical a censure in which the learned English-
man, Mr. Colebrooke, (to whose extracts and notices we are in-
debted for our most precise information on this whole branch
of Indian literature)* seems almost inclined to concur. This
system was, however, by no means a coarse materialism, or a
denial of the Divinity and of every thing sacred. The doubts
expressed in the passages cited by Mr. Colebrooke are directed
far more against the Creation than against God ; they regard
the motive which could have induced the Supreme Being, the
Spirit of Infinite Perfection, to create the external world, and
the possibility of such a creation.
The Sanchya philosophy would be more properly designated
in our modern philosophic phraseology as a system of complete
dualism, where two substances are represented as co-existent
on one hand, a self-existent energy of Nature, which emanated,
or eternally emanates, from itself; and on the other hand,
eternal truth, or the Supreme and Infinite Mind.
The Indian philosophers in general were so inclined to
regard the whole outward world of sense as the product of illu-
sion, as a vain and idle apparition, and we can well imagine they
were unable to reconcile the creation of such a world (which
appeared to them a world of darkness, or perhaps, on a some-
what higher scale, as an intermediate state of illusion) with their
mystical notion of the infinite perfection of the Supreme Being
and Eternal Spirit. For even in ethics, they were wont to
place the idea of Supreme Perfection in a state of absolute
* The valuable articles by this great Sanscrit scholar on Hindoo
philosophy have excited a greater sensation in France and Germany,
than in his own country. It would be well if the Asiatic Society were
to publish those articles in a separate form. Trans.
184 PHILOSOPHY OF
repose, but not (at least to an equal degree) in the state of
active energy or exertion. Great as the error of such a system
of dualism may be there is yet a mighty difference between
a philosophy which denies, or at least misconceives, the crea-
tion, and one which denies the existence of the Deity ; for such
atheism never occurred to the minds of those philosophers.
The doctrine of a primary self-existing* energy in nature, or of
the eternity of the universe, may, in a practical point of view,
appear as gross an error ; but in philosophy Ave must make ac-
curate distinctions, and forbear to place this ancient dualism on
the same level with that coarse materialism that destructive
and atheistic atomical philosophy, or any other doctrines pro-
fessed by the later sects of a dialectic rationalism.
Valuable, undoubtedly, as are such extracts and communica-
tions from the originals in a branch of human science still so
little known, yet they will not alone suffice, and, without a cer-
tain philosophic flexibility of talent in the inquirer, they will
fail to afford him a proper insight into the true nature, the
real spirit and tendency of those ancient systems of philosophy.
That the Indian philosophy, even when it has started from the
most opposite principles, and when its circuitous or devious
course has branched more or less widely from the common
path is sure to wind round, and fall into the one general track
the uniform term of all Indian philosophy is well exempli-
fied by the second part of the Sanchy& system (called the Yoga
philosophy), where we find a totally different principle pro-
claimed ; and while it utterly abandons the primary doctrine
of a self-existent principle in nature laid down in the first part
of the philosophy, it unfolds those maxims of Indian mysticism
which recur in every department of Hindoo literature. That
total absorption in the one thought of the Deity, that entire
abstraction from all the impressions and notions of sense
that suspension of all outward, and in part even of inward,
life effected by the energy of a will tenaciously fixed and en-
tirely concentrated on a single point and by which, according
to the belief of the Indians, miraculous power and super-
natural knowledge are attained are held up in the second part
of the Sanchya system as the highest term of all mental exer-
tion. The word Yoga signifies the complete union of all our
thoughts and faculties with God by which alone the soul can
HISTORY. 185
be freed that is, delivered from the unhappy lot of transmi-
gration ; and this, and this only, forms the object of all Indian
philosophy.
The Indian name of Yogi is derived from the same word,
which designates this philosophy. The Indian Yogi is a hermifc
or penitent, who, absorbed in this mystic contemplation, remains
often for years fixed immoveably to a single spot. In order to
give a lively representation of a phenomenon so strange to us,
which appears totally incredible and almost impossible, al-
though it has been repeatedly attested by eye-witnesses, and is
a well-ascertained historical fact; I will extract from the
drama of Sacontala, by the poet Calidas, a description of a
Yogi, remarkable for its vivid accuracy, or, to use the expres-
sion of the German commentator, its fearful beauty. King
Dushmanta inquires of Indra's charioteer the sacred abode of
him whom he seeks ; and to this the charioteer replies :* " A
little beyond the grove, where you see a pious Yogi, motionless
as a pollard, holding his thick bushy hair and fixing his eyes on
the solar orb. Mark : his body is half covered with a white
ant's edifice made of raised clay ; the skin of a snake supplies
the place of his sacerdotal thread, and part of it girds his
loins ; a number of knotty plants encircle and wound his neck ;
and surrounding birds' nests almost conceal his shoulders."
We must not take this for the invention of fancy, or the ex-
aggeration of a poet ; the accuracy of this description is con-
firmed by the testimony of innumerable eye-witnesses, who
recount the same fact, and in precisely similar colours. During
that period of wonderful phenomena and supernatural powers
the first three centuries of the Christian church we meet
with only one Simon Stylites, or column-stander ; and his con-
duct is by no means held up by Christian writers as a model of
imitation, but is regarded, at best, as an extraordinary excep-
tion permitted on certain special grounds. In the Indian
forests and deserts, and in the neighbourhood of those holy
places of pilgrimage mentioned above, there are many hundreds
of these hermits these strange human phenomena of the
highest intellectual abstraction or delusion. Even the Greeks
were acquainted with them, and, among so many other won-
* We have transcribed Sir William Jones's own words, as given in
his translation of Sacontala. Trans.
186 PHILOSOPHY OF
ders, make mention of them in their description of India under
the name of the Gymnosophists. Formerly such accounts
would have been regarded as incredible and as exceeding the
bounds of possibility ; but such conjectures can be of no avail
against historical facts repeatedly attested and undeniably
proved. Now that men are better acquainted with the won-
derful flexibility of human organisation, and with those mar-
vellous powers which slumber concealed within it, they are less
disposed to form light and hasty decisions on phenomena of
this description. The whole is indeed a magical intellectual
self-exaltation, accomplished by the energy of the will concen-
trated on a single point ; and this concentration of the mind,
when carried to this excess, may J lead not merely to a figura-
tive, but to a real intellectual self-annihilation, and to the dis-
order of all thought, even of the brain. While on the one
hand we must remain amazed at the strength of a will so tena-
ciously and perseveringly fixed on an object purely spiritual,
we must, on the other hand, be filled with profound regret at
the sight of so much energy wasted for a purpose so erroneous,
and in a manner so appalling.
The second species of Indian philosophy, totally different
from the other two kinds, and which proceeds not from Nature,
but from the principle of thought and from the thinking self,
is comprised in the Nyaya system, whose founder was Gau-
tama a personage whom several of the earlier investigators
of Indian literature, particularly Dr. Taylor, in his Translation
of the "Prabodha Chandrodaya" (page 116) have con-
founded with the founder of the Buddhist sect, as both bear
the same name. But a closer inquiry has proved them to be
distinct persons ; and Mr. Colebrooke himself finds greater
points of coincidence or affinity between the Sanchya philo-
sophy and Buddhism, than between the latter and the Nyaya
system. This Nyaya philosophy, proceeding from the act of
thought, comprises in the doctrine of particulars, distinctions
and subdivisions, the application of the thinking principle ; and
this part of the system embraces all which among the Greeks
went under the name of logic or dialectic ; and which with us
is partly classed under the same head. Very many writings
and commentaries have been devoted to the detailed treatment
and exposition of these subjects, which the Indians seem to
have discussed with almost the same diffuseness, or at least co-
HISTORY. 187
piousness, as the Greeks. Like the Indians, the learned En-
glishman who has first unlocked to our view this department of
Indian literature, has paid comparatively most attention to this
second part of the Nyaya philosophy. But all this logical phi-
losophy, though it may furnish one more proof (if such be ne-
cessary) of the extreme richness, variety, and refinement of the
intellectual culture of the Hindoos, yet possesses no immediate
interest for the object we here propose to ourselves. Mr. Cole-
brooke remarks, however, that the fundamental tenets of this
philosophy comprise, as indeed is evident, not merely a logic in
the ordinary acceptation of the word, but the metaphysics of
all logical science. On this part of the subject, I could have
wished that in the authentic extracts he has given us from the
Sanscrit originals, he had more distinctly educed the leading
doctrines of the system, and thus furnished us with the adequate
data for forming a judgment on the general character of this
philosophy, as well as on its points of coincidence with other
systems, and with the philosophy of the Buddhists. For
although it appears to be well ascertained that the religion of
Buddha sprang out of some perverted system of Hindoo philo-
sophy ; yet the points of transition to such a religious creed
existing in the Indian systems of philosophy, have not yet been
clearly pointed out. The Vedanta philosophy must here evi-
dently be excepted ; for to this Buddhism is as much opposed
as to the old Indian religion of the Vedas. Moreover that
endless confusion and unintelligibleness of the Buddhist meta-
physics, which we have before spoken of, may first be traced to
the source of idealism ; though in the progress of that philo-
sophy, many errors have been associated with it errors even
which, in its origin, were most widely removed from it; for
every system of error asserts and even believes that it is perfectly
consistent, though in none is such consistency found.
The basis and prevailing tendency of the Nyaya system (to
judge from the extracts with which we have been furnished) is
most decidedly ideal. On the whole we can very well conceive
that a system of philosophy beginning with the highest act of
thought, or proceeding from the thinking self, should run into a
course of the most decided and absolute idealism, and that the
general inclination of the Indian philosophers to regard the
whole external world of sense as vain illusion, and to represent
individual personality as absorbed in the God-head by the most
188 PHILOSOPHY OF
intimate union, should have given birth to a complete system
of self-delusion a diabolic self-idolatry, very congenial with
the principles of that most ancient of all an ti- Christian sects
the Buddhists.
The Indian authorities cited by Mr. Colebrooke, impute to the
second part of the Nyaya philosophy a strong leaning to the
atomical system. We must here recollect that, as the Indian
mind pursued the most various and opposite paths of inquiry
even in philosophy, there were besides the six most prevalent
philosophic systems, recognised as generally conformable to
religion, several others in direct opposition to the established
doctrines on the Deity and on religion. Among these the
Charvaca philosophy, which, according to Mr. Colebrooke, com-
prises the metaphysics of the sect of Jains, deserves a passing-
notice. It is a system of complete materialism founded on the
atomical doctrines, such as Epicurus taught, and which met
with so much favour and adhesion in the declining ages of
Greece and Rome ; doctrines which several moderns have re-
vived in latter times, but which the profound investigations of
natural philosophy, now so far advanced, will scarcely ever
permit to take root again.
The third species or branch of Indian philosophy, is that
which is attached to the Vedas, and to the sacred revelation and
traditions they contain. The first part of this philosophy,
the Mimansa, is, according to Mr. Colebrooke, more immediately
devoted to the interpretation of the Vedas, and most probably
contains the fundamental rules of interpretation, or the leading
principles, whereby independent reason is made to harmonise
with the word of revelation conveyed by sacred tradition. The
second or finished part of the system is called the Vedanta
philosophy. The last word in this term, " Vedanta," which is
compounded of two roots, is equivalent to the German word
ende (end), or still more to the Latin finis, and denotes the
end or ultimate object of any effort ; and so the entire term
Vedanta will signify a philosophy which reveals the true sense,
the internal spirit, and the proper object of the Vedas, and of
the primitive relation of Brahma comprised therein. This
Vedanta philosophy is the one which now generally exerts the
greatest influence on Indian literature and Indian life ; and it
is very possible that some of the six recognised, or at least
tolerated, systems of philosophy, may have been purposely
HISTORY. 189
thrown into the background, or when they clashed too rudely
with the principles of the prevailing system, have been softened
down by their partisans, and have thus come down to us in that
state. A wide field is here opened to the future research and
critical inquiries of Indian scholars.
This Vedanta philosophy is, in its general tendency, a com-
plete system of Pantheism ; but not the rigid, mathematical,
abstract, negative Pantheism of some modern thinkers ; for
such a total denial of all Personality in God, and of all freedom
in man, is incompatible with the attachment which the Vedanta
philosophy professes for sacred tradition and ancient mythology ;
and accordingly a modified, poetical, and half-mythological
system of Pantheism may here naturally be expected, and
actually exists. Even in the doctrine of the immortality of the
soul and of the metempsychosis, the personal existence of the
human soul, inculcated by the ancient faith, is not wholly denied
or rejected by this more modern system of philosophy ; though
on the whole it certainly is not exempt from the charge of
Pantheism. But all the systems of Indian philosophy tend
more or less to one practical aim namely, the final deliverance
and eternal emancipation of the soul from the old calamity
the dreaded fate the frightful lot of being compelled to
wander through the dark regions of nature through the
various forms of the brute creation and to change ever anew
its terrestrial shape. The second point in which the different
systems of Indian philosophy mostly agree is this, that the
various sacrifices prescribed for this end in the Vedas are not
free from blame or vice, partly on account of the effusion of
blood necessarily connected with animal sacrifice and partly
on account of the inadequacy of such sacrifices to the final
deliverance of the soul ; useful and salutary though they be
in other respects.
The general and fundamental doctrine of the metempsychosis
has rendered the destruction of animals extremely repulsive to
Indian feelings, from the strong apprehension that a case may
occur where, unconsciously and innocently, one may violate or
injure the soul of some former relative in its present integu-
ment. But even the Vedas themselves inculcate the neces-
sity of that sublime science which rises above nature, for the
attainment of the full and final deliverance of the soul ; as is
expressed in an old remarkable passage of the Vedas, thus
190 PHILOSOPHY OF
literally translated by Mr. Colebrooke.* " Man must recognise
the soul man must separate it from nature then it comes
not again then it comes not again." These last words sig-nify,
then the soul is delivered from the danger of a return to earth
from the misfortune of transmigration, and it remains for
ever united to God ; an union which can be obtained only by
that pure separation from nature, which is that sublimest science,
invoked in the first words of this passage.
Animal sacrifices for the souls of the departed, particularly
for those of deceased parents, which were regarded as the most
sacred duty of the son and of the posterity, were among those
religious usages which occupied an important place in the
patriarchal ages, and were most deeply interwoven with the
whole arrangement of life in that primitive period, as is evident
from all those Indian rites, and the system of doctrines akin to
them. These sacrifices are certainly of very ancient origin,
and may well have been derived from the mourning father of
mankind, and the first pair of hostile brothers. To these may
afterwards have been added all that multitude of religious rites,
and doctrines, or marvellous theories respecting the immortal
soul and its ulterior destinies. Hence the indispensable obliga-
tion of marriage for the Brahmins, in order to insure the
blessing of legitimate offspring, regarded as one of the highest
objects of existence in the patriarchal ages, for the prayers of
the son only could obtain the deliverance, and secure the
repose of a departed parent's soul, and this was one of his
most sacred duties. The high reverence for women, among
the Indians, rests on the same religious notion ; as is expressed
by the old poet in these lines
" Woman is man's better half,
Woman is man's bosom friend,
Woman is redemption's source,
From woman springs the liberator."
This last line signifies, what we mentioned above, that the
son is the liberator appointed by God, to deliver by prayer the
soul of his deceased father. The poet then continues ;
" Women are the friends of the solitary they solace him with
their sweet converse ; like to a father, in discharge of duty,
consoling as a mother in misfortune."
* See Colebrooke's articles on the Vedas in the 8th volume of Asiatic
Eesearches.
HISTORY. 191
should scarcely conceive it possible (and it certainly tends
prove the original power, copiousness, and flexibility of the
human mind,) that, by the side of a false mysticism totally
sunk and lost in the abyss of the eternally incomprehensible and
unfathomable, like the Indian philosophy, a rich, various, beau-
tiful, and highly wrought poetry should have existed. The epic
narrative of the old Indian poems bears a great resemblance to
the Homeric poetry, in its inexhaustib'e copiousness, in the
touching simplicity of its antique forms, in justness of feeling,
and accuracy of delineation. Yet in its subjects, and in the
prevailing tone of its mythological fictions, this Indian epic
poetry is characterised by a style of fancy incomparably more
gigantic, such as occasionally prevails in the mythology of
Hesiod in the accounts of the old Titanic wars or in the
fabulous world of ^Eschylus, and of the Doric Pindar. In the
tenderness of amatory feeling, in the description of female
beauty, of the character and domestic relations of woman, the
Indian poetry may be compared to the purest and noblest
effusions of Christian poesy; though, on the whole, from the
thoroughly mythical nature of its subjects, and from the rhyth-
mical forms of its speech, it bears a greater resemblance to that
of the ancients. Among the later poets, Calidas, who is the
most renowned and esteemed in the dramatic poetry of the
Indians, might be called, by way of comparison, an idyllic and
sentimental Sophocles. The poetry of the Indians is not a
little indebted to the genius of their beautiful language, which
bears indubitable traces of the same generous and lofty poetical
spirit; and it may be therefore necessary, in this general sketch
of the primitive state of the human mind, to make a few obser-
vations on this very remarkable language.
In its grammatical structure the language of India is abso-
lutely similar to the Greek and Latin, even to the minutest
particulars. But the grammatical forms of the Sanscrit are
far richer and more varied than those of the Latin tongue, and
more regular and systematic than those of the Greek. In its
roots and words the Sanscrit has a very strong and remarkable
affinity to the Persian and Germanic race of languages; an
affinity which furnishes interesting disclosures, or gives occasion
at least for instructive comparisons, on the progress of ideas
among those ancient nations, and, as one and the same word is
sometimes extended, sometimes contracted in its meaning or
192 PHILOSOPHY OF
applied to kindred objects reveals the first natural impressions,
or primary notions of life in those early ages. To prove more
clearly, by one or two examples, this affinity between the
languages of nations so widely removed from one another, and
almost separated by the distance of two quarters of the globe,
and to show the important data which the discovery of such
facts furnishes to history, I will mention, as a striking instance,
that the German word mensch (man) perfectly agrees in root
and signification with the Indian word manuschya, with this
only difference, that in the Sanscrit the latter word has a regular
root, and is derived from the word manu, which means spirit.
Thus the word mensch (man) in its primitive root signifies a
being endowed with spirit by way of pre-eminence above all
earthly creatures. It is evident, too, from this, that the Latin
word mens (mind) is of a cognate kind, and belongs to the same
family of words; for, in these philological comparisons, the
members of one radical word, scattered through different
languages, serve when combined to illustrate each other. To
cite an instance of a remarkable extension and contraction of
meaning in one and the same word, we may remark that the
same word which, in the German loch, signifies the space of a
narrow aperture, and in the Latin locvs, comprehends the ge-
neral notion of space, as well as of a particular place, means the
universe in the Sanscrit lokas. Thus the Sanscrit word
trailokas, or trailokyan, signifies the three worlds or the triple
world the world of truth or eternal being, the world of illusion
or vain appearance, and the world of darkness; a division
which constitutes one of the main points in the Indian philo-
sophy, and is expressed by the two Sanscrit words trai and
lokas, which are at the same time also Latin and German. I
will adduce but one more example. As mostly the ancient
nations of Asia, and likewise of Europe, were led by a certain
natural feeling and a not erroneous instinct, (totally independent
of the nomenclature and classifications of our natural history,)
to regard the bull, the most useful and important of all the
animals which man has domesticated, as the representative
of earthly fertility, and (as it were) the primary animal of the
earth, and afterwards made that animal the emblem of all
earthly existence and earthly energy; so it is extraordinary to
see, (as Augustus William Schlegel has shown by an interesting
comparison of the words which designate either of these objects
HISTORY. ] 93
in various languages of a kindred stem), it is extraordinary to
see what mutual light and illustration they reflect on each
other. The Indian and Persian word, gau, with which the
the German kuh, (cow) perfectly coincides, quite agrees with
the Greek word for earth, in the old Doric form of ya : the
Latin bos (ox) in its inflection bovis or bove, belongs to a whole
family of Sanscrit words, such as bhu, bhuva, bhumi, which
signify the earth or earthly, or whatever is remotely connected
therewith. So, originally, in this language one and the same
word served to denote the earth and the bull. Comparisons of
this sort, when not strained by etymological subtility, but
founded on matter of fact and clear self-evident deductions,
may offer much curious illustration of the state of opinion, and
the nature and connexion of ideas in the primitive and mythic
ages, or may serve, at least, to give us a clearer and more lively
insight into the secret operations of the human mind, and into
the modes of thinking prevalent among ancient nations. And,
besides the few instances here cited, we might adduce many
hundred examples of a similar kind.
As language in itself forms one of the corner-stones of man's his-
tory (and that not the least important), as the different tongues
spread in such amazing variety over the inhabited globe, are
essentially connected with universal history, and the his-
tory of particular races ; it is necessary to say a few words on
this subject, not that we would plunge deeper than is
here expedient, into the vast and immense labyrinth of lan-
guages ; but in order to show the point of view whence the
philosophic historian should take his survey, if he would gain a
clear and comprehensive notion of this otherwise immeasurable
chaos. Perhaps the shortest way for this would be to figure
to oneself all the different dialects and modes of speech diffused
over the habitable globe, under the general image of a pyramid
of languages of three degrees, separated one from the other
by a very simple principle of division. The broad basis of this
pyramid would be formed by those languages whose roots
and primitive words are mostly monosyllabic, and which either
are entirely without a grammar, like the Chinese language,
or at best display only the rude lineaments of a very simple
and imperfect grammatical structure. The languages belong-
ing to this class, are by far the most considerable in number,
and the most widely spread over the four quarters of the globe j
194 PHILOSOPHY OP
and if, in a general philological investigation, we would wish
to reduce these to any species of classification, we must
adopt a geographical mode of arrangement, and designate
them, for example, as the languages of Northern and Eastern
Asia, of America, and of Africa. The Chinese must be con-
sidered as the most important and remarkable language of
this class, precisely because it best answers to the character of
a monosyllabic speech totally destitute of grammar, and has
attained to as high a degree of refinement and perfection as
languages of this kind are susceptible of. This is the stage of
infancy in language, as children's first attempts at speech
almost always incline to monosyllables it is the cry of na-
ture which breaks out in these simple sounds, or the infantine
imitation of some natural sound. This primitive character is
still to be clearly traced in the Chinese ; although a very
artificial mode of writing ; and the high degree of refinement
to which science has been carried, have given a mighty ex-
tension, and a quite conventional character, to this infant
language. For any parallels or analogies which may be
drawn between the periods of natural life and the epochs of
intellectual culture must never be understood in an exact and
literal sense.
The next degree in this pyramid of speech is occupied by
the noble languages of the second class, and this race of lan-
guages, which are connected with each other by strong and
manifold ties of affinity, are the Indo-Persic, the Grseco-Latin,
and the Gothico- Teutonic.* Here the roots are, for the most
part at least, dyssyllabic ; and these roots, which are by this
means internally flexible, and become as it were, living and
productive, afford room and occasion for a more varied gram-
matical structure. The distinguishing character of these lan-
guages is a very artificial grammar, which enters so com-
pletely into the primary formation of these languages, that the
nearer we approach their original, the more regular and sys-
tematic do we find their structure. In their progress these
languages are characterised by a poetical fulness and variety
in the forms of narration, and even by a rigid precision in
scientific discussions.
* These are usually termed the Indo-Germanic race of languages.
Trans.
HISTORY. ] 95
The third and last class are the Semitic languages, as they
are styled the Hebrew and the Arabic, which, together with
their kindred dialects, form the summit or apex of this pyra-
mid. In these languages the ruling principle is that all the
roots must be tri-syllabic, for each of the three letters, of which
the root is regularly composed, counts for a syllable, and is
articulated as such. Whatever exceptions from this rule
exist, must be treated as exceptions only. It cannot well be
doubted that this principle of tri-syllabic roots is purposely
wrought into the whole internal structure of these languages,
and perhaps not without some deep significancy some presen-
tient feeling implied by that triplicity of roots.* In these
languages the verb is the first principle of derivation the
root from which every thing is deduced ; and hence a cer-
tain rapidity, fire, and vivacity in the expression. But with
such formal regularity the rich, full, elaborate grammatical
forms and structure which distinguish the languages of the
Indo-Greek race, are not at all compatible; these tri-syllabic
tongues have a certain tendency to monotony, and do not cer-
tainly possess that poetical variety, and that flexible adaptation
to scientific purposes, which characterise the second class of
languages. The general characteristic of the Semitic tongues
is their peculiar fitness for prophetic inspiration and for pro-
found symbolical import this is their special character. We
speak here of the language itself, and of its internal structure,
and not of the spirit which may direct it ; and 1 shall only add
that the character we have here assigned to the Semitic lan-
guages is, according to the declaration of many of the most
competent judges, more uniformly perceptible in the Arabic
than in the Hebrew, although the former has received a totally
different application, and has undergone a very diversified cul-
ture. Thus the Hebrew tongue was eminently adapted to the
high spiritual destination of , the Hebrew people, and was a fit
organ of the prophetic revelation and promises imparted to that
nation; and, even in this respect, this Semitic language is
worthy of being considered the summit of the pyramid of
human speech. But it never can be regarded as the basis of
that pyramid, nor the root whence all other tongues have
* Schlegel here supposes that the triplicity of roots in the Semitic
languages contains a mystic allusion to the Tri-une Godhead, the root
and principle of all existence,
o2
196 PHILOSOPHY OF
sprung, as many scholars in former times conceived an
opinion which would seem tacitly to imply that Adam could
have spoken no other language in Paradise but the Hebrew.
But this language of the first man created by God this lan-
guage which God himself had taught him this word of nature
which the Deity imparted to man, together with the dominion
over all other creatures, and over the whole visible world, may
have been neither the Hebrew nor the Indian, nor any of the
other known or existing languages of the earth. Possibly it
was not a speech which we could learn or understand, or which,
according to the present scheme of language, we can even con-
ceive or imagine. In the same way no one is capable of prov-
ing or discovering the geographical site of the one lost source
in Paradise, whence those four rivers took their rise, which are
in part to be still traced on the earth. As to the Hebrew lan-
guage, I think that a deeper inquiry would show that it is not
so far removed from the Indo-Greek family; and that it is even
partially related to it, although this affinity may be at first
very much concealed by the great difference of structure, and
by the total diversity of grammatical forms. In general, we
must not endeavour to enforce, with too rigid uniformity and too
systematic precision, the division of languages here marked out.
It suffices to adhere to one general point of survey ; but in other
respects so luxuriant, so various, so irregular, has been the
growth of the human mind in the region of languages, that it
may be compared to the expansive life of free, uncultivated nature,
to the wild variety of the thick-grown forest, or of the flowery
meadow.
To the second order of languages of the Indo-Greek race,
probably belongs the great Sclavonian family of languages,
which, after the others, would form the fourth member in this
class ; but a definite and decisive judgment on this matter, I
must leave to those philologists who are perfectly conversant
with this branch of human speech. Between the second and
third class of languages, there are a multitude of intermediate
tongues which have sprung up out of that intermixture of races
and nations, occurring at all periods of history, and necessarily
affecting, more or less, language itself. I allude particularly to-
such languages as are not perfectly monosyllabic, and which
have, nevertheless, a very simple and imperfect, or even a very
irregular, strange, and awkward grammatical structure. Such,
HISTORY. 197
for instance, are some of the American languages, which, in this
respect at least, cannot be ranked in the third class, while they
do not bear a closer, or at all close, affinity to those of the se-
cond. Most of the fragments of the earlier languages of Europe,
which are still extant, belong to this intermediate class of
tongues partaking of both those species, or at least holding a
middle place between them. Such are the Celtic or Gaelic lan-
guages, the Finnish and other ancient remnants of language,
which must not escape the study of the philologist, whose judg'-
merit is too frequently warped by some patriotic partiality or
some learned predilection.
The noble languages of the second class have, from a remote
antiquity, become indigenous to Europe, and are there now ge-
nerally prevalent. The other fragments of speech which are
to be found on our continent by the side of these, either
bear to them a remote affinity like the various Celtic or Gaelic
dialects, or lead the inquirer to the great Asiatic, perhaps even
to the African, family of tongues; for we could hardly expect
to find a native race of languages peculiar to this small quarter
of the globe, which holds the lowest place in point of historical
antiquity. From the historical connexion between the north
of Africa and the southern coasts of western Europe, espe-
cially the Hesperian Peninsula (a connexion which has subsisted
from the remotest ages, and has been renewed so frequently,
and in such various forms), one might be induced to suppose
that the existence of this intercourse would have been attested
by an affinity between the languages of the two countries.
But the ablest scholars and critics cannot trace in the Basque
tongue any affinity with the primitive African family, though
they can discover in it an analogy with the Scythian race of
Finnish languages. The Magiar language, at the other eastern
extremity of Europe, is most decidedly an Asiatic tongue, be-
longing to that class which prevails in the central regions of
Asia; but in its grammatical structure it bears some ana-
logy to the languages of the second class. If, in conclusion, I
might be allowed to hazard a conjecture, I should say that no-
thing would more materially contribute to a comprehensive
knowledge of the whole system of human language, as well as
to a deeper insight into its internal principles and structure,
than the success of the now rising school of Egyptian philolo-
gists, who, in deciphering the hieroglyphics by the aid of the
198 PHILOSOPHY OF
Coptic, endeavour to give us a more accurate knowledge, or at
least a more minute conception, of the old Egyptian tongue.
And if we would venture the attempt of approximating nearer
to the primitive speech (the lost or extinct source of all lan-
guages), we must start from four different quarters, and thread
our way, not only through the Sanscrit arid Hebrew languages,
but through the primitive Chinese and the old Egyptian, as
far as we can trace the latter.
How extremely alike 'ancient Egypt and India were to each
other, not only in their political institutions, but in their system
of idolatry, in their fundamental doctrines of belief, and in
their general views of life, we have had ample opportunity of
satisfying ourselves in the present age, when both these coun-
tries have been more accurately surveyed, and more closely in-
vestigated. In a remarkable expedition which occurred in our
own times, this strong religious sympathy was strikingly dis-
played in a spontaneous and instantaneous burst of feeling.
When, in the course of the French war in Egypt, an Indian
army in British pay there landed, and, ascending up the
country, came before the old monuments of Upper Egypt, the
soldiers prostrated themselves on the earth, believing they had
once more found the Deities of their native land. Great, how-
ever, as the resemblance between the two nations may be, they
are still characterised by perceptible differences. On the one
hand the Egyptian mind, so far as it has been delineated by
the Greeks, appears to have been more deeply conversant and
initiated in natural science : and on the other hand, the
Egyptian idolatry was of a more decided cast, and was even
more material in its fundamental errors than the Indian.
The worship of animals, especially, was far more general,
and was not confined to the god Apis, who may be compared
to the Nandi, the bull sacred to Siva, but branched out into a
variety of other forms. In the progress of idolatry it needs
came to pass that what was originally revered only as the sym-
bol of a higher principle was gradually confounded or identified
with that object, and worshipped, till this error in worship led
to a more degraded form of idolatry ; for it should be remem-
bered that as error is not merely the absence of truth, but a
false and counterfeit imitation of the truth, it has, like the latter,
a principle of permanent growth and internal development.
Several writers, who, in a general review of all heathen religions.
HISTORY. 199
have attempted to classify them after the manner of naturalists,
assign the lowest place to the Fetish worship (so called), which
they rank immediately below the worship of animals. They make
the essence of the Fetish worship to consist in the divine adora-
tion of a lifeless corporeal object ; while they place on higher de-
grees, in this scale of pagan error, the sensual nature-worship
the apotheosis of particular men and the adoration of the
elements, the stars, and the diiferent powers of nature. How-
ever just and correct this view of the subject may otherwise be,
it should be remembered that the question agitated is not only
what were the objects of divine worship, but what were the
views, intentions, and doctrines connected with that worship.
For it is in these moral views we must look, either for the half-
effaced vestige of ancient truth, or for the full enormity the
profound abyss of error. When we come to examine more
closely the accounts of that Fetish worship (so called) which is
most widely diffused through the interior of Africa, and prevails
among some American tribes, and nations of the north-east of
Asia ; it is easy to perceive, that magical rites are connected
with it, and that all these corporeal objects are but magical in-
struments and conductors of magical power ; and that the reli-
gion of these nations, sunk undoubtedly to the lowest grade
of idolatry, comprises nothing beyond the rude beginnings
of a pagan magic, such as, in all probability, was practised by the
Cainites, according to historical indication s mentioned in an
earlier part of this work. That the Egyytian mind had a cer-
tain leaning towards magic, though towards a magic of a very
different, more comprehensive, and even more profound and
scientific nature, cannot be called in question ; for all the
Hebrew, Greek, and native vouchers and authorities are una-
nimous in the assertion.
But if the different religions of paganism must be classed
according to their outward rites and outward objects of wor-
ship, the diversity of sacrifices would constitute a far better and
more important standard of classification. We are taught that
a difference in the mode of sacrifice was the principal cause of
the dispute between the first two hostile brothers among men.
Although, if we were to judge from first impressions, and ac-
cording to human feelings, no sacrifice is so filial, so simple, so
appropriate, as that of the first fruits of the earth in returning
200 PHILOSOPHY OF
spring (such, for instance, as the flower-offering of the pious
Brahmins, or a similar oblation of thanksgiving among the
ancient Persians and other nations) ; still, on account of their
deeper import and typical character, the pre-eminence has ever
been allotted to animal-sacrifices ; and these among the most
civilised nations of pagan antiquity have ever held the foremost
place. Of this kind is the great sacrifice of the horse* in
India, where, in ancient times, the bull was offered in sacrifice,
till the destruction of the latter animal was severely prohibited,
and came to be considered as a grievous crime. But there was
ever a symbolical meaning attached to this sort of sacrifice, f
and the victim, selected as it was out of the purest and noblest
species of domestic animals that surround man (such as the bull,
the horse, or the lamb), was looked upon only as the repre-
sentative of another, and the emblem of a far higher victim.
It is an error to consider ancient paganism as nothing more
than mere poetry or agreeable fiction. The rites of the ancient
polytheism had very distinct and practical objects in view ; and
were intended either to propitiate the malignant powers of dark-
ness, or to obtain by their agency preternatural power ; or, on the
other hand, to conciliate the favour and appease the anger of
the Deity. And for this object the heathens shrunk from no
expedient deemed no price no victim too costly, as the ex-
istence of human sacrifices, and especially the sacrifice of chil-
dren may serve to convince us ; and I cannot conclude this first
part of the ancient history of the world, without bestowing a
more particular examination on this extreme aberration of
paganism, which passed by inheritance from the remoter ages
to the second, more civilised, and (in many respects), milder
era of history. The species of human sacrifice most widely
diffused among all the Phoenician nations was that in which
the idol Moloch, heated from below, grasped in his glowing
arms the infant victim. Even in the Punic city, Carthage,
this cruel custom long prevailed, and was for a long time
* The Aswameda.
f The reader may derive both pleasure and instruction from the
perusal of a most masterly Treatise on Sacrifices, by the late Count
Maistre, inserted at the end of the 2nd volume of " Soirees de St.
Petersbourg." Nowhere have the learning, the eloquence, the bold and
profound philosophy of the noble author been more strikingly displayed,
than in that short but admirable tract. Trans.
HISTORY. 201
secretly practised under the Roman domination. These sacri-
fices existed among the Greeks and Romans, no less than
among the Indians and Egyptians ; and the Chinese, so far at
least as my acquaintance with their authentic records extends,
are the only people among whom I do not recollect meeting
with any mention of this kind of sacrifice. But in the civilised
states of Greece and Rome, this ancient custom was, in later
and milder times, gradually abolished, or silently supplanted by
some equivalent.
Besides the sacrifice of children, there was another species
which was customary and particularly striking, and in one
respect even more worthy the historian's attention I mean
the sacrifice of pure youths. I may here again enforce the
maxim which I have before laid down namely, that error is
the most appalling when it is connected in its origin, or mixed
tip in its principle, with some confused notion some profound,
though obscure, feeling of the truth. Bearing this in mind,
we shall find that the enigmatic lamentation of Lamech* over
his mysterious slaying of a stripling, occurring in the Mosaic
account of the Cainites, would seem to indicate that human
sacrifices, and especially this particular kind, had their origin
among the race of Cain, deeply imbued, even at that early
period, with anti-Christian errors ; and that an unhappy delusion
a confused anticipation of a real necessity and of a future
reality, contributed to the institution of these sacrifices. Of
that great mystery of truth, which the holy patriarch of the
Hebrews, with a prophetic intuition, had discerned in the
sacrifice of his well-beloved son commanded him by God, but
through the divine mercy not consummated of this great
mystery, we say, a diabolic imitation may have led to the
human sacrifices by the early heathens. But these sacrifices
were more widely diffused, even in the Druidical North, and
they continued down to a much later period than is commonly
suppo^d, or at present asserted. Thus, for instance, the
* " And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice,
ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech ; for I have slain a man to
the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. GEN. iv.,
23. This obscure text has long perplexed the commentators : Schle-
gel, I think has furnished, an explanation as solid as it is ingenious.
Thus Lamech to whom the intoduction of polygamy is gen -rally
ascribed, was probably, also, the founder of human sacrifices. Accord-
ing to our great poet, lust sits enthroned hard by hate. Trans,
202 PHILOSOPHY OP
anti- Christian Emperor Julian sought to revive them, in order
to promote the infernal purposes of his dark magical rites.
We are so habituated to look on the divinities and beautiful
fables of ancient Greece, as the fairy creations of poetry, that
we are painfully surprised when we unexpectedly stumble on
some historical fact, which discloses the true spirit and internal
essence of polytheism the fact, for instance, that Themistocles
himself, the deliverer of Greece, offered up three youths in
sacrifice.
The profound abyss of error, in which the most civilised
nations of ancient heathenism had sunk and were lost, becomes
the more apparent, the more closely it is investigated, and the
more fully it is understood. And on this account, we should
learn to see how necessary and salutary was that slow progres-
sion that gradual preparation for a brighter futurity, wherein,
as I above stated, consisted the peculiar destination and
spiritual career of the Hebrew people. It is only from this,
its peculiar destination for the future, the Hebrew people
presents so high an interest to historical philosophy, and holds
the lofty place assigned to it in the first period of human
civilisation. The later destinies of the Jewish nation, and the
particular events and characters in their later annals, are
subjects of the highest moment in a history of religion ; for
they can be rightly understood and fully appreciated only by
their practical application, and profound symbolical reference
to the circumstances of Christianity. But it is only the
political constitution of the Jewish state in the earliest period of
its history a constitution which was so peculiar and unique in
itself, so entirely without a parallel that can be the appropriate
subject of consideration in this general review of history ;
because this constitution was connected with the prophetic
calling of the Hebrew people, and even bore a prophetic cha-
racter itself. This constitution has been called a theocracy,
and so it was in the right and old signification of that word,
by which was meant a government under the special and
immediate providence of God. But in the now ordinary
acceptation of the term, which implies a sacerdotal empire or
dominion, the Jewish state was at no time and by no means a
theocracy. Moses was no more a priest than a king ; and
after him all those men of Desire, as they were called from
the first circumstances of their institution, or men of the
HISTORY. , 203
desert, because after a preparation in the solitude of the desert,
they led and conducted the people in a literal or figurative
sense, through the wilderness all these men appointed by
God, and without any other title or insignia but the staff,
which as pilgrims they brought out of the desert, governed
and directed the people under the immediate providence of
God. If, on a certain occasion, one of the prophets girded on
the sword, and led out an army this was only a transient
instance ; and the prophets in general were nothing more than
the men of God, and the divinely-appointed conductors of the
people. When the wish in which the Hebrews had so long
indulged of having a king, like the heathen nations, was at last
gratified ; a wish which, in the higher views of Holy Writ,
was regarded as the culpable illusion of a carnal sense ; the
last of the prophets formed a party, and constituted in a very
peculiar and singular manner, a species of political opposition,
which was acknowledged to be, and was in fact, perfectly
legitimate and just. And when some of them, like Elias for
instance, had received from God the supreme and immediate
power over life and death, as the distinct badge of dominion ;
we cannot wonder that men should have followed them, the
people have been at their bidding, and kings themselves, even
though they followed not always their counsels, have hearkened
at least to then* warning voice. If those who are so fond of
playing the part of oppositionists in every country could only
once rise superior to vulgar forms and formulas, and not
everywhere seek for the echo of their modern opinions, an
attentive study of the character of Elias would hold up to their
admiring view an oppositionist, who, in energy of conduct,
and in burning zeal for the cause of truth and justice, or in
other words, of God, could not be perhaps easily equalled by
any historical personage whether of ancient republics, or of
modern monarchies.
After the Jewish state had become a kingdom of no very
great dimensions, it shared the destiny of most of the petty
states of those regions ; and was first a province of the Assyro-
Babylonish empire, then became subject to the Persian
monarchs, afterwards to the Greek kings of Syria and Egypt,
till, with these, it was finally swallowed up in the vast empire
of all-conquering Rome.
In that restoration of the Jewish state which the Maccabees
204 PHILOSOPHY OF
accomplished in the last period of the Greek domination over
Judea, the high-priest acquired a concurrent political power ;
a power which he even still retained under the oppressive
protectorate of the Romans, though his functions, which were
those of a legislator and supreme judge, were confined to the
internal government of the state. But this does not constitute
a really sacerdotal dominion, and the term theocracy is as
little applicable to an such order of things, as to the Greek
Patriarchate in the Turkish empire. However, the holy city
of Jerusalem, along with Solomon's old, mighty and symbo-
lical temple (whose deep import and proper signification the
Jews themselves at a later period no longer understood), still
continued to be the main centre of the old national existence
and ancient recollections of the Hebrews, as well as of their
future hopes and prophetic promises. Even after the fearful
destruction of Jerusalem, this emblematic idea of the holy
city still lived in the recollection of mankind, and a long time
afterwards was, in Christian Europe, an animating incentive to
the warlike nations of the middle age.
In conclusion, we must add some observations, referring not
so much to the Jewish people and their history, as to their
most ancient historical books, and to those general views of
mankind which they contain, so far as such views relate to the
general history of the primitive ages, and are connected with the
philosophy of history. In the same way it is neither necessary
rior practicable to regard the Hebrew tongue as the general root
or primal source of all the languages spoken on the earth, because
it was the organ of divine revelation ; so the Mosaic genealogy
of nations can with as little propriety be made the basis of a ge-
neral history of the world, as has in earlier times been so often
attempted, but never accomplished without much violence to the
text. Although it would be difficult to find in the primitive re-
cords of the other Asiatic nations an historical survey of all the
nations on the globe, at once so clear, luminous, and instruc-
tive ; yet the Mosaic revelation had a far different object in
view than to furnish a school-compendium of historical learning.
This historical genealogy, which in its way cannot be too
highly esteemed, was evidently destined by Moses more imme-
diately for his own people, and his own book of the law ; and
in his account of the origin of nations, the sacred historian pro-
HISTORY. 205
ceeded on views and principles very different from ours. For
instance, with us it is the affinity of languages, which forms
the chief clue in the arrangement and classification of the
different races of mankind ; and, according to this principle,
we rank the Hebrews with the Phoenicans, and regard them as
kindred nations. But in the Mosaic history these two nations,,
separated by mutual hostility, stand at the widest distance
one from the other ; for in manners, religion, and feelings,
they were diametrically opposed.
In this investigation, indeed, historical circumstances may
often occur such as the popular commotions and intermixture
of nations happening at all periods of the world by which the
question of the origin and affinity of different races under-
goes considerable modifications, and the whole subject is
rendered unsusceptible of a systematic division and arrange-
ment. It often happens that one race adopts the language of
another, without on that account losing its national indentity,
or being totally confounded with the other ; for, on the con-
trary, its moral or intellectual character bears the clear traces of
its original descent ; so that here, at least, language alone will
decide nothing. Often a less numerous tribe will stamp its
own native moral and intellectual character on a whole people.
In general the descent of nations can be clearly traced and
demonstrated in those cases only where the race has been
kept up pure, and all marriage and connexion with other na-
tions been strictly prevented. But such has been the case
among certain nations only ; and even in those countries, where
it was the law, it was not in every instance rigidly observed,
nor constantly maintained ; as is exemplified in the frequent
intermarriages of the Hebrews with the Phoenicians, severely
prohibited as such intermarriages were. The ancient law-
givers, attached, indeed, a very high importance to lineage,
as is proved by all those restrictive laws on marriage, which
were destined to preserve the purity of descent ; but they set
a far higher value on the patrimonial inheritance of ancient
customs, institutions, doctrines, and intellectual qualities, as
constituting the true essence of national character, and deter-
mining the rank which one race should hold above another.
By Moses, in particular, this intellectual character of the dif-
ferent races their feelings modes of thinking the whole
spirit which animated them ; in a word, the chain of sacred
206 PHILOSOPHY OF
tradition, and its transmission and preservation among the
different nations all these are regarded of primary import-
ance, and they alone furnish us with a clue to the discovery of
his views.
The great middle country in Western Asia, where the true
Eden, the original abode of the first man, and great progenitor
of mankind, was situated, forms the central point in the general
historical survey of Moses. The wide-spread race of Japhet
comprehends the Caucasian nations in the north, and all its
contiguous regions, and also those in the central Asia ; nations
which were sound, vigorous, comparatively speaking, less cor-
rupt, and by no means entirely barbarous : but which were de-
barred from that near and immediate participation in the sacred
traditions of primitive revelation, enjoyed by the people of the
Semitic race in that midland country, whose distinctive charac-
ter and high pre-eminence, according to Moses, consisted iri
this very participation. To the south, the race of Cham in-
cludes the degenerate, corrupt, and ungodly Egypt (a country
which in its native language bore the name of Chemi), and
beyond this, all the African tribes devoted to the dark rites of
magic. How entirely subjective in itself how exclusively
adapted to his own people, and his own national object, is the
genealogy of nations by Moses, may be proved among other
things by the fact that, while many great nations in remoter
lands, or in the distant Eastern Asia, cannot, in this historical
survey, be traced without difficulty to their proper place, or
forced therein without violence to the text, twelve or thirteen
generations are given of the kindred Arabian branch, or of the
hostile Phoenician race. If regarded in this simple point of
view, the Mosaic genealogy of all the nations throughout the
inhabited globe will be found very clear, and, though the names
of some particular races remain matter of doubt, this summary
is in general perfectly intelligible, and throws a broad light
on the history of mankind.
END OF LECTURE VI.
HISTORY. 207
LECTURE VII.
General Considerations upon the Nature of Man, regarded in an His-
torical Point of View, and on the Two-fold View of History. Of the
Ancient Pagan Mysteries. Of the Universal Empire of Persia.
INSTEAD of the Mosaic genealogy of nations, commented on
in a hundred different ways, and interpreted according to the
received views of each individual a genealogy which was
considered as the necessary basis of every universal history,
and which by the most false and arbitrary methods was vio-
lently strained into an adaptation to aU the data of history,
evidently contrary to the real views and mighty object of its
inspired author ; instead of this genealogy, we say, the sacred
records of divine truth furnish us with a far more profound
principle, a principle highly simple and comprehensive, and
which is perfectly applicable to the philosophy of history.
That is that principle laid down in that revelation, at the com-
mencement of all history, as the one wherein consists the pecu-
liar nature the true essence and the final destiny of man
I mean his likeness to his Creator. Now it is this principle
which forms the ground-work of our whole plan and now
that we have reached the conclusion of the first period of his-
tory, and are about to pass to the second, it may be proper to
examine more minutely the nature of this principle, and to
give an accurate definition of it.
According to the different notions entertained of man's
nature, there are but two opposite views of history two
mighty and conflicting parties in the department of historical
science. It is quite unnecessary to observe that we include not,
in either class, such writers as, confining themselves to a bare
detail of facts, indulge not in any general historical views, or
even such as, vacillating in their opinions, have no clear, defi-
nite, and consistent views on the subject. According to one
party, man is merely an animal, ennobled and gradually dis-
208 PHILOSOPHY OF
ciplined into reason, and finally exalted into genius ; and
therefore the history of human civilisation is but the history of
a gradual, progressive, and endless improvement. This theory
may, in a certain sense, be termed the liberalism of historical
philosophy ; and no one perhaps has developed it with such
clearness and mathematical rigour, as a very celebrated French
writer, entirely possessed with this idea, and who indeed be-
came in his time a martyr to these principles. *
In the contests of opinion, which embrace the general rela-
tions of society, it is far less those dogmas in which each indi-
vidual seeks light, aid, strength and repose for his feelings and
his conscience, his inward struggles and his final hopes than
the single article of faith respecting man, and what constitutes
his essential being, his internal nature, and his higher destiny,
which determines the Christian or unchristian view the reli-
gion or irreligion of history, if I may be allowed the expres-
sion. This principle of the endless perfectibility of man has
something in it very accordant with reason ; and if this per-
fectibility be considered as a mere possible disposition of the
human mind, there is doubtless much truth in the theory, but
it must be borne in mind that the corruptibility of man is quite
as great as his perfectibility.
But when this system is applied to the general course of
history, it is destitute of any real beginning ; for this vague
notion of an animal capable of infinite improvement is not a
beginning of any series of terms ; and in philosophy, as in life
and history, there is no true and solid beginning for any thing
out of God. And this principle is equally destitute of any
right end ; for a mere interminable progress is not a fixed
term nor positive object. But history presents amass of stub-
born facts, which agree not always with this abstract law of an
infinitely progressive perfection, and, on the contrary, the
annals not only of particular nations, but of whole periods of
the world, would prove that the natural march of humanity
lay rather in a circuitous course. This disagreeable fact is
utterly inexplicable according to the rationalist system of his-
tory or if it be susceptible of explanation, it certainly is not
reconcilable with the liberal view. As often as from the path
of endless perfectibility, thus mathematically traced out for
them, man and mankind swerve in eccentric deviations ; or
* The author alludes to Condorcet.
even should
HISTORY. 209
yen should their course, like that of the planets of our heaven
at stated periods, be in appearance once retrogressive ; the his-
torical inquirer, who starts from this principle, is immediately
disconcerted by such a course of events so contrary to his
theory ; and, in his blind indignation in which he involves
alike the present and future, as well as the past, and by
the false light of the passionate spirit of time, he pronounces
on these a judgment most iniquitous, or at best extremely
partial, certainly at least most repugnant to the dictates of
truth.
But man is not merely a nobler animal, fashioned by degrees
to reason or dignified into genius. His peculiar and distinctive
excellence his real essence his true nature and destiny con-
sist in his likeness to God ; and from this principle proceeds a
view of history totally different from that we have just de-
scribed ; for, according to it, man's history must be the history
of the restoration of the likeness to God, or of the progress
towards that restoration. That this sublime origin of man
being once supposed the divine image has been much altered,
impaired, and defaced in the inmost recesses of the human
breast, both of man in particular and of mankind in general, is
a truth we may learn, independently of the positive doctrine of
religion ; for clearly is it vouched and confirmed by the testi-
mony of our own feelings, our own experience of life, and a
general survey of the world. No man who well knows that
the image of God has been stamped on the human soul an
image, whose old, half-obliterated characters are still to be
found on all the pages of primitive history, and whose impress,
not utterly effaced, every reflecting mind may discover in its
own interior can ever forego the hope, that, much as that
divine image may seem, or may in fact be, impaired, its resto-
ration is still possible. The man who knows from human life,
and from his own experience, how great and arduous is this
work how many obstacles oppose its accomplishment, and
how easily, even after a partial success, what already appeared
won, may be again lost; the man understanding this, will
not be at a loss to comprehend any pause or retrogression, real
or apparent, in the march of mankind ; he will judge the fact
with more equity, and consequently more accuracy ; and will,
in every case, confide in the guidance of that superior Provi-
dence, clearly visible in this regeneration of the world. If, in
p
210 PHILOSOPHY OF
opposition to the rationalist theory of man's endless perfectibility,
we were to designate the opposite system of history founded on
man's inborn likeness to his Maker, as the legitimacy of histo-
rical philosophy; this title would not be incorrect, since all
divine and human laws and rights, as they are found in history,
depend, in their first basis, on the supposition of the high dig-
nity and divine destination of man. Hence this view of history
is the only one which restores to man the full rights and pecu-
liar prerogatives of his being. Even to all other truths it re-
stores their full force and rights ; and it alone can do so without
detriment to its own principle ; for, as this is the simple truth,
it is, therefore, complete and comprehensive. It must even
acknowledge that man, beside his higher dignity and divine
destiny, is and remains in his outward existence a physical
creature and though he be such not in an exclusive, but
only secondary and subordinate sense, still, in respect to
his external being and external development, he may be
subject to certain natural laws in history. In the same
way, it may admit that man endowed with freedom, even
when he rejects the religious principle, is still a being
gifted with reason ; a being that consequently on this foun-
dation incessantly works, builds, and improves, in good as in
evil, essentially, interminably, we might almost say, fear-
fully progressive. This legitimate philosophy of history, which
proceeds from the high, divine point of view, should be, as far
as the limited capacity of man will permit, a recognition and a
just appreciation of the truth, and thereby become a science of
history that is to say, of all which under Providence has oc-
cured to the human race. Thus it must by no means adopt a
view of life and of the world, transcending the true right and
the right truth it must avoid deviating into ultraism though
this term of the present day involves in the expression of a true
idea, some inaccuracy and misconception. On the contrary,
this religious view of history and of life, precisely because it is
such, can never in its historical judgments sanction a spirit of
harsh, precipitate, unqualified censure. For as the Mosaic doc-
trine of the divine image stamped on the human soul, forms
the real and distinctively Christian theory of man, and conse-
rjntly of his history ; so this evidently implies, that among all
laws of human conduct, emanating from this Christian
theory, and from Christianity itself, the law of love is the first
HISTORY. 211
and the greatest: a law which must retain its full force and effi-
cacy not only in life, but in science also. Yet love or charity
is by no means incompatible with firmness of principle the
vacillations of judgment proceed only from indifference to, or
the utter absence of, all principle the tomb of love, as well as
of truth.
This divine image implanted in the human breast is not an
isolated thought a transient flash of light, like the kindling-
spark of Prometheus : nor is it a mere Platonic resemblance to
the Deity an ideal speculation of the human mind soaring be-
yond the range of vulgar conception. But, as this likeness to
God forms the fundamental principle of human existence, it is
interwoven with the internal structure of human consciousness ;
and the triple nature of the soul is intimately connected with
the principle of the divine resemblance. In its state of discord,
the human consciousness, in its external operations, pursues
four opposite paths of direction towards reason (Vernunft), or
imagination (Fantasie), or understanding (Verstand), or will
(Wille), so long as these faculties remain disunited. But,
when consciousness is restored to its primitive harmony, the
internal life of man is threefold in mind, soul, and sense;
and to expound and demonstrate this truth, was the pur-
port and object of the Philosophy of Life, which I treated of
in a former course of lectures. And this triple nature of
spiritual life, which, among all creatures, characterises man
alone, is most closely allied with the triple energy and per-
sonality of the one Divine Being, and constitutes, as far as the
immeasurable distance between the creature and Creator will
permit, the wonderful analogy between weak, mutable man,
and the infinite Spirit of eternal Love. But the original har-
mony of human consciousness the triple nature of spiritual life,
can be restored in individual man by the following means only :
the soul, previously distracted, can regain its unity, or be-
come again whole, only by a divine illumination ; when this
light the first ray of hope is humbly received and imbibed
by the soul. Enlightened by this first incipient ray, the mind,
the living mind, no longer now a cold, dead, abstract under-
standing, is enabled to embrace with faith the pure word of
truth (which is one with love), and to comprehend this word
aright, and, by this word, to comprehend the world and its own-
self : while the understanding, in its former isolated and ab-
r2
212 PHILOSOPHY OF
stract state, was both internally and externally distracted and
divided betweent the phantasmata of nature and the endless so-
phisms of contentious dialectic. When thus the strong hand of
all-guiding love, hath loosed the Gordiari knot which bound the
human consciousness in inextricable folds ; the third funda-
mental faculty in man the sense for divine things is then
awakened and excited. This is now no longer a mere passive
feeling for divine things a will undetermined, or incapable of
good ; but it becomes an energy acting on life an energy
which is itself life and deed.
But the progressive march of social man, which constitutes
the subject of universal history, or, as we term it, the formation
and growth of humanity, are regulated by principles somewhat
different from those which determine the internal life of indivi-
dual man. Here the different stages of development cannot be
classed according to the three fundamental faculties of con-
sciousness in individual man ; but the principle of development
must be sought for in the divine impulse, as the same is attested
by history, and which, in every stage of social progress, has
been to mankind the source of a new life ; though here again,
from the very nature of things, three marked degrees of social
advancement occur. Corresponding to the divine image im-
planted in the breast of individual man the main subject of all
history the word of divine truth originally communicated to
man, and which the sacred traditions of all nations attest in so
many and such various ways, forms the leading clue of historical
investigation and judgment, during the first stage of the pro-
gress of society. But in the second stage of social development,
which must be fixed in that full noon -day period of refinement,
when victorious power shines forth so conspicuously in the as-
cendency obtained by nations, to whom universal pre-eminence
was accorded the right notion of this power, or the question
how far it were just and godly, or pernicious in its application
whether it were inimical to God, or at least of a mixed
nature must constitute the true standard of historical investi-
gation. In the third or last stage, however, of this progress,
which occurs in the modern period of the world, the pure truths
of Christianity as they influence science and life itself, alone can
furnish the right clue of historical inquiry, and can alone afford
any indication as to the ulterior advances of society in future
ages ; thus then the Word, the Power, and the Light, form the
HISTORY. 213
three-fold divine principle, or the moral classification of historical
philosophy a classification which is founded on historical ex-
perience and historical reality.
The existence of a primitive revelation the establishment
of Christianity, which was the principle and power of a new
moral life in society arid the pre-eminence of modern Europe
in civilisation, in which she outshines all other portions of the
globe, and even in many respects most periods of antiquity,
are three historical data three mighty facts in civilisation,
which evince the successive stages of human progress and im-
provement. And it is our task to appreciate in their full ex-
tent each of those different degrees of social advancement, and
to comprehend and explain them aright in their relative bear-
ings to the whole. That the Christian nations and states of
Europe have received, along with the light of divine truth, a
high intellectual, moral, and political illumination, no one will
deny; and it is equally evident that this vital principle of
modern society is still involved in the crisis of its development
a crisis which will form the principal subject of historical in-
quiry in the latter part of this work.
It is equally undeniable that, in the second period of the
world, to which I now pass, each of those nations that attained
to universal empire at that epoch displayed a high intellectual
or moral energy. This energy was visible in that strong,
deep sense of nature, which characterised the old ancestral
faith and pure manners of the ancient Persians, and in that
high martial enthusiasm, and fervent patriotism, which it
so easily inspired. The power of inventive genius in the
sciences, and in the fine arts, none can deny to the Greeks ;
none can dispute their pre-eminence in these ; as, on the other
hand, the Romans were equaUy unrivalled in vigour of charac-
ter, and in that moral energy of will, which they exhibited in
all their contests with other states. Here now the question to
be asked is, whether that high intellectual and moral energy
accorded to those nations, thus gifted with universal dominion,
were always well employed : whether that power, exalted as it
was, were truly divine, or what were the earthly and pernicious
elements intermixed with it ; whether this power, great and
wonderful as it was in its way, were in itself adequate to the
moral and intellectual regeneration of degraded humanity ; or,
whether a power of another, far purer and higher nature were
214 PHILOSOPHY OF
requisite to this end. I should think I had amply solved the
problem involved in the history of that first period of the world,
which I have here brought to a close, if, in this brief historical
sketch, I have succeeded in proving- the existence of an original
revelation to mankind the primitive word of divine truth
whereof we find the clearest indications and scattered traces in
the sacred traditions of all the primitive nations traces which,
when viewed apart, appear like the broken remnants, the mys-
terious, and, as it were, hieroglyphic characters of a mighty
edifice that has been destroyed. I should think, too, I had
fully accomplished my task, if I have succeeded in proving
that, however much amid the growing degeneracy of mankind,
this primal word of revelation may have been falsified by the
admixture of various errors, however much it may have been
overlaid or obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inex-
tricably confused and disfigured almost beyond the power of
recognition ; still a profound inquiry will discover in heathen-
ism many luminous vestiges of primitive truth.
For the old heathenism (and we must add this remark as
the result of our inquiries), the old heathenism had a founda-
tion in truth, and, thoroughly examined and rightly under-
stood, would serve for a confirmation of the same; for the
profound researches of recent times on ancient mythology,
and its historical sources, though conducted with the most, op-
posite views, lead us more and more to this great end and
result of all the knowledge of antiquity, or at least very near
it. Were it possible, or could we succeed in separating the
pure intuition into nature and the simple symbols of nature,
that constituted the basis of all heathenism, from the alloy of
error, and the incumbrances of fiction ; those first hieroglyphic
traits of the instinctive science of the first men would not be
repugnant to truth and to a true knowledge of nature, but
would offer, on the contrary, an instructive image of a freer,
purer, more comprehensive, and more finished philosophy of
life. For, if man, who is the highest and most central object
of nature on the earth, had not possessed in the beginning
an instinctive science and immediate insight into nature, he
could never have attained to this knowledge by the resources
of art, and by all the aids of instruments and machinery, or
have acquired thereby a true understanding of nature, her in-
ternal life, arid her hidden powers. The symbolical error which
has produc
HISTORY. 215
produced mythology, and which has again emanated from
mythology I mean the identification of the symbol with the
object itself, of which, as the latter was something higher and
more mysterious, the former originally was, and should have
been, nothing more than the mere explanatory emblem the
symbolical error is comparatively the most excusable ; and for a
being constituted like man, whose soul is divided between
figurative fancy and discursive reason, is almost natural, and
has grown into a psychological habit, and a second nature.
This error would never have arisen, if the confusion of the high
and of the low, of the principal and of the inferior, of God and
of nature, and the inversion of the due order of each, had not,
in a partial degree at least, previously taken place. The fun-
damental error of paganism lay in the sensual idolatry of
nature, by which that inversion of things, and with them of all
moral doctrines, took place ; although this destructive error of
materialism is to be found not only in the heathen religion, but
in the atomical philosophy and other false systems' of science.
Besides that sensual deification of nature, which was the pre-
dominant principle in the mythology and popular religion of
the ancients, there was another and capital error magic, which
was a dark and abusive application an illicit perversion of the
high powers of nature, when these were really understood, and
the mind, penetrating through her sensible and external veil,
had caught her true spirit and internal life. This loftier, and,
on that account, more dangerous error was not so prevalent in
the popular and poetical religion of antiquity, but was chiefly
to be fouud in the secret associations of the pagan mysteries.
Although these mysteries which, in Greece, as well as in
Egypt, exerted such a mighty influence on public opinion, on
science, and on the whole system of thinking, nay, on life itself,
disclosed far graver and profounder doctrines than the vulgar
mythology of the poets, on all the great questions relative to
the human soul, its capacity and original dignity, as well as to
the hidden powers of nature and the whole invisible world;
still we must not imagine that the influence of these mysteries
was always salutary, or that their internal constitution and
ruling spirit were in their ultimate tendency always entitled to
commendation. We may, in my opinion, ascribe to the Egyp-
tians much science, especially in physics, more, perhaps, than
the Greeks in general, and the Pythagoreans in particular,
216 PHILOSOPHY OF
had, as far as we yet know, learned and borrowed from them ;
but we must not imagine this Egyptian science to have been
exempt from a gross alloy of error, and the various abuses of
magic. When once the sacred standard and clue of truth are
lost, when the due order of tilings and of doctrines is once in-
verted, then the mind of man often associates the sublime, the
mysterious, and the wonderful, with the mean, the perverse, and
the wicked. Amid all those false and whimsical images of gods,
the mere symbols of nature, but at least very equivocal emblems
and hieroglyphs, the temple sleep of the Egyptians might easily
nourish illusions of error and visions of darkness ; especially
where a magical spirit prevailed, that is to say, an illicit purpose
in the application of the high powers of nature and a will in-
stigated to evil by the arts of the demon. And in all science
the matter of greatest moment, and that which determines its
value, is its relation to the higher and divine truth ; that is to
say, whether this science be well employed, or whether, on the
contrary, it be converted to a corrupt and destructive use ;,
whether the due order and subordination of inferior nature, and
of every thing earthly, towards God and the things of God,,
which are the principal, be rightly observed and maintained.
But this fundamental truth being once supposed, all science,
even that which penetrates the deepest into nature and her
most hidden springs of life, can conduce only to the greater
glory of the mighty Author of nature. All these natural
secrets, and their true explanations, are to be found in various
passages, notices, and allusions in the Old Testament, especially
in the books of Moses ; they are, indeed, to be found there, like
so many golden grains of science in full weight, but, scattered
and dispersed, they serve at once to adorn and point out the
path that leads to an object, ever regarded as the most im-
portant in Holy Writ namely, the revealing to man the
wonderful ways of Divine Providence in the conduct of the
human race the holy ark of the covenant of divine mysteries
and promises, if I may be allowed such an expression. Here
every thing is subordinate to religion, every thing ministers to
this higher object and this is the distinctive mark and stamp
of truth, even in the investigations of nature, and of its revealed
or hidden mysteries.
How a slight deviation from truth may suffice to give birth
in time to a mighty and progressive error, is strongly exempli-
HISTORY. 217
fied in the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of Persia
a doctrine which was at first nothing more than a simple ve-
neration of nature, its pure elements and its primary energies
the sacred fire, and above all, light the air, not the lower
atmospheric air, but the purer and higher air of heaven the
breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life. In
India, too, this doctrine must have been very prevalent in the
primitive ages ; for many and very ancient passages of the
Vedas refer to these elements, while, on the other hand, the
names of the later Hindoo divinities appear to have been
entirely unknown at that period. This pure and simple vene-
ration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and was by far
the most generally prevalent in the primitive and patriarchal
world. In its original conception, it was by no means a deifi-
cation of nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God it was
only at a later period that the symbol, as it so often happens,
was confounded with the thing itself, and usurped the place of
that higher object which it was destined originally to represent.
And how can we doubt that these pure elements and primitive
essences of created nature would offer to the first men, who-
were still in a close communication with the Deity, not indeed
a likeness or resemblance (for in man alone is that to be found),
nor a mere fanciful image, or a poetical figure, but a natural
and true symbol of divine power : how can we doubt this, I
say, when we see that, in so many passages of Holy Writ (not
to say in every part), the pure light or sacred fire is employed
as an image of the ah 1 -pervading and all-consuming power and
omnipotence of God? Not to speak again of those passages o
Scripture, which describe the animating breath and inspiration
of God as the first source of life, and speak of the gentle breath,
the light whisper of the breeze that announced to the prophet
the immediate presence of his God, before whom he fell
prostrate, and mantled himself in awe and reverence ; and this-
surely cannot be understood as a poetical and figurative expres-
sion ! Undoubtedly, the Scriptures often oppose to that natural
emblem or veil of divine power, in the pure elements, an evil,
subterraneous and destructive fire the false light of the fiends
of error the poisonous breath of moral contagion. And how
could it be otherwise ? Nature in its origin was nought else
than a beautiful image a pure emanation a wonderful
creation a sport of omnipotent love ; so, when it was severed
218 PHILOSOPHY OF
from its divine original, internally displaced, and turned against
its Maker, it became vitiated in its substance, and fraught with
evil. This alienation of nature from God, this inversion of the
right order in the relations between God and nature, was the
peculiar, essential, and fundamental error of ancient paganism,
its false mysteries, and the abusive application of the higher
powers of nature in magical rites. On the other hand, we
ought to regard every similar inversion of things and of ideas,
every similar derangement in the divine system, though
established on the basis of Christianity, and by Christian philo-
sophers we ought, I say. to regard every such attempt as
being in its essential nature and principle a heathen enterprise
the foundation of a scientific paganism, although no altars
be erected to Apollo, and no mysteries be celebrated in honour
of Isis.*
The pure symbolism of nature, and the whole circle of the
primitive symbolical ideas of the Egyptians, several of the
Greek writers attempted to gather out of the mass of idolatrous
tenets, natural emblems, and hieroglyphic signs of speech ; but
their researches do not correspond to the importance of the
subject itself, nor to the present demands of science. It is well
worthy of remark that the hieroglyphics, as far as they have
yet been deciphered, do not indicate in their formation that
variety of epochs observable in the Chinese system of writing ;
but, on the contrary, they seem to be all of a single cast, and
offer the same circle of ideas and the same style of emblems.
And as images of gods are to be found in a diminutive form
among the other hieroglyphic signs, we may conclude from
this circumstance, that all the hieroglyphics must have had a
simultaneous origin, and have remained subsequently unchanged ;
and that their origin must have occurred at a time when the
Egyptian idolatry had already been wrought into a perfect
system.
In the primitive ages, during the first thirty-three centu-
ries of the world, according to the ordinary computation, the
various nations into which mankind were divided, followed in
their development a separate and secluded course ; and two
mighty nations, the Indians and the Chinese, have remained
to this day in this isolated and totally sequestered state. The
* This is an allusion to the Pantheistic Naturalism of Schelling.
Trans.
HISTORY. 21 &
peculiar character which distinguishes the second from the first
epoch of the world is that, along- with the first mighty con-
quests, there existed a much closer connexion, a mutual influ-
ence, an active commerce, and various intercourse among many
nations, nay, among all the nations of the then civilised world.
From this period, when the intercourse among nations becomes
more intimate, history acquires greater clearness, precision,
and critical exactness ; and this is only six, or at most seven
centuries before the Christian era. The first Persian con-
querors advanced with rapid strides towards the objects of their
ambition ; for after the founder of the Persian empire Cyrus,
had made himself master of the whole central region of
Western Asia, as well as of the Lesser Asia, his successes were
soon followed up by the conquest of Egypt by the arms of
Cambyses ; and a little subsequent to this, by the great expe*
dition of Xerxes into Greece, whose valiant defenders, how-
ever, ruined his hopes of conquest. Egypt, which in its intel-
lectual character, civilisation, and political institutions, had a
much stronger analogy and affinity with those two great pri-
mitive states India and China, shut out from the rest of the
world, was engaged in political relations with the nations of
Western Asia, and those inhabiting the shores of the Medi-
terranean, such as the Persians, the Phoenicians, and the
Greeks ; and hence a short sketch of its political history, down
to the period of the Persian conquest, as far at least as is neces-
sary for the elucidation of general history, will not be here
inappropriate or misplaced.
The long list of names of kings, belonging to more than
twenty dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs, furnishes, indeed,
matter of little interest or importance to the philosophic in-
quirer in his researches on universal history. It is, however,
worthy of remark that many and vast expeditions appear to
have been undertaken in the early ages of Egypt ; though,
while mention is made of such conquests, nothing is said of the
permanent possession of the conquered countries. Sesostris,
who, in the lifetime of his father, Amenophis, had seized the
whole coast of Arabia, next vanquished, for the first time,
Lybia and Ethiopia, afterwards extended his conquests to Bac-
triana, subdued the Scythian nations in the Caucasian coun-
tries, in Colchis, and as far as the Don, and even took posses-
sion of Thrace. The descent of the Colchians from the Egyp-
220 PHILOSOPHY OF
tians, or the existence of an Egyptian colony in Colchis, was
regarded by the ancients as an historical fact. The yet more
ancient King Osymandas is said to have undertaken an expe-
dition attended by an immense army to reconquer Bactriana,
that had revolted against the Egyptian sway ; and the tri-
umphant arms of Osiris stretched on one hand as far as the
Ganges, and on the other as far as the sources of the Danube,
Here a question arises : did the Egyptians possess heroic
poems similar to the Ramayana and Mahabarata of the Indians,
and were these marvellous narratives extracted from these
poems ? Or had all these narratives a signification purely
mythic, as we may easily conjecture to be the case in the expe-
dition of Osiris ? In those historical ages which are better
known to us, Egypt was certainly never a conquering power
at least its conquests were never of a solid and permanent
nature ; though even in those times Egypt made some tran-
sient conquests, or at least expeditions ; and, guilty of great
political encroachments on other states and nations, was often
doomed to experience from these a vigorous resistance to her
attempts. A part of Lybia, the coast of Arabia contiguous to
the Red Sea, and the Arabia Petrsea, acknowledged for a long
time the sceptre of the Pharaohs, (and this fact indeed, the
various monuments covered over with hieroglyphics, which are
found in those countries, would seem to corroborate): Ethiopia,
too, or at least a considerable portion of that region, was for a
long period in the possession of the Egyptian kings. The
construction of the many ancient and vast edifices and monu-
ments which are crowded together in the province of Thebais
must, to all appearance, have required a greater number of
hands than the Proper Egypt (a country by no means of con-
siderable extent) could have furnished of itself. As Ethiopia
had been conquered by the Egyptians, so the Ethiopians in
their turn invaded Egypt, and founded there a royal dynasty.
The second of these Ethiopian kings, Tirhaka, sought to
stretch his conquests as far as Libya and the northern coast of
Africa, and must have penetrated as far as the columns of
Hercules, or the modern straits of Gibraltar. On the other
hand, there is historical evidence that even the Carthaginians,
at the time when the family of Mago had the ascendency in
their state, conquered and took possession of the Egyptian
city of Thebes. The king of Egypt, who is known in the
HISTORY. 221
historical books of the Hebrews by the name of Shishak, and
who made the transient conquest of Jerusalem, is called Shes-
honk or Sesonchis in the ancient inscriptions of the Pharaohs.
It is worthy of remark, that we find, in the old Egyptian
monuments, pictures of war-scenes representing very strangely-
formed, or at least very remote, nations, as captives of war,
and among these, we distinguish some with red hair and blue
eyes, tattooed on the legs, perfectly corresponding to the de-
scriptions which many ancients have left us of the Scythian
nations. At a much earlier period, a nomade tribe of Phoeni-
cian, or, mostly probably, Arabian descent, had taken pos-
session of the throne of Egypt, and had established in that
country the national dynasty of the Hycsos, that is to say, the
shepherd-kings. Some have wished to connect these with
the Israelites ; but in the whole history of the latter the hos-
pitable reception of the Hebrew colony under Joseph its sub-
sequent oppression and its final expulsion from Egypt in the
time of Moses, we can find no trace of any such dominion of
a pastoral nation of Hebrews, or of any dynasty founded by
them in Egypt ; and even other circumstances agree not at
all with such a supposition. With the neighbouring nations
and tribes, Egypt had manifold and various relations, which,
though in some particulars they might be similar, were far
from being identical. If it is proved that Sesostris ascended
the throne immediately after his father had succeeded in ex-
pelling the Hycsos, it may fairly be presumed that as an
internal revolt against a foreign power and a foreign dynasty
if wont to enkindle a spirit of martial enthusiasm, which easily
leads to ulterior and more vigorous undertakings ; the expedi-
tions and conquests of Sesostris, though ever so much exag-
gerated, are not entirely destitute of historical foundation.
Thus much is certain, that in antiquity there existed in many
places, comparatively remote from Egypt, whole colonies, es-
pecially of a sacerdotal kind, whose origin was undoubtedly
Egyptian ; and that the first colonies which carried arts and
civilisation into Greece, and the other countries bordering on
the Mediterranean, did not come solely from Phoenicia ; for
even in Greece, the genealogy of many royal families and an-
cient cities, as well as most, if not all, the mysteries, particularly
the Orphic, pointed to Egypt as their common parent. And
it is very possible that in those early ages, in which these
222 PHILOSOPHY OF
Egyptian expeditions are said to have been undertaken, armed
colonies may have emigrated from Egypt, not always influ-
enced, however, by those commercial views which invariably
directed the colonists of Phoenicia; but animated by those
higher motives of religion, which, for example, had such an
evident influence on the first Persian conquests by a de-
sire to diffuse the mysteries, and thereby, while they bound
to Egypt the then still barbarous nations of the West, to
raise the latter to the more exalted scale of Egyptian civi-
lisation. Even domestic troubles and civil discord may have
been instrumental in producing those distant emigrations,
which at this distance of time appear to us so mysterious and
unaccountable. Such civil discord, indeed, existed in Egypt
under various forms. The country itself was often divided
into several kingdoms ; and even when united, we observe a
great conflict of interests between the agricultural province of
Upper Egypt, and the commercial and manufacturing province
of the Lower ; as, indeed, a similar clashing of interests is
often to be noticed in modern states. In the period imme-
diately preceding the Persian conquest, the caste of warriors,
that is to say, the whole class of the nobility, were decidedly
opposed to the monarchs, because they imagined them to pro-
mote too much the power of the priesthood ; in the same way
as the history of India presents a similar rivalry or political
hostility between the Brahmins and the caste of the Csha-
triyas. In the reign of the Egyptian King Psammetichus,
who had first checked or repelled the Scythian nations whose
victorious arms then menaced the whole of Asia, the disaffection
of the native"nobility obliged this prince to take Greek soldiers
into his pay ; and thus at length was the defence of Egypt
intrusted to an army of foreign mercenaries. This circum-
stance, as well as the great commercial intercourse with the
Greeks, and the number of Greek settlements in Lower Egypt,
had made this province half Greek, even prior to the Persian
conquest ; and had paved the way and opened the door to
this, as well as to the later, conquests by the Greeks ; for, in
general, states and kingdoms, before they succumb to a foreign
conqueror, are, if not outwardly and visibly, yet secretly and
internally, undermined.
The classical writers of antiquity begin, in general, their
universal history by an account of the Assyro-Babyloriian em-
HISTORY.
pire, which preceded the Medo- Persian, and the annals of the
early mythic ages of this empire are embellished with the fabu-
lous victories of Semiramis ; as similar fictions indeed are to be
found in the primitive Sagas of all the other Asiatic nations.
However, the conquest of Media by Ninus appears to be more
historical. The simplest, and for that reason, the most correct
view of the subject is this, that in this great central region of
Western Asia, four countries were contiguous, which often
formed separate empires Babylon and Assyria, Media and
Persia; and which, when united, were governed sometimes
by one, sometimes by another province, according to the coun-
try to which the ruling dynasty belonged; while the different
capitals of these four countries, Babylon, Nmive, Ecbatana,
Susa, or Persepolis, alternately formed, during* their flourishing-
period, the centre of a great empire. This first Assyro-Baby-
lonian universal monarchy, as it is called, should not be consi-
dered as a distinct period of history, but rather as the most an-
cient dynasty of a great Asiatic empire, which was succeeded
by a second, the Medo-Persian dynasty; in the same way as
the successors of Alexander the Great founded in this very
country a new Greek kingdom, and as at a later period the
Partbians, whose original seat lay to the north-east, re-estab-
blished in this land a native sovereignty, that proved very
formidable to the Romans. This great middle country of
Western Asia is the native seat of conquest; it was hence that
emanated the spirit of ambition and enterprise, which found,
indeed, in the very situation of the country most extraordinary
facilities. And it is here, too, that Holy Wiit places the
abode of the first universal conqueror the cradle of all ambi-
tion and conquest. In the very place where the ancient Ba-
bylon stood there are now immense ruins, to which the inha-
bitants of the country give the name of Nimrod's Castle, and
which involuntarily bring to the modern traveller's mind the
old history of the Tower of Babel ; as these ruins, in all proba-
bility, formed a part of the great Temple of Belus, which in
eight lofty stories rose to a prodigious height, and on the pin-
nacle whereof stood a colossal idol of the national divinity
the sun. Even now the ruins of this temple, piled in immense
heaps one upon the other, and which seem as if glazed by some
raging fire, produce a very profound impression on the mind;
and to such a height do they rise, that the clouds rest on their
224 PHILOSOPHY OF
summit above, while lions couch on the walls, or haunt the
caverns below. Here, too, we look for the place where were
the vast terraces, with their hanging or floating gardens, as the
ancients called them, and which in a country by no means
abounding in wood, the Assyrian monarch constructed from
affection to his Median spouse. Here the widely-scattered
heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the cuneal characters
of Babylon, attest the existence and vast circumference of the
mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European city, but the
Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This Baby-
lonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-
aspiring edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is
sure to be struck down and scattered afar by the arm of the
divine Nemesis; and in Holy Writ itself, the Babylon giddied
by the intoxicating cup of ambition, drunk with the blood of
nations, is a mighty historical emblem, applicable to every age
from the earliest to the latest times, of the mad, people-destroy-
ing career of a pagan pride. Here did the evil commence,
although the first Assyrian empire had no very extensive in-
fluence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch
of universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the
ancient Babylon contrived to maintain her power, for, as has
so often been exemplified in history, she, by the moral conta-
gion of her voluptuous manners, conquered her conquerors, who
abandoned the gods of their ancestors, to embrace the sensual
nature-worship of the Babylonians. In the new monarchy
founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were
closely united, and politically, at least, incorporated with the
once more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were
originally very different, and even at a later period we can still
observe some traces of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty,
or the forcible dethronement of the prince. The institute of
the Magi, which Cyrus established in his new Persian empire,
served, outwardly at least, to cement this union; for the Magi
were of the Median race, and their sacred zend-books were not
composed in the Persian language, but in two distinct dialects
of Media, if one, indeed, were not rather Bactrian. The Magi
were not so much an hereditary sacerdotal caste, as an order
or association divided into various and successive ranks and
grades, such as existed in the mysteries the grade of appren-
ticeship that of mastership that of perfect mastership. Fo-
HISTORY. 225
reigners could not easily gain admission into this sacerdotal
order ; and it was only at the express solicitation of the King
of Persia, at whose court he resided, that this extraordinary
favour was accorded to Themistocles. Whether the old Persian
doctrine and system of light* did not undergo material altera-
tions in the hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster ; or whether
this doctrine were preserved in all its purity by the order of
the Magi, may well be questioned. It is certain, at least, that
that, primitive veneration of nature is found completely disfigured
and corrupted in the small existing remnant of the sect of
Guebers, or fire-worshippers.
On the order of the Magi devolved the important trust of
the monarch's education a trust which must necessarily have
given them great weight and influence in the state. They
were in high credit at the Persiangates for that was the
Oriental name given, to the capital of the empire, and the abode
of the prince ; and they took the most active part in all the
factions that encompassed the throne, or that were formed in
the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the
sacerdotal fraternities and associations of initiated, formed by
the mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not
unimportant, influence on affairs of state ; but in the Persian
monarchy, they acquired a complete political ascendency. The
next main pillar of the Persian monarchy was its nobility, or
the principal race of the Pasargads, who immediately surrounded
the throne, enjoyed the highest prerogatives, and formed indeed
the flower of the Persian army. The strict moral and military
education which this nobility received, and of which Xenophon
has drawn such a beautiful ideal sketch, constituted the chief
strength of the state. And certainly the neglect of this old
Persian system of education was one of the primary causes of
the decline of the empire a decline which the progressive
relaxation and corruption of public morals accelerated with a
fearful rapidity. After the first mighty impulse, and that
severe moral character which Cyrus had imparted to Persia,
had disappeared, the same fate befel this empire, as has befallen
all the great Oriental monarchies. The same evils, which the
domination of provincial satraps a government of the seraglio
invariably bring along with it the factions, the conspiracies,
the changes of dynasty, and the other disorders incident to
* In the German " Lichtsage," or Tradition of Light. Trans.
226 PHILOSOPHY OF
despotism, appear in exactly similar colours in the Persian
annals ; and even in the modern kingdom of Persia, we find
many of those characteristic traits or usages of Asiatic govern-
ment as they existed in the ancient empire. Even the army,
for the most part, consisted of troops levied out of the conquered
nations, and the greater were its numbers, the less internal
union did it possess. Hence we can well conceive that a small
army of Greeks, animated by patriotic valour, and commanded
by generals possessed of a true tactical eye and genius, were
able to oppose to the immense hosts of Persia a resistance,
which, in a numerical point of view, appears almost incredible,
and were even enabled to gain unexpected victories over their
enemies. We can conceive too, how, in the time of Alexander
the Great, three battles should have decided the fate of this
great empire ; for its moral life and energy were gone, and
the pillars of the state were completely decayed.
The Persian empire lasted but for the short period of two
hundred and twenty years, from its foundation by Cyrus, to
the reign of the last Darius, whose personal character and fate
leave such an affecting and tragical impression on our minds.
The universal conquests of the Persians, rapid, but transient,
acted on the age with all the violence of the elemental powers
of nature. Sudden and rapid, like a wind-storm, they invaded
and subdued all other states and kingdoms : the expedition of
Xerxes into Greece was a real inundation of nations and as
the destructive fire, after blazing on high and desolating and
consuming all things around, sinks quickly again it was so
with the Persian empire. The dominion of the Persians
exerted no very permanent influence on those other nations
whose civilisation was anterior to their own. Egypt, in despite
of the violent persecution which she sustained under Cambyses,
remained still the ancient Egypt and with yet greater fidelity
did she cling to her ancient customs,' under the milder sway of
the Ptolemies, whose government was so much more congenial
to her spirit and character. Phoenicia, Palestine, and Asia
Minor, also remained essentially unchanged. In an historical
point of view, the main result of the Persian conquests was
this they brought the nations of Western Asia and of Egypt
into a close contact, and a very active and permanent intercourse
with the states of Greece, and those situated on the shores of
the Mediterranean. The Persian dominion, and the contest
HISTORY. 227
of that power with Greece, had indeed a very great, though
only indirect, influence on the latter country, inasmuch as it
favoured the growth and development of Grecian liberty, and
at a later period produced the great reaction under Alexander
the Great. This Greek re-action was, in its spirit and character,
somewhat similar to the previous irruption and ambitious inva-
sion of the Persians ; in Alexander at least, we can clearly
discover an Oriental spirit, that not content with the narrow
boundaries of his hereditary kingdom of Macedon, sought to
transcend the sphere of Hellenic civilisation, Hellenic doctrines,
and Hellenic modes of thinking. And I call that an Asiatic
enthusiasm which, with resistless impetuosity, bore away the
Macedonian to the capital of Persia, and even beyond the
banks of the Indus.
END OF LECTURE VII.
228 PHILOSOPHY OP
LECTURE VIII.
Variety of Grecian Life and Intellect State of Education and of the
Fine Arts among the Greeks The Origin of their Philosophy and
Natural Science Their Political Degeneracy.
IT would be difficult to point out a more striking difference,
a more decided opposition in the whole circle of the intellectual
and moral character and habits of nations, as far at least as
the sphere of known history extends, than that which exists
between the seclusive and monotonous character of Asiatic
intellect the generally unchangeable uniformity of Oriental
manners and Oriental society, and the manifold activity the
varied life of the Greeks, in the first flourishing ages of their
history. This amazing diversity in the moral and intellectual
habits of the Greeks appears not only in their legislation, their
forms of government, their manners, occupations, and usages
of life, but in their various and widely dispersed settlements:
and colonies, in their descent, which was composed of so many
heterogeneous elements, in the first seeds of their civilisation
as well as their distribution into hostile tribes and great and
petty states, and even in their traditions, their history, and the
arts and forms of art to which those gave rise finally, in a
science, engaged in incessant strife, and marching from system
to system, amid the noise and tumult of opposition. In Asia r
even in those countries such as India, where the poetry, the
views of life, and the systems of philosophy were extremely
various, and bore in this respect an external resemblance to
those of Greece ; where even the country in ancient times was
never permanently united into one compact empire ; yet the
whole way of thinking, the prevalent feeling, was entirely
monarchical, proceeding from, and returning again to, un-
changeable unity. On the other hand, in Greece, science, like
life itself, was thoroughly republican and if we meet with
particular thinkers, who leaned to this Asiatic doctrine of unity,
JHSTORT. 229
we must regard this as only an exception a system adopted
from a love of change, or out of a spirit of opposition to the
"vulgar and generally received opinion that all in nature and
the world, as well as in man, was in a state of perpetual move-
ment, constant change, and freedom of life. Even the fabulous
world of Grecian divinities, as it has been painted by their
poets, has a republican cast ; for there every thing is in a
state of change, of successive renovation, and of mutual
collision in the war of nature's elements, in the hostility of
old and new deities of the superior and inferior gods of giants
and of heroes presenting, as it does, a state of poetical
anarchy. Hence, even the historical traditions of the Greeks,
and the first accounts* of their early seats, settlements, and the
migrations of their different races, present to the eye of the
historical inquirer a dense forest of truth and fiction, of
fanciful conjecture, absolute fable, and ancient and venerable
knowledge a labyrinth of poetry and of history, in whose
various and intricate mazes it is often difficult for the critic to
find the true outlet, and to hold fast by the guiding clue of
Ariadne, when he wishes to adopt a lucid arrangement, and
assign to each part its due place in the system of the whole.
The Greek tribes and nations inhabited not only the proper
Oreece, the Peninsula Peloponnesian, the contiguous islands,
the southern plains of the Continent (on whose northern
frontiers it is often difficult to draw the line of demarcation
between the tribes of Greek and foreign extraction) ; and also
-the western coasts of Asia Minor ; but they had founded a
number of small states and planted many flourishing colonies
in the remotest corners of the Euxine, in the Lower Egypt,
where, long prior to the Persian wars, many Greek settlements
existed along the northern shore of Africa, where the
flourishing Cyrene was situated, on the southern coasts of Spain
and Gaul, in Sicily, and throughout the whole of Southern
Italy. Their navigation extended even to the Baltic, as the
voyage of Pytheas evinces ; and, though they did not circum-
navigate Africa, a thing which it is still doubtful whether the
Phoenicians accomplished, they rather surpassed than yielded
to the latter nation in the activity of their trade, and the
wealth and extent of their colonies. The stupendous monu-
ments and edifices of the Egyptians are indeed of more colossal
dimensions ; yet the works of Grecian sculpture and archi-
PHILOSOPHY OF
tecture, while some of them are on a very large scale, are
incomparably more various, more rich in ornament, more
animated, and beautiful, than those of Egypt. The Greeks
were not a mere seafaring and commercial people like the
Phoenicians ; nor did they compete with the Egyptians in those
proud monuments of architecture whose erection required such
thousands of human hands ; but they were from their earliest
period a martial people, well trained to war. Independently
of every feeling of patriotic enthusiasm and national defence,
they looked on war as a trade and a living, and they loved it
accordingly. This is proved by the fact that, in the age
preceding the Persian conquest, and long before the Persians
waged war with Greece, the kings of *Egypt had not only
Greek squadrons in their service, but that the whole Egyptian
army was for the most part composed of Grecian mercenaries.
Such, too, was the case in Carthage, and, at a later period, in
Persia, where whole legions and armies of Greeks were engaged
in the service of the great king. This old custom among the
Greeks of enlisting in the military service of foreign states,
may have been indeed an excellent preparation for their great
national wars, though in these the first great exploits were
achieved by small companies of troops from Athens, Sparta,
and other free states, as well as by a select body of free citizens.
But this custom could have had no very unfavourable influence
on national opinions and feelings, and the mutual relations of
the Greek tribes and states.
The republican form of government mostly prevailed in the
various Greek settlements and colonies, established round the
shores of the Mediterranean ; for it is to this species of govern-
ment that maritime nations, commercial cities, and petty states
almost always incline, as long as their territories remain cir-
cumscribed. Yet in these states, we find a great variety of po-
litical constitutions ; for along with that multitude of small
commercial republics, there were many, like Sparta and others,
that depended exclusively, or for the most part, on agriculture
and the riches of the soil. In these, the hereditary nobih'ty, the
proprietors of the soil, formed the principal class ; for in general
the Greeks attached a very high importance to the noble races
and princely families that deduced their descent from the old
heroic times. The original constitution of many, of almost the
greater part of these small Greek republics, was a tolerably
BISTORT. 231
mild aristocracy, headed by an hereditary prince, or chieftain.
In some states, as for instance in Athens, the transition from
this old aristocratical government, headed by an hereditary
prince, to a thoroughly democratic constitution, was but slow
and gradual ; as the memory of their ancient kings, for ex-
ample, of Codrus, who fell in the defence of his country, was
ever cherished by the Athenian people with love and reverence.
The popular hatred in Athens was directed only against those
leaders of the state who, like Pisistratus, after having obtained
their power by means of popular influence, sought to stretch
and perpetuate it by force of arms and the use of foreign
mercenaries. Yet even Pisistratus possessed great qualities,
and his sway was in general mild, and comformable to the laws
of Solon ; it cannot be denied, however, that this was an
usurped authority, and one founded on illegitimate force. At a
later period, and when the Athenian state became more and
more democratic as there is not a more thankless being in all
nature than the sovereign people, in its lawless and capricious
rule, the people of Athens, jealous of their freedom, and too
easily deluded by the arts of oratorical sophistry, pointed their
hatred at all the great men and deserving citizens of the state.
The general Miltiades perished in prison ; Aristides the Just,
Cimon and many others, fell the victims of ostracism, and died
in exile, as did the great historians, Herodotus and Thucydidea,
Themistocles himself, who had been the liberator of Athens
and of Greece, was obliged to take refuge at the court of the
Persian monarch, from whom he received protection and hospi-
tality. The wisest of the Athenians, the master of Plato,
who had ever proved himself an honest citizen and a valiant
defender of his country, received the cup of poison for his
recompense.
But we nowhere discover in the early ages of Athens, and
of the other Greek republics, that hatred to kings and to
royalty in general, which even the primitive history of Rome
displays. Nay, in Sparta, amid a republican constitution, the
kingly power and dignity were preserved inviolate down to
the latest period ; while in Macedon a new monarchy grew up,
which at first asserted a sort of protectorate over the other
states, and at last established a very despotic ascendency over
all Greece. Even in those states where the constitution was
more democratical, that is to say, where it was founded, not on
232 PHILOSOFHY OF
an hereditary nobility and the possession of the soil, but chiefly
on moveable property, on trade, and manufactures, we must
not look for that sort of arithmetical freedom and equality
which exists in some modern republics, for instance, in the
United States of America. The number of citizens really
free, eligible, and possessed of the right of suffrage, was
exceedingly small when compared with the bulk of the popula-
tion by far the greater part were not so, and a multitude of
bought slaves, especially in the commercial states, was employed
in manufactures, and in the tillage of the land. This univer-
sally prevalent custom the harsh treatment and oppression of
slaves forms a very painful contrast in the ancient republics,
little corresponding to our own ideal of social happiness, and
in itself very degrading to humanity. In the interior and
more aristocratic states, slavery assumed another shape the
remnant of the original inhabitants of the soil, that had
survived the conquest of their country, such as the Helots of
Sparta, and the Penestae of Thessaly, were not merely reduced
by the conquerors in their newly-founded governments to the
condition of vassals, as we should term them, or even of serfs ;
but were degraded to a state of absolute slavery, and gene-
really treated with great severity. If we except this one cir-
cumstance, the aristocracy, that ruled in most of the ancient
republics of Greece, was, on the whole, tolerably well constituted;
a number of accessory circumstances had tended to soften its
sway, and even in some instances it was ennobled by high worth.
Ancestral manners and customs the very smallness of the
states all tended to mitigate its rule a wise legislation, like
that of Solon, and of other lawgivers animated by the same
spirit, had at once consolidated and tempered its power ; while
it was adorned by republican virtues, and many personal quali-
ties in those elder and better times, ere the ancient simplicity
of manners was yet totally corrupted.
In most of the Greek republics, besides, commerce daily
acquired greater influence and importance, and it was impos-
sible in such a state of things that any rigidly exclusive aris-
tocracy could have been formed, or could have long maintained
its ascendency. Even the priesthood in Greece (for there
was no danger of the political predominance of an heredi-
tary sacerdotal caste, as in Egypt), even the priesthood, by
maintaining ancient manners, customs, and laws, on which,
HISTORY. 233
indeed, their own existence depended, exerted a mild and be-
neficial influence in the state ; for they at least formed a coun-
terpoise to a mere selfish aristocracy, and sometimes opposed
the last barrier to democratic tyranny.
The mysteries, too, in particular, which, although they did
not at a later period, as in their origin, diffuse a sounder
morality than the popular mythology, yet certainly inculcated
more serious doctrines, and more spiritual views of life, ex-
erted, together with the Olympic and Isthmian games, a
gentle, and on the whole, a very beneficial influence, and
.served as a bond of connexion between the variously divided
and discordant nations of Greece. Nay, these public and gym-
nastic games, which were celebrated in the festive poetry of
the Greeks, served to knit more firmly the bond of national
union, so exceedingly loose among this people; and many
times, in a moment of danger, has the oracle of Delphi roused
and united all the sons of Hellas. These political decisions of
the oracle were not false, so far at least as in these critical
moments they gave no other council to the Greeks, but that
of patriotic courage, prudent firmness, and national concord.
Widely dissimilar as were the Greek tribes and nations in
their original seats and settlements, their occupations, and modes
of living, their manners and political institutions, they differed
not less in the primitive elements of their civilisation. The Phoe-
nician Cadmus, according to tradition, brought the alphabet,
and with it, undoubtedly, many other elements of knowledge to
the city of Thebes the Egyptian Cecrops laid the ground- work
of the old Athenian manners and government the Thracian
Orpheus, though his doctrines had much analogy to those of
Egypt, founded the widely diffused mysteries that bore his name,
while he sought by song to mitigate the terrors of the lower
world, and to overcome the powers of darkness. To these many
other names might be added ; and among them many which
did not deduce their descent, like most, indeed, from Phoenicia
and Egypt, but are clearly to be traced, as well as the doc-
trines and sacred customs they introduced, to the North ; and,
though they sprang more immediately from Asiatics on the
northern side of the Caucasus, they were nearly allied to
the nations dwelling further towards the north and west.
The profound and concurrent researches of many modern
.scholars have adduced such numerous and repeated proofs from.
234 PHILOSOPHY OF
antiquity, of the existence of this northern stratum in Greek
antiquities, that this branch of Grecian history, formerly neg-
lected, must no longer pass unobserved. The Greeks were of
very various extraction ; and in the different countries of Greece
we may distinguish, along with the Hellenes, two, if not more>
principal nations, clearly distinct from the former. These
were the Thracians in the northern provinces, or at least
in those immediately contiguous a race for the most part of
northern descent, and, together with the Indian, the most
numerous on the earth, according to Herodotus perhaps of the
same origin with the nations on the banks of the Danube, or
even those further northward. There were, next, the Pelasgi,
the real aborigines of Greece, the authors of those gigantic
walls and constructions, which are known in Italy by the name
of Cyclopean, and in Greece by that of Pelasgic, and some of
which still exist, besides several others that existed in the Pe-
loponnesus, and which are mentioned by the ancients. These
aborigines, or this primitive race of people, occur in many
countries under the same, or at least, very similar, traits to
them we must ascribe those monuments of architecture we
have just spoken of, a certain knowledge of metals, some rude
religious rites, without any mythology, which was only of
later origin, nay, without any names of specific divinities ;
human sacrifices manners and customs, if not absolutely
savage, still very rude and barbarous, and a constant restless-
ness and a disposition to roam. Deucalion alone is to be con-
sidered as the ancestor of the Hellenes, as all the noble fami-
lies of kings and heroes derived their descent from him, and
the later tribes of Greece, the ./Eolians, the Dorians, and
lonians, took their names from his sons. According to every
indication, this people would appear to be a Caucasian race of
Asiatics, of Indian, or at least of a cognate, origin. When
these Hellenes, ^Eolians, and Dorians, had taken possession
of Thessaly, of the adjacent countries, and the Peloponnesus,
and had there formed settlements, the Pelasgi were every-
where dispossessed, or oppressed, and thrown into the back-
ground. But they certainly were not entirely extirpated, nor
did they emigrate in full numbers ; and it is beyond a doubt
that various causes contributed to unite the old and new inha-
bitants of Greece; for here intermarriages were not entirely
prohibited and rigidly prevented, as in India or Egypt, by the
HISTORY. 235
institution of castes ; and the two nations were gradually
formed into one race and one people, according as the circum-
stances or situation of one country or the other favoured such
an union. And hence we can understand why Herodotus, for
example, should have attributed to the lonians in particular
much that was Pelasgic, as if under this new denomination
they were in all essential points the ancient Pelasgi, or had
mingled more with the latter, and were not of such a pure
Hellenic race as the Dorians ; for in other respects, the Pelasgi
and Hellenes are represented as being originally two perfectly
distinct nations. The people of Thrace, too, although they
continued as a separate nation to a much later period, un-
doubtedly mingled considerably with the Hellenic tribes that
inhabited the borders of Thrace, or that lived among the inha-
bitants of that country.
The primitive inhabitants of Greece were, in general, ex-
tremely rude and barbarous in their manners and tenets ; until
the noble race of Prometheus, the sons of Deucalion, who had
come from the regions of Mount Caucasus, and colonies still
more civilised that had emigrated from Phoenicia, Egypt, and
other countries of Asia, exerted their beneficial influence, and
gave by degrees an entirely new form and fashion to the people
of Greece, and even to the country itself. For that region,
which afterwards presented so beautiful an aspect, which was
so richly endowed, and splendidly embellished by the hand of
nature, was, until it had been well cultivated and fertilised, and
until the power of boisterous elements had been subdued, a
complete wilderness, and the scene of many violent revolutions
of nature; which were very naturally considered as a sort of par-
tial and feeble imitation of the destructive and universal flood
of elder times, when water was the all-prevailing element on the
earth. In Greece there was an old obscure tradition, of the
original existence of a continent called Lectonia, which occupied
a portion of the subsequent Greek sea, and of which the islands
form now the only existing remains ; the rest of the continent
having been sunk and destroyed, at the very time when the
Black Sea, which had been originally connected with the Cas-
pian, burst through the Bosphorus, and precipitated its waves
-into the Mediterranean. At this very remote period, all Ttas-
saly was one vast lake, till, in a natural catastrophe of a similar
236 PHILOSOPHY OP
kind, the river Peneus burst its way through a defile of rocks,
and found an outlet into the sea. The lake Copais in Bceotia
in an inundation overflowed the whole circumjacent flat country
in the time of Ogyges ; and thus the name and tradition of
Ogyges served afterwards to designate the epoch of those early
floods. At a later period, and when the civilisation of the
Greeks was more advanced, in the true flourishing era of their
power and literature, the two principal races among this people,
ihe lonians and the Dorians, were completely opposed to each
other in arts and manners, in government, modes of thinking,
and even in philosophy. Athens was at the head of the Ionic
race ; Sparta took the lead in the Doric confederacy ; and this
internal discord did not a little contribute towards the utter
ruin of Greece, and towards the consummation of that internal
and external anarchy that dragged all things into its abyss.
Now that we enter upon that period when all the great po-
litical events have been sufficiently described, and partly, at
least, set forth with incomparable talent, by the great classical
historians of antiquity; by a multitude of writers that have
borrowed from that source, or have worked upon those lofty
models ; it would be idle to repeat what is universally known,
and to recount, in long historical detail, how, after contests
and struggles of less importance, the glory of Greece burst
forth in all its lustre in her resistance to Persian might ; how,
soon after, she exhausted her best strength in the great Pelo-
ponnesian civil war betwixt Sparta and Athens, and how both
those states ruined themselves in the idle ambition of maintain-
ing the Tjyepovia as they called it, or the superiority and pre-
ponderance in the political system of Greece ; how, after the
short dominion of the Thebans under their single great man,
Epaminondas, the Macedonians became lords of the ascendant,
and ruled for a long time with despotic sway ; and, finally, how
Greece obtained an apparent freedom under the generous pro-
tection of Rome, and was soon after reduced to a state of per-
manent vassalage under her prefects and her legions : this in-
structive and, we may well say, eternal history, may be read,
studied, and meditated on in all its ample details and living clear-
ness in the pages of the great classical historians of antiquity.
The knowledge of all these historical facts must be here pre-sup-
posed, and I must confine myself to a rapid and lively sketch of
HISTORY. 237
the intellectual character and moral life of the Greeks, in their
relation to the rest of mankind, and according- to the place which
they occupy in universal history.
In this point of view, all that is universally interesting in the
character, life, and intellect of the Greeks will be best and most
easily classed under three categories. The first is the divine
in their system of art, or the mythology that was so closely
interwoven with their traditions and their fictions, their whole
arrangement of life, their customs, and political institutions ?
and which so much excites our astonishment and admiration.
The second is their science of nature a science so natural to
them, and which embraced all the objects of nature and the
world, as well as of history, and even man himself, with the
utmost clearness of perception, sagacity of intellect, and beauty
and animation of expression a science that, from its earliest in-
fancy down to its complete perfection in the writings of Plato and
Aristotle, has established the lasting glory of the Greeks, and haa
had a deep and abiding influence on the human mind, through
all succeeding ages. The third and last category, in this por-
trait of the Greek intellect and character, is the political rational-
ism in Greece's latter days, founded on those maxims and prin-
ciples which had finally triumphed after the most violent con-
test of parties, and under which the state was entirely swayed
by the arts of eloquence and the power of rhetoric, now become
a real political authority in society. All that can be said truly
to the honour of the ancient Greek states, and their republican
virtues, has been briefly noticed above. Their decay and gene-
ral anarchy, and final subjugation by Rome, may be well ac-
counted for by the decline of the Greek philosophy, and the
consequent corruption of morals and doctrine by that dominion
of sophists, unparalleled at least in ancient history, and whose
pernicious art of a false rhetoric was the bane of public life,,
government, and all national greatness.
The marvellous and living mythology in the glorious old
poetry of Greece justly occupies here the first place, for all arts,,
even the plastic arts, had their origin in this first Homeric source.
And this fresh living stream of mythic fictions and heroic tra-
ditions which has flowed and continues to flow, through all ages
and nations in the West, proves to us, by a mighty historical
experience, which determines even the most difficult problems
(and this has been univerally acknowledged in Christian Europe),
PHILOSOPHY OF
that all classical education all high intellectual refinement, is
and should be grounded on poetry that is to say, on a poetry
which, like the Homeric, springs out of natural feelings and
embraces the world with a clear, intuitive glance. For there
can be no comprehensive culture of the human mind, no high
and harmonious development of its powers, and the various
faculties of the soul, unless all those deep feelings of life, that
mighty, productive energy of human nature, the marvellous
imagination, be awakened and excited, and by that excitement
and exertion, attain an expansive, noble, and beautiful form.
This the experience of all ages has proved, and hence the glory
of the Homeric poems, and of the whole intellectual refinement
of the Greeks, which has thence sprung, has remained imperish-
able. Were the mental culture of any people founded solely
on a dead, cold, abstract science, to the exclusion of all poetry ;
such a mere mathematical people with minds thus sharpened
and pointed by mathematical discipline, would and could never
possess a rich and various intellectual existence ; nor even pro-
bably ever attain to a living science, or a true science of life.
The characteristic excellence of this Homeric poetry, and in
general of all the Greek poetry, is that it observes a wise me-
dium between the gigantic fictions of Oriental imagination,
even as the purer creations of Indian fancy display ; and that
distinctness of view, that broad knowledge and observation of
the world, which distinguish the ages of prosaic narrative, when
the relations of society become at once more refined and more
complicated. In this poetry, these two opposite, and almost
incompatible, qualities are blended and united the fresh en-
thusiasm of the most living feelings of nature a blooming,
fertile, and captivating fancy, and a clear intuitive perception
of life, are joined with a delicacy of tact, a purity and harmony
of taste, excluding all exaggeration all false ornament and
which few nations since the Greeks, none perhaps in an equal
degree, certainly none before them, have ever possessed to a
like extent.
This poetry was most intimately interwoven with the whole
public life of the Greeks the public spectacles, games, and
popular festivals were so many theatres for poetry ; nay music
and the gymnastic exercises were the ground-work, and formed
almost the whole scope, of a high, polite, and liberal education
among the Greeks. Both were so in a very wide, compre-?
HISTORY. 239
hensive, and significant sense of the term. The gymnastic
struggles, the peculiar object of the public games, and where
the human frame attained a beautiful form and expansion
by every species of exercise the gymnastic struggles had a
very close connexion with, and may be said to have formed
the basis for, the imitative arts, especially sculpture, which,
without that habitual contemplation of the most exquisite forms
afforded by these games, could never have acquired so bold,
free, and animated a representation of the human body.
Music, or the art of the Muses, included not only the art of
melody, but the poetry of song, Still the plan of Grecian
education and refinement was ever of too narrow and exclusive
a character ; and when at a later period, rhetoric came to form
one of its elements, the Greeks considered it (what indeed it
never should be considered) as a sort of gymnastic exercise for
the intellect, a species of public spectacle, where eloquence,
little solicitous about the truth, only sought to display its art or
address in the combat. And in the same way philosophy,
when the Greeks attained a knowledge of it, came to be re-
garded, according to the narrow and exclusive principles of
their system of education, as nothing more than a species of
intellectual melody, the internal harmony of thought and
mind the music of the soul ; till later, by means of the
sophists, and popular sycophants that deluded their age, it sunk
into the all-destructive abyss of false rhetoric, which was the
death of true science and genuine art, and which, in the shape
of logic and metaphysics, had as injurious an influence on the
schools as a false and political eloquence had on the state and
on public life. That principle of harmony which formed the
leading tenet of the primitive philosophy of Greece before the
introduction of sophistry, was not an ignoble it was even a
beautiful, idea, although it might be far from solving the high
problems and questions of philosophy, or satisfying the deeper
inquiries of the human mind.
It was from these public games, popular festivals, and great
poetical exhibitions, which had such a mighty and important
influence on the whole public life of the Greeks, and which
served to knit so strongly the bonds of the Hellenic confe-
deracy, that, by means of the odes, specifically designed for
such occasions, the theatre, and the whole dramatic art of the
Greeks, derived their origin. This poetry, which is less gene-
240 PHILOSOPHY OF
rally intelligible to other nations and times than the Homeric
poems, because it enters more deeply into the individual life of
the Greeks, does not display less invention, sublimity, and;
depth of art, from that ideal beauty which pervades its whole
character, and from its lofty tone of feeling. Even the Doric
odes of Pindar, amid their milder beauties, rise often to the
tragic grandeur of the succeeding poets, or to the comprehen-
sive and epic fulness of the old Meeonian bard.
No nation has as yet been able to equal the charm and ame-
nity of Homer, the elevation of ^Eschylus, and the noble beauty
of Sophocles ; and perhaps it is wrong even to aspire to their
excellence, for true beauty and true sublimity can never be ac-
quired in the path of imitation. Euripides, who lived in the
times when rhetoric was predominant, is ranked with the great
poets we have named by such critics only, as are unable to
comprehend and appreciate the whole elevation of Grecian in-
tellect, and to discern its peculiar and characteristic depth. It
is worthy of remark, as it serves to show the general propensity
of Grecian intellect for the boldest contrasts, that these loftiest
productions of tragedy, and which have retained that character
of unrivalled excellence through all succeeding ages, were ac-
companied by the old popular comedy which, while its inven-
tive fancy dealt in the boldest fictions of mythology, and in the
humorous exhibitions of the gods, made it its peculiar business
to fasten on all the follies of ordinary life and to exhibit them
to public ridicule without the least reserve.
That the sensual worship of nature, the basis of all heathen-
ism, and more particularly so of the Greek idolatry, must have
had a very prejudicial influence on Greek morals ; that the
want of a solid system of ethics, founded on God and divine
truth, must have given rise to great corruption even in a more
simple period of society ; and that this already prevalent cor-
ruption must have increased to a frightful extent in the general
degradation of the state is a matter evident of itself ; and it
would be no difficult task to draw from the pages of the popu-
lar comedy we have just spoken of, and from other sources, a
terrific picture of the moral habits of the Greeks. Yet I know
not whether such a description would be necessary, or even
advantageous, for the purpose of this philosophy of history the
more so, as it would not be difficult to draw from similar sources
of immorality, and from the now usual statistics of vice and
HISTORY. 241
rlme, a sketch of the moral condition of one or more Christian
nations, that would by no means accord with the pre-conceived
notion of the great moral superiority of modern times. We
may thus the more willingly rest contented with a general
acknowledgement of the great moral depravity of mankind,
which exists wherever mighty powers and strong motives of a
superior order do not counteract it, and which must have
broken out more conspicuously there, where, as among the
<areeks, the prevailing religion was a paganism that promoted
and sanctioned sensuality. In regard to the poetry and plastic
arts of the Greeks, it must even strike us as a matter of asto-
nishment that it is in comparatively but few passages, and few
works, this pagan sensuality appears in a manner hurtful to
dignity of style and harmony of expression. It would not at
least have surprised us had this defect been oftener apparent,
when we consider the doctrines and views of life generally pre-
valent in antiquity ; for it was, in most cases, less the sterner
dictates of morality that prevented the recurrence of this defect
than an exquisite sense of propriety, which even in art is the out-
ward drapery that girds and sets off beauty. Besides a mere
conventional concealment cannot be imposed as a law on the art
of sculpture ; our moral feelings are much less offended by the
representation of nudity in the pure noble style of the best
antiques, than by the disguised sensuality which marks many
spurious productions of modern art. In poetry and in art, at
least in the elder and flourishing period, the (J reeks have, for
the most part, attained to internal harmony in philosophy
they were much less fortunate and least of all in public life,
which was almost always distracted, and at last utterly jarring,
dissonant, and ruinous.
I called the science of the Greeks a natural science, and in.
this quality, which it possessed in so eminent a degree, it affords
us the highest instruction, and is of itself extremely interesting ;
for in its origin, this science proceeded chiefly, almost exclusively,
from nature pursued a sequestered and solitary path a
stranger to poetry and mythology which was there predominant,
far removed from public and political life and often even in
an attitude of hostility towards the state. The physical sciences,
and particularly natural history, were created by" the Greeks
eo was the science of medicine, in Avhich Hippocrates is still
-honoured as the greatest master ; and geometry and the ancient
242 PHILOSOPHY OF
system of astronomy were handed down to posterity, conside-
rably enlarged and improved by the labours of the Greeks. In
the second place, Grecian science may be denominated a natural
science, because, as it directed its attention successively to the
various objects of the world, of life, and to man himself, it ever
took a thoroughly natural view of all things, and even in self-
knowledge, in practical life, and in history, sought to seize and
comprehend the nature of man, and to unfold the character of
his being, with the utmost precision of language, and according
to conceptions derived exclusively from life. Thus when Plato
and his followers direct their philosophical inquiries to objects
lying beyond, and far exalted above, the sphere of nature and
real life, we must regard these inquiries as exceptions from the
ordinary practice of Grecian intellect, and from the ruling spirit
of its speculations ; in the same way as the expeditions of Alex-
ander the Great form an exception from the usual routine of
Grecian politics. Lastly, Grecian science maybe denominated
a natural science, because philosophy, founded on the old basis
of poetry and classical culture, allied to history, and the lan-
guage and symbols of tradition,* assumed in general a form
clear, beautiful, animated, and eminently conformable to nature
and the mind of man ; and however much this philosophy may
at times have been lost and bewildered in the void of a false
dialectic, it still never perished in the petrifying chill of abstract
speculations. And even Plato, though his philosophy so far
transcended the ordinary sphere of Grecian intellect, had been
well nurtured in Hellenic eloquence, art, and culture and, in
all these, was himself the greatest master.
With this profound and lofty feeling for nature, did the early
philosophers of Greece, who were chiefly lonians, like Thales,
Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, consider respectively water, air,
and fire, as the primary powers of nature and of all things ;
and it was only Anaxagoras, the master of Socrates, who first
clearly expounded the nature of that supreme and divine intel-
ligence which created nature and regulates the world. Prior
to this philosopher, Heraclitus had asserted this doctrine, per-
haps with greater purity certainly with more depth and pene-
tration ; but in his obscure writings it is less intelligibly ex-
pressed. With his supreme intelligence in nature, Anaxagoras
conjoined the op.oiop.fpfa, that is to say, not the real atoms of
a lifeless matter, but rather the animated substance of material
HISTORY. '243
life. Thus his doctrine was a simple system of dualism, quite
in harmony, it would seem, with the feelings of those early
ages, as we have noticed a similar system in the history of
Indian philosophy. These old Ionian philosophers in general
regarded only the internal life in nature and all existence
the constant change and endless vicissitude in the world and in
all things ; and hence many of them began to doubt, and at
last finally denied, the existence of any thing steadfast and en-
during. According to that law and march of contrast, which
Grecian intellect, whether consciously or unconsciously, invari-
ably pursued, these Ionian philosophers were now opposed by
the school of Parmenides, which inculcated the doctrine of an
all-pervading unity and taught that this principle was the first
and last, the sole, true, permanent, and eternal Being. Although
this system was at first propounded in verse, it was by no means,
in its essential and ruling spirit, a poetical pantheism, like that
of the Indians but more congenial with the intellectual
habits of the Greeks, it was a pantheism thoroughly dialectic,
which at first regarded all change as an illusion and idle phe-
nomenon, and at last positively denied the possibility of change,
Between these two extreme schools appeared the great dis-
ciple of Socrates, who sought, by a path of inquiry completely
new, completely foreign to the Greeks by a range of specu-
lation which soared far above the world of sense, and outward
experience, as well as above mere logic, to return to the
supreme Godhead, infinitely exalted above all nature deriving
the notion of the Deity from immediate intuition, primeval
revelation, or profound internal reminiscence. By this doctrine
of reminiscence, which is the fundamental tenet of the Platonic
system, this philosophy has a strong coincidence or affinity with
the Indian doctrine of the metempsychosis, by the supposition
it involves of the prior existence of the human soul. To such
a notion of the pre-existence of the soul, in the literal sense of
the term, no system of Christian philosophy could easily sub-
scribe. But if, as there is no reason to prevent us, we should
understand this Platonic notion of reminiscence in a more
spiritual sense as the awakening or resuscitation of the con-
sciousness of the divine image implanted in our souls as the
soul's perception of that image ; this theory would then per-
fectly coincide with the Christian doctrine of the divine image
originally stamped on the human soul, and of the internal illu-
B2
244 PHILOSOPHY OF
mination of the soul by the renovation of that image ; and
hence we ought in no way to be astonished that this Platonic
mode of thinking for such it is rather than any exclusive
system, as it is the first great philosophy of revelation clothed
and propounded in an European form should have ever ap-
peared so captivating to the profound thinkers of Christianity.
In Plato's time, that host of sophists who had sprung out of
the dialectic contests of the earlier philosophy, out of its rejec-
tion and disbelief of every thing permanent, immutable, and
eternal in nature, in life, and in knowledge, as well as out of
the democratic spirit of the age, and the ever-prevailing immo-
rality in Plato's time, that host of sophists completely bewil-
dered and confused the public mind, poisoned all principle and
morality in their very source, and accomplished the ruin of
society in Greece in general, and in Athens in particular. And
the masterly portrait which Plato has given us of these sophists
exhibits well this race, and the pernicious influence they exerted
over Grecian intellect, and the whole circle of Grecian states ;
and this political influence of the sophists forms the third epoch
in the history of Greece, which, by means of these popular
sycophants, became daily more and more democratic, till at last
it perished in anarchy.
The more ancient philosophers of Greece lived almost all in a
state of retirement from public life, taking no part in political
affairs, or evincing very evident sentiments of hostility to the
governments and republics of their native country. They were
almost all unfriendly to the prevailing principles of democracy ;
and the ideal governments, which they, as well as Plato, have
sketched, were all in the spirit of a very rigid aristocracy of
virtue and law evincing a very marked predilection for that
form of government as it existed, though in a state of great
degeneracy, among the Doric Greeks. Long before Plato, the
Pythagoreans had inculcated doctrines perfectly similar, or at
least of a very kindred nature ; and with the view and purpose
of introducing their principles into public life, by which un-
doubtedly the governments and the whole frame of society in
Greece, as well as the whole system of Grecian thought, would
have assumed a totally new and different shape. But before
the Pythagorean confederacy, which was so widely diffused
through the Greek states of Southern Italy, was able to accom-
plish its design, the violent re-action of an opposite party of
HISTORY. 245
thinkers destroyed it, or at least deprived it of all ascendency
and political influence.
The age of Aristotle concurred with that of the Macedonian
sway to terminate anarchy of every kind. To the old evil of a
false dialectic, which had become an inveterate habit, and, as
it were, a second nature to Grecian intellect, he endeavoured
to oppose his ample aud substantial logic; and this must be
regarded not so much as a wonderful organum, a living and
never-failing source of scientific truth, but rather as a remedy
for that disease of a false, sophistical rhetoric, so prevalent in
his own age, and the one immediately preceding and which
had brought about the ruin of all truths, and an universal
anarchy of doctrines, even in practical life. With a perspica-
cious, penetrative, and comprehensive intellect, he has reduced
all the philosophic, and all the historical science of preceding
ages and of his own time, to a clear, well-ordered system, for
the ample instruction of posterity: in both these sciences, as
well as in natural history, he has remained, down to the latest
time, the master-guide. In those parts of his philosophy which
lie between this natural science and the old dialectic contests,
in its primary and fundamental principles, the system of Aris-
totle, when rightly understood, contains much that leads to the
most dangerous errors, especially in his notion of God : though
we cannot with justice impute to him the abuse which has been
made of his philosophy in subsequent ages. Notwithstanding
the many excellent things which are to be found in the Ethics
of Aristotle, considered merely as an effort of unassisted reason ;
yet in all the inquiries after a higher truth after the first
notion of the divine which, in the elder philosophy of nature,
was so imperfectly understood, and which in the consummate
rationalism of Aristotle was completely misapprehended in all
these important inquiries, the Stagy rite is far from being such
a guide as Plato ; and his philosophy is not like the Platonic, a
scientific introduction to the Christian revelation, and to the
knowledge of divine truths. The later systems of philosophy
among the Greeks were, with some slight variations of form,
mere repetitions, often only mere combinations and com-
pilations, of the ancient philosophy ; or they exhibited a
thorough degeneracy of science and intellect, as in the atomical
system of Epicurus, which even on life and morals had an
atomical influence.
246 PHILOSOPHY OF
The Greek states have long since disappeared from the face of
the earth the republics, as well as the Macedonian kingdoms
founded by Alexander, have long since ceased to exist. Many
centuries near two thousand years, have elapsed, since not a
vestige remains of that ancient greatness and transitory power.
If the celebrated battles and other mighty events of those ages
are still known to us ; if they still excite in us a lively interest,
it is principally because they have been delineated with such
incomparable beauty, such instructive interest, by the great
classical writers. It is not the republican governments of
Greece, nor the brief and fleeting period of Grecian liberty,
which was so soon succeeded by civil war and anarchy it is
not the universal empire of Macedon, which was but of shorfc
duration, and was soon swallowed up in the Roman or Parthian
domination it is not these that mark out the place which
Greece occupies in the great whole of universal history, nor the
mighty and important part she has had in the civilisation of
mankind. The share allotted to her was the light of science in
its most ample extent, and in ah 1 the clear brilliance of exposi-
tion which it could derive from art. It is in this intellectual
sphere only that the Greeks have been gifted with extraordinary
power, and have exerted a mighty influence on after-ages.
Plato and Aristotle, far more than Leonidas and Alexander the
Great, contain nearly the sum and essence of all truly perma-
nent and influential which the Greeks have bequeathed to pos-
terity. It is evident that I include under these great names the
whole classical culture which formed the basis of this Greek
science the general refinement of minds the fine arts, and
above all, the glorious old poetry of Greece. We have to men-
tion another department of Greek science, wherein from its
natural clearness and liveliness, its profound observation of
man, the most eminent success was attained. And the pre-
eminence consists in this that historical art, as well as histo-
rical research, was originated by the Greeks, and that both
have attained a degree of perfection which has been almost ever
unknown to the Asiatic nations, and which even the moderns 1
have only imitated by degrees upon the great models of anti-
quity. The father of history, Herodotus, has not been without
reason compared to Homer, on account of his manifold charms,
and the clearness and fulness of his narrative. We remain in
utter astonishment when we reflect on the depth and extent of
HISTORY. 247
his knowledge, researches, inquiries, and remarks on the his-
tory and antiquities of the various nations of the earth, and
of mankind in general. The deeper and more comprehensive
the researches of the moderns have been on ancient history,
the more have their regard and esteem for Herodotus increased,
the latter classical historians display much rhetoric ; but this
was natural, when we consider what a mighty influence rhetoric
exerted on public life, and that it had become an all-ruling
power in the state. This false rhetoric, that idle pomp of
words, the death of all genuine poetry and higher art, as the
endless strifes of a false dialectic are the ruin of all sane and
legitimate science, of all precision of intellect, and soundness of
judgment this false rhetoric, by the exclusively sophistical
turn which it gave to the public mind and public opinion, acce-
lerated the downfal of government, and of all public virtues in
Greece.
The third category or sphere of Grecian intellect and
Grecian life which I designated after that of divine art, and natu-
ral science, and the varied knowledge of man, was political
rationalism.* I have used that expression, chiefly in reference
to the later ages of the Greek republics, as it is the quality
which eminently distinguished them from the Asiatic states,
and those of modern Europe.
In the later ages of Athens, and of the other democratic
states, the rationalist principles of freedom and equality were
the sole prevailing and recognised maxims of government.
Considered in this historical point of view, the chief difference
between the two principal forms of government consists in this
that the republic is, or at least tends to be, the government
of reason ; while monarchy is founded on the higher principles
of faith and love. But the distinction lies rather in the ruling
spirit, the moral principle which animates these two govern-
ments, than in their mere outward form. Republics which are
founded on ancient laws and customs, on hereditary rites, and
usages, on faith in the sanctity of hereditary right, on attach-
ment to ancestral manners (as was undoubtedly the case with
the Greelc republics in the early ages of their history), such
States, so far from being opposed to the true spirit of monarchy,
* In the German, Vernunfl-st tat, the government of reason.
248 PHILOSOPHY OP
are, to all essential purposes, of a kindred nature with it. Such r
too, are those happy republics which, content with the narrow
limits of their power and existence, at peace with other states,.
devoid of ambition, firmly wedded to their ancient rites and
customs, figure but little on the arena of history, and occupy
but small space in the columns of the gazetteer. In a mo-
narchy, attachment to the hereditary sovereign and to the royal
dynasty is the corner-stone and the firmest pillar of the state
whole provinces may be conquered, and important battles may be
lost ; but while this foundation of love remains unshaken while
this principle is in active operation, the edifice of the state will
stand unmoved.
The next foundation of monarchy is faith in ancient rights
in the heritage of ancestral customs and privileges, according
to the several relations of the different classes of the state ; and
we should beware, in a monarchical government, not to touch or
violate with an incautious hand, or change without necessity,
hereditary rights and usages which time has consecrated, for
such heedless changes shake the very foundations of the social
edifice. When a monarchy is founded on a written contract
(whether it be intended as a sort of treaty of peace, with some
party aspiring to dominion in the state, or be only the suc-
cessful experiment of some scientific theory of political ration-
alism), such a government, though it may preserve the outward
form, has ceased, in all essential points, to be a monarchy ac-
cording to the old acceptation of the term. An absolute go-
vernment, whatever shape it may assume, whether it take the
form of republicanism, and adopt the rationalist principles of
freedom and equality principles which in the nature of things,
and according to the very constitution of human reason, are
almost ever inseparable from a spirit of progressive encroach-
ment in foreign policy (as is sufficiently proved by the inordinate
ambition, the insatiable thirst of power which distinguished the
great republics of antiquity, in proportion as they became more
democratic, and more a prey to anarchy), or whether the abso-
lute government assume the lawless and illegitimate sway of a
military despotism such a government may indeed be esta-
blished in a sort of equipoise, circumscribed within tolerably rea-
sonable limits, and preserved at least in its physical existence
by means of such a written compact as we have spoken of above*
HISTORY. 249
But the old Christian state the state which is founded in faith
and love can be renovated and re-established, not by the mere
dead letter of any theory, though it should contain nothing but
the pure dogmatic truth but by faith by love by the re-
ligious energy of all the great fundamental principles of moral
life.
END OF LECTURE YIII.
250 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE IX.
Character of the Romans Sketch of their Conquests On strict Law,
and the Law of Equity in its application to History, and according
to the Idea of Divine Justice Commencement of the Christian Dis-
pensation.
INSTEAD of that astonishing variety in the states, the races, the
political constitutions, the manners, styles of art, and modes of
intellectual cultivation, which divided from its very origin the
social existence of Greece a division which gave a more rich
and diversified aspect to Greek civilisation the ancient history
of Italy shows us ; on the contrary, how every thing merged
more and more in the one, eternal, imperishable, ever-prospe-
rous, ever-progressive, and at last all-devouring, city Rome.
The first ages, indeed, of Italy the primitive nations that
settled that country such as the Pelasgi, whose early historical
existence is attested by those Cyclopean, or more properly,
Pelasgic walls and constructions still extant there the Etruscans
(according to some authors, descended from the more northern
race of Rhcetians), from whom the Romans borrowed so many
of their idolatrous rites and customs the Sabines and Samnites,
the Latins and the Trojans lastly, the Celts in northern,
and the Greeks in southern, Italy all in their several rela-
tions to one another, and in the various commixture of their
origin and progress, open a wide field of intricate investiga-
tion and perplexing research to the historical inquirer. But
from the general point of view taken in universal history,
all this antiquarian learning soon falls into the background,
in the presence of that great central city which quickly absorbs
into itself all the ancient states of Italy, and Italy itself,
and which, though originally composed of many heterogeneous
elements Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan still was very early
moulded into an unity of character and whose ulterior growth
and progress, slow indeed at first, but soon as fearfully rapid as
HISTORY. 251
it was immeasurably great, principally attracts the notice of the
historical observer. In the later, and still more in the early,
ages of Rome, the national idolatry was less poetically wrought
and adorned than that of the Greeks it was altogether much
simpler, ruder, and more serious than the latter. Even the
word religio, to take it in its first signification as a second tie,
corresponds to a far more definite and serious object than can be
found in the gay mythology of the popular religion of the
Greeks. Idolatrous rites were closely interwoven into the whole
life of the ancient Romans. As the twins of Mars, Romulus
and Remus, who were suckled by the she-wolf, were called the
founders of the city ; so Mars himself was honoured by the
Romans as their real progenitor, and principal national divinity
particularly under the name of Gradivus, that is to say, the
swift for battle, or the strider of the earth. The sacred shields
of brass which, on certain appointed festivals, were borne in the
military dances, the Palladium, the sceptre of the venerable
Priam, formed, together with similar relics of antiquity, the
seven holy pledges of the eternal duration and ever-flourishing
increase of the seven-hilled city, which was honoured under
three different names ; one whereof was ever kept secret, while
the other two referred to its blooming strength and ever-en-
during power. The ancient cities of the Greeks, those of the
Italian nations, whether akin to them, or otherwise, possessed,
indeed, their tutelary deities, their particular sanctuaries, their
highly revered Palladium, some ancient oracles, and certain
religious rites and festivals consecrated to their honour. But
it would not be easy to find another example where the tra-
ditionary reverence, we might almost say, the old hereditary
deification of the city, had, from the earliest period, taken
such deep root in the minds of men ; and where such a formal
worship was so intimately interwoven with manners, customs,,
and even maxims of state, as among the Romans. And when
an universal monarchy had sprung out from this single city, it
was still that city it was still eternal Rome that was ever re-
garded, not merely as the centre, but as the essence of the
whole the personified conception of the state the grand idea
of the empire . The early traditions of the Romans which, though
from the commencement of the city they assume the garb of
authentic history (as in the pages of Livy for instance), yet are
for a long time to be regarded mostly as . mere traditions,
252 PHILOSOPHY OF ,
evince a fact well entitled to our consideration, as it serves to
show how that strong, inflexible, but harsh, Roman character,
such as the later records of history display, manifested itself even
in the earliest infancy of this people ; it is this, that among*
no other nation, did historical recollections even of the remotest
antiquity exert such a powerful influence on life, or strike so
deep a root in the minds of men. Nearly five hundred years-
had elapsed since the time of the elder Brutus, when, in the
Roman world now so mightily changed, a citizen appealed to the
second Brutus in these words " Brutus, thou sleepest" -as if to
urge him to that deed which the first had perpetrated on the proud
Tarquin, and by which that celebrated name had become iden-
tified with the idea of a ^old deliverer. An ardent hatred
towards all kings, and towards royalty itself, which from that
period remained ever deeply fixed in the Roman mind, charac-
terised this people even in the most ancient period of their his-
tory. Not only in the remarks and reflections of the later
Roman historians on the first ages of Rome, but in facts them-
selves, as in the case of Spurius Cassius, we may trace the
natural concomitant of this hatred a passionate jealousy of all
powerful party-chiefs, and democratic leaders, who were perhaps
suspected, or probably convicted, of aspiring to supreme power
in the state, and aiming at the establishment of tyranny as if the
Romans even then had a clear presentiment of the inevitable fate
that awaited an empire like theirs, and of the quarter whence their
ruin would proceed. Even in the first ages, the Patricians and
Plebeians appear on the historical arena, not only as separate
classes, such as existed in almost all ancient states, and between
whom no matrimonial ties could be formed originally at Rome ;
but as political parties, in a state of mutual hostility, each of
which strove to obtain the ascendency in the forum and in the
state.
The old Romans of these early times were strangers to those
various systems of legislation, those rhetorical treatises of juris-
prudence, conceived mostly on democratic principles, or to those
opposite political theories composed in an aristocratic spirit,
which the Greeks then possessed in such abundance. On the
contrary, the Romans manifested even then, in the primitive
period of their existence, a deep, perspicacious, practical sense,
and a mighty political instinct, which showed itself in their first
institutions of state. Even in the first idea of the Tribunate
HISTORY. 253
as a regular mode of popular representation, an element of
opposition introduced into the very constitution of the state
there was contained the germ of that mighty political power
and action, which afterwards a man of energetic character, like
Tiberius Gracchus, knew how to exert. This power, had it been
kept within due limits, might have proved most beneficial to the
community ; and a single man, endowed with such a character,
and animated by the same spirit of a true patriotic opposition,
has often accomplished more at Rome, than whole parliaments in
modern free states. The authority of the Censor, negative and
restrictive in itself, but still not merely judicial and which
over the conduct of persons was very extensive the excep-
tional institution of the Dictatorship, in the early ages of Rome
by no means so dangerous were so many just, and practical
political discoveries of the Romans, which evince their states-
man-like genius, and which even in later times, among other
nations, and under various forms, have served as real and effec-
tual elements in the constitution of states.
The interest of those two parties the Plebeians and the
Patricians concurred fully but in one point the desire which
tooth had of constantly invading the neighbouring nations, and
obtaining landed possessions for themselves in the conquests
they made for the state. The Plebeians ever and again cherished
the hope of being able to obtain for their profit, and that of
the poorer citizens, a sort of distribution of the state-lands won
in war. But as the Patricians were mostly invested with all
the high offices and dignities in war as well as peace, they knew
how to turn all the opportunities of conquest to their best
advantage, however much they might on particular occasions
postpone their private interests as individuals to the general
interests of the state. Although, so long as their ancient prin-
ciples remained unchanged, the Romans were distinguished for
the utmost disinterestedness in regard to their country, and
for great simplicity of manners, and even frugality in private
life, they were in all their foreign enterprises, even in the
earliest times, exceedingly covetous of gain, or rather of land ;
for it was in land, and the produce of the soil, that their prin-
cipal, and almost only wealth consisted. The old Romans were
a thoroughly agricultural people ; and it was only at a later
period that commerce, trades and arts were introduced among
them, and even then they occupied but a subordinate place.
254 PHILOSOPHY OF
Agriculture was even highly honoured by the Romans; and
while almost all the celebrated, and, in general, most of the
proper, names among the Greeks were derived from gods and
heroes, and had a poetical lustre, and glorious significancy, it
is a circumstance characteristic of the Romans, that the names
of many of their most distinguished families, such as Fabius,
Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, and many others, were taken from agri-
culture and from vegetables ; while others again, as Secundus,
Quintus, Septimus, and Octavius, are tolerably prosaic, and are
derived from the numbers of the old popular reckoning. The
science of agriculture forms one of the few subjects on which
the Romans produced writers truly original. That of juris-
prudence, in which they were most at home, which they culti-
vated with peculiar care, and which they very considerably
enlarged, had its foundation in the written laws of the primi-
tive period of their history; and in their elder jurisprudence,
the Agrarian system very evidently prevails. As a robust,
agricultural people, they were eminently fitted for military ser-
vice ; and in practised vigour, and constancy under every pri-
vation, the Roman infantry, with the vigorous masses of its
legion, surpassed all military bodies that have ever been or-
The Roman state from its origin, and according to its first
constitution, was nothing else than a well-organised school of
war, a permanent establishment for conquest. Among other
nations, as among the Persians and Greeks, the desire of mili-
tary glory and the lust of conquest was only a temporary en-
thusiasm, called forth by some special cause, or some mighty
motive a sudden sally the thought of a moment. Among
the Romans it is precisely the systematically slow and progres-
sive march of their first conquests, their inflexible perseverance,
their unremitting activity, the vigilant use of every advan-
tageous opportunity, which strike the observer, and explain the
cause of their mighty success in after-times. That unshaken
constancy under misfortune, which ever characterised the Ro-
mans, they displayed even at this early period, during the con-
quest of their city by the Gauls ; though this misfortune, like
that people itself, was but a transient calamity. In general,
the Romans never evinced greater energy than when they were
overcome, or when they met with an unexpected resistance.
Sometimes, in a moment of extreme urgency, their generals,
HISTORY. 255
like the Consul Decius Mus, taking a chosen body of troops,
invoked the national gods, devoted themselves to death, and
rushed on the superior forces of the enemy, whereby, though
they fell the victims of their zeal, they saved the army from the
menaced ignominy of defeat, and achieved a signal victory.
With such a character, such unshaken fortitude and perse-
verance under misfortune, we can well conceive that in a state
so constituted like theirs, the Romans, by their indefatigable
activity in war, should in no very great space of time have con-
quered and subdued all the surrounding nations and states of
Italy. It was thus they successively overcame the kindred and
confederated tribes of Latium, and the rude Sabines; that,
after a long and obstinate siege of the Tuscan city of Veii,
they became masters of the Etrurian league, lords of the beau-
tiful Campania, and vanquished the warlike Samnites on the
Apennine range, and on the coast of the Adriatic. They now
cast their eyes on the rich provinces of Magna Graecia. In the
war against Tarentum, which was in alliance with Pyrrhus,.
King of Epirus, they came for the first time in contact with
the great extra- Italic Greek powers, and had to encounter, in
the ranks of the enemy, the unwonted spectacle of war- ele-
phants, which were there employed according to the Asiatic
custom. After the loss of the first battles, they were victo-
rious; and they now added Apulia and Calabria to their con-
quests. Each step in the career of victory drew after it new
embarrassments, new occasions, and new matter for future
wars. The inhabitants of Syracuse, who had been for some
time governed by tyrants, formed, on the retreat of Pyrrhus,
an alliance with the Carthaginians, then masters of half of
Sicily, and sought their protection against the Romans, who
were confederated with their enemies, another party in the
island. This brought on the first Punic war with that republic,
then mistress of the sea. In this warfare against Pyrrhus and
the Carthaginians, the Romans, who had been hitherto con-
fined within the secluded circle of the petty states of Italy,
appeared for the first time on the great historical theatre of the
then political world. In that age which was immediately sub-
sequent to the time of Alexander the Great, the different Ma-
cedonian and other Greek powers of importance formed, toge-
ther with Egypt and Carthage, a variously connected system
of states, in one respect not unlike the political system of mo-
256 PHILOSOPHY O?
dern Europe, at the end of the seventeenth and during the
greater part of the eighteenth century. For, according to
& principle of the balance of power, each state sought to
strengthen itself by alliances, and to repress an overwhelming
ascendency, without on that account at all relaxing its efforts
for its own aggrandisement. That on one hand, the fluc-
tuating condition and internal troubles of those countries, and
on the other, the fresh youthful vigour, the steady perseverance
and constancy of the Roman people, would soon put an end to
this system of equilibrium, to these political oscillations be-
tween the different states, and bring about the complete tri-
umph and decided ascendancy of the Romans, might, indeed,
have been easily foreseen, and was in the very nature of things.
After the first Punic war, the Romans to the conquest of Sicily
added that of Corsica and Sardinia; and they next subdued
the Cisalpine Gauls in the North of Italy. When even Han-
nibal, the most formidable enemy the Roman republic ever had
to encounter, and the one who had the most deeply studied its
true character, and the danger threatening the world from that
-quarter ; when even he, after the many great victories which,
in a long series of years, he had obtained over the Romans, in.
the second Punic war; though he shook the power, was unable
to break the spirit of this people ; when this was the case, one
might regard the great political question of the then civilised
world as settled ; and it could no longer be a matter of doubt
that that city, justly denominated Strength, and which, even
from of old had been the idol of her sons (who accounted every
thing as nought in comparison with her interests) ; that that
city, I say, was destined to conquer the world, and establish an
empire, the like whereof had never yet been founded by pre-
ceding conquerors. The second Punic war terminated under
the elder Scipio before the walls of Carthage, and it completed the
destruction of that rival of Rome, at least as a political power.
The princes and states that, while it was yet time, should have
formed a firm and steadfast league against the common foe, fell
now separately under the sword of the victors, and the yoke of
conquest. In the further progress of their triumphs, the con-
querors knew to assume a certain character of generosity, and
give a certain colour of magnanimity to their acts, in the eyes
of a gazing and terrified world. Thus, for instance, after the
defeat of Philip, King of Macedon, they declared to deluded
HISTORY. 257
Greece that she was free; and again, Antiochus the Great,
whose arrogance had given offence to many, and whose over-
throw was, in consequence, the subject of very general joy,
was compelled to cede the Lesser Asia as far as Mount Taurus;
and the victors gave away the conquered provinces and king-
doms to the princes in their alliance, and affected not to have
the intention of subduing and keeping all for themselves. For
it was yet much too soon to let the unconquered states and
nations perceive that all, without distinction, were destined,
one after the other, to become the provinces of the all-absorb-
ing empire of Rome. Thus now overpassing the limits of
Greece, the Romans had obtained a firm footing in Asia; and
this first step was soon enough to be succeeded by other and
still further advances. Historians have often remarked the de-
cisive moment when Caesar, after an instant's reflection and
delay, crossed the Rubicon; but we may ask now, when Rome
herself had passed her Rubicon, where was that historical limit
that last boundary-line of ambition, after passing which no
return, no halt was possible ; if now, when all right, all jus-
tice, every human term and limit to ambition were lost sight
of, if now idolised Rome, in the fulness of her pagan pride,
and in her rapid career of destruction, marching fro*m one
crime against the world to another, and descending deeper and
deeper into the abyss of interminable foreign and domestic
bloodshed, was, from the summit of her triumphs, to sink be-
yond redemption, down to Caligula and Nero? We might
point out, as an instance of this ever-growing and reckless ar-
rogance, the moment when the last King of Macedon,* not
more than a century and a half from the death of Alexander
the Great, was led in triumph into the city of the conquerors,
a captive and in chains, to sate the eyes of the Roman popu-
lace. It entered into the high designs of Providence in the
government of the world, during this middle and second period
of universal history, that each of the conquering nations should
receive its full measure of justice from another worse than
itself, emerging suddenly from obscurity, and chosen as the
instrument of its annihilation or subjection. But a still more
decisive example of the spirit of Roman conquests was the cruel
destruction of Carthage in the third Punic war, begun without
* Perseus.
258 PHILOSOPHY OF
any assignable motive, and from pure caprice. In this case no
other resistance could be expected than the resistance of despair,
which here, indeed, showed itself in all its energy. For seven-
teen days the city was in flames, and the numbers that were
exterminated amounted to 700,000 souls, including the women
and children sold into slavery; so that this scene of horror
served as an early prelude to the later destruction of Jerusalem.
The wiser and more lenient Scipios had been against this war
of extermination, and had had to contend with the self-willed
rancour of the elder Cato; yet a Scipio conducted this war,
and was the last conqueror over the ashes of Carthage. And
this was a man universally accounted to be of a mild cha-
racter and generous nature; and such he really was in other
respects, and in private life. But this reputation must be ap-
parently estimated by the Roman standard; for, whenever
Roman interests were at stake, all mankind, and the lives of
nations, were considered as of no importance. Besides, it is
really not in the power of a general to do away with the cruelty
of any received system of warfare.
The example of the first great re-action of nations, too late
aroused, was set by Greece in the war of the Achaian league,
It terminated like all the preceding wars ; Corinth was con-
sumed, and its destruction involved that of an infinite number
of noble and beautiful works of art, belonging to the better
ages of Greece. Among the nations of the north and west
that lived under a yet free and natural form of government, the
Spanish distinguished themselves by a peculiar obstinacy of
resistance. Scipio was unable to conquer Numantia; the
people who defended their liberty behind this rampart, set fire
to the city, and the remaining defenders devoted themselves to
a voluntary death. In the public triumph which the Romans
celebrated on this occasion, they were able to exhibit only a few
brave Lusitanians of a gigantic size. Now commenced the
civil wars : the first was occasioned by Tiberius Gracchus, then
leader of the popular party at Rome. To undertake the
complete justification of any one of the leading men in the
Roman parties, would be an arduous, not to say impracticable
task ; yet we may positively assert of the elder Gracchus, that
he was the best man of his party ; as the same observation will
apply to the Scipios in the opposite party of the Patricians.
The proposal of Gracchus was this that the rights of Roman
HISTORY. 259
citizens should be extended to the rest of Italy. It was in the
very nature of things that such a change, or at least one very
similar, should now take place, as in fact it did somewhat later;
for after the conquest of so many provinces, the disproportion
between the one all-ruling city, and the vast regions which it
had subdued, was much too great to continue long. The armed
insurrection of all the Italian nations that occurred soon after,
sufficiently proves of what vital importance this measure was
considered. But the pride of the ruling Patricians was
extremely offended at this claim they regarded it as an
attempt to subvert the ancient constitution of the country and,
in the revolt that ensued, Tiberius Gracchus lost his life. From
that time forward the principles apparently contended for on
both sides were mere pretexts whether it were the maintenance
of the law, and of the ancient constitution, as asserted by
the Patricians or the just claims of the people, and the ne-
cessary changes which the altered circumstances of the times
demanded, as alleged by the opposite party. It was now an
open struggle for ascendency between a few factious leaders and
their partisans a civil war carried on between fierce and for-
midable Oligarchs.
The effusion of blood was still greater in the troubles which
the younger Caius Gracchus occasioned, and which had the
same motive and the same object as the preceding commotions,
though conducted with more animosity, and stained by greater
crimes; and in the Patrician party, the noble Scipio, the hero of
the third Punic war, fell a victim of assassination. Murders
and poisoning were now every day more common ; and it
became the practice to carry daggers under the mantle. On
this occasion we may cite an observation, made not by any
father of the church, or any Christian moralist ; but by a cele-
brated German historian, who was in other respects an enthu-
siastic admirer of the republican heroism of the ancients:
" Rome, the mistress of the world," says he, " drunk with the
blood of nations, began now to rage in her entrails." Of
Marius and Sylla, on whom next devolved the conduct of the
Patrician and Plebeian parties in the civil war, now conducted
on a more extended scale, it is difficult to decide which of the
two surpassed the other in cruelty and blood-thirstiness.
Marius was indeed of a ruder and more savage character but
Sylla evinced perhaps a more systematic and relentless ferocity.
s2
260 PHILOSOPHY OF
Both were great generals; and it was only after obtaining'
splendid victories over foreign nations that they could think of
turning their fury against their native city, after having spent
their rage on the rest of mankind. The victories of Marius
had delivered Rome from the mighty danger with which she
had been menaced, by the irruption of the powerful tribes
of the Cimbri and Teutones the first forerunner of the great
northern emigration. Danger served but to arouse the
Roman people to more triumphant exertions; and every effort
of hostile resistance, when once overcome, tended only to
confirm their universal dominion. The greatest and most for-
midable of these efforts of resistance was made by Mithridates r
King of Pontus it began by the murder of eighty thousand
Romans in his dominions, and the simultaneous revolt of all the
Italian nations against the Roman sway. No enemy of the
Romans, since Hannibal, had formed such a deep-laid plan as
Mithridates, whose intention it was to unite in one armed con-
federacy against Rome all the nations of the north, from
the regions of Mount Caucasus, as far as Gaul and the Alps..
By his victories over this enemy, Sylla prepared to return to
Rome, torn and convulsed by civil war; and on his entry into
the city, he treated it with all the infuriated vengeance of
a conqueror, proscribed, gave full loose to slaughter, and perpe-
trated the most execrable atrocities. We may cite as a strange
instance of the still surviving greatness of the Roman character,
the fact, that Sylla, immediately after all this immense blood-
shed, as if every thing had passed in perfect conformity to law
and order, laid down the dictatorship, retired peacefully to his
estate, and tbere prepared to write his own history. In one-
respect, however, he was a flatterer of the multitude he seems
to have thoroughly understood the Roman people, for he was
the first to introduce the games of the circus, those bloody
combats of animals, those cruel gladiatorial fights, which after-
wards, under the emperors, became, like bread, one of the most
indispensable necessaries to the Roman people, and one of the
most important objects of concern to its rulers. For these
games, where the Roman eye delighted to contemplate men
devoted to certain death contend and wrestle with the most
savage animals, Pompey on one occasion introduced six
hundred lions on the arena, and Augustus, four hundred
panthers. Thus did a thirst for blood, after having been long
HISTORY. 261
the predominant passion of the party-leaders of this all-
ruling people, become an actual craving a festive entertain-
ment for the multitude. And yet the Romans of this age,
when we consider their conduct in war in the battles and
victories they won, or the strength of character they evinced,
whether on the tented field, or on the arena of political
contests, displayed an admirable, we might sometimes say
a super-human, energy; so that we are often at a loss how to
reconcile our admiration with the detestation which their
actions unavoidably inspire. It was as if the iron-footed god
of war, Gradivus, so highly revered from of old by the people
of Romulus, actually bestrode the globe, and at every step
struck out new torrents of blood; or as if the dark Pluto
had emerged from the abyss of eternal night, escorted by all the
vengeful spirits of the lower world, by all the Furies of passion
and insatiable cupidity, by the blood-thirsty demons of murder,
to establish his visible empire, and erect his throne for ever on
the earth. There can be no doubt that if the Roman history
were divested of its accustomed rhetoric, of all the patriotic
maxims and trite sayings of politicians, and were presented
with strict and minute accuracy in all its living reality, every
humane mind would be deeply shocked at such a picture of
tragic truth, and penetrated with the profoundest detestation and
horror. The licentiousness of Roman manners, too, was really
gigantic; so that the moral corruption of the Greeks appears in
comparison a mere infant essay in the school of vice.
The civil wars that next foUowed had in all essential points
the same character with the first, though the fearful recollection
which still dwelt in men's minds, of the times of Marius and
Sylla, tended to introduce at first a certain caution in all exter-
nal proceedings ; but in the course of their progress, these wars
resumed the sanguinary character of the earlier civil contests.
The proper circle of the Roman conquests, whose natural cir-
cumference was now marked out by all the countries bordering
on the Mediterranean, was in the second period of the civil wars
pretty well filled up by Caesar and Pompey by Pompey on the
side of Asia, and by Caesar on the side of the incomparably
more formidable and more warlike nations of the north-western
frontier. The conquest of Gaul was achieved by an uncommon
effusion of human blood, even according to a Roman estimation ;
and in the fifty battles related by Caesar to have been fought ia
262 PHILOSOPHY OF
the Gallic war, in the complete subjugation of Spain, in the
first wars on the Germanic frontiers and in Britain, as well as
in the north of Africa against Juba, and against the son of
Mithridates, the number of men left on the field is computed at
twelve hundred thousand ; and it is to be observed that as Cresar
is his own historian, these estimates have in part been given by
himself. Yet he was praised for the goodness and mildness of his
character ; but this praise must be measured by the Roman
standard, and it is so far true that Csesar was by no means vin-
dictive, nor in general subject to passion, nor cruel without a
motive. But, whenever his interest required it, he was careless
what blood he spilled. The war between Csesar and Pompey
extended over all the provinces and regions of the Roman world ;
but, when conqueror, Csesar formed and followed up the plan
of completing and consolidating his victory by a system of lenity
and conciliation. With all his indefatigable activity and con-
summate wisdom, with all the equanimity, prudence, and energy
of his character, he appears to have been still weak enough to
imagine that the laurels he had acquired, in a way unequalled
by any, were insufficient without the diadem at least he gave
occasion for such a suspicion. And so the second Brutus perpe-
trated on his person the act, for which the elder had been so
highly commended by all Roman historians. To relate the
subsequent civil war of Brutus and Cassius, the reconciliation
between Antony and Octavius, which involved the death of
Cicero, the new rupture and war between the latter rivals, would
serve only to swell this account of Rome and her destinies.
These contests terminated in the establishment of monarchy,
when the bloody proscriptions and civil wars of preceding times
were forgotten, and Octavius, under the name of Augustus,
appeared as the restorer of general peace, and the first absolute
monarch of the Roman world ; a monarch whose long reign
was on the whole very happy, when compared with previous
times, and who during his life was half-deified by his subjects.
Unlimited power was still clothed and half veiled in the old re-
publican forms and expressions ; and the recollection of Caesar's
i'ate was too present to the mind of the cautious Augustus, for him
ever to neglect those forms and usages. It would really appear
as if the world were destined to breath for a time in peace, and
to repose awhile from those earlier wars, before another and a
higher peace descended, and became visible on the earth and
HISTORY. 263
along with that other, higher and divine peace, a new and spiritual
combat, waged not with the warlike parties of old, nor even
with external and earthly power, but with the secret and inter-
nal cause of all those agitations, and all that injustice in the
world.
A golden age of literature and poetry served now to adorn
the general peace, which the mighty Augustus had conferred on
the conquered world. This poetry was, however, but a late
harvest which flourished towards the autumn of declining pagan-
ism. Plautus and Terence we can regard merely as tolerably
successful imitators of the Greeks. The beautiful diction and
poetry of Virgil and Horace are in a general survey of literature
chiefly valuable, inasmuch as they gave a noble refinement to a
language which, in modem ages, and even still among ourselves,
has been universally current ; but all this poetry, including that,
which the richer, more copious, and more inventive fancy of
Ovid produced, can be considered by posterity as only a very
thin gleaning after the full bloom and rich harvest of Grecian
poetry and art. The real poetry of the Roman people lay
elsewhere than in those artificial compositions of Greek scholars.
It must be sought for in the festive games of the circus, which
the prudent Augustus never neglected in those theatrical com-
bats, where the gladiator, wrestling with death, knew how to
fall and die with dignity, when he wished to obtain the plaudits
of the multitude in that circus, in fine, which so often after-
wards resounded with the cry of an infuriated populace : " Chris-
tianos ad leones!" " the Christians to the lions, the Christians to
the lions!"
In the department of history, the case was very different from
what it was in poetry. There the strong practical sense of the
Romans, their profound political sagacity, the far wider circle of
their political relations, gave them a decided advantage over the
Greeks, who can show no historian possessed of the simple
grandeur of Caesar; a style as rapid, and as straightforward,
as the exploits of Caesar himself; or distinguished, like Tacitus,
by that deep insight into the abyss of human corruption ; while
to Livy must be assigned a place by the side at least of the most
illustrious Greeks. Among the Romans, political eloquence
and philosophy, by that union of the two, such as prevails in
Cicero's writings, as well as by the greater magnitude and prac-
tical importance of the subjects which both found for discussion,
264 PHILOSOPHY OF
possess a peculiar charm and value. At this period, the study
of Greek philosophy was regarded and prosecuted by the Romans
merely as an useful auxiliary to eloquence ; and in the general
depravity of morals, and amid the utter indifference for public
misery and universal bloodshed, the philosophy of Epicurus
naturally found the most admirers. It was only at a later
period, when, under the better emperors, some men had under-
taken the task of the moral regeneration of the Roman people
and the Roman state, that those who entertained this great
design sought for the last plank of national safety in the stoical
philosophy, which harmonised so well with the austere gravity
of the Roman character. Then this philosophy obtained nume-
rous followers among the Romans, as in earlier times it had
found favour with many of them, especially among the Jurists.
In the whole circle of human sciences, jurisprudence is that
department of intellect, in which the Romans have thought with
the most originality, and have exerted the greatest influence ;
and which, by means of their writers, has obtained at once a
very great degree of refinement, and a very wide diffusion.
Caesar had formed the project of a general digest of Roman laws;
but this great design, like so many others he had entertained,
was left unexecuted ; and the age of Augustus at least was dis-
tinguished by two great lawyers of opposite schools. It is by
the scientific jurisprudence which they have bequeathed to pos-
terity, more than by any thing else, that the Romans have ex-
erted a mighty influence on after-ages. It must strike us at
first sight as singular that a nation which, in its external rela-
tions, had risen to greatness, and indeed had founded its great-
ness, on so fearful an access of injustice, should have risen to
such eminence in the science of jurisprudence, as the Romans
undoubtedly have. But the injustice of their conduct towards
other states and nations this people well knew how to conceal
under legal forms, and establish on legal titles ; and it often
happened that, by the inconsistent conduct of other nations,
they were able to give a colouring of equity to their acts, and
show on their side the strict letter of law.
In the next place, the Roman jurisprudence regarded more
immediately the relations of private life, and all the artificial
forms of civil law ; and we can well conceive that a people like
the Romans, distinguished for so sound a judgment and such
strong practical sense, and whose minds were so exclusively bent
HISTORY. 265
on civil life, and its various relations, should have attained such
distinction in the science of civil jurisprudence, notwithstanding
the enormous iniquity of their conduct in the wider historical
department of internatioual law ; and here we may find an ex-
planation of that apparent contradiction between law and injus-
tice, such as we find frequent examples of in human nature and
in the records of history.
There is also another element of contradiction in the Roman
law, considered both in itself, and in its relation to other codes
a contradiction which strongly pervaded the whole theory of
that legislation, and may furnish us with a clue to a right
judgment on the Roman jurisprudence, and on the influence it
has exercised on posterity. This is the distinction between
strict or absolute law, and the law of equity, that is to say, the
law qualified by historical circumstances. In the Germanic
law, as it is a law of custom and ancient usage, a law qualified
by times and circumstances, the principle of equity is more
predominant; and we have, indeed, reason to regret that this
native and original legislation of the modern European nations
should, by the prevailing influence of the more scientific juris-
prudence of ancient Rome, have been cast into the background,
in proportion as those nations began to mistake the true cha-
racter of their historical antiquity. The Roman jurisprudence,
as it deals in rigid formulas, and adheres to the strict letter,
inclines more towards rigid and absolute law; and its spirit
has something akin to the stern international policy of the
ancient Romans. But is this strict and absolute law a fit cri-
terion to apply to earthly concerns, can it be a true standard
of human justice, in its more large and general applications to
the great transactions of universal history, and in its relations
to divine justice ? Every thing absolute (and such undoubtedly
is strict law, in the relations of private, and still more in those
of public life), every thing absolute is sure to provoke its con-
trary, and if continued, will occasion successive reactions, that
can terminate only in the mutual destruction of conflicting
parties the inevitable result of all contests carried to extreme
lengths unless some higher principle of peace intervene to
compose and determine them by a divine law of equity.
But if this conciliating principle do not pronounce its sen-
tence, or if it be not attended to, extreme injustice only can
spring from this rigid and inflexible application of extreme law ;
266 PHILOSOPHY OF
and this is quite in the spirit of the old saying of the Jurists,
which we must here apply in a more general sense, in order to
estimate with truth and accuracy the nature of the contests
which divide the world. " Let justice be done," they say (and
the word is here used in the juridical sense of strict and abso-
lute law), "let justice be done, though the world should be
ruined." And we may well say in reply : Woe to mankind,
woe to every individual, woe to the world, were they doomed
to be finally judged according to this rigid justice, and this
rigid justice only, by Him who alone has the power and the
right to dispense such severe justice unto men, and judge them
by its rules. But since such full and inexorable justice belongs
to God only, who is incapable of error ; and since all human
justice is but the temporary delegate of the divine ; it should
necessarily be mild, indulgent, qualified by circumstances ; and
should on the principle of equity be as lenient as possible, and
be ever mindful of its due limits. And this principle is appli-
cable to the most important as well as the most insignificant
relations of life, and is so thoroughly connected with them all
that, according as we adopt the one or the other principle of
strict and absolute law, or of mild equity, the whole of our
conduct, opinions, and views of the world must differ. The
power of the state is only a temporary and delegated power,
destined to accomplish the ends of divine justice ; and this
dignity, indeed, is sufficiently exalted, and the responsibility
attached to it sufficiently great; but this supreme human jus-
tice, unless it disregard its own limits, as well as those of
mankind, is not divine justice, nor the immediate authority of
God, nor God himself.
The old hereditary vice and fundamental error of the Roman
government, and, indeed, of the Roman people, was that po-
litical idolatry of the state, to which the false theory of strict
and absolute law was of itself calculated to lead. Although
the absolute power of Augustus was still somewhat veiled under
the old forms of the republic, yet even in his reign commenced
the formal deification of the person of the prince, and, under
the succeeding emperors, it exceeded all bounds, and descended
to the basest forms of adulation. And even if this idolatry had
been paid, not so exclusively to the person of an Augustus or a
Tiberius, as to the idea of the state identified with that person;
and if thus the real object of that pagan worship had been in
HISTORY. 267
the latest, as in the earliest times, Rome, the eternally pro-
sperous, the everlastingly powerful, the world-destroying, and
people -devouring Rome, to which every thing must fall a sacri-
fice; still it was not the less a thorough political idolatry.
And as a sensual worship of nature eminently characterised
the poetical religion of the Greeks as the abusive rites of
magic were peculiar to the false mysteries of Egypt so this
third and greatest aberration of paganism political idolatry in
its most frightful shape, formed the distinguishing character
and leading principle of the Roman state, from the earliest to
the latest period of its history.
Under Augustus, the Roman empire was well-nigh rounded
off in extent, since the geographical situation, as we before
observed, of all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean ?
might be considered a sufficiently wide natural frontier. The
countries on the coast of Africa were protected by the contiguous
deserts; on the northern side of the empire, which was more
menaced by invasion, the strongly fortified borders of the
Rhine and the Danube formed a secure barrier. Towards the
eastern and Asiatic frontier, the Parthians were indeed a
powerful and formidable enemy; but there was no probability
they would ever seek, as the Persians had once done, to pene-
trate so far beyond their boundaries; while, on the other hand,
the Romans had no real interest in extending their conquests
further into that region, or into the interior parts of central
Asia, as such a policy would only lead them further from the
centre of their empire and their power, now unalterably fixed
in Italy, and the old eternal city. The thoughts and feelings
of all the better Romans were no longer turned on the aggran-
disement of their empire, but solely and exclusively on a great
internal regeneration of public morals, and, as far as was prac-
ticable, of the state itself, according to those ideal conceptions
which they formed of old Rome in her better and more pro-
sperous days. These projects of social regeneration were
nearly in the same spirit and of the same tendency as those
which the better emperors of succeeding ages, a Trajan and a
Marcus Aurelius, actually attempted to accomplish. Others
again were filled with apprehensions for the future ; and well,
indeed, might they entertain the most alarming presentiments;
for when the licentiousness of public morals was growing to a
more and more fearful height, and a succession of indolent
268 PHILOSOPHY OF
emperors was hastening the downfal of the state, the strong
fortifications of the northern frontier could afford little protec-
tion, and the nations of the north must burst in without resist-
ance upon the empire. This event did really occur, though at
a much later period ; but all that was to precede that event
the quarter whence the new principle would rise up in the
world, that was to overcome Rome herself, and regenerate
mankind all this was certainly not anticipated by any Roman
of those times, however generous and exalted might be his sen-
timents, and profound and penetrative his understanding. Nay,
when this phenomenon did actually appear, it was but too evi-
dent that they were at first unable to seize and comprehend its
meaning and purport. And what was, then, that new power
\vhich was to conquer, and did really conquer, the earthly con-
querors of the world? The old universal empire of Persia, and
the subsequent one of Macedon, had long since passed away,
and disappeared from the face of the earth. The oppressive
military despotism of Rome had to fear no rival that would at
all equal her in power. The influence of the Greek philosophy,
which had previously sunk into great degeneracy, was com-
pletely debased under the yoke of Roman domination, and'
barely sufficed to adorn and dignify the Roman sway, still
less to work a fundamental change and reform in the Roman
government.
It was the divine power of love, tried in sufferings, and sacri-
ficing to high love itself, not only life, but every earthly desire;
and from which proceeded the new words of a new life, a new
light and moral and divine science, that was to unfold new
views of the world, introduce a new organisation of society,
and give a new form to human existence. And such was that
primitive energy of Christian love, which displayed itself in the
internal harmony and close union of the Christian church; in
the rapid diffusion of its doctrines through all the countries and
among all the nations of the then known world; in its courageous
resistance to all the assaults of persecution; in the careful pre-
servation of its purity from all alloy and corruption; in its firmer
consolidation and more manifold development in words, and
works, and deeds ; in writings and in life; that not many genera-
tions, and but a few centuries, had passed away, before Christianity
became a ruling power in the world an indirect and spiritual
power, indeed, but more than any other active and influential.
HISTORY. 269
A passage on Elias in the Old Testament, which we have
already had occasion to cite, may be applied to the imperceptible
beginnings of this great moral revolution, produced in the
world by a new effort of God's power. When the prophet,,
from the bottom of his soul, had sighed after death, and had
journeyed for the space of forty days towards the holy moun-
tain of Horeb, the splendour and omnipotence of the Deity
were revealed to him, and passed before his mortal eyes,
There came a great and strong wind, which overthrew the
mountains and split the rocks; but, as the Scripture saith, God
was not in the wind. There came afterwards a violent earth-
quake with fire but God was neither in the earthquake, nor
in the fire. Now there arose the soft breath and gentle
whistling of a tender air : in this, Elias recognised the imme-
diate presence of his God, and in awe and reverence he veiled
his face. Such was the origin of Christianity, as compared with
the all-subduing and world-convulsing sway of the conquering 1
nations of preceding ages.
In the last years of Augustus, the first deified emperor,
occurs the birth of our Saviour; in the time of Tiberius, the
foundation of the Christian religion ; and in the reign of Nero,
the first perfectly authentic record of that great event in the
Roman History. There is, indeed, an account which says
that, previously, Tiberius, on the report of the Roman go-
vernor, Pontius Pilate, had received information of the new
religion, and had made a formal proposal to the senate to place
Christ among the gods, according to the Roman custom, and
to declare him worthy of divine honours. It is true, indeed,
that the single testimony of Tertullian, on which this account
rests, is not of such weight and historical importance as not to
be obnoxious to many serious doubts, which perhaps, however,
have been carried somewhat too far. It still remains a clear
historical testimony on a matter of fact; and as long as this is
susceptible of a natural explanation, it argues a perverse spirit
of historical criticism, or rather a total absence of all criticism,
to be ever suspecting fabrications and supposititious writings.
That an account of this great event might, nay, must almost
necessarily, have been transmitted to Rome by the Roman
procurator of the province of Judea, is proved by the narrative
of Tacitus, who connects the name of this governor with the
first mention of the Christians. Such an account may have
270 PHILOSOPHY OF
been easily sent even by the Roman captains, who were in
Palestine, and one of whom we know, as an eye-witness, gave
such a memorable testimony in favour of the Son of God, who
had died upon the cross ; for, according to the general tradi-
tion of the church, this man afterwards became a Christian.
There is, again, in the character of Tiberius, nothing at all at
variance with this account; for, however dark, and mistrustful,
and cruel, and corrupt might be the character of that emperor,
we cannot deny he was possessed of a powerful and pro-
found understanding. He was by no means unsusceptible of
religious impressions, nor indifferent on matters of religion;
but he followed therein his own peculiar views and opinions;
and hence it is quite natural that his attention should be easily
drawn to any extraordinary religious event. He detested, and
even persecuted, the Egyptian idolatry and the Jewish worship,
and ordered that the sacerdotal robes and sacred vessels of their
priests should be burned. He had a strong faith in destiny,
was somewhat addicted to astrology, and dreaded signs in the
heavens. If his hostility towards the Jews, and his persecution
of that nation, be alleged as an objection to the truth of this
narrative (as if it were absolutely necessary that he should have
confounded the Christians with the Jews), we may reply that
this is a purely arbitrary hypothesis, and that it is far more
natural to conclude, that when Tiberius had received from
Pilate, or other Roman captains, certain intelligence of the life
and death of our Saviour, he was, no doubt, informed by these
eye-witnesses of the hatred and persecution which our Saviour
had sustained from the Jews. The single fact, indeed, that
Christianity was so much opposed to the pagan worship and the
political idolatry of the Romans as, for instance, to the sacri-
fice before the image of the emperor was in all probability
not stated nor clearly explained in this first account, composed
by persons very little acquainted with the true nature of the new
revelation. Otherwise such an account would have produced on
a man imbued with Roman prejudices, no other impression but
that of aversion and disgust. The idea and proposal itself, of
regarding an extraordinary man, endowed with wonderful and
divine power, as God. and as worthy of divine honours, has
nothing at all improbable in itself, or at all inconsistent with
Roman rites and usages, or with Roman opinions respecting
gods and deified men. The only thing really improbable in
HISTORY. 271
the whole affair is, that the senate at that time should have
dared to oppose and contradict Tiberius in this matter. How-
ever, if the senate, as we may easily imagine, were hostile to
the proposal of Tiberius, it was easy for them to adopt some
evasive form, and indirectly to impede and set aside this mat-
ter, which, as it regarded old national rites, fell entirely within
their jurisdiction. But this circumstance, as we said before, is
the only thing which appears at all exaggerated in this ac-
count. It is easy to understand from this how the proposition
of Tiberius, which was never carried into execution, should
have fallen into complete oblivion, and should never have come
to the knowledge of Tacitus; as we may conclude, from his
account of the Christians, that he would not otherwise have suf-
fered this circumstance to pass unnoticed. Singular and re-
markable as this fact may be, it is of no importance in itself; it
forms only a single incident in the strange and contradictory
impressions which the new religion produced on the minds of
the Romans. A passage of Suetonius, in his history of Clau-
dius, would show that the Christians were confounded with the
Jews; for, speaking of that emperor, he says, "he expelled the
Jews from the capital, for, at the instigation of Chrestus, they
were ever exciting troubles in the state." Chrestus, in the Greek
pronunciation, has the same sound as Christus ; and we may
easily conceive, that what the Christians said of their invisible
Lord and Master, that he interdicted them such and such pagan
rites, may, in a matter so totally strange and unintelligible to
the Romans, have been easily misunderstood, as applying to a
chief and party leader actually in existence. In the same way,
by the troubles spoken of in the passage above-cited, may be
understood the accustomed and just refusal of the Christians to
comply with the illicit demands of the pagans.
A fuller light is thrown on this subject by the narrative of
Tacitus in his history of Nero ; and, however much the Chris-
tian religion may be misrepresented by the Roman historian,
his account has still a character thoroughly historical, and amidst
its very misrepresentations, is perfectly intelligible, if we take
care to distinguish the chief historical traits. When Nero, at
the height of his crimes and presumption, had set Rome on fire
in order to have a lively and dramatic spectacle of the burning
Troy, he afterwards strove to screen himself from the odium of
this misdeed, and to throw the blame entirely upon the Chris-
272 PHILOSOPHY OF
tians, who must have been then tolerably numerous in Rome.
Tacitus thinks they were not the authors of the conflagration
laid to their charge ; and his feelings revolt at the inhuman
cruelties which Nero inflicted upon them ; but, he adds, many
horrible things were said of them, and that it was known in
particular they were animated by sentiments of hatred towards
the whole human race. That we are to understand by this
hatred towards the human race nothing more than that rigid
rejection by the Christians of all the idolatrous rites, maxims,
and doctrines of the heathen world, is perfectly evident of it-
self. Among the horrible things of which the Christians were
accused, we are in all probability to understand the repasts of
Thyestes, for their enemies make use of that very term in their
accusations ; accusations which were received with eager cre-
dulity by a populace that held them in abhorrence. Although
this charge was no doubt afterwards the effect of malicious
calumny and deliberate falsehood, yet it is very possible that a
gross misconception may originally have given rise to it and
that this accusation, egregiously false as it was, proceeded from
an obscure and confused knowledge of the mystery of the holy
sacrifice, and of the reception of the sacrament in that divine
feast of love solemnised in the Christian assemblies.
Even in the official report, which the better and well-meaning
youno-er Pliny transmitted to Trajan in the year 120, while he
was governor of Pontus and Bithynia, we can clearly discern
the embarrassment of the generous Roman, who was at a loss
how to consider the new religion, so perfectly mysterious
and totally inexplicable did it appear to him ; and who in-
consequence was quite undetermined what he was to do, and
how he was to treat the matter. He writes that, according to
the confessions wrung from the Christians by torture, after the
Roman custom, they were found to entertain an excessive,
strange, heterogeneous, and very perverse, faith or superstition ;
but that in other respects they were people of irreproachable
morals, and who, on a certain day of the week, Sunday, assem-
bled in the morning to sing the praises of their God, Christ, and
to engage themselves to the fulfilment of the most important
precepts of virtue, and that they met again in the evening to
enioy a simple and blameless repast. He adds that their num-
bers had already increased to such an extent that the altars ol
paganism were nearly abandoned j and that a great number ot
HISTORY. 2 73
-women, boys, and children belonged to their sect. He is at a
loss to know, with respect to the latter, whether he should make
any difference in the degree of punishment which, it appears,
they have inevitably incurred under the old Romans laws against
all societies and fraternities not sanctioned by the state ; and
on this subject he demands further instructions from the
emperor, in this memorable official letter, which is still extant,
and contains the most ancient portrait of the Christians drawn
by a Roman hand.
Thus then, in this period of the world, in this decisive crisis
between ancient and modern times, in this great central point
of history, stood two powers opposed to each other. On one
hand, we behold Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, the earthly gods,
and absolute masters of the world, in all the pomp and splendour
of ancient paganism standing, as it were, on the very summit
and verge of the old world, now tottering to its ruin : and, on
the other hand, we trace the obscure rise of an almost imper-
ceptible point of light, from which the whole modern world was
to spring, and whose further progress and full development,
through all succeeding ages, constitutes the true purport of
modern history.
END OF LECTURE IX.
274 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTUEE X.
On the Christian Point of View in the Philosophy of History. The
Origin of Christianity, considered in reference to the Political World.
Decline of the Roman Empire.
A REGULAR history of the life of our Saviour, recounted like any
other historical occurrence, would, in my opinion, be out of place
in a philosophy of history. The subject is either too vast for
profane history, or in its first beginnings too obscure, whether
we consider its internal importance, or in a mere historical point
of view, its outward appearance. A thinking, and in his way
well-thinking Roman, when he had obtained a more accu-
rate knowledge of the life of our Saviour from the accounts
of the Roman procurator, or other Roman dignitaries in Pales-
tine, might have expressed himself respecting the" whole trans-
action in the following terms: " This is a very extraordinary
man, endued with wonderful and divine power (for such vague
and general admiration might well be indulged in by a heathen,
who yet adhered to the fundamental doctrines of his ancestral
faith), a man who, he would continue to say, has produced a
great moral revolution in minds, and was, according to the most
credible testimony, of the purest character and most rigid morals,
who taught much that was sublime on the immortality of the
soul and the secrets of futurity ; but who was accused by his
enemies, and delivered over to death by his own people." Such,
perhaps, would have been the judgment of a Tacitus, had he
drawn his information from better and less polluted sources. So
long, however, as all these transactions were confined to the
small province of Judea, the soundest and best constituted Roman
mind could have scarcely felt a more than passing regret at the
perpetration of so signal an act of private injustice, and would,
in other respects, have not regarded it as an event which could,
in a Roman point of view, be termed historical, or worthy to
occupy a place in the more extended circle of his own world.
It was only when Christianity had become a power in the
HISTORY. 275
world the principle of a new life, and of a new form of life
totally differing from all preceding forms of existence, that it
began to attract the attention of the Romans, as a remarkable
historical occurrence. How perfectly unintelligible, strange,
and mysterious, this mighty event at its origin, and for a long
time afterwards, appeared to the Romans ; how erroneous and
absurd were their opinions and conduct in regard to the Chris-
tian religion, we have already shown by some characteristic
examples.
On the other hand, when we view the whole transaction with
the eye of faith when we consider, all that has since grown up
in the world out of beginnings apparently so small the case
changes its aspect in our regard ; and we are then inclined to be-
lieve that the mysteries and miracles of our Saviour's life and
death nay, the whole system of his doctrine, which is intimately
connected with those mysteries and miracles, and is itself the
greatest mystery and miracle, should be abandoned exclusively
to religion, and, as they transcend the ordinary sphere of history
would be misplaced in a work of this nature. I will, therefore,
pre-suppose a knowledge of these sacred mysteries, and, without
entering into any examination of them, will endeavoiir to de-
scribe the state of the world, and the aspect of society, when
the Christian religion first made its appearance. A notice of
some particular points of doctrine, connected with politics and
history, either in respect to the past or to the future, is by no
means incompatible with my plan ; but a complete examination
of the whole system of Christian doctrines, as of any other
great system of doctrine or philosophy, would, for the reason I
have alleged, be quite misplaced in a work of this description.
I will, in the next place, endeavour to show the historical
influence which this divine power has exerted, and point out
how, from its very origin, and still more in its progress, it
entirely renovated the face of the world.
Doubtless, the philosophy of history forms an essential part
of the science of divine and human things things which in the
mode of conceiving or treating them, should be rarely and even
never entirely separated. For how is it possible to attain to a
just and correct knowledge of human things, in any department
of life and science, unless they be viewed in relation to, and con-
nexion with, the divine principle which animates or directs them?
A certain medium, however, is to be observed, and the limits
T2
276
PHILOSOPHY OF
must be clearly and accurately traced between divine and human
thing-s, lest the one department should be confounded with the
other. For as it is very prejudicial to religion to make it merely
a matter of learned historical research ; so it is inconsistent with
the object of historical philosophy to transform it into a mere
series of religious meditations. Undoubtedly, historical philo-
sophy can, and ought, to assume the divine principle in man the
divine image planted in the human breast as the great pivot
of human destiny, the main and essential point in universal his-
tory, and the restoration of that image as the proper purpose of
mankind.
Thus the philosophic historian may endeavour, as I have
attempted, to point out the divine truth contained in the primi-
tive revelation, the original word which was current among the
nations of the primitive age, in the second period of the world
the decisive crisis, between ancient and modern times he will dis-
cover in the Christian religion, the sole principle of the subsequent
progress of mankind : and the distinctive character and intel-
lectual importance of the third or last epoch of the world, he will
find only in that light, which, emerging from the primitive revela-
tion, and the religion of love established by the Redeemer, has
shone ever clearer and brighter with the progress of ages, and has
changed and regenerated not only government and science, but
the whole system of human life. Here is the principle which
furnishes the plan of classification for all the great epochs of
history. From this philosophic survey of history, the historian,
in the accomplishment of his task, may, with great propriety, point
out and illustrate the ways and views of Divine Providence in
the conduct of particular nations and ages, and in the destiny
of remarkable personages, or historical characters, when those
views and ways are strikingly perceptible to our feelings. Yet
it is better that this train of observations should not be too sys-
tematically prosecuted, but should be introduced occasionally
only, and as it were episodically, in those passages of history,
where such reflections naturally present themselves : and they
should ever be confined within the limits of a modest suggestion ;
for all these reflections are only the esoteric spirit the internal
religious idea of history. Otherwise, the historian will be ex-
posed to the danger of introducing a system of providential
designs prematurely formed according to human insight and
human sagacity, into the yet unfinished drama of the world's
history, whose comprehensive vastness and hidden mysteries,
HISTORY. 277
besides, far exceed the narrow limits of all that man can con-
ceive, judge, and know, with certainty. And this is a defect
which many writers have not entirely avoided in their otherwise
very religious meditations on universal history. So far, however,
as the historian confines his train of reflections within the modest
limits of a mere partial explanation, and does not prematurely
anticipate the general scheme of divine polity, or plunge too
deeply, and with presumptuous confidence, into its details ; he
will find much and obvious matter for such considerations, in
the visible selection of particular individuals, and particular
nations, and even ages, for the accomplishment of certain ends,
for the attainment on their part of prosperity, glory, or some
high object in some particular sphere. But this power thus
allotted to particular individuals or to particular nations, exerts
even at the time a general influence on the fate of mankind, and
evidently accomplishes the designs of Providence with regard to
the world at large, forms a point of transition from past ages,
or opens a passage to some manifestation of Divine Power, with
respect to the future. In the progress of human civilisation,
such designs are frequently manifest. Nay, on the great ques-
tion of the permission of evil, when it exerts a widely destructive
influence in the moral and physical world, and on the views of
God in that permission, the enlightened historian may some-
times succeed, if not in penetrating into the hidden decrees of
divine wisdom, yet at least in uplifting a corner of the mysterious
veil which covers them. In particular phenomena of history
such, for example, as the destruction of a whole nation, the Jews
for instance; or in the overwhelming calamities, the general
miseries inflicted on a corrupt age, manifesting, clearly as they
do, the retributive justice of God calamities which, when re-
garded from this point of view (and it is only from this point of
view they can be rightly judged), appear like a partial judgment
of the world in all such historical phenomena, a modest refer-
ence to the final causes of such events may be exceedingly ap-
propriate. This idea of divine justice, and of God's judgments
on the world exemplified in history, belongs undoubtedly to the
province of historical philosophy ; and, as man's resemblance to
his Maker constitutes the first foundation-stone of history, this
more practical principle, relating as it does to real life and all
its mighty phenomena, forms the second.
But the mystery of grace in the divine redemption of mankind,
278 PHILOSOPHY OF
transcends the sphere of profane history. The Christian philo-
sophy of history must indeed tacitly pre-suppose the truth of
that mystery, and assume it as known, and indeed as self-evident
to all well-thinking persons it must even, under the inspira-
tion of this faith, refer it to very many, the greater part, indeed
almost all, of the facts and phenomena of history but it should
forbear to introduce it into its own province, and should leave it
to the sanctuary of religion. In the same way, whenever philo-
sophy attempts to incorporate and rank this mystery with her
own speculative conceptions, the consequence must ever be hurt-
ful to religion ; for, as philosophy thus attempts to explain and,
as it were, deduce this mystery from her own speculations, the
mystery of redemption ceases to be a divine fact, and it is only
as such that it is, and can be, the true and eternal foundation of
religion. I wish here expressly to do away with an opinion
which is completely unhistorical, and even subversive of all his-
tory. I cannot more truly and succinctly designate this opinion,
than by stating it as follows: Christ, to say it in one word was a
Jewish Socrates, and this purest, noblest, and sublimest of all
ethical teachers (according to the rationalists' interpretation of
his history) met with a fate no less deplorable for mankind than
that which befel the Athenian philosopher, and the wisest of all
the Grecian sages. In reply to this, one observation only need
be made If Christ were not more than a Socrates, then a
Socrates he was not* But this opinion is not only unhistorical,
or, to speak more properly, anti-historical, because it is in utter
opposition to all covenants, testimonies, authentic records, and
even Christ's express declarations ; but fully as much, and even
still more on this account, that if we once remove this divine
key- stone in the arch of universal history, the whole fabric of
* la confirmation of this pithy sentence of Schlegel's, I may cite a
remarkable passage from the celebrated Lessing, which, as coming from
an infidel, may perhaps have more weight with the Unitarian. " If
Christ," he says, " is not truly God, then Mohammedanism was an un-
doubted improvement on the Christian religion : Mahomet, on such a
supposition, would indisputably have been a greater man than Christ,
as he would have been far more veracious, more circumspect, and more
zealous for the honour of God, since Christ, by his expressions, would
have given dangerous occasion for idolatry; while, on the other hand,
not a single expression of the kind can be laid to the charge of Maho-
met." Lessing's Beitrlige zur Geshichte und Litteratur. Vol. II. p. 410.
Trans.
iT_- 1 IV
HISTORY. 279
the world's history falls to ruin for its only foundation is this
new manifestation of God's power in the crisis of time this
hope in God abiding unto the end. For, although I do not
consider a formal demonstration of the truth of the Christian
religion as falling within the province of profane history ; yet
the belief of its truth, a faith in its dogmas, is the only clue in
such investigations. Without this faith, the whole history of
the world would be nought else than an insoluble enigma an
inextricable labyrinth a huge pile of the blocks and fragments
of an unfinished edifice and the great tragedy of humanity
would remain devoid of all proper result.
Confining myself within those limits which the very nature of
the subject, and the force of circumstances prescribe, and which
I have here thought it necessary to mark out with exactness, I
shall now, in order to see under what circumstances Christianity
first arose in the world, and appeared on the domain of history,
direct your attention more immediately to the Jewish state.
Dependent at first on the Grecian dynasty of Egypt, and at
a subsequent period subdued by the sovereigns of the new-
Syrian monarchy, which sprang out of the dismemberment of
the Macedonian empire, the more virtuous portion of the Hebrew
people evinced, under the religious persecution they had to sus-
tain from the latter monarchs, much constancy in the old faith
of their fathers ; for which, indeed, several of the heroic family
of the Maccabees had the courage to .lay down their lives.
From these rulers they were rescued by the Romans, who took
them under their powerful protection, which, with the Jews, as
with all other nations, was soon transformed into a systematic
and very oppressive domination. The Jewish people were so
far involved in the civil war between Csesar and Pompey, that
each party favoured that aspirant to the throne of Judea, most
favourable to its own designs. Under the monarchy of Augustus,
Herod, who was created tributary sovereign of Palestine about
forty years before the Christian era, was the last who had been
promoted to sovereignty amid this conflict of parties. The
temple of Jerusalem, that had been rebuilt with the permission,
of Cyrus, still remained in all its pomp and grandeur. If a
profane curiosity had tempted Cvassus and Pompey to intrude
within its sanctuary, on the other hand, the munificence of
Herod had added to its size and increased its decorations. Al-
though Herod ever retained a partiality for Roman customs, and
280 PHILOSOPHY OP
still more for Grecian opinions, yet the temple of Jerusalem con-
sidered, not as the august sanctuary of Heaven's revelations to
the chosen people, but as the centre of attraction for the Jewish
nation, situated as it was in the midst of a great commercial
city (one of the largest in all Western Asia), and forming at
once the treasury, and by its close proximity to the citadel, the
rampart of the city and of the state must have been regarded
by Herod as the seat of his power, and the nearest object of his
ambition. There were at that period among the Jews two par-
ties, Avhich, like those of the Patricians and Plebeians in the civil
wars of Rome, bear some resemblance to the parties that afc
present divide the world: although in their relative position
towards each other, as well as in their internal character and
tendency, there are many important points which distinguish
them from the parties at present existing. Though from the
predominant spirit and peculiar constitution of the Jewish
people, the subjects of contention between the two partiea
related chiefly or more immediately to matters of religion ; yet
politics were not entirely excluded from their disputes, which
embraced in general the whole of human life and its various
relations. The Pharisees were the chief scribes and doctors of
the law, and in the state, the honoured patricians of the Hebrews,
who sought to maintain the ancient faith and ancient constitution
of their country with its rights and jurisprudence adhering in-
deed with a rigid scrupulosity, and a contentious subtlety to the
letter of the old law, while they had long forgotten its divine
spirit, and were notorious for their attachment to their own in-
terests, their selfish feelings, and false and contracted views. As
they acknowledged, and respected with the most scrupulous
fidelity all existing laws, they sided, apparently at least, with
the Romans, though they never entertained a cordial attach-
ment for those conquerors, and indeed they ever cherished the-
hope of being able to ensnare the great teacher, so beloved by
the Jewish people, into a declaration against the Roman. rule r
as in their limited views they conceived he must, sooner or
later, be necessarily driven to that expedient, in order to sustain
his popularity. But it cannot be doubted that the cause which
the Pharisees defended was, on the whole, the legitimate cause of
the Hebrews of that period, since our Saviour himself expressly
acknowledged this, when he said of the Pharisees, " They sit
in the chair of Moses, and whatsoever they command you, that*
HISTORY. 282
do ye." It was precisely because they had made the old law,
and the cause of God, their own cause, that so much was ex-
acted of them ; and that they were judged with so much seve-
rity by our Saviour ; apparently with greater severity than were
the Sadducees themselves, who by an Epicurean philosophy, and
a latitudinarian system of morals, had fallen almost entirely
from the faith, had affixed a mere human interpretation to
Scripture, and had even called in question the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul. If in this sect there were individuals
entertaining purer and more exalted notions of the truth, we
must regard them rather as happy and honourable exceptions.
We must not, besides, forget, that the severe judgments on the
Pharisees, which occur in Scripture, refer only to the more
degenerate among them a great portion, doubtless, perhaps
the greater part ; but by no means include the whole sect or
body, among whom were many worthy individuals.
We ought also to recollect that the Apostle Paul was a
Pharisee, and though a well-intentioned, yet a very zealous one,
for all his writings show the man who had sat at the feet of
Gamaliel : the latter again was the grandson of the illustrious
Hellel, who is named as one of the last great doctors of the
Hebrews, who was profoundly versed in their sacred traditions,
and was, indeed, one of the last pillars of the synagogue. The
Jewish history or tradition mentions seven species of false
Pharisees, to whom all the reproaches of our Saviour are per-
fectly applicable. Many other Pharisees, besides the Apostle
Paul, are mentioned with honour in holy writ, as friends and
disciples of our Redeemer, though they had not the courage
openly to declare themselves his followers.
Whenever, in the history of mankind, we arrive at some
epoch of great crisis, or momentous collision, we find invariably,,
and in all countries, two contending parties like these appear-
ing at once on the historical arena, though in forms or positions
variously modified. The party defending antiquity, often adheres
only to the dead letter of rigid law, forgetting its inward sense and
living spirit ; while the opposite party, which has a strong con-
viction that the world stands in need of a new legislation, and
that the epoch of a new legislation approaches, is not entirely
in the wrong. But when the members of the latter party have
lost all faith in the sacred traditions of the past, and have con-
sequently forgotten that the great work of regeneration ca
282 PHILOSOPHY OF
emanate from God only ; they conceive that it is in their power
to accomplish this work nay, they fancy they have already suc-
ceeded in their enterprise, while all their futile attempts can
accomplish nought but a total revolution in the past a revolu-
tion brought about either by external violence, or, in its best
and mildest form, by the internal ruin of moral principle and
feeling. Between these extreme and conflicting parties, indivi-
duals are often found who fly from the field of contention, and
seek out a higher asylum, at least for themselves. Such were
those small communities of holy contemplatives that then ex-
isted among the Jews, the Essenians in Palestine, and the The-
rapuntae in Egypt ; but these ascetics, limited in number, formed
a trifling exception by the side of the two great predominant
sects. It was between these two leading parties on the one
hand, the narrow-minded and selfish Jewish legitimatists stiff
adherents to the letter of the law ; and, on the other hand, the
liberal illumines ; between the old promises and expectations
of the Hebrews, and the Roman dominion, now become and
acknowledged to be legitimate, that our Saviour had to steer ;
and it required a more than human prudence to traverse this
critical period, unaffected by the spirit of contending factions.
" Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar," was his simple
declaration, when men sought to entrap him by their worldly
cunning : and this declaration has remained a fundamental pre-
cept of Christianity, and will continue unchanged to the end of
time. And so will that other oracle, " Thou art a rock, and
upon this rock I will build my church ;" in this there is a clear
and distinct precept how Christians were to treat those pagan
pretensions of the Romans which regarded acts of political idol-
atry, such as the sacrifice before the image of the emperor, and
acts of a similar kind ; and how, as witnesses of the truth against
all the powers of earth, they were to seal their testimony with
their blood. The capital error of the Jews lay in this, that in
the Deliverer, promised to them of old, they now generally ex-
pected an earthly liberator destined to emancipate them from
the oppressive yoke of the Romans, and to restore their national
empire to its highest glory and splendour. And, indeed, had
they not carried their notions on this point to such extreme
lengths, and with such unyielding obstinacy, much might have
been alleged in their excuse, According to the usual character
of prophetic speech, the portrait of a spiritual Deliverer, invested
HISTORY. 283
with real glory and pomp, had been drawn in such vivid colours
in those ancient prophecies, that the description might, in many
passages at least, be easily mistaken for one of an earthly
monarch. Or, to express my meaning with greater accuracy
and precision, as it is the peculiar character of sacred prophecy
to represent events about to follow, in immediate contact with
the ultimate objects to which they tend, there are often in those
prophetic descriptions of the future prosperity of the chosen
people, many passages on the remote period of the last ages of
the world, and on the universal triumph of Christianity through-
out the earth at the end of time ; there are often, we say, many
of those passages which also refer and indeed contain the closest
allusions to the commencement of the Christian redemption.
In the same way, although in a different sort of subject, we see
our Saviour himself foretell the impending ruin of Jerusalem
and of the Jewish nation, while his lamentations are closely
linked, and almost confounded with, prophetic warnings respect-
ing the awful and terrific scenes of latter times, and the ap-
proaching day of general account ; although both these events,
the ruin of the temporal Jerusalem, and the last glorious trans-
formation of nature, when creation shall be consummated, and a
new heaven and a new earth shall spring into existence, are to be
strictly regarded as real and historical. So close an attention, and
so great a power of discrimination are requisite to distinguish
between parts, to combine the whole, and place each particular
fact in its proper point of view. But the best excuse that can
be offered for the Jews, in this respect, is the fact, as the Scrip-
ture clearly showeth, that all the foUowers of our Saviour, and
his most trusty disciples, were at first under the same delusion,
and for a long time believed that, though the right moment had
not yet arrived, still their master would certainly appear as the
earthly Deliverer and Monarch of his nation ; and indeed the
idea of his sufferings and death was . so abhorrent to their feel-
ings that they even dared to express their disapprobation, and
upbraid their Saviour for entertaining such thoughts ; for it was
only at a much later period the bandage fell from their eyes.
And the great reproach which we are to make the Jews is that
they should have adhered with such obstinacy to an error, very
excusable under certain circumstances, and that after all they
had heard, seen, and experienced, they should have still closed
their eyes against the light. The conduct of our Saviour to-
284 PHILOSOPHY OP
wards the Jews is often represented in a manner little comform-
able to historic truth, and to the spirit and character of this
mighty revolution, when it is said that he entirely abrogated the
whole system of the Mosaic law. The outward scaffolding was
indeed removed, when it had ceased to be necessary ; such were
all those laws which applied only to that state of strict separation
from heathen nations, which at an earlier period had been of
such absolute importance. Very many things were still retained ;
and all now received in the fulfilment a higher spiritual signifi-
cation ; and this was natural, when we consider that in Judaism
itself every thing which had not been designed merely for local
and temporary wants, from the very commencement of that dis-
pensation, was typical of Christianity. The twelve apostles, as
well as the first seventy-two disciples were taken exclusively
from the chosen people, and even, in this respect, the divine
promises were completely fulfilled, and literally observed. The
constitution of the ancient hierarchy has very evidently furnished
the pattern for that of the Christian priesthood ; though this of
course has been adapted to the wider circle of a higher and
more spiritual system. The expression, " My kingdom is not
of this world," does not imply that it was not to be in this
world a real and effective power, with a form and organisation
clearly defined. Many have read so much, or inferred so much,
from this declaration, that they could not adopt an easier or
more polite method of shutting out this divine empire of truth
from the world. In the hours of the greatest solemnity, the
divine Master revealed to his disciples the hidden sense of the
ancient revelation in ah 1 the plentitude of its mysteries. As the
Saviour himself said that every word and syllable of the old
law must be literally fulfilled ; as in general the spiritual inter-
pretation of the divine oracles is by no means inconsistent with
their literal truth and inviolable sanctity ; so the same remark
will apply to the new revelation, in which every word and every
syllable of prophecy will receive a full and practical accomplish-
ment before the consummation of time. Even in another point
of view, particularly worthy the consideration of the historian.,
Christianity must be regarded only as a divine continuation, a
higher and more expansive form, or spiritual renovation, of the
Mosaic institution ; and was so intended by its divine Founder ;
namely, in those aspirations after futurity, which now so exclu-
sively directed the whole of human life, and its various views.
HISTORY. 285
The law of divine wisdom, by which earthly existence is to
be looked upon only as a state of expectation, of preparation,
and of struggle a view of life alone accordant with human
nature that law has retained its fuh 1 force in the new covenant.
For the primitive Christians, death was what the Saviour said
of himself, a return, a passing unto the Father, but life was one
ceaseless struggle. For him who unto the end fought steadfast
in this struggle, the angel of death was divested of his terrors ;
he was a celestial messenger of peace, that brought to the
Christian the bright garland of victory, and the crown of
eternal life ; in this faith and in these sentiments, did the saints
live and the martyrs die. And as every human soul is con-
ducted to the realms above by the gentle hand of its divine
guardian ; so the Saviour himself has announced to all mankind,
in many prophetic passages, that when the period of the disso-
lution of the world shah 1 approach, he himself will return to the
Dearth, will renovate the face of all things, and bring them to a
olose. So lively an assurance had the first Christians of the
immediate presence of their invisible lord and guide, so vivid a
hope did they entertain of his speedy return to the earth ; that,
in order to check the aspirations of a zeal that would accelerate
the period of consummation so ardently desired, Divine Provi-
dence judged it necessary that the Prophet of the New Testa-
ment should close the volume of eternal revelation with that
long succession of ages that were to witness the progressive
struggle of humanity all those centuries of Christianity that
mankind was yet to traverse, before the promise should be ful-
filled, and in the fulness of time the final and universal triumph
of Christianity throughout the earth should be accomplished,
for all mankind must be gathered into one fold, and under one
Shepherd. According to the spirit and precept of the Christian
religion, man must at every moment be prepared ; but he must
not, in a presumptuous ardour, accelerate the term of existence
fixed by the wisdom of Almighty God. Thus, all those Chris-
tians who, during the times of the most violent persecution of
the church under the Romans, courted the danger, and would
not await the honour of martyrdom, were warned that such
conduct was by no means conformable to the will of God ; as it
often happened that those who, by such an overweening confi-
dence in their own strength, had wantonly rushed to the field
of danger, succumbed under their torments, and fell from the
faith,
286 PHILOSOPHY OF
Had the Jews but opened their eyes in the right time ; had
they acknowledged the divine fulfilment of ancient promises in
the mission of Christ, which was in fact far more exalted and
more splendid than any thing they had expected ; and had all,
or even the greater part, of the nation embraced Christianity ;
they would have become the mighty stem the great founda-
tion the central point of all modern history, and all modern
life. But as they did not correspond to this call of Divine Pro-
vidence, a call fully justified by their circumstances, their early
history, and the prerogatives which the Almighty had once ac-
corded to them above all other nations : the justice of God re-
quired that they should now receive a signal chastisement, that
they should be deprived of their national existence, dispersed
among all the nations of the earth ; and that, in this state of
ruin and dispersion, they should serve as a memorable example
to the world. But this humiliation of the Jews, which was cal-
culated to draw down the contempt of the heathen, who looked
only to outward things, should have never given rise to oppres-
sion or ill-treatment among Christian nations ; and the more so,
as it is still a problem whether any other people placed in a
similar situation, and warped by selfish prejudices, and old and
deep-rooted errors, would have done better ; or whether man-
kind in general, subjected to a similar trial, would have come
off more successfully.
The old temple of the holy city was not, like the idolatrous
temples of the heathens, a mere magnificent monument of
national glory, adorned with all the splendour of art; but the
idea and plan of the whole structure, its minutest parts, every
stone, and every cipher, were clearly indicative and profoundly
symbolical of that invisible temple, that mighty city, that divine
kingdom of peace, which Christ was to establish on earth, and
which he had now at length come to establish. Even the name
of Jerusalem, according to the Hebrew signification of the word,
has the emblematic sense of revelation and foundation, or city
of peace, by which is understood not a mere earthly and tran-
sitory peace, but that higher and divine peace which forms the
subject of all the promises made unto the chosen people. This
prophetic sense and typical design of the holy city is so closely
onnected with the origin and whole idea of the city, that in
some passages of the Old Testament such figurative expressions
are used, as if the whole business, nay the whole life, of man had
no other object " than to build up the waDs of Jerusalem ;" in
HISTORY. 287
the same way as if a Christian moralist were to say, the proper
end and ultimate object of mankind, and of the history of all
nations and ages, is the kingdom of God, that is to say, the
ever wider diffusion and firmer consolidation of Christian truth
and Christian perfection throughout the world. When the spiritual
and internal sense of this mighty and historical hieroglyph of
the Jewish people was no longer understood j when the mighty
truths which it embodied, at the very moment they were about
to receive their full explanation and perfect development, were
misunderstood and rejected ; what was more natural than that
the emblem, which had lost its meaning, should be effaced, the
temple destroyed, and the city itself levelled and razed by the
arm of divine justice ? This is the view which the Christian his-
torian must take of that mighty and fearful catastrophe which
now befell Jerusalem, and the whole Jewish people, under Ves-
pasian ; and indeed the impression which this event made on the
Jews, though somewhat diversified by national sentiments, is, in
all essential points, conformable to our own feelings. That in
every such widely destructive disaster, which by divine permission
may inflict any portion of the human race, the loving wisdom of
God will know how to take each individual soul under its special
protection, and will guard and spare it, at least, in its immortal
part, is a truth so evident to every religious mind, that it is unne-
nessary to enforce it at any length. If, as the Scripture saith,
"the hairs on a man's head are numbered," so will each day, nay
each hour, each pulsation of human existence, be counted ; yea,
every heartfelt tear the eye of sorrow shall shed, will be reckoned
by the guardian spirit of eternal love. But this religious regard
for the fate of individuals, and this humane sympathy with their
misfortunes, must be kept within its proper sphere in historical
disquisitions, where the principal design is to study and observe,
as far as the limited perception of man will permit, the mighty
course of divine justice, through all ages of the world.
When the Jews were disappointed in the hope they had en-
tertained of a liberator, who was to be sent from above armed
with divine power to deliver them from the stern yoke of Roman
domination ; exasperated by the ever-increasing tyranny of their
masters, after several partial insurrections, the whole nation,
three-and- thirty years after the death of our Lord, broke out
into open rebellion ; and the whole country, torn by infuriated
factions, which fanatic hate inspired with the courage of despair,
exhibited all the horrors of the most terrific revolution. The
288 PHILOSOPHY OF
savage warfare of the Romans in such a deadly struggle, we
have already learned from the example of Carthage ; for how-
ever mild and benevolent might be the personal character of
Titus, it was out of his power to introduce any change in the
system of war ; and the number of men that perished in the
siege and ravages of the holy city is estimated at 1,300,000 ;
including the small number that were led away captives, or re-
served to grace the triumph of the conqueror. The Emperor
Hadrian rebuilt the city, which had been totally destroyed,
under the new and pagan name of ^Elia Capitolina, and even
erected within it a temple to Jupiter: but no Jew was permitted
to enter within its walls. At a later period the Emperor Julian
had intended to re-establish the Jews in their ancient city, and
in all probability it was his hostility to Christianity which had
inspired him with the design ; but unexpected events and phy-
sical obstacles* opposed the execution of this plan.
The Jewish covenant and the old revelation of the Hebrews
formed the chief corner-stone on which Christianity was founded;
and the first apostles of the new religion were all chosen,
from among that people. The Scriptures of the new covenant
were composed in the Greek tongue, and the first apologies,
and other expositions of faith, or books of instruction by the
primitive fathers, were mostly written in the same language.
We may therefore consider this language as forming the second
foundation-stone of the Christian edifice. Though the politi-
cal consequences of the Macedonian conquests in Asia were not
of any permanence, yet the influence which those conquests
have exerted on the intellectual character of nations, the as-
cendency which they gave to the Greeks over the whole civil-
ised world of that period, were by no means unimportant. It
was by means of these conquests that the philosophy and lite-
rature of the Greeks became, along with their language, pre-
dominant in Egypt and the western countries of Asia ; and
hence this language was adopted as the original tongue of
Christianity ; because no other at that period had attained such
intellectual refinement, or such general diffusion. As in human
society every class and condition of life, nay, every individual,
by the peculiar rights and advantages which each exclusively
enjoys, still serves the community, and contributes to the weal
of others, unconsciously and without precisely wishing it ; so
* By this expression, Schlegel does not mean to question the super-
natural agency that produced those obstacles, Trans.
HISTORY. 289
in the history of the world, and in the progress of nations, all
things are closely interlinked, and one serves as the instru-
ment, auxiliary, or bond of union, to the other ; and it was not
one of the least important results of the Greek science and
language, that the two points wherein that nation had risen
to the greatest eminence, and was endowed with the greatest
power, should both have been so nearly allied with the cause of
Christianity, even from its origin. The Roman empire was
the third foundation-stone of the Christian religion ; for its
vast extent facilitated in a singular manner the early and very
rapid diffusion of Christianity, and formed, indeed, the ground-
work on which the fabric of the new church was first con-
structed.
In the history of the primitive church, historians are wont to
separate the different branches of their subject, which form so
many different parts of a single whole, and thus to describe
separately the dogmas and doctrines of the church, its holy
rites and sacraments, its liturgies and festivals, and next its
moral condition and external relations ; and this division of the
subject may, no doubt, very well answer the special design of
such ecclesiastical histories. But if we wish to take a more
general view of the subject, to seize the spirit of Christianity,
and form a just, true, and lively conception of the primitive
church, we must be particularly careful not to forget in the
investigation of those several heads, that they formed one un-
divided and living whole in the eyes of the first Christians, amid
the overflowing fulness of a new moral life ; and of this spirit
of unity, as well as of the wonderful energy of faith and love
which was its never-failing source, it is almost impossible for us
to form a full and adequate notion. Christianity, in its primitive
influence, was like an electric stroke, which traversed the world
with the rapidity of lightning like a magnetic fluid of life,
which united even the most distant members of humanity in
one animating pulsation. Public prayer and the sacred mys-
teries formed a stronger and closer bond of love among men,
than the still sacred ties of kindred and earthly affection. Some
persons have affected to compare the secret assemblies of the
primitive Christians with the pagan mysteries ; and undoubtedly
it was only in secret, and in the retired and obscure oratory,
that the first followers of Christ could gather together amid
the fury of general persecution. But, from a competent
u
290 PHILOSOPHY OF
knowledge which we possess of the import of those pagan mys-
teries, they had about as much resemblance to the religious
assemblies of the primitive Christians, as the divine sacrifice of
holy commemoration, and the chalice consecrated with the
blood of the eternal covenant, bore to the human sacrifices of
the Cainites. The Christians saw and felt the presence of
their invisible King and eternal Lord; and when their souls
overflowed with the plenitude of spiritual and heavenly life,
how could they value earthly existence, and how must they not
have been willing to sacrifice it in the struggle against the
powers of darkness ; for that struggle formed the whole and
proper business of their lives ? Hence we can understand the
reason of the otherwise incredibly rapid diffusion of Christianity
through all the provinces, and even sometimes beyond the limits,
of the vast empire of Rome ; like a heavenly flame, it ran
through all life, kindling, where it found congenial sympathy,
all that it touched into a kindred fervour. Hence, along with
that mighty spirit of love which produced so rapid a spread of
the Christian religion, and which united in the closest bonds
the first Christian communities, that energy of faith which
inspired such heroic fortitude under the dreadful and oft-renewed
persecutions of the Romans. The first persecution under Nero
was only a momentary freak of blood-thirsty tyranny a pass-
ing trait of that monster's cruelty. The first regular edict
against the Christians in the Roman empire was passed by
Domitian in the 87th year of our era, and, according to a
custom which had been borrowed from the Jews, he assimilated
the offence of dissent from the national religion to the crime of
high treason. The better Nerva softened the rigour of this
law, and declared that the denunciations of slaves against their
masters were not to be received, but, on the contrary, such in-
formers were to be severely punished. Trajan also, on the
before-mentioned report of the younger Pliny, decided, in the
120th year of our era, that the Christians, who were then un-
commonly numerous, were not to be sought after, but that,
when denounced, they should be punished according to the law
existing against such religious associations and communities.
But notwithstanding all these apparent mitigations of severity
introduced by the better emperors, the criminal jurisprudence
of the Romans, like their foreign warfare, ever remained most
atrocious ; and in the passages and allusions which are to found
HISTORY. 291
in ancient historians, concur with the general voice of Christian
tradition in stating the prodigious cruelties inflicted on the
Christians in those persecutions. In general Hadrian pursued
that milder and middle course of policy which Trajan had com-
menced before him ; he approved of legal and judicial perse-
cutions against the Christians, but he strictly prohibited those
tumultuary attacks which were the mere ebullitions of popular
hatred. With many vicissitudes, Christianity remained in this
state until the reign of Diocletian, who, pursuing a far more
systematic plan than most of his predecessors, attempted entirely
to root it out ; but this was no longer possible, and the growing
church received its first formal edict of pacification at the hands
of the emperor Constantine. The pagan enthusiast Julian
attempted a second time to subvert it, but it was now too late.
In the struggle against pagan cruelty and Roman persecution,
Christianity had come off victorious ; in bondage, and under
every species of suffering, it had proved the invincible might of -
the divine arm ; and, next to the apostles, the martyrs, so
highly revered by the gratitude of Christians, must occupy the
second place among those who were instrumental in bringing
about this mighty renovation of society, and who sealed their
efforts with their blood. But we must not imagine that
the martyrs, as mere men, and by their unassisted strength,
could have endured such dreadful torments with such unshaken
constancy ; or, again, that they were the mere unconscious
instruments of a divine fatality, without the co-operation of
their free, clear, and steadfast will. By the side of those who
were constant, many individuals were found that were not so,
many, who, overcome by suffering, delivered up the holy Scrip-
tures, or entirely apostatised from the faith and sacrificed to
idols ; so that it was afterwards a matter of dispute, how far
the lapsed could be pardoned and received again into the
church.
After that period was past which had witnessed the reign of
those inhuman tyrants that immediately succeeded Augustus,
several of the more virtuous emperors sought by various expe-
dients to bring about the moral regeneration of the people and
empire of Rome. Trajan, who possessed much of the recti-
tude and old martial virtues that belonged to the elder and
better period of Rome, sought to introduce these again ; and,
though the effects of his policy were transient, they were still
u2
292 PHILOSOPHY OF
beneficial. Hadrian endeavoured to re-animate paganism, and
to make it once more the basis of the empire and of public
life ; for this purpose, he had recourse especially to the more
profound and austere theology of Egypt ; and that new
Egyptian style which characterises the later monuments of
Koman art, was connected with the emperor's predilection for
the old religion of Egypt. But the healthy vigour, the moral
regeneration of public life, and of the empire itself, could not
now be obtained by the maintenance or firmer consolidation,
of the pagan religion ; on the contrary, it is in the erroneous
nature of the primitive paganism of Rome that we must seek
for the principal cause why, even in that elder period now so
highly extolled, and which certainly was at least better, a true,
pure, and stable system of morals and politics could never take
root and flourish. Under the two Antouines, the severe
morality of Stoicism was regarded as the vital principle of
moral regeneration and political reform, and a practical appli-
cation or its principles was sought for on all sides. And
certainly if the Stoical philosophy, with its mere dead letter of
rigid justice, and correct morality, unsupported by the divine
maxims of right faith, and that spirit of exalted love which
true faith alone can impart, could have accomplished this high
design ; if it had possessed within itself this mighty source j
this creative energy of moral and social life ; the serious deter-
mination and personal virtues of those imperial Stoics might
indeed have promised to the declining age of Rome the fulfil-
ment of the last hope to which paganism yet clung. But
that which doth not rest on the basis of truth, can receive no-
life from any external cause ; and it can impart no life to any
thing without, because it is decayed within, and when the*
illusive bloom of first youth has fled, it sinks inevitably into
its native corruption. " When the Lord doth not build the
house," saith the Psalmist, " those who would build it labour in
vain." To the better times that had witnessed the rule of the
three or four great monarchs we have mentioned, the reign of
a, Commodus succeeded ; and thus the empire, down to the
time of Diocletian, beheld a constant mutation of rulers, some-
times benevolent, or at least comparatively good, whose reigns,
however were often but of short duration, sometimes weak and
spiritless, and sometimes again tyrants of the most abject and
atrocious cast. Among these latter sovereigns however, who-
HISTORY. 293
in cruelty and arbitrary caprice resembled the first successors of
Augustus, there were no characters possessed of that strong
Roman sense which distinguished Tiberius ; and the empire
in their hands assumed daily more and more a thoroughly
effeminate and Oriental complexion.
Nothing was more subject to chance than the right of suc-
cession in the Roman empire, where the arbitrary application
of the Roman principle of adoption opened a wide field to the
contention of parties ; without including the frequent recur-
rence of conspiracies in a military empire, which, as it was
formed by a military conspiracy, ever retained the stamp of its
origin. Augustus had employed his whole life, not without
apparent success, for a time at least, in endeavouring to give
to authority, acquired by force of arms, the colour and forms
of legitimacy. But how could it ever be forgotten that
he, as well as Caesar, had been raised to the imperial throne
l)y the army, and amid the struggles of factions, conspiracies,
and civil wars. The soldiers knew this, and recollected but too
well the source whence the supreme power in the state had
emanated. The influence of the Praetorians, especially, was,
from their origin, very considerable, as they surrounded the
emperor, and formed his body-guard. By virtue of his office,
the leader of the Praetorians had a sort of negative and con-
trolling power, like that of the censor and popular tribune in
the ancient republic, except that this functionary wielded the
sword, a power in some degree acknowledged by the emperor
himself, as it was accounted one of the highest merits of Trajan,
that to the chief of that troop which defended the person, and
often decided the fate of the emperor, he delivered the sword
with these words : "For me, if I govern well against me, if
I should become a tyrant."
Thus the empire was entirely abandoned to chance and
caprice, and as its origin was military, it remained unto the
^nd essentially a military despotism. The more powerful
legions that were quartered in the most important provinces,
^especially in those of the frontiers, soon began to feel that they
were far superior in numbers and strength to the effeminate
Praetorians of the capital. Several emperors were elected and
proclaimed by these legions ; and in the number, such even as
were not Romans, and were of barbarian extraction ; for it hap-
pened that, in the provincial legions, many foreigners, especially
294 PHILOSOPHY OF
Germans, were engaged in the Roman service in the provinces
on the north-western frontier. Several of the emperors thus
chosen by the legions, continued to reside where the centre of
their power existed in the station, or in some provincial
capital conveniently situated. The senate had long been but
a mere shadow of its former greatness ; even the capital began
.to lose much of its importance.
At the same time the repeated incursions of the northern
nations ever rendered a general invasion more imminent, and
the disaster, which men had foreseen from afar, appeared ever
nearer its accomplishment. Already the first irruption of the
Cimbri and Teutones, when not merely an army for the sake
of booty, or to plant a military colony, but a whole tribe with
wives and children had migrated into the Roman territory,
threw Rome into consternation during the civil wars, when she
was at the very height of her military prowess. Caesar had
spared no exertion to reduce Gaul to complete subjection, and
this country had ever since adopted more and more the lan-
guage and customs of Rome. He experienced from no people
such vigorous resistance as from the Germanic tribes ; and to
protect against these nations the safety of the empire, by
strongly fortifying the banks of the Rhine and Danube, con-
stituted afterwards the first concern of the Roman emperors.
What a shock Augustus received from the defeat of Varus, by
the German Arminius in his native woods! Even under the
martial Trajan, who was almost the last conqueror in the line
of Roman emperors, men began to entertain serious appre-
hensions of the invasion of the Germanic tribes. The first
great irruption was that of the Alemanni, who, under Marcus
Aurelius burst into the Rhsetian provinces, while similar move-
ments occurred in Noricum and eastward towards Pannonia.
However, Marcus Aurelius, by an energetic and successful re-
sistance, repelled this first attempt, and thus was the means of
deterring the barbarians for a long time from similar enter-
prises; and a hundred years elapsed before Aurelian drove
them again from Italy, over the Alps as far as the Lech. Among
the German nations, the Goths, who from the Scandinavian
isles had penetrated far into the interior of Germany, particu-
larly towards the eastern, as afterwards towards the western,
parts of that country, were pre-eminent in power. They could
not be prevented from obtaining a firm footing in the north-
HISTORY. 295
eastern provinces, by the Black Sea. The Emperor Deems
perished in the war against this people ; arid the Romans were
obliged to surrender to them, by a formal treaty, the further
Dacia. Constantine, indeed, was victorious in the war he
waged against them ; but he preferred to conclude an advan-
tageous peace, to gain their friendship, and enlist their youth
in the service of the Roman armies. Of the later reigns that
of Diocletian displayed the greatest energy ; but this cruel per-
secution of the Christians was, even to judge from the mere
external state of society, as little adapted to the spirit of the
age as it was reprehensible in itself, and hence his design re-
mained unaccomplished. Although, after his abdication, Dio-
cletian showed himself a thorough Roman in private life, yet,
while he swayed the sceptre, he deemed it expedient to sur-
round the throne with all the pomp and forms of Asiatic homage.
The division of the empire among several sovereigns appeared
then, as afterwards, under Constantine and his successors, an
unavoidable and necessary evil ; or, in other words, the several
parts and members of the vast body of the Roman Empire,
which approached nearer and nearer to its dissolution, began to
fall to pieces, and that division itself accelerated again the de-
struction of the state, as it became the occasion of internal
discord, and universal convulsion in the Roman world. The
revolution accomplished by Constantine, indeed, might have
become a real, and by far the most comprehensive regeneration
of the Roman state, as it substituted for its originally defective
and now completely rotten foundation of paganism, a new
principle of life, a higher and more potent energy of divine
truth and eternal justice. But Christianity had not yet near
become the universal religion of the people, and empire of
Rome otherwise the great re-action, which took place under
Julian, had not been possible. The peasantry in particular,
continued for a long time yet attached to the old idolatry j
and hence the name of pagans was derived.* Even Constan-
tine, though he publicly declared himself a convert to Chris-
tianity, still did not dare to receive baptism immediately, and
thus enter fully into the great community of Christians. The
administration of the Roman state was so completely inter-
woven with pagan rites and pagan doctrines, that, from an
* From the Latin word Pagus, a rural district.
296 PHILOSOPHY OF
act of this public nature, dangerous collisions might have at
first easily ensued. On the whole, the old Roman maxims and
principles of state-policy continued to prevail, even for a long
time after the reign of Constantine ; and the period had not
yet arrived when Christianity was to work a fundamental re-
form throughout the whole political world, and a Christian
government, if I may so speak, was to be established and or-
ganised on that eternal basis, and to strike deep root and grow
into the faith and life of the people, and into their habits and
their feelings ; but this great revolution was reserved for an-
other and a later period.
END OF LECTURE X.
HISTORY. 297
1
Of tlio Anm*
LECTURE XI.
Of the Ancient Germans, and of the Invasion of the Northern Tribes
The March of Nature in the Historical Development of Nations
Further Diffusion and Internal Consolidation of Christianity Great
Corruption of the World Rise of Mahometanism.
THE idolatry of the ancient Germans, like the less poetical, less
artificial, and less elaborate paganism of all primitive nations,
consisted in a simple adoration of nature, such as existed among
the Persians, with whom they had a very close affinity in race
and in language. Thus the objects of their worship were the
stars, the sun, and the moon, the celestial spirits, the various
powers and elements of nature, and in particular the mother
earth, under the name of the goddess Hertha. In the German
and English names for the days of the week, the names of the
gods, Thun, Wodan, Thor, and Freya, are still preserved ; and
these in the Germanic mythology correspond to the planets,
most clearly visible from our globe Mars, Mercury, Jupiter,
and Venus ; as it is also from these the Romanic languages
have taken the names of the week days. It does not appear,
indeed, that there existed in Germany quite so powerful, influ-
ential, and well-organised a body of priests, as the Druids com-
posed in Gaul ; and we can only discover the existence of cer-
tain secret rites and mysteries of a very primitive simplicity ;
as, for instance, the human sacrifice which was offered to the
lake Hertha, in the Isle of Rugen, when a young man and
maiden were thrown into its solitary waters. It was in the ob-
scurity of woods, under the sacred oak, or by the Linden, the
tree of northern enchantment, and on the mountain tops, they
celebrated their rites, festivals, and entertainments, or arranged
the Runic sticks to search into futurity ; and as, among the
Greeks, the Delphic oracle in moments of general danger was
consulted, and gave its advice on the most important concerns
of the nation ; so the prophetesses and sybils of the north, like
298 PHILOSOPHY OF
the Velleda mentioned by the Romans, exerted a very decisive
influence on the public councils. Old poetical traditions of
gods, heroes, giants, and spirits (in many respects like those of
Persia), formed the key-stone of the sacred recollections and
national existence of the Germanic nations.
Their original descent from Asia remained ever strong and
lively in their remembrance, and allusions to it were interwoven
into the whole body of their traditionary poetry ; and as in the
Persian traditions, the Arii are celebrated as the most generous
and heroic nation of the primitive ages, so the Asae occupy the
most distinguished place in the northern mythology. In the
Scandinavian north, which remained pagan for many centuries
after Germany had become Christian, there are still extant
many monuments and songs of a similar purport and strain j
and of these, indeed, abundant vestiges are to be found every-
where. Those old historical traditions and this hereditary
poetry had often a very powerful influence on real \ life, and on
the martial enterprises and achievements of the tribes ; and as
in the heroic ages of the Greeks, according to the Homeric de-
scription, so in those times the bard, proclaiming the history of
gods and heroes, and attending on the person of the prince or
general of the army, was by no means an unimportant per-
sonage.
A monarchy of such wide extent as the ancient kingdom of
Persia, did not exist in Germany. The constitution, if we can
apply such a term to the wild freedom of those early ages, was
more like that of Greece in the heroic times, when she was
governed by her noble families, and her territory was divided
into a number of petty kingdoms, which only rarely united in a
great league for a common enterprise. This primitive Germanic
constitution was a very simple and free aristocracy of nature.
The tribe that composed the nation was an union or confederacy
of freemen and nobles under an hereditary tribe-prince, or
chosen leader ; and it was only at a later period that among
some of the Germanic nations, this confederacy gave way to a
regular regal government. Every freeman, and every man hav-
ing a right to bear arms, was a member of the Hermannia,
which was afterwards called the arriere-ban ; and it was this
ancient Hermannia that gave rise to the Roman name for Ger-
many. The land was cultivated by bondsmen and slaves, who
had been either purchased, or taken prisoners in war, or were
HISTORY. 299
the conquered remnant of the ancient inhabitants of the
country, or even men who for some crime had forfeited their
freedom and nobility. When the Romans became better ac-
quainted with the Germanic nations, the latter had partly
become an agricultural people ; and they observed that very
primitive custom of letting their fields lie alternately in fallow
a custom which has been so long retained in the north of
Germany, under the name of dreyfelder-wirth-schaft. Pri-
vate property in land itself was not yet marked out nor enclosed
within any exact limits there was still much common land,
and this was naturally an inducement for the different tribes,
whenever they Jiad a favourable opportunity, to change their
abode and migrate. But this infant agriculture was still held
subordinate to the occupations of the chase and of the pastoral
life, which furnished the principal means of subsistence. The
different forests that still exist in Germany are merely the re-
maining fragments of the one, vast, boundless Hercynian fo-
rest, that once extended through the whole interior of the
country. From the quantity of wood that yet remained, the
soil of Germany was much more marshy, and its atmosphere
incomparably colder, than at the present day. The buffalo
and the elk, which at present are so very rarely to be met
with in Germany, were then animals indigenous to our country.
That this condition of the soil, and this unsettled mode of
life, in a growing population are circumstances quite sufficient
to account for a partial, though (without other co-operating
causes) not perhaps for the general emigration of a whole tribe,
must be evident to every person. Internal factions and wars
are quite adequate causes for the emigration of a whole tribe,,
or, at least, of a considerable portion. In the early ages it
was customary, when the population became too numerous,
for the younger brothers, or a certain number of youths
chosen by lot, to quit their country under the guidance of a
leader of their choice, or of one marked out by fame, and, pro-
ceeding on an expedition of adventure, conquer other homes
for themselves, and seek out their fortunes towards the east, or
towards the west, or beneath the fairer sky of a southern
region. Even in a more advanced, nay, in the most ad-
vanced, stage of civilisation, every state and nation is neces-
sitated by nature, if I may so speak, to disburden itself of a
redundant population, and to extend itself in new settlements
300 PHILOSOPHY OF
in one word, to found colonies, and to possess colonies.
"This is the standing- law the fundamental rule of health in
the progressive development of nations ; and where this neces-
sity does not exist in an equal degree, we must consider it
only a case of exception, and we shall be sure to find out that
some special cause precludes the operation of this principle for
a time: for, sooner or later, nature will force us to this ex-
pedient. The commercial colonies of the Phosnicians and
Greeks were in part founded, and certainly at least defended,
extended, and consolidated, by force of arms ; and it is only
by similar means, that in modern times, Mexico and Peru
have become colonies of Spain.
But in those early ages, and among those northern, warlike
children of nature, this natural necessity of emigration could
take no other course, nor have any other object but a military
settlement. Such was the result of the first irruption of the
northern nations, mentioned in history the expedition of the
Gauls into Thrace, which was soon succeeded by a second of a
similar kind under Brennus ; when that Gallic general marched
at the head of his troops into Macedon and Greece, and be-
came master of the rich temple of Apollo at Delphi, and of
all its accumulated treasures. A remnant of these troops
finally fixed their abode in Asia Minor, and established a
Gallic settlement in a province which from them received
the name of Galatia. In this first great expedition, or irrup-
tion of the northern nations, the names of almost all the tribes
and their leaders are Celtic ; still some few German names are
found amongst them ; and this may be easily accounted for,
when we recollect that the Gauls, who were then widely
spread, and inhabited even the north of Italy, were un-
doubtedly in possession of most of the Alpine countries, and
thus may easily have engaged in their service some German
tribes. Who knows but what some marvellous tradition, and
fabulous account of the lovely climate and delicious fruits of
the southern regions, together with recollections of their
original descent from the southern nations of Asia, may have
contributed to bring the Cimbri and the Teutones from the
islands of Scandinavia to the plains of Italy? Had the Ro-
mans not dreaded the dangerous precedent, and had they but
allotted lands to these nations, they might easily have kept terms
-of peace with them, and enlisted their most valiant youth in
HISTORY. 301
the service of their legions ; as, indeed, under the later em-
perors, the flower of their troops was selected from the Gothic
tribes.
But the case was widely different when the relations of
peace and war, the proximity of frontiers, and the occupation,
of the German territory, brought the Romans in closer contact
with the Germanic nations ; as, for instance, in the campaigns
which Caesar conducted against the chief of the Suevi, Ario-
vistus ; Tiberius against Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni ;
and the general of Augustus against the Saxon prince, Her-
mann. Here both parties diligently studied and observed
each other's excellences and defects, and mixed in the most
various intercourse. Thus Hermann's father lived among the
Romans; his brother bore a Roman name; and his nephew
was educated at Rome. Maroboduus himself repaired thither,,
desirous, like a prudent foe, to examine with his own eyes
the capital of Roman greatness and power. Among the Ger-
man tribes and their leaders, factions were sometimes formed
even against Hermann and Maroboduus ; and, at a later period,
these divisions had no inconsiderable influence on the relations
of the Germanic nations with the Romans, and on their foreign
enterprises. The Roman frontier on the banks of the Rhine
and the Danube, fortified by a long line of castles, fortresses,
and cities, lay for the most part within the German territory,
and was inhabited by some German tribes, or German settlers
that had been attracted thither. Here the nations of Germany
saw their brethren of a kindred race, living, indeed, under
the control of Roman laws, which those who still retained
their freedom, sought to repel by force of arms; but on the
other hand, they observed the high cultivation of a country,
blessed with all the advantages of civilisation, and adorned with
so many of the arts of life, with the culture of the vine, and a
variety of the most exquisite fruits. And when in the course
of the almost incessant wars waged on the frontier, they either
encountered a feeble resistance, or observed some defect in the
mode of Roman defence, the desire to prosecute their fortune,
and penetrate into those beautiful countries, must have con-
siderably augmented. As, three centuries ago, the fabulous
account of treasures of gold, and rich ores of silver, to be found in
America, drew hosts of Spanish and other European adventurers
over the Atlantic to the shores of the newly-discovered conti-
302 PHILOSOPHY OF
nent ; so the charms of a southern sky, the rich fruits, the
vineyards, the blooming gardens of a warm, lovely, and highly-
cultivated region, wrought powerfully on the imaginations of
the northerns, and were often the motive of their expeditions
and armed migrations.
The first irruptions of the Alemanni in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius, and subsequent to it, appear to have arisen immedi-
ately and naturally, (as I have said,) out of the perpetual wars
waged on the frontier, on the first advantage which those bar-
barians obtained over the Romans, and on the first defect or
weakness which they espied in the defensive operations of their
enemies. That the warfare on the frontier was perpetuated
almost without intermission, it is the more natural to suppose,
since the Germanic nations, by two armed confederacies of their
tribes, had on their side opposed to the fortifications of the
Roman boundaries a living frontier-wall. The name of the
Marcomanni served to designate not a particular tribe, but an
armed confederation for the defence of the whole nation ; and
the same remark holds good of the Alemanni. In the de-
scriptions which the Romans have given of Germany, they were
occasionally led, by their ignorance of the language, to mistake
a league for a people, and to apply to a tribe the denomination
intended to denote a district or a custom. But in these
accounts it is very easy to trace the three or four leading
nations of Germany, that figure afterwards in its history, and
which, on the dissolution of the Roman empire, possessed them-
selves of its provinces, spread through the different Romanic
countries, and in the course of time became the founders of the
modern European states.
These three principal nations of Germany (and such they
were considered by the Romans,) were the Suevi, the Saxons,
and the Goths, who may be best distinguished by the course of
the rivers, which flowed through the countries they inhabited.
The whole of that extensive country, afterwards called Ancient
Saxony, and which lay along the course and embouchures of
the Elbe, the Eyder, the Ems, and the Weser, including the
whole sea- coast with Jutland and Denmark, all the Rhenish
Netherlands with the Batavian shores, was inhabited by the
Saxons ; a people (for it was only later their name was explained
from a peculiar national weapon, or species of sword,) attached
to the soil, and who were of all the Germanic tribes the least
HISTORY. 303
prone to emigration; for, as mariners, they kept to the sea-
coasts, and the banks of rivers. It was only at the period when
the tide of emigration had reached its highest point that the
Saxons, issuing from their native seat, not only possessed them-
selves of, but as it were, peopled anew, the great British isle;
and it is very possible that this not widely-dispersed, but closely-
connected low-German race, then out-numbered all the other
nations of Germany. It was on the banks of the Upper Rhine
and the Upper Danube that lay the original seat of the Suevi,
a race perhaps more mixed, who occur in history under the name
of the Alemanni, and were distinguished for a restless spirit of
adventure and migratory enterprise. The name of the Franks,
a people occupying so important a place in later history, de-
noted originally rather a league than a particular nation ; and
as their geographical seat lay between those of the Suevi and
the Saxons, they were, akin in character and descent to both
those nations. In their manners and mode of government they
resembled the Alemanni ; while in race and language they
were originally more nearly allied to the Saxons. If the
Franks are to be considered a distinct nation, it is the ancient
Catti or Hessians (who have ever been included among that
people) that we must regard as the main stock of the whole race.
But the second great primitive and leading race among the
Germanic nations were the Goths, a people whose territory
spread from the Scandinavian peninsula, and the shores of the
Baltic, along the whole course of the Vistula, as far as the
Black Sea. Their language, as it exists in the yet extant
Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, is what we would now call the high
Dutch dialect ; though its form is more ancient, and is distin-
guished for a certain purity of structure, not without its peculiar
charm. This Gothic dialect is, in tone and form, less akin to
the Saxon and Scandinavian languages, except in so far as the
branches of a stem, the nearer we approach the roots, reveal
more clearly their common origin. In the Scandinavian north,
the territories of these two principal Germanic races', the Goths
and the Saxons, were contiguous ; and, proceeding from this
common source, the two nations branched out into separate and
various streams. Of a similar, or at least of a kindred, race
to the Goths, were the Burgundians and Vandals, who after-
wards founded the kingdoms of that name in Gaul and Spain.
Hereditary monarchy attained to a more settled form among
304 PHILOSOPHY OF
the Goths than among any other of the Germanic nations;
and, divided between two different dynasties, the Ostro-Goths
were subject to the heroic family of the Amali, and the Visi-
Goths to that of the Balti. The Roman historians of that
age often speak of their martial courage and magnanimity, as
well as of their lofty and commanding stature.
The real emigration of the northern tribes originated solely
and immediately with the Goths ; and, in the first period, was-
not produced by any commotion among the Asiatic nations, &$
was afterwards the case. As early as the third century, the
Goths took possession of the countries situated on the northern
coast of the Euxine, and penetrated into Greece as far as
Athens. The Emperor Decius fell in the war against them,
and in the peace which they concluded with Aurelian, they
retained the further Dacia which had been previously surren-
dered. They now became allies of the Romans, who were
happy enough to cultivate the relations of peace with them,
and to recruit their legions with the Gothic youth. A hundred
years later, the Goths, on the death of their king Hermanric,
were disturbed in their settlements near the Black Sea by
the Huns; a people who, according to the Chinese annals,
originally inhabited the northern frontier of China towards;
the eastern parts of the Middle Asia, and who afterwards.,
bearing down westward, took up their abode for a long time on
the eastern shores of the Caspian, till at last they forced their
way into the Caucasian regions, and the territory of the Goths
on the borders of the Black Sea.
It was only now, when the minds of the German tribes of
the west were at the same time rising to a higher and higher
pitch of excitement, and the old empire of Rome was on every
side crumbling into ruins, that the tide of northern emigration-
burst out in all its full and fearful violence. In the first irrup-
tions, the names of the different tribes, as well as of their
leaders, were almost all without exception German ; but now
we meet with many foreign names, which discover not only
the Asiatic Huns, but the Sclavonian, and even perhaps, occa-
sionally, the Finnish tribes, that were undoubtedly then inter-
mingled with the Goths in the vast empire of the latter. For
fifty years after the first invasion, the Huns remained at peace
in their new settlements between the Theiss and the Danube,
nor did they disturb the Roman empire till the time of Attila.
HISTORY. 305
The Goths offered to defend the frontier against these barba-
rians, and received in return the province to the south of the
Danube.
The Goths readily embraced Christianity ; but they received
it in the Arian form ; for at the time when religious instructors
and the Gothic bishop Ulphilas were sent from Constantinople,
the Arian party had the ascendency in that capital. This
circumstance had afterwards the most fatal influence on the
destinies of the Roman empire ; for one of the chief causes of
its downfal was this new contest in religious matters. It was
-on this very account the second conquest of Rome by the
Vandal King Genseric was attended with far more devastation
than the first under the Visi-Goth King Alaric ; for the former
persecuted the Catholic church with all the animosity of an
Arian. The Goths were not animated by feelings of hostility
towards the Romans ; but were rather disposed to admire the
excellence and superiority of their civilisation/ When the
Emperor Valens perished in the Gothic war, which Roman,
treachery had occasioned, Theodosius contrived to conclude an
tidvantageous peace with this people, when they stood at the
very gates of Constantinople, took forty thousand of their
troops into his pay, and renewed the armed confederacy of the
Goths which Constantine had formed. When the Gothic
prince Athanaric had contemplated with astonishment the
pomp and splendour of Constantinople, and had conceived sen-
timents of respect for the personal character of Theodosius ;
the Goths, moved by the representations of their prince, de-
clared to Theodosius that as long as he lived, they wished to
liave no other king but himself. But the case was altered
under the sons of Theodosius ; and, to defend themselves from,
this people, these princes knew no other expedient than to let
loose on Italy these barbarians, and to divert and point the
storm of invasion towards that quarter. This policy produced
the expedition of the Visi-Goth King Alaric to Rome, and the
first conquest of the eternal and seven-hilled city.
The disputes between Rome and the new Byzantine court
did not a little contribute to the downfal of the Roman empire;
and the dexterity, or rather craftiness, which the politicians of
Constantinople displayed on this, as on many other occasions,
was often attended with consequences the most ruinous to
Italy. As the universal empire of Rome had grown out of
x
306 PHILOSOPHY OF
civil war, so it was undermined and ruined more by internal
discord and corruption, than by the power of the Goths ; a
nation with whom the Romans might easily have contracted
relations of amity, and induced to fraternize, and become by
degrees one people with themselves; and indeed, at various
periods, the policy of the better emperors had prepared the
way for such an union. As, of all the Germanic nations, the
Goths were the most powerful ; and as their assistance would
have enabled the Romans to resist all the other tribes ; such an
alliance, as I here speak of, would have accomplished by pacific
means the purpose of the great northern migration, namely,
the union of the sound, vigorous, native spirit of the Germans
with the civilisation of the Romans (then, indeed, sunk to the
lowest state of debasement), and whose polity and public life
Christianity itself was unable totally to regenerate. And thus
a long intermediate period of conflict and confusion would have
been rendered unnecessary.
During the troubles which followed the first conquest of
Rome by Alaric, the Romans invoked from Africa the aid of
Genseric, King of the Vandals a prince who, both as a war-
rior and as a ruler, was far more cruel than Alaric, and who
everywhere spread terror on his march. Jealous and suspi-
cious of the Goths, he invited into Italy Attila, with all the
nation which his martial prowess had subjected or attached to
his aushority, and occasioned the expedition of the latter into
the west, where, in the great battle on the banks of the Marna,
the Goths constituted the main portion of both the contending
armies The Huns and some other of the invading nations
were still pagans ; and the history of that age amply demon-
strated that wars are ever more destructive in proportion as
the armies are more numerous, the throng of armed multitudes
more dense, and the nations composing them more various and
dissimlar. Still the general oppression, anarchy, desolation,
and msery in those times, are not to be traced solely to wars
and battles; for during the most flourishing and civilised ages
of ancient Rome, wars were almost perpetually waged, and
were generally more, and certainly not less, bloody and de-
structive than the present. The Bishop of Rome contrived to
avert the torrent of hostilities from his capital, and the city was
spared. On the death of Attila, the Huns ceased to be for-
midable; for the power of that prince, which depended far less
HISTORY. 307
on their numbers, than on his own military prowess and glory,
perished at once with him.
Odoacer, Prince of the Heruli and Rugians (nations also
Gothic), was called to the empire of Rome from the banks of
the Danube. From his conquest dates the downfal of the
Western Empire, and the last Roman youth who was yet dig-
nified with the name of emperor, was called Romulus, 1228
years after the first Romulus the founder of the eternal city
a city which, after it had lost its outward and political power,
became the centre of a vast sacerdotal dominion, and again
occupied in succeeding times a mighty and important place in
history. When the sway of the Heruli became an object of
detestation in Rome and Italy, the Greek emperor, Zeno, in a
formal document, conferred on the Ostro-Goth king, Theo-
doric, who had been educated at Constantinople, the dominion
of Italy; and the latter, after his victory over Odoacer, assumed
the Roman purple, in lieu of the Gothic dress. He was highly
esteemed in Rome, and by all the Germanic nations ; his name,
like that of Charlemagne after him, was celebrated in the
heroic songs of the Germans, while political writers and histo-
rical critics commend alike his talents and his virtues. His
rule was generous and noble , he loved and honoured the arts
and sciences which his age still possessed, and the last of Roman
writers, Cassiodorius and Boethius, were the ornaments of his
reign. Factions which arose on the death of this great prince,
and a crime perpetrated on the relics of his house,* afforded the
active emperor of the east, Justinian, an opportunity to re-
establish the Greek sway in Italy, by means of his successful
general, Belisarius. Military commanders like Belisarius, and
some worthier and more enterprising princes on the throne
of Byzantium, as well as that systematic course of policy I have
before described, maintained the Byzantine empire; while Rome
itself was ruined, and Italy fell under the dominion of the Lom-
bards, who succeeded the Goths, and were succeeded in their
turn by the Franks under whom the Roman empire of Ger-
many was re-established, and Rome became, and continued,
united with that empire during the middle ages, though for the
most part only in name.
This rapid but faithful sketch of the migration of the
* Schlegel alludes to the murder of Araalasontha, daughter of Theo-
doric, and to the usurpation of Theodatus. Trans.
x2
308 PHILOSOPHY OF
northern nations, seemed necessary to enable us to form a right
opinion on this subject. For this period, which laid the mighty
foundation on which the whole Teutonico-Romanic structure of
the institutions, laws, manners, languages, opinions, and even
the peculiar imaginative character of modern European nations
has been raised, has not always been fully understood, or justly
appreciated by many writers, either led away by a partial en-
thusiasm for the antique, or enthraUed by modern opinions and
prejudices writers who wish to trace in all parts of creation,
and even in universal history, the same dead uniformity and
monotony of plan. It is by no means common to meet with
an historical inquirer, possessing a flexibility of fancy, a just-
ness of feeling, and a soundness and correctness of judgment,
capable of transporting him into the remote ages of history,
and the mythic antiquity of nations. But in the present
instance, and throughout the whole of this chaotic epoch, when
the old fictions of the Titanic wars appear to be actually
realised, and when the marvellous of events and sentiments is
to be found in the obscure and meagre chronicles of that age,
which often unite fragments of popular mythology and pagan
tradition, with real historic incidents ; it is perhaps still more
difficult to form an accurate judgment, and to discriminate
between the elements of truth and falsehood. As we cannot
figure to ourselves such a state of anarchy, we are unable to
comprehend it. We should bear in mind how often in nature
the fairest bloom of vegetation, and the richest fulness of
organic life, spring out of a state of confusion and chaos, when,
the elemental powers, after a long strife and conflict, settle at
last into a state of harmonious equipoise, unite and fructify,
and in some creative moment, when the struggle of labour is
over, give birth to new and more beautiful forms of existence.
Ancient Egypt was indebted for its fertility to the periodic
inundations of the Nile, which, had they not been provided
against by mounds and dams, would have occasioned the utmost
desolation. Nay, doth not this earth we inhabit, and which
nourishes us. with all that fair and blooming vegetation spread
over its surface, with all that boundless wealth and variety of
animal life, and with all the civility and refinement of man's
existence, whose abode it constitutes ; doth not this earth, I
say, teeming as it doth with fertility and life, rest on the
gigantic remains of a primitive world, submerged by the old
HISTORY. 309
floods, and which was often torn, convulsed, and rent asunder
by the eruptions of subterraneous fire ? Well, the migration
of the northern nations brought about a sort of chaotic struggle
between the various elements of society it was a new
Ogygean inundation of nations in the historical ages but it
laid the fruitful soil the historical foundation of a new moral
and intellectual form of life. This vast flux and reflux of
nations, rolling in incessant waves from the east to the west,
and from the north to the south, and back again to the east
and to the north, this emission of immense armies issuing in
all directions from a common centre, and returning again to
that centre from every side all this vast movement must be
looked upon as a strife and contention between the elemental
powers of human society. The first effect, indeed, of such a
strife of nature's elements let loose, is to destroy, or at least,
to impair, all existing organic forms ; and it must be confessed,
this wild and protracted state of confusion and anarchy does
not present the most pleasing and auspicious aspect to the eye
of the historical observer. With respect to the latter circum-
stance, we must recollect that the extremely slow progress, and
often unexpected delays, in the advancement of human society,
correspond not always, and indeed rarely, to our wishes and
expectations ; while, on the other hand, there are epochs in.
history, when we are amazed by the sudden out-burst of the
most extraordinary events, and when a great splendour of moral
and intellectual life surprises us of a sudden, like a bright
morning in spring. In other words, there is a strong', wise,
and fatherly hand which guides and conducts the destinies of
individuals, as well as the march of society, and the course of
ages ; or, as the Scripture Avith touching simplicity saith, " the
Father hath reserved times unto himself;" and time in. his
march keepeth not pace with the rapidity of our desires, nor
moveth according to our views and hopes. But whatever may
be, if I may so speak, the fearful tardiness wherewith the views
of Providence over the destinies of the human race are accom-
plished ; a tardiness whereof man has to bear the greatest
blame ; or whatever may be, if I may so say, the long delays
of divine justice the procrastination of the period of grace ;
it cannot be doubted that the general result of the great
northern migration was most salutary, and that that mixture of
Germanic tribes with the degenerate population of Rome that
310 PHILOSOPHY OF
alliance between the healthy, vigorous, and native intellectual
energy of Germany, and the rapidly decaying civilisation of
Rome, were productive of the mightiest and most beneficial
consequences. Whoever doubts the truth of this observation,
may cure his scepticsm by comparing the splendour, activity,
and variety in the political and intellectual existence of the
modern European states, that have sprung out of this union
of the Germanic and Romanic nations, with the dull monotony,
the thorough moral and intellectual stupor which prevailed in
the later Byzantine empire.
But I have more than once observed that, independently of
that progressive power of reason, inherent in all the forms and
departments of human activity ; arid independently of the ope-
rations of Divine Providence, which form that high mysterious
chain of unity which links together the different periods of man's
social progress ; independently, I say, of all these, there is a
law of nature a high, and secret principle of nature, presiding
over the life and growth of human society which, if kept in
due subordination to the higher principle of Providence, will not
be found incompatible with it. The prevalence of this law of
nature may be clearly traced in the history of mankind, and
even in that of particular nations, when their social progress is
not impeded or interrupted by violent or irregular causes. And
in following the current of events in history, the historical ob-
server can accurately distinguish the different periods of national
development the first period of artless, yet marvellous, child-
hood the next of the first bloom and flush of youth later,
the maturer vigour and activity of manhood and at last the
symptoms of approaching age, a state of general decay, and
second childishness. This energy of nature, which, together
with the other higher and divine principle of human destiny,
is inherent in mankind, displays itself even in the sphere of in-
tellect, and particularly in the flourishing eras of art and science.
It is even still more, or at least quite as, perceptible in those
creative moments already described, of a new, though perhaps,
at first, a chaotic epoch of human society ; so far, at least, as
those plastic, eventful moments are not the mere offspring and
counterfeit production of revolutionary violence but have
issued from the very well-spring of nature. When the latter is
the case, it will be found that the whole tendency of these
periods of extraordinary ferment in society is conducive to the
HISTORY. 311
extension of the divine principle, and to the promotion of the
views of Providence, as was eminently the case in the era of the
great northern migrations; an era, when a catastrophe, at first
the most appalling, led to the further triumph of Christianity,
which conferred on those robust, northern children of nature,
the high consecration of an empire, which thereby, in its
ulterior progress, far-outshone the Roman, or any other old
pagan dominion. But unquestionably the two conflicting
elements in that eventful period, which contained the first
germs of all modern civilisation the free-born energy of Ger-
manic nature, and the Romanic refinement, science, and lan-
guage, were happily blended and harmonised by the Christian
religion only, which on that account must be regarded as the
all-connecting bond the one all-animating principle of social
life in modern ages. But without that new clement of v tal
power furnished by the northern emigrations, Christianity alone
would not have regenerated the degraded people of Rome, nor
have restored its intellectual energy, then sunk to too low a
state of debasement. Above all, the primitive, innate, and
deeply-rooted corruption of the Roman government was beyond
the power of remedy, and could only be removed by time. The
evils of the age were, indeed, universal ; for, even in the bosom
of Christianity, discord had broken out; and where even faith
was preserved in its purity, there, to use the expression of Holy
Writ, " much of first love was gone." But for this, the in-
fluence of Christianity on the Roman empire, and the Roman
world, would have been far more extensive ; and a miraculous
cure would have been wrought on the moral distempers of
society, as on the physical diseases of individuals. And as holy
hermits were often able to command the elements of nature and
the savage beasts of the desert ; so a divine power, by its mild,
conciliating, prompt, and effective influence would, in the first
moment have allayed the wild jar and strife of the social
elements. But these effects were accomplished only by slow
degrees, by the soothing influence of time, and by the gradual
infusion of the spirit of Christianity into the human mind.
The progressive corruption and ever-growing disorders of the
Roman world were productive of consequences in some degree
important to Christianity, particularly in relation to after-ages.
To forsake and renounce that world of cruelty and vice, that
312 PHILOSOPHY OF
kingdom of dissimulation, that age of confusion and barbarism r
and to seek by preference an abode and asylum in the wilder-
ness, in the neighbourhood of lions and other savage animals-
of the desert, required no extraordinary impulse of Christian
feeling, and scarcely more than a high effort of human courage.-
And thus in that convulsed period of the Roman empire, and
under the accursed domination of its last tyrants, Christian
anchorets peopled the solitudes of Thebais, those solitudes
where the old pyramids and other monuments of hoar antiquity
still speak in mute signs to the traveller, their grave and earnest
language. Self-contemplation did not shut up these Christian
anchorites within a narrow and egotistical sphere of thought, as-
is the case with the Indian recluse, who, to outward appearance,,
leads the same mode of life. As the primitive Christians evinced
the power of faith and charity by deeds and in sufferings, in
words and in works of manifold kinds ; so prayer was to these
solitaries the inward porch of a new and invisible world a real
business of life, and a bond of the closest and tenderest con-
nexion, whereby, though separated from the world, they
remained, even at the remotest distance, intimately united with
all who, like themselves, were firmly united to God.
Thus it was that the primitive Christians displayed the power
of divine Hope, and ardent Charity, not only in their heroic
constancy under assaults, persecutions, sufferings and torments,
of all, even the most exquisite, kinds ; but in their renunciation
of society and of all earthly enjoyments, in their contempt and
abandonment of a world, which seemed in truth eternally dis-
tracted and irretrievably undone. In the eremitical life, a
simple handicraft was ordinarily coupled with the duty of
spiritual contemplation, These first Christian anchorites of
Egypt were the original and model of all later monastic insti-
tutes ; although, conformably to the living and quite practical
spirit of Christianity, these institutes have generally admitted
into their rules other useful and salutary exercises adapted
either to the general circumstances of the age, or to the wants
of individuals such as the education of youth the cultivation
of the sciences the relief of the poor the care of the infirm
and the practice of other works of charity. The anchorites,,
who lead a purely contemplative life, constitute a comparatively-
small and rare exception in the Christian church ; and they are-
HISTORY. . 313
tolerated only because the ways of human nature are so in-
finitely diversified, and often so strange and so singular.
To resist their internal foes, to withstand the assaults of the.
fiend the spirit of discord and corruption, and to preserve
inviolate the purity of morals, as well as of faith, the primitive
Christians as much needed the divine assistance, as to enable
them to endure outwardly the torments of martyrdom, or to
renounce in holy solitude the pleasures of the world. In this*
respect three different kinds* of heresy, which were so many
trials the Christian religion ;had to sustain, are well worthy of
our attention. From the very birth of Christianity, the Gnostics
gave loose to the ardour of an Oriental fancy, indulged in a*
variety of Theosophistic speculations, and with their systems of
Divine Emanations, Eradiations, Incarnations, and Persons,.,
formed an almost mythological concatenation of ideas ; so that
had it been possible for this sect to become predominant, and
for Christianity to swerve into such a labyrinth of doctrines, our
divine religion would have degenerated into a system of meta-
physical fictions, not unlike the philosophic mythology and
poetical creed of India. Happily these sects of Gnostics were
not numerous, nor in general of long duration ; and they were
extremely divided among themselves ; for a truly inventive-
fancy ever strikes out a path of inquiry for itself. But, when
considered in an intellectual point of view, these sectaries, amid
all their strange and whimsical errors, must ever command the-
attention of mankind. It would seem from all appearance, (and
indeed the nature of things would sufficiently warrant the in-
ference) that many of these sects combined with their own
peculiar notions the opinions of other Oriental sects, totally
alien from Christianity. As the march of error is infinitely
progressive, and as, from its very nature, false opinion is sure to-
branch out into a variety of ramifications, it is often difficult to
determine with exactness whether some of these Gnostic sects*
that spread through Central Asia, and were lost in a multitude
of others, were or not of a Christian origin. Of all the
sects belonging to the Gnostic family, the Manichaeans alone
appear to have had a longer existence ; and during the middle
ages, they secretly germinated in Europe.
The second corruption of Christianity was from Arianisra,.
which corresponds to what in modern times is termed Rationalism ^
though the former appeared in another and more Christian.
314 PHILOSOPHY OF
form. That the dispute with Arianism was no mere verbal
dispute that it involved a capital article of faith a question
of life or death for Christianity a question whether the real
Foundation the essential Corner-stone and Beginning of our
faith were really, truly, and in very deed divine, and from God,
and equal with God, or merely in a certain sense like to God
(an opinion which the Platonic, or any other system of philo-
sophy might have included among his tenets) that the dis-
pute with Arianism was no mere verbal dispute, must be evi-
dent to every upright, ingenuous, and unprejudiced mind. No
sect has ever been so widely diffused, nor has ever taken such
deep root ; and, by the arts and evasions of a prodigious sub-
tilty, it maintained its principles under the mask of apparent
submission. It was now that for the first time, the importance
and power of a general council became apparent, in order to
oppose to the many-shaped, subtle, and intangible spirit of
error, a brief, but clear, and definite formulary of that faith
which animated the bosom, and was rooted in the conviction of
every Christian. This destructive rationalism of the early ages
of Christianity was at last repressed, and became finally extinct;
though the last ramifications of this sect have continued down
to our times among the Eutychians of Armenia, and the Nesto-
rians of Ethiopia.
How much the unhappy disputes of Arianism contributed in
this period of general decline, towards the downfal of the Roman
empire, I have already had occasion to notice. But that pas-
sion for dispute, which, if not innate in man, has at least be-
come his second nature, and is, as it were, the original sin of
human intellect, displays itself in a more striking degree in
certain sects, that did not question any article of faith, but
merely some subordinate matters of opinion, or the rights of
ecclesiastical authority, and who conducted their disputes with
the most unyielding obstinacy such a passion, I say, displays
itself more strikingly in these sects than in others, that called
in question points of faith, and who, so far as they were con-
scientious in their errors, appear entitled to our respect and
forbearance. Among the former class of disputants must be
ranked some of the smaller, less diffused, and obscurer sects of
the first ages of the church, like the Montanists and Donatists;
sects whose influence was on that account by no means unim-
portant, and who occupy no insignificant place in the history of
HISTORY. 315
their times ; for their errors constitute the third form of devia-
tion from universal Christianity. In the same category must
we place the great schism of a later period, which severed the
Greek from the Western church ; for this unhappy separation,
as is well known, had no relation to any important dogma of
Christianity.
As the general councils of that period prove the self-preserving
and self-sustaining power of Christianity, so the energy of
Christian faith and Christian intellect displays its life, activity,
and scientific progress in the numberless and manifold produc-
tions of those first doctors of the church, so highly revered by
ah 1 succeeding ages. The style and language of these works
must be estimated by the standard of their age; and it would
be absurd to expect them to possess, in a like degree, the attic
simplicity of a Xenophon, or the full and elaborate periods of a
Livy. But with this single exception, these writings display
the most varied talents for oratory, and philosophy, united with
extensive learning, the purest feelings of religious love, and the
most correct views in religion. And, to cite but one or two
examples out of the multitude of ecclesiastical writers, St.
Augustine, by the extent of his historical information, by a phi-
losophy zealous in its inquiries after truth, but still irresolute,
presents the image of a Christian Cicero, in a language some-
what altered indeed, but distinguished for a similar employment
of rhetoric. Nor was this great man destitute of political dis-
cernment and penetration ; and he certainly possessed a much
more decided talent for speculative inquiry, than the old Roman
who flourished in the last age of the republic. There was next
that learned and holy recluse St. Jerome, who was as well versed
in classical literature as in the Oriental languages, and who was
gifted with a depth of critical discernment, and an original
power of thought and expression, equalled by very few orators
and thinkers in any age.
The dread of a false Gnosis was at that period, as often in.
subsequent ages, an obstacle to the progress of a profound
Christian philosophy. The leaning of the great ecclesiastical
writer Origen, particularly in his youth, to some opinions of the
Gnostics, excited long after his death many doubts and contro-
versies respecting some points of his belief, and tended at least
to impair the reverence with which his philosophical genius was
316 PHILOSOPHY OF
otherwise regarded. This was particularly the case when the*
Arians made use of some doubtful opinion of this great man for
the support of their system ; as indeed it often happens that an
elevated system of philosophy if not completed in its parts, or at
least that the individual errors it may contain are seized upon by
the dull, innovating spirit of a superficial, and half-doubting faith,
and debased to a quite alien and inferior sphere of speculation,
There is also another error, or rather illusion, which deserves
to be noticed, as it is a characteristic incident in the history of
those early ages of the church ; for it was no regular system of
error, nor did its partisans constitute a sect ; but it was merely
the exaggerated opinion of some individuals in the bosom of the
church, who were animated by no intentions hostile to Christi-
anity. I allude to the (so called) Millenarian doctrine, which,
as it refers to the future historical destiny of Christianity, pos-
sesses a high historical interest. Though the Prophet of the
New Testament marked out the period of a thousand years for
the duration of the triumph of the church, he expressly intima-
ted thereby that that period could not be discovered nor deter-
mined by human penetration, for, as the Scripture saith, "a thou-
sand years are as one day with the Lord, and one day, as
a thousand years ;" and though the inspired writer expressly
added, that as the great combat, which man is doomed to on the-
earth and in earthly life, can never be completely terminated, a
last combat awaited humanity at the close of those thousand
years; many virtuous and praiseworthy men were still found,
who depicted this kingdom of a thousand years in the most
sensual colours of earthly felicity, and thus destroyed all faith
in that prophetic warning, so necessary for man and for all ages'
all belief in the ideal conception of the kingdom of divine-
truth : or, with reckless precipitancy equally misapplied the
words of the prophet, and (as has often been the case in suc-
ceeding times) very unseasonably alarmed themselves and others;
through that long series of ages marked out by the apostle for
the progress of Christianity might have opened their eyes, and
taught them differently. But the principal cause which op-
posed, and must ever oppose an insurmountable difficulty to the
Millenerian systen of that and of all succeeding ages, is the-
limit assigned to the judgment of Christians in all that relates
to the inscrutable decrees of Divine Providence; whether those
HISTORY. 317
decrees regard individuals or mankind in general. Surely
nothing could be conceived more disquieting, more fatal to
human life, than for every individual to know before-hand with the
utmost certainty from his birth the day and hour of his death ;
and no greater calamity could happen to any man than a reve-
lation of such a kind. The same remark is equally applicable to
the world in general, where such fore-knowledge would only
produce the utmost disorder and confusion. As in the case of
a sick man reduced to imminent danger from the increasing
symptoms of dissolution ; though no man, not even the phy-
sican, can positively know and determine with certainty the
course of events, which is known to God alone, still every friend
would wish that the patient should examine his interior, unite
his thoughts to God, and set his house in order ; so cases may
be imagined, when this comparison would apply to mankind at
large.
Thus then on the Roman soil, and amid that world once so bril-
liant, Christianity had grown up, like a tender, luminous plant,
whose seed had come down from Heaven . For the further expan-
sion of that heavenly seed, for the formation of the Christian
state, and the political organisation of Christian nations, we must
allow that the all-wise and powerful Hand, which guides the
destinies of men and of nations, the march of ages, and the
course of events, found it necessary to employ at first very
violent, and (if we may borrow a term of the medical art) almost
heroic remedies. The cause of this undoudtedly must be sought
for in the fact, that although many great and holy men are to
be found in the first ages of the church, mankind on the whole
had very imperfectly corresponded to that mighty and divine
impulse which Christianity had imparted to the world ; and had
%-ery soon and very quickly fallen into the most fearful dis-
putes. Scarce had that indundation of the northern nations
burst in upon the blooming garden of the Christian west, (and
beneficial to mankind as have been the remote consequences and
final results of that revolution, and defensible therefore as it may
te in a historical Theodicea, still we cannot deny that its im-
mediate effects were most terrible and destructive ;) scarce, we
say, had this inundation of the northern nations occurred when,
in the opposite quarter of the east, there broke out among the
nations of Asia, that mighty Arabian conflagration, whose
flames were scattered over the terrified globe, by the sons of the
318 PHILOSOPHY OF
desert, guided by their new prophet of unhelief, and animated
themselves with all the enthusiasm of destruction.
I am at a loss to conceive how some could have regarded it
as a peculiar merit of this religion of empty arrogance and
senseless pride, that it maintains and inculcates with purity a
belief in one Almighty Deity. This, as the Scripture says, the
demons themselves, in their realms of eternal darkness, believe,
without being on that account at all the better; and it is only
a profound ignorance of the world and himself, that could ever
make man forget and obliterate from his bosom that first
foundation of all faith. All the elements of salvation, recon-
ciliation, mercy, love, and happiness for mankind, to be found
in eternal truth, and a belief in that truth, all these are want-
ing in the religion of Mahomet. There is not a more decided
contrast than that presented by the silent progress of the new
and divine light of truth in the primitive church, amid oppres-
sion and persecution, in meek submission to every existing law,
and, except in matters of faith, in a patient, unwearied, and
cheerful submission to the hostile, but still legitimate, powers
of the earth; and, on the other hand, that fanatic thirst of con-
quest inspired by Mahomet that express precept to propagate
by fire and sword, throughout the four quarters of the globe,
the new Unitarian faith of Arabia. If some writers, instead
of studying the history of modern Europe, in order to deduce
from their researches new matter, and occasion for reviving the
old contests about the respective rights and limits of the secular
and ecclesiastical powers, would only examine with attention
the history of the ancient Caliphate, they would soon satisfy
themselves of the fearful character of that institution, of the
infernal spirit that produced that anti- Christian combination of
spiritual and temporal authority, and of the horrible state of
moral degradation to which it has reduced mankind in every
country where it has prevailed.
It was with the rapidity of a destructive fire that this mighty
mischief spread over the countries of Asia, and a large portion
of Africa, till it soon menaced the southern extremities of Eu-
rope. When Mahomet died, he was master of Arabia, a
country that, from the earliest antiquity, had remained in a
state of absolute seclusion from the rest of the world; and con-
sequently, if this great revolution had remained confined within
the limits of this region, the religion of Mahomet would never
HISTORY. 319
have exerted so mighty an historical influence on other nations
and kingdoms. But only a few score years from his decease,
and under his immediate successors, the whole Western Asia
between the Tigris and Euphrates, as far as the Mediterranean,
Syria, and Palestine, down to Mount Taurus and the frontiers
of Asia Minor, and soon again the whole northern coast of
Africa, down to the opposite shores of Spain, were subdued by
the disciples of the Koran; while at the same moment the
Roman west and the empire of Persia were menaced by the
arms of these formidable invaders. It was a general principle
with the Mahometan conquerors to extirpate all recollection of
antiquity in the countries which they subdued, to give them an
entirely new form and aspect or, in other words, to destroy
and obliterate every vestige of the higher and better civilisation
that had adorned those once flourishing regions.
END OF LECTURE XI.
320 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTUKE XII.
Sketch of Mahomet and his Religion Establishment of the Saracenic
Empire New Organisation of the European West, and Restoration
of the Christian Empire.
FROM the earliest period, the pastoral tribes of Arabia have
lived under their emirs, in all the wild independence of No-
made nations; they were not, however, without cities, as these
were created and rendered necessary by the trade of the cara-
van, which in its journeys through the wilderness, and in its
passage from one inhabited province to another, required these
points of rest. A few of the frontier districts and maritime
coasts were, indeed, possessed by some of the more ancient
Egyptian Pharaohs; but the entire country was never subdued
or conquered either by the Assyrians, the Persians, or the Ma-
cedonian conquerors. Nor were the Romans more successful ;
.and it was only in the reign of Trajan, the last of Roman em-
perors, who meditated schemes of conquest, that a small frontier
tract of Arabia Petraea was taken possession of, and annexed to
the Roman empire. Immediately on the death of Trajan, the
Roman government recurred to the pacific policy of Augustus,
who had considered it dangerous to enlarge the empire by any
new conquests: and in consequence, this province of Arabia
was abandoned by the Romans, and left to the enjoyment of
its ancient freedom.
This long-established liberty and total independence of all
foreign conquerors and rulers has not a little contributed to
xalt among the Arabs a strong self-consciousness. Their
origin, which is very nearly akin to that of the Hebrews, they
deduce as descendants of Yoktan from Heber, who was an
ancestor of Abraham, or from Ishmael, the son of Abraham,
ihat was born in the desert. Among these free and warlike
pastoral nations, the feelings of clanship, the pride of noble
descent, and the glory of an ancient and renowned race, and
HISTORY. 321
again the mutual hostility of tribes transmitted from one gene-
ration to another, the never-to-be-cancelled debt of blood,
form the ruling and animating principle, nay the almost exclu-
sive purport of existence. This tribe-spirit of the Arabians
has had a mighty influence on the origin and first development
of the Mahometan religion, and has stamped on it a peculiar
character. And among the Nomade nations, in a similar stage
of social advancement, and who combine the freedom of the
pastoral life with the commerce of caravans, and are not total
strangers to the refinement of cities, the faith of Mahomet
has not only obtained the easiest access, but has struck the
deepest roots, and finds, as it were, its most natural disciples.
For the Tartar nations in the interior parts of Asia, and the
tribes of Berbers, w r ho are the original inhabitants of the north
of Africa, lead the same mode of life, though they cannot
boast of the ancient origin and high descent ascribed to the
Arabs. Compared with Roman degeneracy, with the corrup-
tion of the Byzantine court, with Assyrian effeminacy, and the
immorality of the great Asiatic cities, this tribe-character of the
Arabians, as preserved in its purity during their ancient free-
dom, appears undoubtedly to be of a less corrupt, more moral,
and more generous nature. Doubtless the Arabs possessed in
the first ages of their history, a great moral energy of will
and strength of character, and even in the period of their de-
cline, these qualities are still perceptible. On the other hand
in this tribe character, and in those feelings of clanship, which
determine all the social relations among that people ; pride,
party-animosities, and the spirit of revenge, are the ruling ele-
ments of life, and the passions to which all things are made
subservient, or are sacrificed. The moral corruption of the
human race, the profound disorder of man's whole being, is
proved as well by the constant proneness of civilised nations
towards a soft voluptuousness of morals, or by the innate dis-
position of politer classes and ages to a spirit of speculative
contention, as by the rude pride and animosities of tribes,
which considered in a natural point of view, appear to be
purer and less corrupt in their morals, or to possess greater
strength and generosity of character. Those tribe-feelings
and passions of pride and hatred, anger and revenge, so pre-
valent among the Arabians, are displayed in their ancient
poetry, and even constitute its essential spirit and purport ; for
Y
822 PHILOSOPHY OF
except those parables, riddles, and proverbial sayings in which
the Orientals so much delight, this poetry has no mythological
fictions, like that of the Indians and the Greeks, nor with the
exception of a certain enthusiasm of passion, does it evince any
truly fertile and inventive power of imagination.
The old Arabians never possessed, like the Indians, Egyp-
tians, and Greeks, a poetical, high- wrought, and scientifically
arranged system of polytheism. The historical traditions of
their different races had much analogy with those of the He-
brews, and coincided with them in a variety of points ; for as
they were of the Semitic race, they deduced their origin from
Abraham and the other holy patriarchs of the primitive world.
Hence the tradition of a purer faith, and the simple patriarchal
worship of the Deity appear to have never been totally extin-
guished among the Arabs ; though indeed the veracious Hero-
dotus asserts, that they adored the Asyrian Venus under the
name of Alilath. But such a mixture of religious doctrines
and practices is by no means incredible, when \ve reflect on
those periods in the history of the Hebrews, when though that
people were in possession of the Mosaic revelation and code of
laws, and though their whole arrangements of life were founded
thereon ; though mighty and zealous prophets perpetually
arose to warn them of their errors ; they still went after Baal,
and still sacrificed their children to Moloch. In the age of Ma-
homet, and shortly before his time, various kinds of idolatry
had found their way among the Arabs from the neighbouring
nations, who if not now, had formerly been plunged in the
errors of paganism. At the same time several Jewish tribes
existed in Arabia, and even some Christian communities, be-
longing mostly to the Oriental sects, mingled with the rest of
the population. The neighbouring Christian monarch, or
Negus of ^Ethiopia, also exerted considerable influence on the
different tribes and communities of Arabia.
Mahomet felt the most decided aversion to all pagan idolatry,
and even to all veneration of images ; and it is very possible,
according to the opinion of a great historian, who, on the
whole does not judge the Arabian prophet unfavourably, that
the expectation which the Jews still entertained of the future
coming of a Deliverer and Prophet, should have operated very
powerfully on the mind and imagination of Mahomet. In the
same way as the Jews, then incomparably more active than
HISTORY. 323
afterwards, still expected Him who had long since come ; so
certain Christian sects, totally misunderstanding the Scriptures
which they interpreted according to their own arbitrary sense,
believed that the Holy Ghost and the divine Paraclete whom
the Saviour had promised was yet to come ; although the
Saviour had promised that the Holy Spirit should come down
upon his disciples immediately after his ascension, and had
added, that the same spirit should for ever abide with them.
Now every one who professed himself a Christian, knew very
well from the Holy Scriptures, that a supernatural light had
descended on the apostles in the first assembly they held, and
when as they thought, their Lord and Master had abandoned
them ; and that this light had transformed the disciples, till
then weak, wavering, and trembling before the world, into
apostolic men filled with the spirit of God, into prophets of
eternal truth and divine love, humble, but energetic, and no less
heroic than enlightened. That Assister and Comforter, or that
guiding Paraclete promised by God to his disciples, which in the
apostles had proved itself a spirit of knowledge, of illumination,
and of insight into the mysteries of faith in the martyrs, a
spirit of divine power and of heroic constancy under sufferings,
was now in the great doctors of the church, and in the general
councils, the guiding spirit of wisdom, rightly discerning and
steadfastly adhering to the truths of revelation. But this truth
did not prevent many leaders of those sects from regarding
themselves in their own conceit as the Comforter and the
Paraclete promised by God for the consolation of succeeding
ages, or even from permitting themselves to be so considered
by their own disciples. The supposition of the great historian
just now cited, that these Judseo- Christian expectations of the
future coming of an earthly Deliverer, Redeemer, and Teacher,
or Prophet of the world, may have exerted no inconsiderable
influence on the mind of Mahomet, and may have awakened
similar conceptions and imaginations on his own head, is con-
firmed by the fact, that the Koran itself contains no very obscure
allusions and references to the notions of the Paraclete, and to
a supernatural and divine power and force under the very
denomination used among the later Hebrews, and according to
the very word sanctioned for that peculiar object.
In the time of Mahomet, and shortly before him, the Caaba
at Mecca constituted the great sanctuary of Arabian worship.
Y2
324 PHILOSOPHY OF
This, if we may so designate it, was a simple chapel of pagan
pilgrimage, which contained the black stone, the object of the
religious devotion of the Arabs from a very ancient period.
The idolatrous worship of such shapeless or conical blocks of
stone was by no means unknown to the wayward genius of
ancient polytheism. We meet with a similar form of idolatry
in the mythology of the Greeks, though set off and embellished
by the peculiar fancy of that people ; and instances of a like
kind were to be found in the worship which the neighbouring
people of Syria paid to Belus or Baal. Those stones which
are frequently mentioned by ancient historians as having fallen
from heaven, may probably have given rise to this peculiar
species of idolatry ; and the fact itself (as now indeed is often;
the case with the general traditions of antiquity) is sufficiently
proved by the existence of those well-known meteor stones,,
whose origin, though they have undergone chemical analysis,,
and mineralogical investigations, still remains, even in the
present advanced state of modern science, a problem of no
small difficulty.
The Arabian tribe from which Mahomet was sprung, had
long been intrusted with the care and custody of the Caaba,
and the black stone, and placed its highest glory in this its-
allotted dignity. According to the Arabian tradition, Abraham
had first erected the Caaba, and the Amalecites had afterwards
repaired it. When the tribe of Koreish, who were invested
with this high charge, had to rebuild this temple ; they were at
a loss to know how the sacred black stone should be fixed in.
the walls, and what hand should touch the consecrated piece r
when quite unexpectedly, this honour fell to the lot of Mahomet r
than a stripling of fifteen. For this reason, we may well
suppose that this ancient seat of Arabian worship the Caaba
produced one of those youthful impressions that determined
the future destiny of this extraordinary man. Even in the
religious system which he afterwards founded, this ancient
sanctuary with its magical stone, has remained in every age a
high object of veneration ; and it is only in our times that the
temple of Mecca, has been exposed to the rage of the
WechabiteS) who, though their religious fury has taken a
opposite course, exhibit the old Arabian character in all its
fanatical violence. But this old black stone-idol is a very re-
markable feature in the history of Mahomet and of his religion.
HISTORY. 325
In the holy temple of the Caaba, were kept and suspended the
seven most remarkable poems which had won the prize over the
other tribe-songs of the Arabs a species of poetry peculiar to
this people, and breathing all the enthusiasm of pride and
hatred. In these compositions, Mahomet held a very distin-
guished rank, and long before he announced himself as a
prophet, his poetry which far outshone that of his competitors,
had raised him to a high degree of honour and consideration.
It was only in the fortieth or forty-second year of his age, and
after a long and solitary abode in a cavern during what the
Mahometans term " the night of divine decrees," that Mahomet
formed the first determination, and thought he felt the first
inward calling to the mission of a prophet. The first person
that believed in this mission, and acknowledged him for a
prophet, was his own wife Cadijah, who, though a rich widow,
had bestowed her hand on Mahomet, when his sole patrimony
consisted of five camels and an Ethiopian maid- servant, and
had thus raised him to a station of wealth and independence.
It is worthy of notice, that it is only in the epileptic fits to
which he was subject, that he is represented as having myste-
rious colloquies with the angel Gabriel. Others represent him
-as a lunatic ; and in connexion with this charge I may mention
the story, that he wished to pass with his disciples as a person
transfigured in a supernatural light, and that the credulity of
his followers saw the moon, or the moon's light, descend upon
him, pierce his garments, and replenish him. That veneration
for the moon, which still forms a national or rather religious
characteristic of the Mahometans, may perhaps have its foun-
dation in the elder superstition, or pagan idolatry of the
Arabs.
Modern historians have often complained of the difficulty of
ascertaining the precise truth in the history of Mahomet, from
the severity of his opponents on the one hand, and the enthusi-
astic admiration of his Eastern partisans, on the other. If we
think proper to follow those writers only, who, by their acquaint-
ance with the language, have copied from Arabic authorities, we
shall find that their narratives are much distorted by fanaticism,
and rendered almost unintelligible by an absurd exaggeration.
Independently of the evident traces in this religion of a demo-
niacal influence and operation ; undoubted historical facts will
furnish us with sufficient data for forming a clear and definitive
326 PHILOSOPHY OF
opinion on the character of Mahomet and the nature of his
religion. Although the Arabs of that age, like other nations
of that time, and the ancient Hebrews, universally thooght that
supernatural works were to be expected from a prophet ; and
that the high power of miracles was necessary to prove a divine
mission ; yet Mahomet found it more fitting or convenient to
declare, that he could dispense with the aid of miracles, as he
came not to found a new religion, but to restore the purity of
the old the faith of Abraham, and the other patriarchs.
Even though we had not such clear and positive historical
proofs and testimonies, respecting the nature of that presentient
faith of Abraham, and the other patriarchs of the Old Testament
a faith which pointed to all the mysteries of futurity still to
suppose that the religion of those pious fathers of hoar antiquity.
were nothing more than that system of (so called) pure, but in
reality shallow, and meaningless, Theism which the pretended
Arabian reformer has announced to the world, would be little
consonant with probability, and little conformable to the nature
and march of the human mind. Considered in its true internal
spirit, and divested of its outward garb of Oriental customs and
symbolical language, the religion of Mahomet, on a closer inves-
tigation, will be found rather to bear a stronger affinity to the
inane and superficial philosophy of the eighteenth century ;
and if that philosophy were honest and consistent, it would not
hesitate loudly to proclaim and openly to revere Mahomet, if
not as a prophet, still as a real reformeV of mankind, the first
promulgator and mighty teacher of truth, and the founder of
the pure religion of reason.
Such a dead empty Theism, such a mere negative Unitarian
faith, is little adapted for the true purposes of a religion, though
it may form the basis of some scholastic system of Rationalist
theology. Regarded as a religious system, the creed of Ma-
homet is neither old or new ; but is in part perfectly void and
meaningless, and in part composed of very mixed materials.
The part in it which is new, is that fanatic spirit of conquest it
has inculcated and diffused through the world ; and that part
in it which is old, is copied from the Hebrew traditions and
the Christian revelation, or contains allusions to the one or to
the other, including some old Arabian customs and usages
which this religion has still retained.
In the first infancy of the Mahometan faith, and during the
HISTORY. 327
first disputes and wars which occurred ahout that religion, a
number of Mahomet's followers were obliged to seek refuge in
./Ethiopia, when the Christian monarch of that country asked
them whether they were Christians. They cited in reply se-
veral passages from the sayings and poems of their prophet,
relating to the Saviour, to his birth, and to the Virgin Mary.
In these the prophet spoke of the birth and origin of our
Saviour, as of a Gnostic eradiation or emanation of divine
power ; and though such language was by no means consonant
with the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ, yet it was
calculated to produce on the minds of some of the eastern sec-
taries a very false and deceitful impression. Favourable to
Christianity as some of these expressions might at first sight
appear to the ignorant, there was much again that betrayed
a spirit of the most decided hostility towards the Christian
religion. Even the prohibition of wine was perhaps not so
much intended for a moral precept, which considered in that
point of view, would be far too severe, as for answering a reli-
gious design of the founder ; for he might hope that the
express condemnation of a liquid which forms an essential
element of the Christian sacrifice, would necessarily recoil on
that sacrifice itself, and thus raise an insuperable "barrier be-
tween his creed and the religion of Christ. The peculiar
spirit and true character of any religious system, must be
judged not so much by the letter of its professed doctrines, as
by its practice and prevailing usages. And thus that estab-
lished custom is extremely remarkable, which makes it impe-
rative on every Jew w r ho may wish to become a Mahometan,
previously to receive the rite of baptism. Thus did Mahomet
think to stand upon the basis of Christianity; and while
addressing the Arabs, he appealed solely to the religion of their
first ancestor, and of the other patriarchs, he assigned in his
graduated scale of revelation, the first degree to Judaism, the
second to Christianity, and the third and highest to his own
Islam. That he was a mere fanatic, and entirely devoid of
all ambitions or political views, I cannot admit ; and although
he himself had even been more unconscious of a deliberate
hostility towards the mysteries of the true religion, another
may have inspired him with that subtle design.
Such then was this new, or, as the founder himself styled it,
this pure old doctrine of all-conquering Islam, and of all sur-
328 ' PHILOSOPHY OF
passing faith, which this pretended restorer of the religion of
Abraham this false Paraclete of misconceived promise and
idle phantasy, brought and announced to the world : a pro-
phet without miracles a faith without mysteries and a
morality without love, which has encouraged the thirst of
blood, and which began and terminated in the most unbounded
sensuality. Supposing even, that one of the leading points in
this system of morals, the re-establishment of polygamy to
such a wide extent, and at a period of the world when this
institution was formally abolished among many nations, and
among others had fallen into disuse, could be in some measure
excused by the customs of Asia, the wants of climate, and
the general prejudices of the nation, or other like cause ;
what must we think of a code of morals professing to be divine,
which in opposition to the Christian doctrine of pure happiness
enjoyed by the celestial spirits in the intuition of God, and to
which man must even in this life, aspire by vigilant preparation,
if he wishes to render himself worthy of that state can form
no other ideal of supreme felicity can devise no other expe-
dient to fill up the immense void which this religion has left
in the supernatural world, than a boundless Harem a Paradise
of lust, portrayed in the most glowing colours of sensuality !
That part of the Mussulman morality relating to our fellow-
beings ; the precepts of alms-deeds which it prescribes, is the
only part entitled to praise, which we willingly accord; and
we sincerely trust that not merely the commandment, but
the custom and practice of charity among Christians may
never prove inferior. But in every other respect, this religion
permits not only hatred and vengeance, in opposition to that
Christian precept so repeatedly inculcated, and so deeply en-
graven on our minds the pardon of our enemies ; but it
encourages, and even commands irreconcileable hostility, eternal
warfare, eternal slaughter, to propagate throughout the world
a belief in this blood-stained prophet of pride and lust. Perhaps
ah 1 the Heathen nations put together, i^i the long series of ages,
have not offered to their false gods so many human victims,
as in this new Arabian idolatry have been sacrificed to this
highly extolled anti-Christian prophet. For the essence of
idolatry is not in names or in words, in rites or in sacrifices ;
but in the nature of thing's, in the actual transactions of life,
in, un-Christian customs, and anti- Christian sentiments, and there
HISTORY. 329
is even that old black stone-idol, of which I have said before in a
figurative sense, that it has ever remained firmly fixed in the
religion of Mahomet. The commencement of this religion
was not marked by any contest about mysteries of faith, or
points of doctrine; but by combats of another kind more conge-
nial to the spirit of the Arabs, by a war which broke out between
the party of Mahomet, and the hostile tribe which refused to
acknowledge him for a prophet, and whose refusal occasioned
his flight from Mecca. In this contest he drew the sword,
fought courageously against the unbelievers, and by overpower-
ing by force of arms all who refused to recognise him as a
prophet, thought to prove his divine mission. He met, how-
ever, with much resistance, and had many factions to over-
come, before he succeeded in subduing the various tribes of
his nation. This contest lasted for ten years, up to the very
moment of his death, when he died master of all Arabia.
Shortly before that event, he wrote very insolent letters to
the Emperor Heraclius, and the great King of Persia, sum-
moning them to acknowledge him for a prophet, and to believe
in his mission. Both gave rather evasive replies, than positive
refusals ; so great was the terror which this new power of
Hell had already struck into the world.
Immediately on the death of Mahomet, a great contest arose
among his disciples. On one side Ali, his son-in-law by
marriage with his daughter Fatima, and on the other Abu-
beker, his father-in-law, whose daughter Ayesha was the
.surviving widow of the prophet, and who was afterwards
succeeded by Omar, contended with all the might of their
respective adherents for superiority and dominion ; and this
bloody family-quarrel, which distracted the very infancy of the
Arabian empire, has produced among Mahometan nations a
long and protracted religious schism, which has continued
down to the present day. This was originally a mere per-
sonal dispute, and not a dogmatic controversy as among Chris-
tian sects ; for the religion of Mahomet furnishes no matter
for such controversies, as in reality it contains little of a doc-
trinal nature, and recognises no dogmas but the two contained
in the seven Arabic words of the well-known symbol of Islam :
" There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the Apostle
of God." The one of these is a declaration of the self-evident
.tenet of the unity of God, but levelled indirectly against the
330 PHILOSOPHY OF
Christian dogma of the Trinity; while the other expresses the
divine mission of Mahomet, and by calling forth a veneration
that leads to the contempt and rejection of all things besides,
has, in a practical point of view, really established a new
species of idolatry. Abubeker and Omar asserted that they
alone were the legitimate Caliphs and successors of Mahomet ;
and as the partisans of Ali rejected the supplement founded
on oral tradition, to the poems and maxims of the prophet,
they were stigmatised as schismatics by the opposite party.
In Persia, the sect of Ali has remained predominant down to
the present day ; and as in that country, the ancient traditions
and old national poetry have been partly preserved, and have
been combined in a very peculiar manner with the tenets of
Mahometism, many bolder, freer, and less contracted notions
have found their way among this people. Hence it is very
possible that on a closer investigation, we could discover a
great difference in the intellectual character of these two sects,
not so much, perhaps, in religious doctrines, about which there
is here little room for inquiry, as in moral feelings and views of
life.
The progress of the Arabian conquests was not checked by
these internal disputes. Five years after the death of Mahomet,
and fifteen from the commencement of the Hegira, the city of
Jerusalem was conquered by the arms of the Arabs ; and in the
eighteenth year of the same era, Egypt became a Mussulman
province. The thirteenth year of the Hegira was not yet ter-
minated, before the whole empire of Persia was subdued, and
its last monarch of the race of Sassanides, Yezdegerd, had
perished in foreign parts, a suppliant and a fugitive. In the
fiftieth year of the Hegira, Arabian vessels menaced and be-
sieged Constantinople, which was indebted for its deliverance
chiefly to the use of the Greek fire. In the ninetieth year of
the same era, while on one side the Arabs extended their
victorious arms over India, they subverted on the other the Vi-
si-Goth kingdom in Spain and Portugal, and became masters of
the whole Hesperian peninsula, as far as those inaccessible
mountains, in whose fastnesses a fugitive remnant of the ruling
Goths, and of the old inhabitants of the country had intrenched
themselves, thence to carry on that struggle for freedom, which
till the final conquest of Granada, and the complete expulsion
of the Moors from Spain, lasted for a period of eight hundred
HISTORY. 331
years. After the downfal of the first dynasty of Caliphs of the
house of Ommiyah, and the subsequent accession of the Ab-
bassides to the empire, a separate and independent Caliphate
was established in Mussulman Spain, and lasted there for
several ages. The Arabs had scarce achieved the conquest of
Spain, when they aspired to the possession of the Visi-Goth and
Burgundian provinces of France. But a term was at last put
to the progress of their arms, by the mighty victory which the
Frank hero, Charles Martel, gained between Tours and Poitiers,
over their general, Abderame, who fell on the field with the
flower of his troops, in the twentieth year after the conquest of
Spain, and in the hundred and tenth year of the Hegira. Thus
did the arm of Charles Martel save and deliver the Christian
nations of the West, from the deadly grasp of all-destroying
Islam. In Asia the universal dominion of the Arabs was more
and more firmly consolidated, and the second of the Abbassides,
Almansor, erected the city of Bagdad, or the new Babylon, not
far from the country where the old was situated, and which was
thenceforth the vast metropolis of an immense empire.*
* It may not perhaps be uninteresting to the reader to compare
with Schlegel's account of Mohammedanism, an admirable though
briefer sketch of the same religion by the hand of another great master
the illustrious Goerres. In the Synopsis which he has published of
the Lectures on Universal History, that he has been for several years
delivering at Munich, we find the following remarkable passage on the
Mohammedan religion. The author after speaking of the various trials
which the Christian church had to endure, says: "Hence the young
church must wrestle with all the forms of error in the Gnostic doctrines
and in the other heresies ; one after the other she remains the triumph-
ant conqueress over all, and maintains against every attack her well-
balanced equilibrium. At length, when the contest has raged for cen-
turies, the enemy combines in one focus all the scattered rays of error;
and the Prophet of Mecca knows how to balance himself therein. The
rigid Monotheism of his doctrine, which by denying the Trinity, and
with it all personal manifestation of the Deity, limits its idea to the
depths of eternity, without admitting any true or living communica-
tion of the Godhead with what appertains to time, naturally allures the
metaphysical pride which in this abstraction hath made itself its own
god. The ethical Pantheism which this religion professes, while it fur-
nishes a pretext, a motive, and a palliation to all the pretensions of the
mighty, to the ambition of usurpers, the violence of pride, and the arro-
gance of tyranny, and at the same time consoles and disarms the in-
jured and the oppressed, by the inevitableness of destiny, must draw to
its preacher the men of the sword, of violence, and of blood, and link
those once bound indissolubly to him. The sensual Eudaimonism, to
S32 PHILOSOPHY OF
The new religion and conquests of the Arabs may be con-
sidered in the light of a new migration of nations, as no in-
considerable portion of the Moorish population passed into
Spain ; and this Arabian migration has exerted in Asia and in
Africa, a far more extensive influence on empire, language,
manners, political institutions, and intellectual cultivation, than
the invasion of the Germanic tribes has exercised in Europe.
When we compare the immigrations of the Germanic tribes,
with those of the Arabs, and consider the violence which cha-
racterised the latter, the pernicious influence they have exerted
on the human mind, and on civilisation, and the despotism they
have invariably introduced into political and domestic society,
we may look upon the migrating tribes of Germany, almost as
colonies, which though originally they partook of a warlike cha-
racter, yet inclined more and more to a peaceful nature, and
ultimately assumed that spirit, when the tumult of intermediate
anarchy had subsided, and Christianity had more intimately
blended and finally incorporated the new settlers and the old
inhabitants.
As the divine author of Christianity had promised his disci-
ples, that the high power of God should ever abide with them,
should guide and defend them ; and that the assisting and coun-
selling Spirit of truth, of peaceful order, and of active zeal
should never be removed from them ; the efficacy of this divine
promise was now manifested during this intermediate period of
anarchy ; and though in a different form from what it appeared in
the earlier ages of the church, yet was it perfectly adapted to the
exigencies of time. The great problem of the age was first in
this new agglomeration of nations, to endeavour to allay the
agitated elements of society, till after that agitation had sub-
sided, they should grow and strengthen into organic life and
which his creed opens so free a scope, both in this world and the next,
must rally round the apostle of lust, the multitude that burns with all
the passionate glow of that fervid zone, and place under his control
all the wild, fiery energies of that region. And thus do the cold doc-
trine, the cutting steel, and the destroying flame go before him as his
missionaries; and the south and the east, and soon even a part of the
European west, are bowed under the yoke of his religion : and while in
the Caliphate he founds for it a new spiritual and secular empire, the
modern world between Christianity and Mohammedanism becomes
divided into night and day." " Goerres Uber die Grundlage der Welt-
geschichte," page 99-100. Breslaw, 1830. Trans.
HISTORY. 333
form ; and next, to preserve the heritage of European science
and letters, and thus sow the seeds of a richer and more flour-
ishing harvest for future ages. And to affect this by the mild
and genial influence of Christianity, was the object, the task,
and the work of the distinguished ecclesiastics, bishops, dignita-
ries, and other apostolic men of those ages. The two great
popes, Leo and Gregory, shone conspicuous above all their con-
temporaries, and were in that period of anarchy, a pillar of
strength and a shield of safety to afflicted Rome and Italy the
guardians of European society and of Christian science. Both
by their practical and instructive writings, are considered as the
last of the ancient fathers ; and Leo even is remarkable for
great purity of diction and force of eloquence. In point of
science and learning, the succeeding bishops and dignitaries of
the church cannot indeed be compared with the ancient fathers ;
but on the other hand, they united with a true Christian piety
a practical sense that never failed to discern everywhere what
was fitting for the emergency of the moment. The monastic
schools founded by St. Benedict were indeed of a very different
nature from the primitive eremitical institutes of Egypt; and
entirely adapted to the exigencies of Europe in that age, they
were the asylums and seminaries of learning and philosophic
contemplation ; and while they promoted the interests of educa-
tion, they were equally conducive to the progress of agriculture.
A number of works have sufficiently shown how much the in-
fluence of the Benedictine order, which for many centuries
extended over all the countries of the West, has advanced the
intellectual civilisation of modern Europe, and indeed sown its
first seeds.
By Bishop Boniface the Christian religion was established
and widely diffused in the interior of Germany. At an earlier
period, other holy men animated with an apostolic zeal, forty
of whom were sent by Pope Gregory the Great, carried the
light of the Gospel into Britain; where it was received with
peculiar avidity by the Picts and Scots, and the old inhabitants
of Erin, as well as by the Anglo-Saxons. In true Christian
piety, and in such knowledge and science as the age possessed,
England during this Saxon period, prior and down to the reign
of Alfred, maintained nearly a pre-eminence above the other
kingdoms of the West. Even that apostle of the Germans,
Boniface, originally named Winfried, came from England ; and
334 PHILOSOPHY OF
among the writers of the age, Alcuin asserted the intellectual
superiority of the Anglo-Saxon Christians. Limited as was
the knowledge of the western world in those ages, and narrow
the circle of European science and learning, still we find in.
those times, but almost only in the West, writers of very
original powers, and peculiar turn of mind, whose writings,
composed either in a barbarous Latin, or in a half-formed Ro-
manic vernacular tongue, are the faithful and instructive mirrors
of the spirit of the times. On the other hand, the later
Byzantine writers, though they possessed incomparably greater
resources, and much more extensive philological acquii-ements,
have produced nothing but learned compilations.
Now there arose in the West, Christian kings, heroes, and
legislators, both among the Franks and the Saxons, such as
Charlemagne and Alfred, who as men were not indeed fault-
less, but who should be judged and appreciated according to
the character of their times ; a knowledge of which is neces-
sary for rightly understanding the spirit of these extraordinary
men. In peace and in war they endeavoured firmly to estab-
lish and new model society on Christian principles and maxims;
and they restored the western in the form of a great Christian
empire, destined to defend and protect all Christian states
all the civilised nations of the European confederacy, against
barbarian invasion and internal anarchy.
If we compare these Frank and Saxon kings and emperors,
valiant and chivalrous as they were, thirsting for glory, yet
seeking and establishing peace, honouring justice, and founding
or restoring laws, on one hand with those Saracen rulers and
caliphs, ever burning with a rage for conquest and destruction,
and on the other hand, with that Byzantine court, presenting
almost always the uniform picture of corruption, and ruling
over an empire pining in hopeless decay if we contrast those
flashes of genius which distinguished the writings of the
western nations, with the dead, spiritless monotony pervading
all the productions of the Byzantine intellect, superior as the
Greeks were to the rest of Europe in erudition, science, and
literary stores ; we shall find in this comparison, (taking into
consideration the imperfection of all human things, and actions,
and persons, for even in this period of the world, errors and
defects are to be found in the conduct of individuals mixed up
with the most praiseworthy qualities) we shall find, I say, in
HISTORY. 335
this comparison, the best vindication and the highest eulogium
of the Catholic West and its earlier history. The misrepre-
sentation of that history formerly so frequently made by the
passions, the exaggerations, and the prejudices of party, has
still an injurious influence, but is with us no longer in season ;
for the moment has arrived, when fixed in the right centre, we
must now begin to take a more complete and comprehensive
survey of the primitive world, and classical antiquity, next of
the history of the middle age, and of modern times, down to
the present day, and to that approaching futurity still in the
crisis of its formation ; and when we must judge them with
more correctness in all their details, and understand them
better by examining their relative position in the great plan of
history, and estimate them all by the standard given to us by
God, which is the only true one. Then we shaU judge these
particulars without predilection, and without aversion, " sine
odio et sine dilectione" which is somewhat more than that
excellent and greatest of all ancient historians, who gave
utterance to this saying, really accomplished, or was indeed in
his time and with his principles capable of accomplishing.
For it is only the knowledge and complete comprehension of
the great scheme of history, which can enable us to rise above
the particular transactions of our own, or of a foreign nation,
of the present times or of past ages ; and it is this knowledge
which can alone clearly and safely determine the feeling with
which we should regard particular historical facts. But for
that end, the ancient historian, as well as all antiquity, wanted
the clue which Christianity alone has given us, to the internal
connexion of the world's history, and which they who seek for
it elsewhere but in this religion, will certainly seek in vain.
In this period of anarchy, and during the sway of the Lom-
bards, the circumstances of the times gave to the popes a para-
mount authority in the internal administration of the city and
district of Rome ; as well as a general political influence over
all Italy ; an influence which was for the most part very salu-
tary, and tended effectually to insure the public peace and
prosperity. I must here observe that this political position and
power of the popes, so naturally adapted to the circumstances
of the times, and to the general situation of the western
world, was first put in a clear and correct point of view by
writers not belonging to the Catholic church. For the politi-
336 PHILOSOPHY OF
cal historians on the Catholic side have, in almost every
country, retained too lively a recollection of the warm disputes
as to the respective limits and rights of the ecclesiastical and
secular power, not to be swayed by such feelings in their con-
ception and accounts of an age long gone by ; and this has
certainly weakened the impartiality becoming the tribunal of
history.
After the subversion of the Ostro-Goth dominion in Italy r
the disgrace or even dissatisfaction of the Byzantine general,
Narses, provoked the incursion of the Lombards into Italy.
This people were not so exclusively devoted to the Arian party*
as a portion of them, and several among their kings professed
the Catholic religion ; but they were far from possessing the
mild, generous character of the Goths, and their sway often
proved oppressive in Italy. Yet every thing appeared more
desirable and more tolerable in the opinion of many other-
wise unprejudiced historians, than the impending danger of
Byzantine rule. When in the middle of the seventh century,
the Greek Emperor Constans II. waged war in Italy against
the Lombards, arid in the course of the war conquered Rome,
the plunder, especially of the treasures of ancient art, was so
immense, that compared with these Greek devastations, all the
earlier and destructive ravages of the Goths appeared to be
nothing. The ships which were conveying to Constantinople
all these plundered treasures of art, fell into the hands of the
Arabs, and were destroyed, so that it was never known what be-
came of their valuable freight. So true it is, that Rome perished
solely and entirely by her own hand, by internal discord, and
the weight of her own corruption, and not by the hands of
Germans or of Goths
When at the commencement of the eighth century, the do-
minion of the rude Lombards became oppressive, and the Greek
sway under the Iconoclast Leo was still more detested, and all
the cities and provinces of Italy had revolted against it ; Pope
Gregory II. without any previous concert, and by unanimous
consent, was placed at the head of the Italian league, and de-
clared its chief ; but he warned his countrymen against the-
dangers of precipitation, exhorted them to the maintenance of
peace, and ever cherished the hope of obtaining a friendly
reconciliation with the Byzantine emperor. The rigid prohi-
bition of the religious use of images was proper in those cases
HISTORY. 337
only, where the use of them was not confined to a mere devo-
tional respect, but was likely to degenerate into a real adoration
and idolatry, and where a strict separation from pagan nations
and their rites was a matter of primary importance, as was
the case in the Jewish dispensation of old. But now that the
]Mahomedan proscription, and scornful rejection of all holy
emblems and images of devotion, arose from a decidedly anti-
Christian spirit, that displayed itself either in open violence or
secret machination against the Christian religion ; this By-
zantirie attack on images, and this furious war against all
symbols of piety, which in its ulterior consequences might and
jnust have proceeded to much greater lengths, can be regarded
only as a mad contagion of the moral disease of the age. This
disorder and frenzy indeed subsided ; and the Greeks of the
Byzantine empire in their religious rites, as well as dogmas,
have remained Christians, and faithful to the old Christian
traditions. Yet this controversy on the use of images, and the
animosities and jealousies which it enkindled between the
Christians of the East and West, did not a little contribute to
that perfectly groundless, irrational, and unhappy schism which
has severed the Greeks from the universal church.
The protracted contest between the kings of Lombardy and
the Greek Exarchs of Ravenna, (during whose disputes the
popes felt the calling and inclination, but had not the power
to exercise the high functions of protectors to oppressed Italy,)
naturally provoked the arbitration of the Franks, led to the
jestablishment of their protectorate over Italy, and was thus the
iirst occasion of the restoration of the Western Empire, and of
the foundation of the great Christian imperial monarchy. The
sublime idea of such an empire sprang solely and entirely
out of circumstances and events, as they arose, and had not by
any individual been fully anticipated, much less clearly under-
stood. Hence we cannot attribute to any persons the blame or
entire merit of events that really took place of themselves, by
the mere force of circumstances, the spirit of the times, and the
happy impulse of a lofty inspiration. Nor can we at this remote
-distance of time, and under circumstances so totally dissimilar,
institute a formal discussion (in the manner of the Jurists) on
the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any particular measure in this
great series of public acts. No country besides was oppressed
by so many and such contending rulers, as that Italy which had
z
338 PHILOSOPHY OP
once bowed all nations beneath her yoke. Sicily, which had
been conquered by the Arabs, laboured under the most cruel
oppression ; and it was the tyrannical conduct of the Greek
governors that had paved the way for the conquest of that
island. In the third century, the Franks had already migrated
into Gaul ; their rulers were from the origin of their empire
most devoted to Christianity ; and had besides in their conduct
towards kindred or neighbouring nations, evinced a more
judicious, prudent, and systematic policy, than had been shown
by any other Germanic or Gothic tribe, in the invasion and
subsequent government of the Roman provinces. This nation,
which from its origin had ever been warmly attached to the
Catholic church, which had subdued the Visi-Goth kingdom in
Gaul, had become masters of the Burgundian provinces, while
it perpetually strove to extend and consolidate its dominion in
the interior of Germany ; was now, after its splendid victory over
the Saracens, and the general protection which this victory had
insured to all Christendom, called into Italy, less by the pope and
the Romans, than by the state of affairs, and the urgency of times
and circumstances, there to terminate anarchy, and re-establish
the ancient order of things, or one better adapted to the exigencies
of the age. The empire of the Franks was henceforward the
most powerful state in the West, and was indeed the great
centre of the civilised world ; as afterwards became, though on
a higher and more extended scale, the great Christian empire
of the middle age in Germany and in Italy. Here we find that
high clue in human history to which we should ever adhere
on one side, the luminous trace of the more immediate provi-
dence of God and on the other, the gradual unfolding of the
human mind, evinced in science as in language, in feelings
as in modes of thinking an intellectual development, which
though often concealed, and, as it were, buried beneath
the agitated surface of external events, forms (together with
the conduct of Divine Providence,) the real and essential
matter and purport in the history and progress of human
communities. In this respect, if we regard either of the
then two great rival powers in the East, we shall find that
neither the dead monotony of the Byzantine empire, sinking
ever lower in the scale of moral, political, and intellectual
degradation, nor the more hasty growth and the internal dis-
traction of the Saracenic empire, (presenting, as it does, in its
long series of political catastrophes, military revolutions, and
HISTORY. 339
frequent changes of dynasty, the same tedious uniformity of
despotism), will furnish much matter of interest or of moment
to the philosophic historian. It is in this period of the world,
the gradual organisation of the Christian state, as in a later age,
the development of Christian science, which chiefly commands
our regard, naturally so curious after all that relates to the con-
cerns and destinies of mankind, and fixes our attention exclu-
sively, or more particularly, on that European West, where
all now displayed a fuller life, and a more constant movement
and activity.
The territorial partitions, and the various feuds and dissen-
sions which occurred between the Frank kings, possess but
little, or at best a subordinate interest, amid the great events of
the times it is the leading idea of the age, the progressive
march of society at this period, which offers matter of instruc-
tion to the historian. Many faults and errors, however, stained
the first execution of this grand plan of a Christian empire ;
such, for instance, were those wars which Charlemagne waged
against the Saxons, as well as similar wars under his prede-
cessors in the preceding age ; for the propagation of the Chris-
tian religion by such means of coercion, can scarcely ever be
excused, and in no case entirely justified. The best excuse is
perhaps in the fact, that all wars between tribes nearly allied,
are like family disputes, usually conducted with greater stub-
bornness and animosity. However, in the year 784, Charle-
magne concluded with the Saxons a peace which was very
advantageous to the latter ; and the extremely prosperous and
flourishing' condition of the empire, and even of the countries
in the north of Germany, under Henry, the first king of the
Saxon race, proves at least that the evil was confined within
very narrow limits, and had not been productive of such wide-
spread and protracted desolation.
In the transition from the Carlovingian to the Capetian dy-
nasty, we should not forget that the monarchy was not strictly
hereditary in any German state, but was for the most part
merely elective ; and it was only he, who had proved himself
a valiant, prudent, and powerful defender of his nation, that
became the man of the public choice. Royalty was then con-
sidered more in the light of an office, a charge, a peculiar call-
ing, than of an inheritance or patrimony. The general idea
of the Christian empire, was a universal protectorate over all
z 2
340 PHILOSOPHY OF
Christian nations and countries a mighty central dominion
founded on justice, while the great connecting and pervading
power of the whole system was supposed to reside in the perfect
unity of religious principles. When this religious unity was
destroyed, the whole political edifice fell to pieces ; and in the
struggles of later times, the artificial relations founded on a
mere mechanical balance of power, on a republican equality of
states, without the foundation of Christian or any other solid
principles, have furnished, as experience has shown, but a very
bad substitute for that old Christian brotherhood of the Euro-
pean states and nations ; and have in the general subversion of
Christian morality, produced a sort of polite disorder and re-
fined anarchy.
In the partition of the Carlovingian empire a partition
which was only in accordance with those principles of descent
which regulated the inheritance of the great families we can
trace an almost heroic, and if we might use the expression, a
naive patriarchical confidence in the duration of that religious
unity ; for it was only on such a basis that men deemed it
possible to combine the advantage of the domestic, internal
government of a country limited in extent, with the control
of one general superintending monarchy. When a man of
such consummate prudence, such long foresight, and powerful
understanding as Charlemagne, deemed such a scheme not im-
practicable, and thought it possible to maintain the political
unity of his empire, under the joint dominion of his sons, and
by their subordination to their eldest brother ; we should learn
not to judge the plan with too much precipitation, and accord-
ing to the notions of our times, and our present systems of
policy. This first partition which Charlemagne had designed,
was prevented by the hand of death. The entire division of
the whole Carlovingian empire into three distinct portions,
-was first effected by Lewis the Pious ; bnt the perpetual family
dissensions which occurred under his successors, the weak-
ness or violence of their characters, and the various factions
which arose, rendered totally impossible the maintenance of
that union, which was originally sought to be perpetuated in
the empire, and led to the final dismemberment and total disso-
lution of the old empire of the Franks, when another dynasty
succeeded to the imperial crown.
In the primitive monarchy of the Germans, however, the
existence of the four great national dutchies, which were subor-
HISTORY. 341
dinate to the imperial crown, far more happily accomplished
this union of a local, domestic, and paternal government with
the control of one powerful and superintending monarchy ; so
long at least as internal union subsisted, and discord had not
obtained the supremacy. There then existed, though mostly in
a different form than afterwards, a division of powers in the
state as well as in the church ; but unity in this division, or
with this division, was sought for only in Christian and national
sentiments ; and as long as these subsisted in their integrity,
the body politic remained unimpaired. At no time has a political
constitution or mode of government been devised, which could
permanently supply the place of principle.
In the national meetings of the great and smaller states
of that age, in their assembled councils of dukes and princes,
bishops, counts and lords, nobles and freemen (to whom were
added the commons of the cities, when by their rights and
privileges they began to obtain importance), we must look for
the first germ of all the succeeding parliaments and states-
general of the European nations, and of the rights of the
different orders of society, and the privileges and corporate
immunities of the cities. All these rights and liberties were
purely local they grew up on the root of national customs
they were founded on no speculative theory of universal equality,
but on positive usage and special laws. The union and stability
of an empire was then sought for not in the balance of artificial
forms, but in the holy heritage of ancient customs; in principle,
in short.
On this basis, first of Christian, then of national sentiments,
do all Christian states repose ; and when this foundation is
destroyed, those states are undone. Ecclesiastical power had
then a real and substantial weight, and a very extended circle
of operation ; although its limits and relations with secular
authority were not so rigidly circumscribed as afterwards. To
be sensible that this division of power will not necessarily impair
the unity of strength and spirit in the social frame, as long as
principle remains pure, and religious concord is preserved ; we
need only call to our recollection the fact, that all Christian
states and kingdoms have sprung from this happy agreement
between secular and ecclesiastical authority, and that this union
was the sure foundation of their stability. And so long as both
powers remained in harmonious accord, the times were pros-
342 PHILOSOPHY OF
perous, peace and justice ever increased, and the condition of
nations was flourishing and happy. Christianity, says a great
historian, who manifests a greater predilection for antiquity, and
even for the Oriental world, but whose comprehensive intellect
often rightly appreciates the benign influence of this religion,
which with us must have the priority ; Christianity was the
electric spark which first roused the warlike nations of the
north, rendered them susceptible of a higher civilisation,
stamped the peculiar character, and founded the political insti-
tutions of modern nations, which have sprung out of such
heterogeneous elements. And we may add, Christianity was
the connecting power which linked together the great com-
munity of European nations, not only in the moral and
political relations of life, but in science and modes of think-
ing. The church was like the all-embracing vault of
heaven, beneath whose kindly shelter, those warlike nations
began to settle in peace, and gradually to frame their laws and
institutions. Even the office of instruction, the heritage of
ancient knowledge, the promotion of science, and of all that
tended to advance the progress of the human mind, devolved to
the care of the church, and were exclusively confined to the
Christian schools. If science was then of a very limited range,
it was still quite proportioned to the exigencies and intellectual
cultivation of the age ; for mankind cannot transcend all the
degrees of civilisation by a single bound, but must mount slowly
and in succession its various grades ; and at any rate, science
was not at that time unprofitably buried in libraries and in the
closets of the learned, as was afterwards the case in Europe,
and even partly then among the Byzantines. The little know-
ledge which was then possessed, was by the more active spirit,
and the sound understanding and practical sense of the Euro-
pean nations, and their better priesthood, applied with general
advantage to the interests of society. Science was not then, as
in the later period of its proud ascendency, in open hostility
with the pure dictates of faith and the institutions of life. On
that world so variously excited in peace, as in war, and by the
different pursuits of art and industry, useful knowledge and whole-
some speculation descended, not like a violent flood, but like the
soft distillations of the refreshing dew, or the gentle drops of fer-
tilising rain , from the Heaven of faith which over-arched the whole.
END OF LECTURE XII.
HISTORY. 343
LECTURE XIII.
On the Formation and Consolidation of the Christian Government in
Modern Times On the Principle which led to the Establishment of
the Old German Empire.
THE first three centuries of the Christian era, and modern of
history, compose the epoch when, by a second fiat of creation,
the light of Christianity spread through the whole Roman
world, and when after undergoing long persecutions, the reli-
gion of Christ, under Constantine, came victorious out of the
struggle. The second epoch, or the succeeding five centuries,
comprehend that chaotic and intermediate state in the history
of mankind, or the transition from declining antiquity to
modern times, growing out of the ruins of the ancient world
the fermenting mixture of many and various elements of social
life. But when at last the tempest had disburdened itself of
its fury, the clouds had broken asunder, and the pure firmament
of Christian faith had stretched out its ample vault to shelter
the rise of new communities ; when the wild waters of that
mighty inundation of nations had begun gradually to flow off ;
then the Germanic tribes, incorporated with the Romanic
nations, kid the deep, firm soil on which modern European
society was to spring up and flourish. For it was Charlemagne
who laid the sure foundation for Christian government, and all
the improvements of its subsequent superstructure. On this
basis of Christian government, and Christian manners, and
under the cover and vivifying influence of the luminous firma-
ment of Christian faith, sprang human science out of the small
fragments of ancient art and learning-, which had survived all
these mighty devastations ; till at last it expanded into a fuller
bloom, and grew into a more heavenly and Christian form.
This new progress of social man under the Christian form of
government, and this progress of the human mind in Christian
science, mark the third epoch of modern history, or the seven
centuries which elapsed from the reign of Charlemagne, to the
discovery of the New World, and the commencement of the Re-
344 PHILOSOPHY OF
formation. It may naturally be supposed that these seven
centuries which witnessed the progressive civilisation of modern
nations, and the vigorous growth and wide spread of Christian
principles, were at the same time a period of struggle both in
the state and in science, and that in each of these departments^
the spirit of Christianity was intermixed with, and most inju-
riously and fatally thwarted and opposed by, many un-Christian,
elements. And indeed, to discover and discriminate between
these conflicting elements, to comprehend and determine their
mutual bearings one towards the other, is the fit problem for
historical philosophy. The progress of the Christian state and
the advancement of Christian science, form during this period
the main subject of an universal history, when this is not a.
mere collection of special or national histories, but truly uni-
versal, in the philosophic sense of the term ; treating solely of
those subjects common to all mankind; or which illustrate the
general march of humanity. Hence all other historical views,,
dictated by a predilection for one's own country inquiries into*
the political institutions of one, or several, or all existing states
a review of the circle of mercantile operations, and their gra-
dual extension, and of the progress of the mechanical arts and.
lastly, curious and erudite dissertations on literature, philology,,
and the fine arts (however interesting, instructive, and in many
respects useful, such special dissertations may be in themselves)*
all these must be either entirely excluded from general history,
or must at least occupy a place very subordinate to, and are-
deserving of notice only as far as they illustrate, what must ever
constitute, the main subject of the Philosophy of History. la
the first ages of the world, it is often difficult to obtain satis-
factory information, and a competent degree of certainty on the
subjects which are alone, or at least chiefly, worthy of attention.
But in modern times, it is a far more arduous task to select out
of the immense multitude and variety of facts susceptible of
historical proof, those which are of a general interest for mankind,
and amid the crowd of details steadily to preserve the general
outline of history.
It would be a great error to refer to the Christian constitu-
tion of the state and of science, every remarkable or important
incident in the history of government and of science, merely^
because such incidents have occurred in the middle age, or
among Christian nations of later times. We must strive to
HISTORY. 343
form a loftier idea of the Christian model both in science and in,
government, so that the highest and noblest monuments in
either, should, from human infirmity, be considered but faint ap-
proximations, I do not say, to the unattainable standard of an
imaginary perfection, but to the sober reality of Christian truth.
Although it is not possible rigidly to separate public life from
public opinions, on account of the intimate union between both,
and the mutual influence which government and science exercise
over one another ; yet as the state is the groundwork for the
cultivation of science, and the former must precede the latter, I
shall follow this historical order, and commence with the con-
stitution of the Christian state.
As here the question is not as to the Beau Ideal of supreme
perfection, or as to a precise, rigid, and scientific theory of the
Christian state (for which here, at least, if not for the present
age, the time may not have arrived), but merely as to a
general outline of such a theory, I shall only observe, that the
Christian state must rest on the basis of religious feelings.
For, without feeling, its relation to religion cannot be con-
ceived and such a mere relation, considered in itself, would
lose its religious character. But the government which is
founded on Christianity, is on that account limited, and is con-
sequently in its very nature abhorrent either from absolute
despotism, or the uncontrolled tyranny of popular factions. In
the next place, the government founded on religion, is one in
which sentiment, personal spirit, and personal character are.
the primary and ruling elements, and not the dead letter, and
the written formula of a mere artificial constitution. In this
last respect one may say, that the Christian government in-
clines veiy strongly towards monarchy ; for, in monarchy, it is
the sacred person of the king, the character of the ruler, the
spirit of his administration, confidence in his person, and at-^
tachment to the hereditary dynasty, which form the basis, the
animating spirit, and vivifying principle of the social system.
In a republic it is not the person, but the law which governs ;
nay, the written word of the law is there of the utmost im-
portance; and thus the dead letter of the constitution is in a
republic almost as sacred, as in a monarchy the person called
and consecrated to the functions of government by divine right.
But more than this we should not say namely, that the
Christian government, founded as it is on personality and on
346 PHILOSOPHY OF
sentiment, inclines, on the whole, strongly towards the mo-
narchical form a leaning which is by no means incompatible
with many republican usages and republican institutions of a
subordinate kind. Still less should we exaggerate this idea so
far, as to maintain that the Christian government is entirely
and necessary monarchical, even in its outward form; and that
a republic is objectionable at all times and under all circum-
stances without distinction. Such absolutism in the doctrines
of public law, and in the theory of government, is very remote
from true Christian principles. The unhistorical government
of mere reason the destructive principle of revolution is
indeed totally incompatible with Christianity ; principally be-
cause the Christian religion tolerates aud recognises all legal
institutions, such as they are, without inquiring into their
origin (as the gospel not only left inviolate, but even respected
the legality of the Roman dominion in the conquered and in-
corporated countries), and also because the Christian notion
of right, like the Christian system of government, is by no
means absolute, but is ever qualified by circumstances. A
republican government, which is founded not so much on the
abstract or rationalist principle of absolute freedom and equality,
but on ancient customs and hereditary rights, on freedom of
sentiment and generosity of character, consequently on per-
sonality, is by no means essentially opposed to the true spirit
monarchy ; still less is it inconsistent with the Christian theory
of government. But a despotism, illegitimate, not perhaps in
its origin, but in its abuse of power, strikes at the first prin-
ciples of the Christian state, whose mild, temperate, and histo-
rical character is as abhorrent from absolutism, as from the
opposite principle of unqualified freedom and universal equality
the revolutionary principle, which involves the overthrow of
all existing rights.
As in the Christian's estimation, the worth and excellence of
an individual is not to be judged by his outward appearance,
or by the observance of certain forms, but by the sincerity of
his inward sentiments, so the same observation will apply to
states. It is the spirit and purpose of an action, the nature of
a deed, the personal conduct displayed in a public measure,
and not any outward form, which proves or determines the
good or evil tendency of any important act, which may be the
subject of history. That Christian tone and spirit which be-
HISTORY. 347
longs to the government of the illustrious, but not immaculate
Charlemagne, does not proceed from the circumstance, that he,
like Alfred after him, solicited the counsels and co-operation of
his bishops in framing laws for the various provinces of his
empire (for many of these laws contained moral injunctions),
or that at Rome the pope placed the imperial crown upon his
head. But the Christian spirit of his government is evinced
by that lofty idea which filled up the whole of his active life
by his conception of the relations of church and state, and of
the utility of science for the civilisation of nations by his pro-
ject of an universal empire, destined to embrace and protect
all civilised nations the noble fabric of modern Christendom,
of which he laid the first foundation-stone, and which reveals
his enlarged views, comprehending alike his own age and suc-
ceeding times.
But whenever we meet in history with a government which,
independently of outward forms, is founded on the love of
divine justice on a principle of self-devotion, whereby rulers
are ready to sacrifice their own interest, and even their own
existence, in the cause of justice and of social order these, we
may be sure, are the certain and indubitable marks of the realisa-
tion of the Christian theory of law and government. On the other
hand, wherever we perceive despotism or violence, or what we feel
to be absolute wrong, though they be veiled under the sanction
of spiritual or temporal power, then we may be sure the whole
enterprise is un-Christian, as the principle is un-Christian. Of
ah 1 the different forms of this political disease, of the manifold
kinds of tyranny, whether ecclesiastical or secular, military or
commercial, domestic or municipal, academic or aristocratic,
the despotism 'of popular licentiousness is the most reprehen-
sible in principle, and the most destructive in its effects.
With the usages and institutions of the Germanic nations,
this peculiar temper of the Christian religion perfectly har-
monised ; incomparably better, at least, than with the arbitrary-
government of the Roman state, which, even after the conver-
sion of Constantine, still retained in all essential points a
pagan character. In the old German states, the system of
hereditary monarchy mostly prevailed; but it was quite alien
from absolutism, and was intermixed with many republican
institutions, laws, and customs. The whole system of those
governments was founded on the historical basis of ancient
348 PHILOSOPHY OF
usages on the pure, free, and generous sentiment of honour
on personal glory and personal character and talents. As soon
as this natural moral energy of the Germanic nations had
received a religious consecration from Christianity, and those
energetic, heroic souls had imbibed with fervour, simplicity*,
and humility, the maxims of the religion of love ; all the ele-
ments of a truly Christian government, and Christian system
of policy were then offered to mankind. The political history
of those ancient times has been mostly represented in a too
systematic point of view, for the purpose of favouring some
particular object, or interest, or some favourite opinion of
modern times ; since historians employ all their ingenuity in
tracing, step by step, and disclosing to our view the first rise
and gradual growth of any particular form of government, or
principle of right such as the establishment of royalty on the;
one hand, and that of the constitution of the three orders on
the other. But they remain quite unconcerned about every
more exalted principle in society. To judge and appreciate-
not according to the standard of our own or any other age,
but according to the dictates of eternal truth, the manners,,
the modes of thinking, the tone of society, the spirit and views
which animated men, whatever was good or evil, Christian or
anti-Christian in their sentiments, is with these writers a matter
of the utmost indifference. If there is any exception from the
truth of this remark, it is when they meet with some singular
trait of manners or character some historical paradox calcu-
lated to stimulate interest, and which they then never fail ta
sever from its general connexion with the age, to tear up from
its natural roots, and exhibit to the curiosity of the beholder.
And yet in such individual traits of character in the middle
age, though they be at first remarked only from their singu-
larity, and be not even fully understood, more traces of his-
torical life and truth are to be found, than in those systematic
representations of history, drawn up with some specific political
view, and which aim at an elaborate dissection and violent dis-
rupture of institutions, which in those early times, were inse-
parably united in the life of Christian nations. If the best
and most praiseworthy measures adopted in that first period of
Christian polity, for the settlement and further improvement
of the Christian state, and for the establishment and applica-
tion of Christian maxims and principles of government, were
HISTORY. 349
nothing more but a generous effort, a good intention, a rude
design a feeble, imperfect approximation towards a divine
term yet we must consider them as peculiar historical phe-
nomena, leave them in their individual bearings, and not pre-
maturely force them into any systematic connexion, or attach
them to any fixed or formal principle of right ; for in the
Christian government, feeling and personality are the most
essential things.
If I could overstep the narrow limits of this work, confined
as it is to a rapid sketch of the main and essential facts in the
historical progress of mankind, I should prefer to draw a
portrait of the mode of government and prevalent opinions of
that age, out of the many characteristic traits in the lives of
its distinguished rulers, its great and virtuous kings and empe-
rors, knights, and heroes, such as that Charlemagne, who would
rightly open the series, that pious King Alfred, who in a
far more contracted sphere, was equally great, those first
Saxon kings and emperors of Germany princes distinguished
for their religious and virtuous sentiments, their great and up-
right character, and whose reigns exhibiting as they do, the para
mount influence of religion on public life, constitute the happiest
era, and the truly golden period of our annals. The peculiar
nature and constitution, the internal spirit and essence of the
Christian state, would be much more clearly and vividly repre-
sented by the examples of these great characters, who to the pure
will of their energetic, heroic souls, united a practical knowledge
of life, and a natural insight into the principles of Christian
policy. Such a course I would prefer to entangling myself
in the usual disputes about the respective relations of the
spiritual and temporal powers, and all the contentious points
involved in that matter ; or to entering upon any dissertation
respecting the decisive era in the development of royalty and
its rights, or in the progress of the constitution of the three
estates, and of various municipal corporations ; however use-
ful and instructive such inquiries may be in the special history
of particular countries. And even in the latter respect, those
glorious names form a mighty epoch ; and in the history of
tdmost all the great European countries, we meet with some
holy and magnanimous monarch, who laid the solid founda-
tions of his country's constitution, or introduced a higher
civility and refinement in life and manners. Such were in
Hungary the holy King Stephen, and in France, the great
350 PHILOSOPHY OF
St. Lewis; who in more unquiet times restored a better spirit,
and for a while retarded the progress of corruption. There
were also other kings, heroes, and emperors, like Rodolph of
Hapsburgh, who, without being honoured with the title of
saints, were truly pious, chivalric, and equitable monarchs, and
may be esteemed and revered as the Christian regenerators of
their age, and the founders of a true and religious system of
government and manners. A lively sketch of such men and
rulers, who acted and governed well and greatly according to
Christian principles and views, would, I think, furnish a far
more complete idea of the true nature of the Christian state
in this its first period of development, than any laboured or
artificial definition. There are along with these individual
characters, individual and transient periods of prosperity,
which break out for one generation or more in the history of
those early times ; periods which can only be considered as
historical exceptions from the general order of things. Even
those more comprehensive, and so far more general political
institutions, evidently peculiar to those Christian ages, and
nowhere else to be found like the truce of God, which re-
pressed within certain limits the hereditary spirit of feud or
the spiritual chivalry in the orders of the Templars and of the
Knights of St John, consecrated to warfare in the cause of
God, and opening, as they did, in the time of the crusades, to
the same spirit of chivalrous feud a higher path and a more
noble career all these political institutions, I say, springing
out of the nature and exigencies of their age, can be under-
stood only by a reference to the circumstances and prevailing
spirit of the times, and must therefore be judged as historical
peculiarities. As they often sprang up suddenly without a
visible or apparent cause, and as if by some high, mysterious
impulse, so they often sank again as rapidly ; and the pure
spirit, the true import of such institutions, appeared but for a
moment like a silvery gleam ; then they degenerated, or were
transformed into something totally different. And we must not
be astonished at this, since what is best and noblest in man
feeling, and its divine quality, is most easily and rapidly
impaired, and may sometimes, indeed, preserve an external
vigour, when it has undergone an internal change, and as-
sumed a direction opposed to God and all goodness. There
were also particular rulers possessed of an energetic will and
a comprehensive understanding, who exercised a wide and
HISTOEY. .351
commanding, but pernicious influence on their age, arid the
world ; and among these, the most noble were Barbarossa
and that secret friend of the Saracens, the Emperor Frederick
the Second ; princes who with some others, must be regarded
as the first authors of the great dissension. After this dis-
sension had broken out in the fearful struggle of the Guelphs
and Ghibellines, and Christendom was divided into two parties,
discord became general, pursued its resistless course, and acting
in those distracted times like some new destroying law of
nature, absorbed all personality and its influence in the general
abyss of error, or made it at least less conspicuous.
I will now endeavour to give a short sketch of the general pro-
gress of European society in this its first period of development,
and to point out the then peculiar nature and constitution of the
Christian state ; from that epoch when Charlemagne laid the
first solid foundation for a permament system of Christian
government and Christian manners, down to the moment when
an an ti- Christian spirit of discord broke out with incurable
violence, and became universally predominant. I will at the
same time endeavour to take an historical survey of the whole
Christian West, as it has remained the theatre of the subse-
quent progress of society, and of the great transactions of the
world down to our times.
In the blame so commonly lavished, (and not unreasonably,
when we consider the historical consequences,) on the customary
divisions in the Frankish or Carlovingian empire, and the other
German states, men forget that according to the old Germanic
idea, a kingdom was nothing more than any other great family
estate, or princely inheritance, and governed, like these, by the
same law of descent. This was so from the earliest times among
both the principal races of the Germans. In this manner we find
the nation of the Goths divided into two kingdoms ; and as the
Saxons were with difficulty united under one head in their
own ancestral country on the northern coast of Germany ; so in
the England which they had conquered and newly peopled, we
find seven principalities or petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxons co-
existent with one another ; and these were only by accident re-
duced to a less number, and but for a time blended into one
sovereignty. We often ascribe to the men, and to the spirit ot
those times, pretensions quite inappropriate, inapplicable, and
perfectly modern. So possessed are we with the notion of our
352 PHILOSOPHY OF
times as to the natural and eternal boundaries of this or that
country, of the predestination of a people to political unity,, or
of the necessary national unity of every state notions or pre-
judices which are held as so many mathematical axioms, in which
we make the highest idea of policy to consist, to which we
ascribe an inviolable sanctity, and which in our reverence, and
in some cases, we might almost say idolatry, we exalt above
every thing else, and would make every thing else subservient to.
To the simplicity of those ancient times, the excellence and ad-
vantages of a mild, domestic, paternal, national sovereignty for
the more convenient administration of smaller states, appeared
great, and superior to every other consideration. Thus those
who had to decide of themselves, and without the imperious call
of duty without the feeling of a strong necessity for undertaking,
even at the sacrifice of a part, at least, of their own national
welfare, the heavy burden of the imperial office, in that Chris-
tian empire evidently established by Divine Providence for the
protection of the church, and all the nations belonging to it ;
without this strong feeling of duty, I say, they never would
have deviated from the good old simple usage of dividing the
royal patrimony. The more so indeed as the glory they sought
was rather of a chivalrous kind, consequently purely personal ;
and that favourite idol of modern times national vanity was
perfectly unknown to them. Their institution, certainly, would
not be adapted to our times ; nor was it even suited to those
immediately succeeding ; but an age to be judged aright and
duly appreciated, must be estimated by its own standard, and
the opinions proper to it. That even a division of sovereignty
and partition of kingdoms is not incompatible with the external
union of the body politic for one general design, so long as the
potentates are animated by a Christian and brotherly feeling,
and a spirit of union as to this one object the all-uniting bond
of confederacy ; is a truth which may be proved by many pleas-
ing and glorious examples from the history of the earlier middle
age, and from that of Germany especially. If, on the one hand,
we would lay it down as a general historical law, and axiom of
.state, that separated or divided kingdoms and countries can
never combine for one common object, nor remain permanently
united in feeling nor Christian equity so, on the other hand,
we must remember that the division of nations according to cer-
tain natural boundaries, which we would fain regard as the only
HISTORY. 353
perfect and absolutely right one, is like the quadrature of the
circle, a problem eluding all calculation, and remaining for ever
insoluble, since each one, according to his peculiar political
position, or national prejudices, views those eternal boundaries
in a different light, and determines them differently. Thus in
order to put an end to all discord and to the injurious system
of partition, nothing would remain but the vulgar resource of
an universal monarchy and military dominion a resource
which as often as it has been tried, has been as little justified
or recommended by its historical results, as that custom of par-
tition which prevailed in the German ancestral kingdoms of
the earlier middle age.
The dangers of a bitter family feud, or of the mutual
jealousies of the heirs to the several kingdoms as to their
respective portions, when these grew to any considerable extent,
were early enough perceived. It is to be observed, that in the
first division of the great Carlovingian empire into three parts,
designed by Charlemagne himself, but accomplished only under!
his feebler successor ; the inheritance assigned to the eldest
and imperial brother Lothaire, was together with Rome and
Italy, the Rhenish district situate between France on the one
side, and the interior of Germany on the other, and extending
from Switzerland to the sea a district where the Romans had
planted many and most flourishing colonies, and which for
many ages back had been far superior in civilisation and
refinement to the countries on either side. With the same
prospective care, Charlemagne had already fixed his residence
at Aix-la-Chapelle, preferring the Rhenish province as the then
true seat of civilisation. But in the family quarrel and dis-
sensions which ensued, this measure of Charlemagne as far as
it was intended, had no other permanent effect than to cause,
amid the partitions of countries and changes of dynasty, the
continuance down to very modern times, of Lorraine as an
independent kingdom or dutchy. The Rhenish district long
preserved its pre-eminence in refinement above the rest of
Germany ; and with some external changes, was long the seat
of empire.
In that dark old world of the north, on which Christianity
was just beginning to dawn, no monarch after Charlemagne^
shone so conspicuously as the virtuous Alfred, King of the
West Saxons, in England. And the same remark is applicable
2 A
354 PHILOSOPHY OF
not only to him, but to England in general, which, during this
first Christian period of modern history, far outshone all other
countries in literature and science, as well as in religion, piety,
and virtue. The great pope, St. Gregory, as I have already
mentioned, laid the foundations of Christianity and intellectual
refinement in England, whither he sent forty missionaries;
and so active was their zeal and efficacious their influence, that
in the succeeding age, this first school of Christianity in
England sent forth to other countries the most eminent men
of their time. Such were the German apostle and bishop, St.
Boniface, and Alcuin, the learned friend and confidant of
Charlemagne. Besides many Latin writers produced by this
yet flourishing English school, the great Christian philosopher,
Scotus Erigena, lived in England in the time of Alfred ; and
though this philosopher was perhaps not quite free from specu-
lative error, he was far superior to his own age, and in the
depth and originality of his conceptions, was not equalled, and
certainly not surpassed for many succeeding centuries. King
Alfred, who though a bard and a writer in his own native
speech, prized equally the Latin literature, and who defended
his country against the Danes with the most perseverant
valour, was the first founder of the English constitution ; for
with the wisdom and pacific spirit of a lawgiver, he restored
1 the old Saxon rights and privileges, and the regulations relating
to the cities and the different orders of the state. It was his
virtuous courage, which in the most trying adversity, ever re-
mained cool and collected, that alone rescued the isle of free-
dom from the fierce, impetuous power of the Danes.
The successful naval expeditions of the Normans to all the
coasts of Europe, as far as Sicily and even beyond it, and the
incursion of the Magiars into Europe, where they received the
name of Hungarians, form in the ninth century the close, and
are, as it were, the last reverberation, of the great immigration
of the northern nations, and must on that account not be entirely
passed over in silence. This last maritime migration from the
north began with a powerful and enterprising ruler of Norway,
the fair-haired Harold; and these naval expeditions which were
undertaken, not merely from motives of vulgar piracy, or of
martial adventure, but for the foundation and permanent settle-
ment of new states, soon scoured all the coasts and regions of
the Northern ocean, as well as of the Mediterranean sea. The
HISTORY. 355
province in France which these freebooters conquered, the
French acknowledged by the title of duchy of Normandy; and
they were glad enough thus to bind it to their king by the
homage of fealty, and to attach it to, if not to incorporate it
with, their kingdom. Called to Naples and Sicily by the
Greeks, who demanded their aid against the Saracens, the Nor-
mans there founded for themselves a kingdom of long duration.
After Christianity had introduced into Denmark a better system
of government and legislation, the powerful Danish monarch,
Canute the Great, ruled over England during this period of the
Norman sway ; till at last, after a short interval of contest,
another Norman, William the Conqueror, issuing' from France,
founded a new dynasty in England, and established on the basis
of the old free Saxon constitution, a high chivalrous aristocracy.
From the remotest part of Eastern Asia, situate between the
Uzi and the Patzinacites, an emigration of nations took a west-
ward course towards the country of the Chazars, and at last led
the nation of the Magiars from their original seat to Pannonia,
where, according to the testimony of contemporary writers, the
Avars, the descendants of the ancient Huns, still lived under
their Chagan. Once excited into tumultuous activity, these
Hungarians (who were still pagans) roved as far as the north
of Italy, and down to Thessalonica in Greece, and to the very
neighbourhood of Constantinople ; they then advanced west-
ward in large squadrons far into the interior of Germany, even
to Saxony. It was here that the noble King Henry the First,
opposed a vigorous resistance to their incursions, and Otho the
Great put a final term to the progress of their arms by the vic-
tory on the banks of the Lech. Christianity, which was intro-
duced into Hungary under Geisa, the father of King Stephen,
established a milder system of mariners and legislation ; a system
which St. Stephen, by a close union with Germany, brought to
full maturity. At the same period, Poland under the happy
influence of the Christian religion, which introduced here a
better system of manners and legislation, was incorporated into
the civilised community of the European nations, and with
Germany in particular, formed a very close political connexion.
It is particularly pleasing to observe the veiy beneficial influ-
ence of Christianity in the promotion of agriculture, and in the
advancement of intellectual refinement in the northern valleys
of Sweden, during the reigns of Olaus and St. Eric ; when the
2 A2
356 PHILOSOPHY OF
old hall of Odin at Upsal was finally destroyed, and the new
religion obtained the victory.
During the period of the Norman glory, the Russians (a
populous and widely- spread Sclavonian nation, inhabiting the
vast and ancient Sarniatia, formerly governed by the Goths)
called to their assistance the Varangians, who established a new
dynasty at Novogorod. Either from this circumstance, or from
the former dominion of the Goths, the country was by the
neighbouring Finnish tribes afterwards called Gothland. Russia
received Christianity at the hands of the Byzantines and thus
in its remote north, remained a stranger to the Catholic west
the more so, indeed, as the country, invaded and desolated by
the Moguls, long groaned under the oppressive yoke of these
barbarians till at length, in very recent times, and in the very
struggle of regeneration, it has grown up into a mighty power.
Thus the whole circuit of the Christian west, and all the king-
doms it included, was now tolerably well rilled up ; and it then
consisted of ten principal countries or nations; but in forming*
this estimate we must not attend to minuter subdivisions or
mere national varieties, or to the frequent partitions of king-
doms, and alterations of territory, amid various conflicting or
successive dynasties ; but we should keep in view only the general
and permanent outline of the European states. Germany and
Italy, which were respectively the seats of the Christian em-
pire and the papal dignity, formed the centre of Europe. Along
with these two states, France and England were the most
active, the most powerful, and the most influential members o
the European commonwealth ; while Spain was principally oc-
cupied with her own domestic contests against the Saracens.
The Scandinavian countries were somewhat connected with the
Germanic empire, and Poland and Hungary, after they had
embraced Christianity, were united with that empire in the
closest bonds. Lastly, in the far northern and eastern extre-
mities of Europe, the Byzantine empire and the kingdom of the
Muscovites (closely connected by the ties of religion), formed
the extreme and remotest members of the Christian republic.
Such was the geographical extent, and such the historical situa-
tion of Christendom at that period.
After the downfal of the Carlovingian family, the empire was
restored to its pristine vigour by the election of the noble Conrad,
Duke of the Franconians. This pious, chivalrous, wise, and valiant
HISTORY. 357
monarch had to contend with many difficulties, and fortune did
not always smile upon his efforts. But he terminated his royal
career with a deed, which alone exalts him far above other cele
brated conquerors and rulers, and was attended with more im-
portant consequences to after-times than have resulted from
many brilliant reigns ; and this single deed, which forms the
brightest jewel in the crown of glory that adorns those ages, so
clearly reveals the true nature of Christian principles of govern-
ment, and the Christian idea of political power, that I may
be permitted to notice it briefly. When he felt his end ap-
proaching, and perceived that of the four piincipal German
nations, trie Saxons alone, by their superior power, were capable
of bringing to a successful issue the mighty struggle in which
;all Europe was at that critical period involved, he bade his
brother carry to Henry, Duke of Saxony, hitherto the rival of
his house, and who was as magnanimous as fortunate, the holy
lance and consecrated sword of the ancient kings, with all the
other imperial insignia. He thus pointed him out as the suc-
cessor of his own choice, and in his regard for the general
weal, and in his anxiety to maintain a great pacific power
capable of defending the common interests of Christendom,
he disregarded the suggestions of national vanity, and sac-
rificed even the glory of his own house. So wise and judicious,
as well as heroic a sacrifice of all selfish glory, for what the
interests of society, and the necessities of the times evidently
demand, is that principle which forms the very foundation,
and constitutes the true spirit of all Christian government.
And by this very deed Conrad became, after Charlemagne,
the second restorer of the Western Empire, and the real
founder of the German nation ; for it was this noble resolve
of his great soul which alone saved the Germanic body from
a complete dismemberment. The event fully justified his
choice. The new King Henry, victorious on every side,
laboured to build a great number of cities, to restore the
reign of peace and justice, and to maintain the purity of Chris-
tian manners and Christian institutions ; and prepared for his
mightier son, the great Otho, the restoration of the Christian
empire in Italy, whither the latter was loudly and unanimously
called. This first age of the Saxon emperors was the happy
period wherein Germany possessed the greatest power and re-
sources, and enjoyed great internal peace and prosperity.
358 PHILOSOPHY OF
It is in this period, too, that we trace the first beginnings of
mental refinement, in many excellent and remarkable produc-
tions of the Latin school, which were soon succeeded by the
successful cultivation of the vernacular tongue. Quite as un-
historical, and even still more absurd than the reproaches
urged against the Carlovingians for their impolitic partition
of the empire, are those repeated lamentations and eternal
regrets in which modern historians indulge, whenever they
have occasion to notice the frequent expeditions of the Ger-
man kings and emperors to Rome and Italy, and the con-
nexion which subsisted between the German nation and the
Christian Imperial Dignity a connexion which these writers
consider a great misfortune. They do not enter into the true
idea of this dignity they do not comprehend the urgent need
of those times for an universal protectorate, which might, like
a bulwark, defend Europe against internal anarchy, and the in-
vasions of barbarous nations ; and which might prevent the light
of Christianity from being perhaps extinguished in a second
night of universal barbarism. The modern critics of those an-
cient times cannot understand that high Christian feeling that
exalted principle of self-devotion, whereby a nation from its in-
ternal strength and natural situation, was called by the general
voice to take on itself this burden for the common weal, and to
be the firm sustaining centre of the European system a calling
which must necessarily occasion a mighty loss and heavy sacri-
Sce of repose and prosperity to the nation so undertaking the
momentous charge. "Without this firm central power, which
held together the European nations, they would, yielding at the
first shock, have succumbed under the attacks of the Mahome-
tans or Moguls.
Without this central power, Europe would have been broken
up into a multitude of petty states, and have sunk into eternal
and irremediable anarchy ; whereas now, great as might be at
times the confusion, and fearfully wild the spirit of warfare,
there was always a resource and a remedy against such calami-
ties. As the religious vow of the knight dignified his duties into
a sort of ecclesiastical welfare ; so the high functions of the
emperor were considered as partly ecclesiastical, and he was
looked on as the sworn liegeman of Almighty God, intrusted
with the high sword of universal justice. It was the exalted
idea of this arduous and momentous charge, far more than
1
HISTORY. 359
schemes of selfish ambition and idle glory, that filled up the
lives of the most active and powerful of those ancient emperors.
Hence this common regard for the general welfare of Christen-
dom, which the obligations of their respective stations imposed
upon them, produced a very intimate union between the heads
of the spiritual and temporal authority in Europe, and placed
them in a state of mutual dependence. "When the mighty
emperor, Otho the Great, had been called into Italy, and had wit-
nessed with his own eyes the state of general corruption and de-
generacy at Rome, where among the baronial factions which sur-
rounded the papal chair, one of the more powerful families sought
by the most culpable intrigues to obtain a lasting, and, as it were,
hereditary possession of the holy see ; he exerted his imperial
authority, and deposed the pope, who by means so unlawful had
obtained his dignity, and on whom the general voice of the age
had long pronounced a sentence of condemnation, causing a
worthier pontiff to be elected in his room. There still existed,
among those of the same mind in Christendom, an unerring feel-
ing whereby the righteousness or unrighteousness of any action,
its real spirit and purpose, were easily and promptly determined
without any anxious regard to mere outward forms. But when
that uniformity of feeling had disappeared, and with it feeling
itself had ceased to be a ruling- principle of public and political
life, the standard of political estimation rested almost exclu-
sively on outward forms, and the contentious point of law in-
volved in those forms ; and as in every historical fact men saw
but a precedent fertile of application, or even dangerous in its
consequences, they no longer formed a pure historical judgment
on the general spirit of any great action, and they almost lost
the very notion of such a thing. The whole world at that time
was unanimous in justifying the conduct of the great Otho in
that affair. When, however, the clergy of Rome in their first
feelings of gratitude and admiration at their deliverance from
intolerable anarchy, and the toils of an unworthy family, con-
ferred on the emperor the future and permanent power of
choosing the pope, it might have been easily foreseen that so
extended a prerogative, little compatible as it was with the inde-
pendence of the church, would in the sequel provoke a strong
reaction. This accordingly took "place about a hundred years
later, when a man of great energy of character, Pope Gregory
VII. arose to reform the church, and achieve its independence
360 PHILOSOPHY OF
against the many unlawful encroachments of the secular power.
And when a prince, distinguished indeed for his warlike qualities,
but utterly characterless and animated with an unquiet spirit,
who, according to the unanimous testimony of his contempo-
raries, had incurred many and most serious charges ; when
this prince first attacked and deposed the pope, and the latter
laid him under an excommunication, the conduct of the pontiff
was not only in strict accordance with the general opinion of
the age as to the mischievous rule of this secular potentate ;
but was quite conformable to the then prevailing doctrine of
public law, which sanctioned the responsibility and accountability
of the temporal power. Henc3, Henry IV. found it more expe-
dient to loose himself from this excommunication by a feint
submission, than to impugn it by open force ; although he
never afterwards ceased persecuting the pope, whose constancy
was proved in adversity and persecution. In our own times,
justice has been at last rendered to the great qualities of this
pontiff, and it has been allowed he was perfectly free from all
selfish views, and that the austere and decisive energy of his
character sprang from no other motive than a burning zeal for
the reform of the church and of mankind. The German his-
torians in particular, and in truth, those on the Protestant side,
have been the first to perform this act of justice ; and the name
of Gregory VII., who lived in times -so different from our own,
has long ceased to be with the Germans a watch-word for
party-strife.
But on the matter at issue, or rather on the opinion the world
then entertained respecting it, it will be necessary to say a few
words. That the sovereign is in no way responsible, seems in
modern times to be considered an immutable axiom, or rather
the first of all axioms in the science of government ; and
whenever a monarch in the history of the middle ages, how-
ever vicious he may be, and however forgetful of his dignity,
meets with the treatment of the Emperor Henry IV., political
indignation is raised to the highest pitch. No one can have
the slightest intention of questioning the perfect justness of the
above state-axiom under certain given circumstances. But, if
the question be a parallel between the middle ages and modern
times, we may oppose to the scandal of the ecclesiastical ex-
communication pronounced against this prince during the former
period, the still more fatal example which has occurred within
HISTOBY. 361
the last three centuries, of the public execution of several
monarchs, and of the assassination of many others. Thus in
this respect, the history of the middle age stands purer ; and this
warns us to decide with less precipitancy on the superiority of our
own standard of political morality, and on the greater perfection
of modern principles of state-policy.* According to the feeling
* In confirmation of what Schlegel asserts in the text, I shall cite a
few passages from some distinguished Protestant historians of Ger-
many. To show my readers the enlarged, liberal, and enlightened views
taken by the Protestant writers of that country on the political influence
the papacy in the middle age, and on the services which at that
lomentous period the hierarchy rendered to the cause of social order,
iberty, and civilisation, it were easy to transcribe matter more than
ifficient to fill a volume. Let a few examples suffice. " The northern
itions," says the celebrated historian of Switzerland, John Muller,
" rushing in upon the most beautiful countries of Europe, trampling
aider foot, or disturbing and convulsing all social institutions, menaced
ic whole western world with a barbarism similar to that which, under
le Ottoman sceptre, has obliterated every thing good, great, and beau-
tiful that ancient Greece and Asia had produced. Yet the bishops and
ther dignitaries (Yorsteher) of the church, strong in their authority,
itrived to impose a restraint on those giants of the north who, as
regards intelligence, were but children. They would not have been
lore successful than the Greek prelates, had they been subject to four
different patriarchs. The popes of Rome (whose primitive history is
as obscure and defective as that of the ancient Roman republic, since
re know little of the first popes, except that they devoted their lives
for the faith, as Decius had done for his country), the popes, we say,
employed their authority with the same address which we admire in
the ancient senate, to render their see independent, subject to its im-
mediate action the whole western hierarchy, and establish its sway,
far beyond the boundaries of the ancient empire, on the ruins of the
northern religions. Thus whoever refused to honour the Christ,
trembled before the pope; and one faith and one church were preserved
in Europe, amid the breaking up and subdivision of the newly-founded
kingdoms into a thousand petty principalities. We know what pope
made Charlemagne the first emperor; but who made the first pope?
The pope, they say, was only a bishop; yes, but at the same time, the
Holy Father, the Sovereign "Pontiff, the great Caliph (as he was called
foy Ho- Albufreda, Prince of Hamath), of all the kingdoms and princi-
palities, of all the lordships and cities of the West. It is he who con-
trolled, by the fear of God, the stormy youth of our modern states. At
present even, when his authority is no longer formidable, he is still
r very puissant by the benedictions which he showers; he is still an ob-
ject of veneration to innumerable hearts, honoured by the kings who
honour the nations, invested with a power, before which in the long
succession of ages, from the Caesars to the House of Hapsburg, a host
of nations and all their great names have vanished.
**' We declaim against the pope ! as if it were such a misfortune that
362 PHILOSOPH? OF
of right, and the prevailing maxims of public law in that age, a
mutual control and responsibility subsisted between church and
state, and between the heads of either. In the most esteemed
constitutions of modern states, there is also a mutual dependence
and possible control. Thus the prince may dissolve the par-
liament, or resist its enactments by his veto ; and, on the other
hand, the parliament, by witholding its sanction to the impo-
sition of taxes, or refusing the grant of subsidies, may weaken
the sinews of government, and summon, not indeed the king,
who seems to be regarded as a mere cipher, but the ministry to
a most severe reckoning. The government looses all stay and
support, when the opposition obtains a permanent and decided
majority. Whether this mutual dependence and control in the
modern theory of government be less dangerous than in the
ancient system, is a question which it is not so easy to decide.
As all the institutions of the middle age had a religious spirit
and character, it cannot excite our surprise that this opposition
there should exist an authority to superintend the practice of Christian
morality, and to say to ambition and to despotism, ' Halt ! so far, and
no further ! Bisher, und nicht wetter ! ' " So speaks the illustrious John
Muller. The celebrated Herder allows " that without the hierarchy,
Europe in all probability had become the prey of tyrants, the theatre of
eternal wars; or even a desert."
" The hierarchy," says Beck, " opposed the progress of despotism in
Europe, preserved the elements of civilisation, and upheld in the recol-
lection of men what is so easily effaced the ties which bind earth to
Heaven. Those ignorant men, as we affect to call them, have settled
almost all the countries of Europe. The fruits of that time are the
formation of the third estate, whence dates the true existence of nations
and the establishment of cities, wherein social life and true liberty were
developed." Beck on the Middle Age, page 13. Leipzic, 1824.
" The weak," says lluhs, in his Manual of the History of the Middle
Age, " then found in spiritual authority a better protection against the
encroachments of the powerful than afterwards in the balance of power
a system which, as it was a thing purely abstract, devoid of all external
guarantee, must soon have lost all influence. The pope was always
present to terminate the wars which had broken out among Christian
princes, and to protect the people against the injustice and tyranny of
their rulers. The clergy, therefore, everywhere showed themselves
opposed to the power of kings, when the latter wished to become per-
fectly absolute they wished not to domineer over them, but confine
them within the legitimate bounds of their authority. The priesthood
was, consequently, always for princes, wlien powerful vassals attacked
the rights of the sovereign they were the natural and constant guar-
dians of the rights and liberty of all classes." Manual of the History of
the Middle Age. 1816. Trans.
HISTORY. 363
between the spiritual and temporal power, and this mutual de-
pendence of the heads of church and state should have been
founded in religion, and in the religious character and purpose
of the imperial, as well as of the papal, dignity. It was only
by the excesses of passion and violence, by the exaggerated
proceedings of both the spiritual and temporal powers, as well
as by unfortunate accidents and a human imperfection, by no
means inherent in the nature of the thing itself, that the dispute
between church and state grew to such a fearful magnitude,
was so prolonged, and often became almost incurable. But how
easily, even then, peace might be restored between the spiritual
and temporal powers by the wisdom, the prudence, the good-
will, and conciliatory temper of both, is proved by the peace-
able termination of the quarrel respecting investiture under the
successor of Henry IV. In the sequel, indeed, the harsh, stern,
inflexible character of the Ghibelline emperors, especially Bar-
barossa, again perplexed this question ; when from the contest
growing more and more violent betwixt Guelfs and Ghibellines,
the political schism became wider and wider, and discord seemed
to be again the mistress of the world.
END OF LECTURE XIII.
364 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE XIV.
On the Struggles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines Spirit of the Ghibel-
line Age Origin of Romantic Poetry and Art Character of the
Scholastic Science and the Old Jurisprudence Anarchical State of
Western Europe.
THE most rapid sketch of the history of the middle age, if it
contained but a few lively, characteristic, and faithful traits on
a subject inexhaustible in itself, would suffice to convince any
reasonable man that great characters (abounding almost more
than in any other period of history), important interests,
mighty motives, and lofty feelings and ideas, were there in
mutual collision; and that in what is called the anarchy of the
middle age, we find an active and stirring life, the most splendid
feats of heroism, and many luminous traces of a higher power.
The most careful consideration and profound investigation of
the history of those ages, invariably discovers, that all that was
then great and good in the state, as well as in the church, pro-
ceeded from Christianity, and from the wonderful efficacy of
religious principles. Whatever was imperfect, defective, and
hurtful, belonged not to that moral principle which animated
society, and which was itself the best, the noblest, and the
.soundest; but was in the character of men, we might almost
say in the character of the age itself, which, though perhaps
not originally and purposely selfish, had yet become so in the
violence of the conflict. And by selfishness, I do not precisely
understand a vulgar self-interest, or an ordinary ambition, but
that absolute will or conduct which springs from some unal-
terable resolution, which, hurrying from one extreme to an-
other, is sure to produce a perpetual alternation of extreme
measures. In some cases, this conduct proceeded from a want
of penetration, prudence, and steadiness, which did not always
accompany the deeds of heroic enthusiasm, the astonishing
.energy of will and strength of character which distinguished
HISTORY. 365
the men of those ages. The principle then really bad, the
principle hostile to good, must be ascribed to that inclination
to discord innate in man, or which, at least, has become his
second nature an inclination which, when united with those
other mighty qualities of the age, assumed, indeed, the most
formidable shape.
The whole middle age, however, must not by any means be
depicted as a period of universal anarchy ; as, from the great
difference of times, and the fact that much in the manners and
political institutions of those ages is now scarcely intelligible,
modern writers are but too apt to indulge in this strain of cen-
sure. Above all, we must be careful to distinguish in the
history of the middle ages the variety of epochs. As long as
those religious principles on which church and state depended,
were maintained in their unity and integrity, the social stability
of that first and happier period is indeed remarkable, and forms
a striking contrast with the succeeding age. For private feuds,
restrained within certain bounds by the manners of chivalry and
the laws of honour, or the more protracted, and frequently re-
newed struggles of a warlike nation to repel the inroads of
barbarians, or the aggressions of turbulent neighbours, are no
adequate proofs of general anarchy. But a full knowledge and
just appreciation of the power of principle, which during that
better period was the Christian foundation of the state, is of so
much more importance to our age, as in these times when prin-
ciple has given way to the mutable opinion of the moment, and
the latter exerts so mighty an influence 011 public life ; though
men have the power to throw off this usurped dominion, they
will not return to that unity and stability of principle, however
strongly they may feel the necessity of restoring its saving in-
fluence. No parallel could be more profitable and instructive
than the comparison between an age and a state, where principle
was predominant, and another where opinion was paramount.
All that was great and good in the history of the middle
age, as I observed at the commencement of this lecture, ex-
isted only in fragments, and this has very much contributed to
heighten the appearance of anarchy throughout the whole of
this great period of human history. Of this the blame must
be sought for in a combination of many injurious causes, and
in the resistance of many opposing elements. That wonderful
power of regeneration, by which the whole of western Chris-
366 PHILOSOPHY OF
tendom, after every mighty destruction, and reign of confusion
in church and state, has, in a form somewhat modified, sprung
up anew, renovated and exalted, can be ascribed only to that
religion which was in Christian countries the first, and for so
many centuries the apparently almost indestructible support of
the social edifice. In many and memorable periods of regene-
ration, down to our own times, this truth has beeu repeatedly
manifested; unless perhaps this self-renovating power con-
spicuous in the progress of Christian Europe, as well as of the
particular nations composing it, languishing and decaying by
degrees, become at last utterly extinct.
Among the characteristic, remarkable, and peculiarly Chris-
tian institutions of the middle age, we ought especially to
mention that ecclesiastical truce, or peace of God, which,
towards the commencement of the eleventh century, opposed a
powerful barrier to the growing and restless spirit of private
warfare. Without its being possible to specify exactly how or
where this institution first arose, it was at once proclaimed in
several places, and generally received with pious faith, as a
voice of reconciliation from above, an immediate revelation and
benign dispensation of divine Providence ; and every week the
tolling of the bell announced the sacred truce from Wednesday
evening to Monday morning, during which time all feuds were
to subside, and all hostilities to cease. It may indeed here be
asked in the spirit of modern times, why were only four, and
not the whole seven days of the week fixed upon, for the ces-
sation of disorder? And it may be further said that a severe
criminal code, and a prompt, vigorous, and enlightened adminis-
tration of the law, would have rendered such expedients
unnecessary. And it is thus that men speak and reason with-
out any knowledge of that age ; for many feuds, troubles, and
contests then existed, as in all ages have existed and still exist,
which no criminal legislation can reach : and who will not
deem it the part of prudence and a real gain, when peace is
not attainable, to obtain at least a safe and honourable armis-
tice, or to subtract from the principle of war four-sevenths of
its baneful influence and actual duration? And how happy
would men have accounted themselves, if, in other and later
times of disorder, when nought was reverenced or respected,
and every thing sacred was an object of hatred and persecu-
tion, they could, amid the general confusion, have found shelter
HISTORY. 367
under such a wall of safety, or been blessed with such a holiday
of peace, though only at particular times of the week ! We
should rather admire the power of religion, whereby such a
prohibition without the aid of external force, or secular au-
thority, and running directly counter to the ruling passion of
the age, was received with such pious faith, and followed with
such humble docility.
In the first crusade, religious feeling and enthusiasm was
the great spring of action ; and in the outset, at least, it was
far more the glowing eloquence of Peter the Hermit, his affect-
ing description of the Holy Land, and of the holy places groan-
ing under the Saracen yoke, which contributed to bring about
this memorable expedition, than the pretended policy of the
popes for causing the depression of regal power, and the pro-
motion of popular freedom. These mighty consequences,
though in fact historically true, became apparent only at a much
later period, and so far from being preconcerted, were then
not even foreseen. As the first crusade occurred in the most
brilliant period of Norman glory, the Norman heroes, espe-
cially those from France, took a very active and prominent
part in it. The warfare which the Saracens waged against
Christendom, was considered (and then, perhaps, not without
reason,) as a state of permanent and universal hostility. The
chivalrous and defensive wars of Christian nations against the
unbelievers, were looked upon in the same light ; and if we may
judge from posterior events, Jerusalem and Egypt, in that
long and memorable contest between Europe and Asia, could
very well be regarded, both in a military and political point
of view, as the bulwarks of Christendom. Feats of prodigious,
and almost incredible, heroism were achieved in the Holy
Land ; and, at the close of the eleventh century, the victorious
cross was planted in the holy city, and the pious Christian
hero, Godfrey, proclaimed King of Jerusalem, though this title,
as suited only to the divine Son of David, he with all hu-
mility renounced.
In this holy city the first two spiritual orders of chivalry
sprang up ; the knights of St. John, who took up arms for
the defence of pilgrimage, and in their vows combined the
care of the sick pilgrims with the management of the
sword ; and the Templars, so called after the Temple of So-
lo'mon, and from a recollection of the remarkable secrets con-
368 PHILOSOPHY OP
nected with that edifice. Chivalrous institutions of this kind,
wherein Christianity contrived to blend the most opposite
qualtities and inclinations of human nature, could not have
sprung up under a mathematical government of reason, or in
a state where every thing is reduced to the level of a dead
uniformity, and general equality, and where all feeling and
personality are effaced. But the voice of ages has decided
completely in favour of these marvellous institutes, and even
in our own times, amid all the changes and fluctuations of
opinion, they have preserved the respect, and obtained the
forbearance, of mankind.
Even in the second crusade which took place about fifty
years later, when the new progress of the Saracen arms appeared
to threaten the safety of the holy city, it was far more the pious
eloquence of St. Bernard than any scheme or calculation of
policy, which set the whole European world in motion. The
number of warriors and armed pilgrims who, under the guidance
of the Emperor Conrad, and the King of France, poured in
upon the Holy Land, is computed at more than half a million.
The religious enthusiasm and chivalric heroism which formed
the sole and animating principle of the whole enterprise, were
not always accompanied with sufficient prudence, wisdom, and
circumspection. The want of these qualities at least, as re-
garded the influences of climate, the physical wants of so vast
an army, and a geographical knowledge of localities ; is too
often apparent ; and in default of this necessary foresight and
preparatory information, many thousands perished in the second
as well as in the first crusade ; a fate which indeed is not un-
frequent in wars, where great bodies of people are exposed to
toil and hardship in a foreign climate. These expeditions were
indeed like new migrations of nations, which took an opposite
direction from the first, and rolled backward from Europe
towards ancient Asia. The great multitude of men engaged,
would sufficiently account for these memorable expeditions, as
it proves the redundance of population in Europe, which sought
on this occasion, and by means of this kind, to disburden itself
of its surplus numbers. And if this numerous population may
have given rise to, or afforded materials for, turbulence and
anarchy, still, on the other hand, it furnishes a proof that that
anarchy was not of so destructive and depopulating a nature, as
the descriptions of modern historians would sometimes lead
us to suppose.
HISTORY. 369
The real point of transition in German history from good to
evil, from those Christian principles which were ever predo-
minant in the earlier peirod, to the unappeasable contests of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines in the later middle age, must be fixed in
the reign of the Emperor Frederick the First. The hostile
treatment of the old Saxon race, the destruction of that first and
greatest of the old national dutchies of the Germans, was occa-
sioned by the jealousy of the East Franconians under the
dynasty of that race ; and this measure, begun during the
i'eign, (in every respect so mischievous) of Henry the Fourth,
\vho thus became chargeable with this mighty injustice towards
'the whole German nation, was now brought to a head by the
Emperor Barbarossa. And thus, with the most signal ingrati-
tude, was cut off by the root that noble stem whence German
glory and German power had sprung ; for the reigns of the
great Saxon emperors form precisely the most prosperous and
most brilliant period of German history, such indeed as has never
been again witnessed. With the same unrelenting severity and
-atrocious cruelties, this Ghibelline emperor destroyed the con-
federate cities of Lombardy, and with them crushed the fair
plant of Italian civilisation just then beginning to blossom.
These two great historical parties the Guelfs arid Ghibel-
lines, are the same which we meet with in other periods of
iiistory, and even in our own times, though under other names,
often in a form very different from that of the present day, and
not always in the same relative position towards each other ;
but in the middle age they appeared in the larger and more
gigantic proportions of the vigorous, heroic character belonging
to that epoch. There is ever the one party aspiring after
greater freedom, and the other immovably attached to the
-ancient faith, and to the principles it inculcates. That the
liberal principles of innovation should, according to the peculiar
complexion which these opinions take in every age, have ema-
nated even from imperial power, and should have sought to
-establish their dominion in the world by force of arms, is not
improbable in itself ; and examples of a like kind are not
ivanting in history. And in this shape we find these prin-
ciples in the middle age, where for a long while they exerted
the greatest influence, and at last became almost predominant.
On the other hand the legitimate attachment to the old per-
manent principle of faith appeared here in the form of an
370 PHILOSOPHY OF
ecclesiastical opposition to secular ascendency. But in the timo
of Barbarossa, the solemn reconciliation which took place be-
tween this emperor and the pope, restored harmony between
the heads of church and state, and at last composed the long
feud. This powerful emperor, accompanied by the king of
France, and the lion-hearted Richard, undertook a new crusade,
in order to deliver Jerusalem which had been wrested from the
Christians by Saladiu ; but before he could accomplish his
design, death terminated his active career.
Although the last Ghibelline emperor, Frederick the Second,
had been educated by Pope Innocent III., a pontiff distinguished
by his enlarged views, and great intellectual endowments, and
who had undertaken the care and guardianship of the emperor's
childhood ; yet the old dispute broke out again under this
monarch with more violence and more implacable animosity
than ever. This quarrel was never more appeased, at least
during the sway of Frederick II. and his family ; and it termi-
nated only with the downfal of the Hohenstaufen, the most
powerful of all the princely houses of the middle age. Yet the
Ghibelline name, heretofore stamped in characters of blood upon
the earth, subsisted a long while yet ; and for ages after, the
Ghibelline spirit continued to be the prevailing one in Europe.
Although the later Swabian princes and emperors of this
house, such as Henry VI. and others, were the patrons of
poetry, and of the Provencal minstrels and German Minnesin-
gers ; yet they all resembled one another in an unbending
sternness of character. Henry VI. perpetrated the most enor-
mous cruelties at Naples; the blood-thirsty Ezzelin, while
governor of Lombardy, under Frederick the Second, has left
behind him so fearful a recollection in Italy, such a character
in the pages of history, that his very name need only be men-
tioned, and will dispense with all minuter historical details.
The last of this family, Conradin, was an innocent victim of
the public hatred borne to his ancestors, and he perished on a
scaffold at Naples by the hands of Charles of .Anjou, the brother
of St. Lewis, who had seized on the kingdom of the Two Sici-
lies, the lawful patrimony of the royal youth. The Emperor
Frederick the Second a prince who for his times had received
a most polite education, and was endowed with the greatest
and most original powers of mind was not only accused by
the pope in the excommunication he pronounced against him
HISTORY. 371
of a secret but decided enmity to the Christian religion ; hut
in the general opinion of the world, laboured under the same
suspicion. However, by a prudent peace, which this prince
concluded with the Sultan of Egypt, he terminated his crusade
more successfully than his grandfather had done his own ; for
by this he won back the holy places, and placed the crown of
Jerusalem on his head. He was the first who brought into
Europe the Arabic translation of Aristotle's works ; and as at
this period a mighty change took place in the science and phi-
losophy of the middle age, and as even the art and poetry of
European nations began to display new life and energy, it may
not be amiss to give here a rapid sketch of these important
changes, as they serve to characterise the times.
Chivalry was in itself the poetry of life ; what wonder then
that that life of imagination, should have opened a new
fountain of poesy in the traditional songs, the fairy lays, the
vaiied minstrelsy, and knightly narratives of Germany and
France, Spain and England, since in these countries, chivalry
was the ruling element of society, and had made the greatest
progress ? For the more immediate object of this Philosophy
of History, and in order to contemplate the progress of man-
kind in matters more serious and important, I have thought
the moral principles of men in the middle age, and their
political doctrines, as they were founded on religion, or on the
system of opposition to religion, to be of far greater moment
and importance than the mere esthetic part of those ages ; for
sentimentalists may indulge in a certain vague, superficial love
and predilection for the times chivalry, for the romantic spirit
of the chivalrous life, and of the chivalrous poetry, and of the
whole system of modern art which has thence emanated ; and
nevertheless, all the deeper problems of life involved in that
momentous epoch may remain unexamined, unsolved, or even
misunderstood.
On the nature of this romantic tendency, inasmuch as it
exerted a mighty influence on life, and was a motive of vast
and undoubted weight in many of the most important histo-
rical events of those ages, I shall merely say a word by way of
psychological illustration ; for this is applicable to the prevail-
ing forms of mind, the peculiar intellectual bearings of whole
nations and ages, as to those of individuals. As where opinion
is the ruling principle of life it is very soon broken, divided,
2 u2
372 PHILOSOPHY OF
parcelled out, and lost in a chaos of heterogeneous theories,
and the age, the world, life itself, are involved in interminable
disputes; so, when religious feeling constitutes the primary
principle of life, and it hath been dismembered, and torn from
its right centre, been driven to some extreme, and opinions
flowing from this source have been carried into action, then
all the great transactions of public life exhibit that overruling
influence of imagination, perceptible not in the earlier, but in
the later periods of the middle age, especially from the great
epoch of the Crusades. Although these and other like great
historical events of that period bear many noble traces of the
high religious source whence they sprang, yet such a para-
mount influence of imagination over real life, must in this
partial excess be regarded as the consequence of the dismem-
berment of man's psychological powers a symptom of the
dissolution of that internal harmony which can never subsist
in society, unless it be previously established in consciousness.
The radical vice of the middle age that is to say, the one
most prevalent in its later period from the time of the Ghibel-
lines, if one may venture to characterise it with such psycho-
logical generality, is discernible in the productions of the
poetry, art, and science of that age. And the relations which,
these bore to society the distinctive character, the peculiar
spirit of this critical period in the progress of Christian nations,
are matters of the highest interest and greatest moment. This
vice consisted in that disposition to extremes, that leaning
towards the absolute I have already spoken of, as manifested
in will, in determination, in rule, or in science, speculation, and
poetry. The first germ, or at least the first disposition to
this fault, lies in the very origin of modern nations, especially
those five whose political existence sprang out of the union of
the Germanic constitution, manners, and character, with the
Latin civilisation, literature, and language in the Romanic
countries; or which, at least, were formed by a very strong
infusion of the Roman spirit I mean the German and Eng-
lish, the French, Spanish, and Italian nations. Where the
character of the German tribes, the free, heroic energy of Ger-
manic nature, was blended and incorporated with the strong
worldly sense of the Romans by the influence of Christian
principles and religious love; there sprang out of that happy
union these great and mild characters to which I have already
HISTORY. 373
drawn your attention, and which flourished during the first
period of the German empire, and of the middle age. But as
soon as the influence of the Christian religion began to decline,
and its power was enfeebled, clouded, or obscured, the two
elements, which had been united in the human race, fell
asunder; and on one side was to be seen nothing but mere
Roman astuteness (as is often enough the case in the later his-
tory of France and Italy), and on the side of the Germanic na-
tions, nothing but a rude martial impetuosity and chivalric pride,
uncontrolled and unsoftened by the principle of religion. Or
when, again, the rigid principles of that old worldly sense and
instinct of dominion, which belonged to the Romans, were con-
joined with the heroic energy of the north, without, however,
the healing- and conciliatory influence of the religion of love;
this combination, which is conspicuous in the vehement, but
fearful characters engaged in the Ghibelline contests, was, in-
deed the most unfortunate of all.
How the tendency towards the absolute that abyss to man-
kind, which, along with love, confounds and swallows up all life
then hurried the political world from one extreme to another,
we have already mentioned, so far as was necessary for our
object.
But even in the art and poetry, as well as the science of the
middle age, this leaning towards the absolute is equally apparent,
and the more so, as both reached their full maturity at that
period only when this had become the ruling spirit of the age-
As, on one hand, the chivalrous poetry, especially in its origin,
was excessively fantastical, until later it was fashioned into a
form of milder symmetry, and made to pour forth the touching,
heart-felt tones of romantic art ; so, on the other hand, the scho-
lastic philosophy was bewildered in a maze of subtleties not so
much metaphysical as merely logical, and often quite destitute
of sense. The singular manner, indeed, in which the Italian
poet Dante, has in his mighty poem of visions, wherein he dis-
plays the most masterly and classical condensation of language,
and the profoundest poetical art, contrived to sustain in his pro-
gress through the three regions of the invisible world, that fan-
tastic spirit (which was not confined to the chivalrous poetry,
but was common to every department of imagination in that age)^
next the stern maxim of the Ghibelline state policy, and a con-
genial worship of Roman antiquity, and has managed to unite
374 PHILOSOPHY OF
all these qualities with the subtle distinctions of the scholastic
philosophy ; this singular manner, indeed, has never been an
object of general imitation, nor has it opened a path to the sub-
sequent labours of art. But this work will ever remain an ex-
traordinary, wonderful, and characteristic monument, wherein
the peculiar spirit of this first scholastico-romantic epoch of
European art and science is displayed in a most remarkable
manner. In this spirit there were many heterogeneous elements,
not confined to their separate and distinct spheres, but often
in the strangest juxta-position, or rather confusion. Arid thus
a regular scholastic science of love, with all the borrowed forms
of the philosophy of the day, formed often the purport of the
most tender romantic lays or devices ; and logical antitheses,
syllogisms, and subtleties, were solved in rhyme and verse, with
a most charming play of fancy. It is these vagaries (and so
they are in many respects) which so captivate our feelings in the
poetry of Petrarch one of the restorers of ancient literature
and of modern learning.
More strongly still than in its poetry, the richness of an in-
ventive imagination displayed itself in the wonderful architecture
of the middle age, as so many splendid monuments in Germany,
England, a part of France, and in the north of Italy and Venice
can attest. The style of the Byzantine churches was the first and
principal model of this Gothic architecture, though a fantastic
monument of Arabic architecture may here and there perhaps
have had some influence in its formation. The elaborate and
ornate style, and the fantastic singularity of this architecture,
breathe the true spirit of the German middle age. At this
time, painting, too, began to make some progress in Italy and
Germany; though its progress was incomparably slower than
that of architecture, and the art reached its perfection only in
the fifteenth century ; but devoted entirely to religious subjects
and consecrated to the use of churches or private devotion,
painting remained, down to the time of Raphael, an art
peculiarly Christian, and displayed the profoundest import and
the most masterly power. From this period, renouncing, for
the most part, the religious character of the elder Christian
painting, art began to be affected by that enthusiasm for the
pagan antique, which indeed was not limited to the fine arts,
but was the prevailing character of literature and science in this
second period of European culture. And I have made these few
HISTORY. 375
remarks, not so much for the sake of art itself, which would re-
quire a separate investigation, but as tending to elucidate the
various epochs and stages in the progress of modern civilisation.
It was an ill-boding gift that the Ghibelline emperor made
to Europe when he brought from the East the works of Aris-
totle, translated, or rather burlesqued, into Arabic, and thence
turned again into Latin, till at last they became often perfectly
unintelligible. The elder Christian philosophers belonging to the
first period of the middle age, such as in England (which still
retained a high pre-eminence in Latin literature and Christian
science), a Scotus Erigena, the contemporary of Alfred, a St.
Anselm, so highly revered in theology, and afterwards in France,
an Abelard, and also a St. Bernard, in whose eloquence there
runs so pure a vein of piety and so charming a mysticism of
feeling all these elder Christian philosophers, both in thought
and language were incomparably clearer and more precise than
the schoolmen of succeeding times, and were for the most part
entirely free from that interminable play of an idle logic, and
those empty metaphysical subtleties. The natural sciences
were then in too low and feeble a state to form any distinct
branch of human inquiry ; and this very circumstance contri-
buted, as was then indeed perfectly natural, to knit closer the
ties which connected philosophy with theology. But indepen-
dently of the peculiar circumstances of those times, it is evident
that Christian philosophy can be founded on religion only, and
not on any theory, wherein nature occupies the first and highest
place not on any doctrine, which contains the germ of a
pagan worship of nature, renewed under a scientific form. As
little can a Christian philosophy rest, on the principle of indi-
vidualism a reason which submits not humbly to God and his
revelation, but which, all concentrated in itself, aspires to be
all- sufficing and all-creative. In either respect, the Stagyrite,
when studied even in the original, and thoroughly understood,
would have been a guide very unsafe, very likely to mislead, as
well in natural philosophy as in the higher problems of meta-
physics. The best and most instructive of his writings, his
ethical or political works, could not even be understood by
those scholastic admirers of the Grecian sage ; for the profound
allusions they contained to the customs and political history of
Greece made the knowledge of these, and a complete investi-
gation of the original sources of information, absolutely neces-
376 PHILOSOPHY OF
sary to their comprehension. Even his logical and rhetorical
books derive their chief and liveliest interest from the fact that
they were intended to remedy the dialectic malady of Grecian
intellect, and to oppose the all-usurping- influence of a false
rhetoric among the Greeks. Lastly, to comprehend fully r
rightly appreciate, and turn to advantage, as our times are-
enabled to do, the most solid works of the profound ancient
those on mixed physics and natural history, the schoolmen were
entirely destitute of the necessary aids and preparatory infor-
mation.
If the Christian philosophers of the middle age, instead of
adopting the Aristotelian system, had built and improved on,
the philosophy of those first great original thinkers of Christians
Europe already mentioned, or on the philosophy of the primi-
tive fathers, even those of the Latin church, for by them also-
the Platonic doctrines (the only doctrines of antiquity at all
reconcileable with a philosophy of revelation) had long been
planted and naturalised on the Christian soil ; if this had been-
the case, the edifice of Christian philosophy would have been,
raised with far greater ease and rapidity, and been wrought
into a much more beautiful structure. Or if even the Greek
originals had been deemed absolutely indispensable towards
such an object, it had been better that, instead of waiting till
the destruction of Constantinople, the powerful emperors and
potentates, who patronised art and sicience, had, during the
short duration of the Latin empire at Constantinople, brought!
away with them those philological treasures, instead of the
works of Aristotle so absurdly disfigured in the Arabic, and ins
the still more unintelligible Latin version. It was, on one-
hand, the inclination of the age to absolute modes of thinking,
to the art of logical tournaments, and on the other, a hope>
secretly entertained, that by the pretended magical power o
these logical devices, one might learn and obtain the mastery
of many profound secrets of nature (which by the way should
have been sought anywhere but in the real Aristotle); finally,
the unquenchable thirst after a fruit of knowledge, deemed
forbidden it was all these circumstances which created now
that universal and irresistible rage for Aristotle, reputed as he
was to contain the very essence of all liberal science and phi-
losophy.
The whole foundation of the scholastic philosophy was
HISTORY. 377
thoroughly and essentially false; and it had the most prejudi-
cial and injurious influence, not only on theology, but on the
whole spirit and modes of thinking of this age. When, how-
ever, the evil appeared nearly incurable, and the false current
of opinion was too strong to be resisted, a mighty service was
rendered to mankind, when acute and sagacious theologians,
endowed with philosophical talents and discernment, like a St.
Thomas Aquinas, adopting the common, but erroneous, basis
of this old Aristotelian rationalism, founded on it a system in
which they attempted to reconcile this philosophy with the
dictates of faith, and thus, in this respect at least, avert from
their age the dangerous consequences of this false direction of
the human mind. Yet, on the whole, this was but an appa-
rent reconciliation ; and the scholastic philosophy, or in other
words, the rationalism of the middle age, broke out often
afterwards into a haughty and violent opposition to the doc-
trines of revelation.
This scholastic spirit of the now degenerate middle age
exerted its pernicious influence on life itself, and on the sciences
more immediately connected with life, particularly jurispru-
dence. For when the first Ghibelline Frederick, on the plains
of Roncaglia, gave his solemn sanction to the Roman law, and
to all those absolute rights and prerogatives of the crown
which were thence to be deduced, he thereby opened a door to>
an intricate scholastic jurisprudence, to all the learned subtlety
of processes, and the interminable logic of law ; and conferred
on mankind a boon as little propitious as the Arabic Aristotle^
which his descendant, the second Frederick, afterwards brought
into Europe. The vast pandects of Justinian were already the
recognised code of laws, under the Eastern Franconian empe-
rors, long before the German jurist, Irnerius, opened his school
of civil law in the University of Bologna. Those old Roman
formulas of universal dominion which are occasionally to be
found in the " Corpus Juris," suited perfectly the spirit and policy
of the Ghibelline emperors, who, in, particular cases, alleged
them against the Greek emperors and other potentates, as clear
proofs of the universal monarchy which appertained to them.
But it was particularly from the Ghibelline period that the
Roman law became a favourite science, and its study a new
mania among the European nations, especially on account of
378 PHILOSOPHY OF
the leaning to absolute principles in that system of jurispru-
dence, whose artificial forms of rigid law were indeed little
congenial to the spirit of Christianity, to modern society, and
German manners.
The true problem for the legal science of Christian Europe
to solve would have been this to adopt the forms of the old
Roman jurisprudence, so highly wrought and finished in its
way, and to reform its spirit by the doctrines and principles of
Christian justice ; and at the same time to employ the many
excellent materials to be found in the native laws of European
nations, and in all the old Germanic codes. These laws were
indeed of a very local nature, adapted mostly to infant com-
munities and the simple manners of warlike tribes, and by no
means appropriate to a more advanced stage of civilisation;
yet they contained the solid substance of genuine freedom and
exalted equity. But this task ought to have been accom-
plished in that earlier period when Christianity, which had
united and harmonised so many discordant elements, had still
retained all its influence an influence which was afterwards
wanting. Those ages, however, which were so thoroughly
Christian, and on that very account of such political import-
ance, were deficient in science ; and hence, as I have already
observed, it was not so much deliberate selfishness, or hostile
opposition, but the real want of knowledge and foresight
which occasioned the civil and political institutions of Christian
states to be left imperfect. It is only in very recent times
that an attempt has been made to solve problem which earlier
ages had left unexecuted, or to supply this old deficiency of
a Christian system of jurisprudence. And if hitherto this
task has never been adequately, or completely, accomplished,
though all the conditions have long existed for the solution of
this necessary problem of European society ; it would not be
right to defer again the execution of the work, and thus lose
once more the seasonable moment.
How, after the struggle of parties had become more general,
and an absolute mode of thinking the ruling character of the
age, the violent contests between church and state, between the
secular and ecclesiastical authorities tended to promote their
mutual injury and destruction, I shall now endeavour briefly to
state. After the last excommunication pronounced against
HISTORY. 379
Frederick II., one anti-emperor had followed another in suc-
cession ; and German princes, a prince of the royal household
of England, and a king of Castile, had filled successively the
imperial throne ; none were generally and legally recognised,
and it was the reign of universal anarchy and savage club-law.
It was a dark interregnum in social order, as if the sun of
justice and of peace had withdrawn its light from a world of
corruption and irreconcilable hate ; and for a whole genera-
tion this state of wild disorder, and fear of still greater
calamities, lasted. The loss of Jerusalem and all the Holy
Land to the Christians, which now took place, added to the
general gloom of the times.
In vain had St. Lewis in his last crusade against Egypt,
once more exerted all his energies for the deliverance and pre-
servation of the Christian possessions in the East ; possessions,
which had they been retained, might in the end have formed a
rampart and a barrier against the inroads of the Mussulman
power into the adjoining provinces of Europe. Still the danger
from this quarter was not so imminent ; for it was not till a
hundred years later that the Turks burst from Asia Minor into
Europe, conquered the northern provinces of the Byzantine
empire, and began to menace the Christian kingdoms of the
West. But there was a nearer and mightier danger rolling on
against Europe the formidable power of the Moguls, which
surprised it in this period of the great interregnum. As if the
hostile spirit of destruction had anticipated or known that the
power of Christendom could be subverted only by internal dis-
cord ; an old sage or priest of the still pagan Moguls, had,
about a generation before, announced to the youth, who was
afterwards called Zingis Khan, (that is to say, Lord of the World,
and who is known by this name in history,) that in a vision,
he had seen the Great Spirit, seated on his flaming throne,
judge the nations of the earth, and that by his decision, the domi-
nion of the world had been allotted to the young Khan of the
Moguls. Filled with this spirit, Zingis traversed the world
with his countless hosts ; conquered China, Thibet, and Japan,
subdued the Mussulman empire of Carizme, and penetrated as
far as the Caspian Sea. The conqueror's four sons continued the
work which he had commenced, and divided the earth into four
parts for their task of desolation. The one to whom was as-
380 PHILOSOPHY OF
signed the western portion of the earth invaded Christendom
with his innumerable squadrons ; the throne of Rurick, the
greatest Christian potentate in the north, was overturned ; and
for several centuries, Russia, incorporated with the government
of Kipzak, groaned under the oppressive yoke of the Mogul
sway. Poland was overrun by the all-wasting host of Moguls ;
the King of Hungary was defeated, and forced to flee his coun-
try ; Silesia was laid waste, and the bloody discomfiture of the
Christian army at Lignitz filled the whole western world with
consternation. Happily the destroyers penetrated 110 further
into Europe ; and the stream of their conquests, as if diverted
by a protecting hand, took its course first towards the Arabian
Caliphate of Bagdad, which they put an end to ; and afterwards
towards India, and other Asiastic and Mahometan countries.
This was a passing, but awful, warning to Christendom, how
much she needed the strong arm of a powerful protector,
and that union alone would enable her to resist the assaults and
inroads of barbarous nations. It was the strong feeling of such
a necessity which had first inspired the idea of the Western
Empire.
In the German empire order was first restored by Rodolpli
of Hapsburgh, who, notwithstanding his earldom of Alsace and
his other hereditary demesnes in the Alps, had not yet so much
power as many other aspirants to the imperial crown ; but his
chivalrous virtues ranking him high in the estimation of many
of the princes. A happy and singular coincidence of accidental
circumstances occasioned his unexpected election to the empire,
which appeared to him, as to many others, a calling from above.
Being on the most peaceful understanding with the pope, he
yet abandoned his expedition to Rome ; for he was, above all
things, anxious to put an end to anarchy, to establish the public
tranquillity on a solid basis, and, as far as was then possible, to
restore the reign of justice. The high services which by this
he rendered to his country in those distracted times, history has
not been backward to acknowledge ; and, as the patriarch of
the imperial house of Hapsburgh, he has been the founder of
a power which, in succeeding ages, has ever proved a pillar of
strength and security to Germany and even Europe. But often
again did anarchy rear her head, and often did disorder obtain
the ascendant in Germany, as well as in other European,
HISTORY. 38 1
states. Nations felt the want of one mighty, independent, and
protecting power they lamented the decline of those Christian
principles which had knit so closely all the ties of public and
private life ; and they saw with regret the gradual approach of
the general dissolution and mighty ruin of European society.
Under llodolph's successors, down to Maximilian and Charles
the Fifth, the emperors were confined in their sphere of action
to Germany and its internal affairs, which do not here imme-
diately concern us. The expeditions to Rome tended, indeed,
to keep alive the remembrance of the old imperial rights and
claims ; but they were productive of no permanent advantage,
nor real extension of power. It was only in the summoning of
general councils (the want of which was soon so urgently felt
for the well-being of the church and of Christendom), that the
imperial power was really exerted in favour of the general
interest in Europe.
But the evils which ensued to the church and its head, from
its unhappy conflict with the temporal power, were far more
extensive and fatal in their consequences. lu the mighty contests
between the popes and emperors, it was actual right which was
the subject of dispute ; and, in truth, the first basis and highest
principle of aU right in Christian states, and indeed in all
human society ; and however much of error the exaggerations
of later times may have infused into these disputes, it was a
sublime idea which animated either party. In France, which
now took up that attitude of hostility towards the head of the
church which the emperors had once assumed, an entirely new
<era in European policy, which had now ceased to be Christian,
commenced with the reign of Philip-le-Bel. In the place of those
great motives and lofty ideas which animated a Gregory VII.,
On the one hand, and a Conrad or Barbarossa, on the other, we
meet with a vulgar policy, a selfish cupidity, and an unworthy
cunning .In every point of view, Philip the Fair may be con-
sidered as the worthy predecessor of Louis XI. Even his con-
duct towards the whole order of Templars, their execution, or
rather judicial murder, for the purpose of confiscation, was a
deed of violence which nothing could justify ; even had the
-suspicion entertained against the more corrupt portion of the
order, of having introduced from the East certain uii-Christiaii
tenets, rights, and practices, been not entirely destitute of foun-
382 PHILOSOPHY OP
dation. But yet this suspicion did not affect the whole body,
nor even the then worthy grand-master, as was shortly after-
wards acknowledged by the King of Portugal and the pope
himself ; and, in any case, an ecclesiastical affair of so much
importance ought to have been investigated and determined by
a mode of procedure very different from this arbitrary and
despotic course.
The untimely exaggerations and absolute pretension of Bo-
niface VIII., which, though papal, may almost be termed Ghi-
belline (in the same sense that we have applied that term to the
acts of preceding emperors), must have proved very welcome to
Philip the Fair. He found in the conduct of the pope, a pre-
text for enticing him into France, in order, on the first vacancy
in the Holy See, to promote the election of a pope favourable
to his views, and fix him at Avignon. It was a deep-laid plan
of policy on his part, to fix the residence of the popes for ever
within his territories, in order more easily to extort their con-
sent to all his selfish projects, as in the case of the Templars ;
a policy by which the popes, during seventy years, were kept
in a state of absolute dependence on the court of France. And
when at last one of the popes succeeded in rescuing the chair
of St. Peter from this Babylonish captivity, and placing it again
at Rome, popes were elected one against the other at Rome and
Avignon ; and a schism broke out in the church which lasted
for forty years, till it was finally quelled by the general council
of Constance. A deeper wound could not have been inflicted
on Christianity than this division in the church, which led
minds astray, and introduced an indescribable confusion in all
the relations of public and private life. As, without the all-
protecting and all- connecting authority of the first Christian
emperors, Europe in general, and Germany in particular,
would much sooner have been split and dismembered, and been
deprived of all power of permanent resistance against foreign
aggression, and barbarian inroads ; so. without the papal
power, which was founded on, and adapted for, unity, and
which held together the fabric of the church, Christianity would
very soon have been lost and extinguished in a multitude of
particular sects, petty congregations, aud opposite parties, even
where totally dissimilar systems of religion did not spring up.
The maintenance of orthodoxy in the Greeck church, where the
HISTORY. 383
patriarch does not possess the same spiritual power, nor the same
extensive influence on society, as the pope during the middle
ages, cannot be fairly adduced as an objection to the truth of
this observation. For it would be absurd to expect from the
active, stirring, restless, and animated spirit of the western
nations, moving on as they did through a series of rapid, inces-
sant, and progressive changes, that innate monotony of thought
even in faith, which was natural to the dead, torpid Byzantine
mind. When the Western church had been weakened and
convulsed by the conflict with the secular power, the preju-
dicial and fatal effects of this contest became apparent in
religion itself and the internal region of faith. At first, indeed,
there arose a mighty moral power of resistance against the
growing corruption and the impending evil a great spiritual
remedy, which sprang out of religion, and was perfectly con-
formable to its spirit. It was here again apparent how that
strengthening Spirit of aid and counsel that Paraclete pro-
mised to the church by its divine Founder, knows at every
period, and on every new occurrence of danger, to employ the
remedies the best and most fitting for the exigencies of the
time ; remedies of which the high origin is clearly discernible,
though in the hands of men they no longer retain their primi-
tive character, and do not accomplish all the good they
might have effected, or even become at last more and more
perverted.
The great wealth of the church was not the sole, but one
of the principal subjects of dispute with the secular power, and
w r as even a stumbling-block to many, especially among the
people. It was this wealth, indeed, which had furnished the
means of cultivating and fertilising the soil of Europe, and
sowing the seeds of science on the soil of human intellect ;
for the existence of the clergy had been founded on landed pro-
perty, and by this means they had become naturalised and
domiciliated in the state, and among the nation ; till the
splendid endowments which they received from the liberality of
religious zeal, made the abbots, bishops, and the whole of the
higher clergy, wealthy lords, senators, and princes. This
wealth and this power, the clergy, especially in the earlier
times, generally employed in a manner the most praiseworthy,
and the most conducive to the welfare of the community.
384 PHILOSOPHY OF
The annals of modern Europe, and the history of every great
and petty state within it, are full of the high political services
which the excellent churchmen of the middle age rendered to
the public weal. This was universally acknowledged, and any
sudden separation of the higher clergy from the state any
degradation of that body from the exalted station which they
occupied therein, would have been a most serious loss to society.
In the contests of the emperors and other princes with the
church at its head, the immediate and original object of dis-
pute was not ecclesiastical property, which no one ever dreamed
of attacking ; but the jurisdiction over that property, and the
acknowledgment of that jurisdiction. It is easy to conceive
that all the members of the higher clergy had not rendered
services equally eminent, and that the employment of their
riches had not been equally laudable and blameless. But,
independently of individual abuses and scandals, the great
wealth of the dignified clergy, the eminent and splendid rank
they occupied in the state and in society, were ever a stumb-
ling-block to the people, and even to some ecclesiastics, and
seemed in contradiction with the original rule and evangelical
poverty of the primitive Christians. This was the first cause,
the principal subject, and, as it were, the favourite text of that
popular opposition which now, after the example had been set
by princes and potentates, began to unfurl its banners against
the church.
Nothing, therefore, could be better adapted to the exigencies
of the age than that, in opposition to the too great worldly pomp
of many of the high though meritorious and virtuous digni-
taries of that time, communities of men, animated by the
sincerest piety, and the most austere spirit of humility and self-
denial, should have risen to make themselves all in all to
the people, and set the example of perfect evangelical po-
verty; or to devote their undivided zeal to popular instruc-
tion and the office of preaching. Men of real sanctity, and
the most humble piety, and gifted with wonderful powers, en-
tered on this new path of religious zeal ; and many amongst
them, with a truly high-minded freedom, reprehended the
abuses and the moral corruption then existing in church and
state, and among all orders of society. They met with
contradiction and opposition, and even at an early period
HISTORY. S85 V
incurred much blame ; but here we must be careful to dis-
tinguish human infirmity and partial degeneracy from the
holy, origin of those establishments from that spark of
divine inspiration which called these, and all other ecclesi-
astical institutes, into existence. And thus that tide of
popular opposition to the church, which had received its
first impulse from the secular power, and the contests of
the Gliibelline Emperors, rolled on with an ever-increasing
force, swell, and violence. Scarce had the Waldenses dis-
appeared, when a religious sect still more numerous, the
Albigenses, broke out in the South of France, and not
content with displaying the usual popular opposition to the
inches and real abuses of the church, broached many errors
and doctrines of the Eastern sects, which during the Cru-
sades may have found their way into that country. For this
reason it was thought justifiable to proclaim against them a
formal Crusade, and, by a most atrocious war of extermina-
tion, wherein the remedy appears no less reprehensible than
the evil itself, princes put down this popular sect, which they
regarded as rebellious not only against the church, but the
state itself.
Wickliffe in England was the first single bold Reformer
that appeared, and he was succeeded soon afterwards by an
Innovator, whose enterprise was attended with far more
important consequences John Huss in Bohemia. Their
writings, abounding not only in the wonted condemnation of
real abuses, but in many fanciful doctrines, unfounded asser-
tions, and germs of heresy, their cause as well as the general
state of affairs, and the problem of the age, became more
complicated and perilous.
John Huss was summoned before the council of Constance,
which had terminated so successfully the schism in the Pa-
pacy ; but there, without any regard to the imperial safe-
conduct which he had received, he was condemned, and
delivered over to capital punishment. As one injustice,
one act of bloody severity, is sure to bring on another, a
few years afterwards the Senators of Prague were preci-
pitated from a window. This was the signal for a general
rising of the people; Ziska, at the head of his infuriated
troop?, ravaged Bohemia, burst into the neighbouring pro-
vinces of Germany, and, with a Hussite army of seventy
2 c
586 PHILOSOPHY OF
thousand men, spread terror every where on his march.
This insurrection was indeed suppressed, but Europe grew
every day more and more ripe for a Revolution.
A new and pressing danger, which had been long fore-
seen, now threatened Europe from an opposite quarter.
The Turks, who for almost a century had been in possession
of the Northern provinces of the Byzantine Empire, became
now masters of Constantinople, and the old church of St.
Sophia was converted into a Mosque. That portion of
Europe which stood in most immediate danger, Germany,
Austria, Hungary, and Poland was now compelled to make,
for the space of more than two centuries, resistance to the
progress of the Turkish power the object of its most assidu-
ous attention ; and this was a circumstance which tended
to impede the emperors in all their other enterprises, to
divert their efforts, and consume their best energies, and
so far, in the then existing embarrassments in church and
state, exerted a very fatal influence on the whole system of
European society.
The immediate effects of the siege and fall of Constanti-
nople were highly favourable to literature and science in
the last half of the fifteenth century ; when the Greek fugi-
tives, by the rich and long-lost treasures of classical know-
ledge which they brought, created a new and brilliant era
in letters and science ; in Italy in the first instance, then
in Germany (at that time so closely connected with Italy),
and lastly in the rest of Europe. The knowledge of their
classical tongue and ancient literature had never been totally
extinguished among the Greek scholars and ecclesiastics;
but in their hands this knowledge remained a mere dead
treasure, which was only afterwards turned to profitable
account, and to the service of society, by the more active
spirit of the Europeans.
The better of the late Byzantine emperors, particularly
some of the Palaeologi, had cultivated the sciences, and, by
their love and encouragement of learning, had given a new
life to literature. Even in the period immediately preceding
the fall and conquest of Constantinople, many Greeks had
taken refuge in Italy, particularly during the various at-
tempts made to bring about the re-union of the Greek with
the Roman Church; attempts, however, which with the
HISTORY. 387
exception of a small number of individuals who went over to
the Catholic Church, were not attended with any general
success. In Italy the Greek fugitives established schools for
their own language and literature, and founded libraries;
and if in the time of Petrarch few Italians could be named
that were conversant with that language and literature (and
among these zealous promoters of Greek learning, Boccaccio
must be included with himself,) Florence now under the
Medici, the first Cosmo, and Lorenzo the Great, became a
flourishing seminary of Grecian letters and erudition ; and
at Rome also, the house of Cardinal Bessarion was a true
Platonic academy of science. Even the study of the ancient
Roman writers received a new stimulus, and was prose-
cuted with a more classical taste and spirit. Courtly lite-
rati, and Latin poets formed on the old classical models
political writers in the Latin tongue, which was still the
language of diplomacy statesmen and politicians of the
greatest influence, trained up in the school of Greek and
Roman history arid politics and polite dilettanti of Pagan
antiquity, all now gave the tone to this new and second
epoch in the intellectual culture of Europe. But the ruling
spirit and tone of the age proceeded mainly from the revival
of the ancient literature and learning of the Greeks. Natural
philosophy, whatever extension it may have received from
the improvements in astronomy, and a more comprehensive
knowledge of the globe obtained by the discovery of the
New World, had not yet been wrought into a scientific form,
capable of exerting, as it did afterwards, an effective influ-
ence on the European mind, or of giving it a new direction.
In this period of the restoration of science, some individuals,
like Picus Mirandola, and above all, the German Reuchlin,
followed a Platonic track in search of a more profound phi-
losophy ; or, like Bessarion, Marsilius Ficinus, and others,
illustrated and diffused the philosophy of Plato. But these
were partial exceptions, and these first attempts were not al-
ways faultless. Yet it must ever be a matter of regret that
the beginning then made towards a better and more pro-
found philosophy should have been left unfinished. To this
the old scholastic philosophy was then a powerful obstacle,
and the spirit of anarchy, which the religious contests of the
following age called into existence, struck at the root of all
2 c 2
388 PHILOSOPHY OF
lofty speculation ; and even in the flourishing age of the
Medici, it was the aesthetic part of ancient literature, and
the political application of classical knowledge, which formed
the main and almost exclusive object of pursuit.
Thus this regeneration, as it was called, was very imper-
fect and incomplete ; and, in a general sense, was really not
such ; even in science itself, the advantages which mankind
had obtained, and which they were so eager to display, were
more like a passing blossom than a sound and vigorous root.
Many of those classical spirits were more conversant and
more at home in ancient Rome and Athens in the manners,
history, politics of antiquity, or even in its mythology (then
investigated with peculiar fondness and enthusiasm) than in
their own age, in the existing relations of society, or in the
doctrines and. principles of Christianity.
The prevailing character of this new epoch of intellectual
cultivation, which succeeded to the scholastico- romantic
period of European art and science, was, by those modes of
thinking and those modes of life which, with more or less
modification and variety, it diffused over all the European
countries, at the best a very partial enthusiasm for Pagan
antiquity, not merely in the department of art, but in the
whole compass of literature; nay, even in history, politics,
and morals also. If we compare with the fearful commo-
tions of the following age this classical enthusiasm, often so
ill suited to the existing relations of society, its influence on
the world will appear like an enchanting draught, which in-
toxicated for a while the European nations, drew them after
objects totally foreign, made them forget themselves in an
illusive consciousness of their intellectual refinement; and,
lulling them into a false security, blinded them to their own
corruption, and the greatness of the impending danger the
yawning abyss on whose verge they then stood.
END OF LECTURE XIV.
HISTORY. 339
LECTURE XV.
eneral observations on the Philosophy of History. On the corrupt state
of society in the fifteenth century. Origin of Protestantism, and cha-
racter of the times of the Reformation.
THE Philosophy of History that is to say, the right compre-
hension of its wonderful course, the solution and illustration
of its mighty problems, and of the complex enigmas of
humanity, and its destiny in the lapse of ages is not to be
found in isolated events, or detached historical facts, but in
the principles of social progress. Historical particulars can
only serve to characterize the inward motives, the prevailing
opinions, the decisive moments, the critical points in the
progress of human society ; and thus place more vividly
before our eyes the peculiar character of every age each
step of mankind in intellectual refinement and moral im-
provement. To this end, historical details are indispensable :
for the ruling principles of social development are of a
more exalted kind, and not mere organic laws of nature,
from which, as in physiology, when the first principle of the
disorder is well understood, we can accurately deduce, and
partly at least determine beforehand, the nature of the
different phonomena and symptoms, the rule of health, the
diagnostic of the disease, as well as the method of cure, the
approach of the crisis, and its natural declension, without
being obliged to go through the labyrinth of all the different
cases that may have ever existed. Again, it is not in the
history of man, as in natural history, where the structure of
the various plants and animals forms by close analogy one con-
nected system of species and genera ; and where the growth,
bloom, decay, and extinction of individuals follow in an uni-
form order, like day and night, or like the change of the
seasons. But in the sphere of human freedom ; as man is a na-
tural creature, but a natural creature endowed with free-will,
390 PHILOSOPHY OF
that is to say, with the faculty of moral determination between
the good or heavenly impulse, and the wicked or hostile prin-
ciple; all these organic laws of nature form only the physical
basis of his progress and history. And hardly do they form
this but rather a mere disposition of which the direction de-
pends on man, or on the use he makes of his own freedom. It
is only when that higher principle of man's free-will has been
weakened, debased, obscured, extinguished, and utterly con-
founded, that those laws of nature can hold good in history.
Then, indeed, the symptoms of a diseased age, the organic
vices of a nation, the prognostics of a general crisis of the
world, may be determined to a certain extent with the pre-
cision of medical science. Though the general feelings of
mankind clearly declare the soul to be endowed with the
faculty of free-will ; yet to reason, this freedom is an almost
inextricable enigma, the solution of which must be fur-
nished by faith. Or rather, this is a mystery, of which the
key and explanation must be sought for in God and his
Revelation ; and the same will apply to every higher
principle, that transcends nature, and nature's laws.
Along with the principle of man's free-will, which rises
above necessity, that law of nature there is another higher
and divine principle in the historical progress of nations ;
and this is the visible guidance of an all-loving and all-ruling
Providence displayed in the course of history and the march
of human destiny, whether in things great or small. But
the power of evil is something more than a mere power of
nature, and in comparison with this, it is a power of a higher
and more spiritual kind. It is that power whose influence
is not only felt in the sensual inclinations of nature, but
which, under the mask of a false liberty, unceasingly labours
to rob man of his true freedom. Thus Providence is not
a mere vague notion, a formula of belief, or a feeling of
virtuous anticipation a mere pious conjecture but it is
the real, effective, historical, redeeming power of God, which
restores to man and the whole human race their lost
freedom, and with it the effectual power of good. The
problem of human existence consists in this, that man in
the great stage of history, as in the little details of private
life, has to choose and determine between a true heavenly
freedom, ever faithful and stedfast to God, and the false,
HISTORY. 391
rebellious freedom of a will separated from God. The mere
license of passion or of sensual appetite is no liberty, but
a stern bondage under the yoke of nature. But as that
false and criminal freedom is spiritual, so it is superior to
nature ; and it is strictly conformable to truth, to regard
him as the first author of this false liberty whom revelation
represents as the mightiest, the most potent, and the most
intellectual egotist among all created beings either in the
visible or invisible world.
Without this freedom of choice innate in man or imparted
to him, this faculty of determining between the divine
impulse and the suggestions of the spirit of evil, there would
be no history, and without a faith in such a principle there
could be no Philosophy of History. If free-will were a
mere psychological illusion ; if consequently man were in-
capable of sentiment or deliberate action ; if all in life were
predetermined by necessity, and subject, like nature, to a
blind, immutable destiny ; in that case, what we call his-
tory, or the description of mankind, would merely constitute
a branch of natural science. But such notions are utterly
repugnant to the general belief and the most intimate
feelings of mankind, according to which, it is precisely the
conflict between the good or divine principle on the one
hand, and the evil or adverse principle on the 'other, which
forms the purport of human life and human history, from
the beginning to the end of time. Without the idea of
a God-head regulating the course of human destiny, of an
all-ruling Providence, and the saving and redeeming power
of God, the history of the world would be a labyrinth with-
out an outlet a confused pile of ages buried upon ages &
mighty tragedy without a right beginning, or a proper
ending ; and this melancholy and tragical impression is
produced on our minds by several of the great ancient
historians, particularly the profoundest of them all, Tacitus,
who, towards the close of antiquity, glances so dark a
retrospect upon the past.
But the greatest historical mystery the deepest and
most complicated enigma of the world, is the permission of
evil on the part of God, which can find its explanation and
solution only in the unfettered freedom of man, in the
destination of the latter for a state of struggle, exposed to
392 PHILOSOPHY OF
the influences of two contending powers, and which com-
mences with the first earthly mission of Adam. This is
nothing else but the real and entire exercise, the divinely
ordained trial of the faculty of freedom, imparted to the
firstling of the new creation, the image of God, in the con-
flict and the victory over temptation, and all hostile spirits.
That man only who recognises the permission of God given
to evil in its at first inconceivably wide extent the whole
magnitude of the power permitted to the wicked principle,
according to the inscrutable decrees of God, from the curse
of Cain and the sign of that curse its unimpeded trans-
mission through all the labyrinths of error, and truth grossly
disfigured through all the false religions of Heathenism.
all the ages of extreme moral corruption, and eternally
repeated, and ever increasing crime, down to the period
when the anti-christian principle the spirit of evil, shall
usurp entire dominion of the world ; when mankind, suffi-
ciently prepared, shall be summoned to the last decisive trial
the last great conflict with the enemy in all the fulness
of his power : that man only, we say, is capable of under-
standing the great phenomena of universal history in their
often strange and dark complexity, as far at least as human
eye can penetrate into those hidden and mysterious ways of
Providence. But he who regards every thing in humanity,
and the progress of humanity, in a mere natural or rationalist
point of view, and will explain everything by such views ;
who though perhaps not without a certain instinctive feeling
of an all-ruling Providence a certain pious deference for its
secret ways and high designs, yet is devoid of a full know-
ledge of, and deep insight into, the conduct of Providence
he to whom the power of evil is not clear, evident, and fully
intelligible ; he will ever rest on the surface of events and
historical facts, and satisfied with the outward appearance of
things, neither comprehend the meaning of the whole, nor
understand the import of any part. But the matter of
greatest moment is to watch the Spirit of God, revealing
itself in history, enlightening and directing the judgments of
men, saving and conducting mankind, and even here below
admonishing, judging, and chastising nations and gener-
ations ; to watch this Spirit in its progress through all ages,
and discern the fiery marks and traces of its footsteps. This
HISTORY. 393
threefold law of the world, these three mighty principles in
the historical progress of mankind the hidden ways of
a Providence delivering and emancipating the human race
next, the free-will of man, doomed to a decisive choice in the
struggle of life, and every action and sentiment springing
from that freedom lastly, the power permitted by God to
the evil principle, cannot be deduced as things absolutely
necessary, like the phenomena of nature, or the laws of
human reason. Such a general deduction would by no
means answer the object intended ; but it is in the character-
istic marks of particular events and historical facts, that
the visible traces of invisible power and design, or of high
and hidden wisdom, must be sought for. And hence the
Philosophy of History is not a theory standing apart and
separated from history, but its results must be drawn out of
the multitude of historical facts from the faithful records
of ages, and must spring up, as it were, of themselves,
from bare observation. And here an unprejudiced mind
will discern the motive, and also the justification, of the
course we have pursued ; for in the Philosophy of History
we have not to do with any system any series of abstract
notions, positions, and conclusions, as in the construction of a
mere theory but with the general principles only of histori-
cal investigation and historical judgment.
In the multitude, however, of historical phenomena, all
things, especially in times of great party-conflicts, are of a
mixed nature, where, in the selection of characteristic traits,
we should rather avoid than seek for any rude and violent
contrasts. For while, on the one hand, in any great historical
contest, we are bound to recognize the full justice of the true
cause, yet on the other, we shall often find some flaw some
stain some weak point connected with that cause not
inherent in the cause itself, but chargeable solely on human
infirmity. Or when we must condemn the Revolution of
any period, as pernicious in its general relations, and repre-
hensible in itself, we shall often see some motive lie con-
cealed in its origin in its first proceedings, which taken
in itself, and abstractedly of subsequent errors, and the false
consequences thence deduced, comprises some important
indications of right some lofty aspirations after truth. Every
general assertion must be restricted by exceptions, and
394 PHILOSOPHY OF
qualified by various modifications ; and as in historical events,
so in historical narration and speculation, nothing is so hurt-
ful and unprofitable as an absolute mode of reflection, in-
quiry, and decision. This remark we may apply by antici-
pation to the whole period of latter ages, and as inculcating
the necessity of that conciliatory spirit which true philosophy
cannot fail of adopting for its rule. It i,s only when we
have gone very deeply into the varied and complex nature
of the circumstances of any age, and examined in their
manifold bearings those historical phenomena which attend
or produce the critical turning-points, the decisive eras of
history, that we can clearly discover the spiritual elements
the great ideas which lie at the bottom of a mighty revo-
lution in society. In every other abstract science, an ex-
ception from the rule appears a contradiction ; but in the
science of history, every real exception serves but the better
to make us comprehend and judge the rest.
Such an exception I have now to point out in reference
to my remarks on the intellectual progress of Europe, in
those two epochs of its mental cultivation, one of which
I designated as the scholastico-romantic era, the other as
the era of enthusiasm for the Pagan antique ; the former
being inadequate to the wants of that age, as well as of
posterity, and the other secretly destructive of the old
Christian order of things. But on the whole, from the tone
prevalent in either period, I do not know I could have other-
wise characterized the spirit peculiar to those two epochs.
Yet even in those periods, and in the sphere of philosophic
and religious meditation, the spirit of Christianity shewed
itself independent of and superior to the temper of the
times ; and between these opposite eras, we meet with works
displaying a clear and beautiful simplicity of expression,
united with the utmost purity and depth of ascetic feelings.
Among several others, I need only cite the German Thomas
a Kempis, whose most celebrated work has become a manual
of devotion for all the European nations, while those who
know the philosophic spirit which reigns in his other writ-
ings can well recognize in this the same clear masterly
mind, which, throwing off the abstruse forms of the school,
pours itself forth in a most lovely simplicity of diction.
I may be permitted to cite this glorious exception of a
HISTORY. 395
mind that, amid the degenerate science of that age, rose
into the pure atmosphere of Christian philosophy, inasmuch
as it serves to throw a light on the general spirit of the
times. Had that mild light of moral truth and divine charity
not been then so rare an exception ; had that spirit of
Christian morality been somewhat more widely diffused;
the violent commotions in the following generation would
not have occurred ; for they would have had no motive,
nor object, nor any possible source of existence. But in
direct opposition to that pious Fleming, there was a great
Italian writer, who gave the tone to the moral and political
opinions of his age, and exerted the mightiest influence on
his times, both as a moralist and as a politician. I allude
to Machiavelli, who may serve as a proof, that the maxims
and principles of Pagan antiquity, with which the scholars of
that age were imbued, were not confined to the departments
of art and of imagination, or of mere erudition, but had a very
powerful influence on politics : and however much one may
attempt to excuse or explain away the design of one of his
works,* still all his other political writings clearly and evi-
dently shew that he was actuated by no other maxims of
state-policy than the old Roman and Pagan principle, of
grasping, inexorable, and selfish cunning. This writer an-
nounced only with greater clearness and precision what were
already the prevailing principles of his times, and was thus
the means of bringing those principles to fulness and maturity.
When the Christian bond of union between the European
states and nations had been so completely dissevered, policy,
together with all moral principle, became for the most part
Pagan, came to consider all means as lawful for its ends,
respected not the sacredness of any institution, and was
guided in all its projects by selfishness, cupidity, or ambition.
Animated with this spirit, and guided by these views, Lewis
XI. consolidated the absolute authority of the crown in the
interior of his dominions, with the same inflexible persever-
ance of character, and the same consummate political art,
which, in his endeavours to maintain his power against the
Duke of Burgundy and other neighbours, characterized
his foreign policy. In Ferdinand the Catholic, King of
Spain, who permanently united the two kingdoms of Arra-
* The Prince.
396 PHILOSOPHY OF
gon and Castile, put an end to the Arab dominion by the
conquest of Granada, and came into possession of the golden
mines of America, the arbitrary principles of policy and of
government, which were then so generally prevalent, are
particularly perceptible. The barbarous persecution and
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was certainly pre-
judicial to the welfare of the country, was in itself an act
of reprehensible severity, and was, above all, a dangerous
precedent for the further extension and application of the
same oppressive policy towards the Arabian population (still
very numerous in many provinces of Spain), and towards
the peaceable descendants of the old Mahomedan conquerors.
From the contests carried on in Spain itself with the Maho-
medans for the space of eight centuries, a religious war
almost entered into the system of national policy. The
wisdom of a great and lenient monarch, like Charles the
Fifth, might, indeed, mitigate the evils of the times, and as
long as he lived, and as far as circumstances permitted,
might oppose a check to the torrent of the new opinions
in Germany. But with all his pacific endeavours he was
unable either to prevent the rupture and separation of a
part of Germany, or to stop the progress of arbitrary prin-
ciples of government, which, under his successor on the
Spanish throne, became perfectly irresistible. The inter-
mixture of political and ecclesiastical affairs and institutions
existed more or less everywhere, and in truth had a deep
historical foundation in the peculiar circumstances of place ;
and unless we deeply investigate all the particulars of those
local circumstances, and accurately discriminate their several
peculiarities, it would be difficult, and indeed rash, to pro-
nounce a general opinion respecting them as so sweeping
a judgment would give a false and erroneous turn to a cen-
sure apparently well founded, and often just in itself. The
Inquisition in Spain, for instance, was, from the very pecu-
liar character which it took in that country, far more a
political than an ecclesiastical institute. If the secular
power had been guilty of arbitrary and violent encroach-
ments on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical power in
its turn had, from the spirit of the times, become in many
respects too secular.
When the Popes had returned to Rome from the captivity
HISTORY. 397
of Avignon, experience taught them how necessary to their
dignity and independence was the possession of a sovereign
principality, which, however inconsiderable, should be at
least free from foreign control. Nay, since the German
Empire had become really extinct, or existed only in name,
it was the interest of the secular powers themselves, that
the political authority of the Pope within the ecclesiastical
states should rest on a firm and secure foundation, and
should thus afford them a guarantee that the sovereign Pon-
tiff would not again be in a state of exclusive dependence
on any one of the different powers divided as they now
all were in interests, and animated by mutual jealousy.
Without taking into account the personal scandals of Alex-
ander VI., the mode in which some Popes, especially of
the Borgia family, sought to consolidate their power within
the ecclesiastical territory, must have appeared very re-
volting in the spiritual heads of Christendom. And al-
though Julius II. possessed many great and princely quali-
ties, still an injurious impression must have been produced
on the public and popular mind, when the chief ecclesiastic,
and a prince of peace, girded on the sword, and put on the
martial cuirass. The name of the Medicean Pope, Leo X., is
one celebrated in the history of art arid science, and serves to
denote its most brilliant era; he possessed perhaps all the
qualities most calculated to shed lustre round the throne
of a secular monarch ; but he was not the Pontiff to dis-
cern the fearful dangers and urgent necessities of the church
in that age, to avert those dangers by his foresight, or to
surmount them by conciliation.
A succession of such Pontiffs immediately prior to the
breaking out of the Reformation is of no slight historical
importance. It would really appear as if the church were
destined, by the losses it experienced, to learn the greatness
of the danger to which its too worldly policy exposed it,
and to be brought back by misfortune to its true, proper,
and essential destination. Indeed, at that time, the materials
of political combustion were by no means wanting in Italy.
Even in the absence of the Popes, a political fanatic, Rienzi,
had excited a Revolution for the purpose of restoring the
ancient republic ; and the internal feuds and civil wars of
Florence were the effects of factions, almost inseparable from
398 PHILOSOPHY OF
a state constituted like the Florentine Republic. In the last
period of civil disorder, shortly after Lorenzo's death, a reli-
gious fanatic, the Dominican Savanarola, appeared at the
head of a political Revolution ; and his revolutionary prin-
ciples were strangely mixed up with his religious tenets.
Here evidently is a fact not undeserving of attention, if
we would wish to form a right estimate of the state and
circumstances of that age : it is, that the very origin of
this new species of fanaticism or heresy, and not its ulterior
progress (as in the case of the Hussites), was marked and
accompanied by political commotions, and crimes against
the state.
When that bond of religious unity that high fellowship
of Christian feeling which had united the various states of
Christendom, was in a great measure dissolved, the different
powers of Europe (as is usually the case among neighbour-
ing independent nations, when directed by separate views of
policy) the different powers of Europe engaged in a system
of alliances, subject to various fluctuations, but all formed on
the principle of a mere dynamical equilibrium just as if
government and social power, even under the influence of
Christianity, were nought but a mere material weight a
mere lever of physical force. Ever since the expedition of
Charles VIII. into Italy had provoked resistance and occa-
sioned a reaction, the dominion of that country, for which
Spain and France contended with all their might, was a pe-
culiar subject of jealousy between those states, and gave rise
to many wars. The other powers that took an active part
in this game of political alliances this system of the balance
of power were Venice, the Emperor Maximilian, and the
Pope. How very much an active participation in affairs of
so worldly a nature was unbefitting the last-named poten-
tate, I need not stop to observe. That conduct gave occa-
sion afterwards to a great public scandal. For instance,
when the Pope had formed an alliance with the King of
France against Charles V. ; and to resent this, the Emperor's
German army (among whom were a great many entertain-
ing the opinions of Luther) had proceeded to the conquest
of Rome ; this was a fresh and mighty source of scandal at
that momentous epoch. Nay, the great dissatisfaction of the
Emperor with the conduct of some Popes (though this re-
HISTORY, 39
ferred merely to their political acts), when coupled with his
conciliatory conduct towards the German Protestants, in-
duced many to question the sincerity of his attachment to
the Catholic faith. However false and unfounded such a
surmise might be, still all things contributed to foster the
belief, and on all sides there was a concurrence of circum-
stances to lead the public mind more and more astray.
The good and high-minded Emperor, Maximilian, who
had meditated, and might have accomplished, many other
noble projects and important enterprises, was compelled to
labour during his whole life, though in vain, to discover, in the
total absence of all physical resources, some counterpoise to
the power of France, and some barrier and security against
the encroachments of Turkish ambition. But when fortune
had placed on the head of Charles V. the united crowns of
Spain and Burgundy, the necessity of choosing an em-
peror, who, like those of earlier ages, might be capable of
coping with all the dangers of the times, was universally
felt; and this feeling led to the election of Charles. But for
this choice, the system of European states would have fallen
to pieces, and Christendom become a prey as well to foreign
conquests as to internal anarchy. The mind of Charles was
entirely occupied with the old idea of an universal Christian
empire, and a religious feeling was at the bottom of all his po-
litical schemes and enterprises. But whatever might be the
extent of the countries over which he reigned, and whatever
the apparent greatness of his power, yet amid the various
designs he had to prosecute, and in the struggle he had to
maintain against the combined array of so many hostile ele-
ments, he felt the want of those real resources which are to
be found in a compact and well-united monarchy. To the
Spanish crown he imparted great splendour, and even in Italy
remained the master; but he met with very imperfect suc-
cess in his efforts against Mahomedan power a power from
whose oppressions, and still further encroachments, it was
the first duty of the emperor, as the armed protector of
Christendom, to defend the European states. His concili-
atory policy towards the German Protestants did not attain its
object, for amid the general ferment of the age, the torrent
of religious opinions bore down all before it. His wish to
re-establish order in church and state by means of a gene-
400 PHILOSOPHY OF
ral council, and thereby to consolidate anew the old founda-
tions of faith, was fully accomplished only after his death.
In all that regards the origin and first breaking out of the
Reformation, I wish to premise, that all controversy on points
of dogma, all controversy on the merits or demerits of indi-
viduals, the worthiness or un worthiness of persons, does not
enter into the plan of this work. My object is particularly
to describe the various manner in which the religious revo-
lution commenced in the three or four countries over which
it exerted the most remarkable influence ; as well as the dis-
similar form which it finally assumed in each of those coun-
tries. I wish particularly to trace the influence of the Re-
formation on the progress of Christian states, and on Eu-
ropean literature and science ; two things which consti-
tute the main subject of the last chapters of this Philosophy
of History. But we must notice briefly, and as far as is ne-
cessary to the elucidation of the subject, the point of con-
nexion existing between persons and doctrines, and the his-
torical event which alone is the subject of our inquiries.
In the first place, it is evident of itself, that a man who ac-
complished so mighty a revolution in the human mind, and
in his age, could have been endowed with no common
powers of intellect, and no ordinary strength of character.
Even his writings display an astonishing boldness and energy
of thought and language, united with a spirit of impetuous,
passionate, and convulsive enthusiasm. The latter qualities
are not, indeed, very compatible with a prudent, enlightened,
and dispassionate judgment. The opinion as to the use which
was made of those high powers of genius must of course
vary with the religious principles of each individual; but
the extent of those intellectual endowments themselves, and
the strength and perseverance of character with which they
were united, must be universally admitted. Many who did
not adhere afterwards to the new opinions, still thought, at
the commencement of the Reformation, that Luther was the
real man for his age, who had received a high vocation to
accomplish the great work of regeneration, the strong neces-
sity of which was then universally felt : for no well-thinking
man then dreamed of a subversion of the ancient faith. If, at
this great distance of time, we pick out of the writings of this
individual many very harsh expressions, nay, particular words
HISTORY. 401
which are not only coarse but absolutely gross, nothing of
any moment can be proved or determined by such selec-
tions. Indeed, the age in general, not only in Germany, but
in other very highly civilised countries, was characterised by
a certain coarseness in manners and language, and by a total
absence of all excessive polish and over- refinement of cha-
racter. But this coarseness would have been productive of
no very destructive effects; for intelligent men well knew
that the wounds of old abuses lay deep, and were ulcerated
in their very roots ; and no one was therefore shocked if the
knife, destined to amputate abuses, cut somewhat deep.
Luther acquired, too, the respect of princes, even of those
opposed to him. Thus when, shortly after the commence-
ment of the Reformation, a general insurrection of peasants
broke out, which renewed all the excesses of the Hussites,
Luther, so far from exciting the rebels, like some of the new
Gospellers, opposed them with all the powers of his command-
ing eloquence, and all the weight of his high authority ; for he
was by no means in politics an advocate for democracy, like
Zuinglius and Calvin, but he asserted the absolute power of
princes, though he made his advocacy subservient to his own
religious views and projects. It was by such conduct, and
the influence which he thereby acquired, as well as by the
sanction of the civil power, that the Reformation was pro-
moted and consolidated. Without this, Protestantism would
have sunk into the lawless anarchy which marked the pro-
ceedings of the Hussites, and to which the war of the pea-
sants rapidly tended ; and it would inevitably have been sup-
pressed, like all the earlier popular commotions, for under
the latter form, Protestantism may be said to have sprung
up several centuries before. And besides, none of the other
heads and leaders of the ne\v religious party had the power,
or were in a situation to uphold the Protestant religion
its present existence is solely and entirely the work and the
deed of one man, unique in his way, and who holds unques-
tionably a conspicuous place in the history of the world.
Much was staked on the soul of that man, and this was in
every respect a mighty arid critical moment in the annals of
mankind and the march of time. The real problem for the
age vvould have been to terminate this unhappy confusion of
doctrines, that is to say, that disorder and not unfrequent
2D
402 PHILOSOPHY OF
confusion in the relations of the ecclesiastical and civil
powers (occasioned by the general state of things in Europe,
and by the circumstances which first promoted the political
and intellectual civilisation of the West) in a word, to
compose the whole dispute between church and state, and
bring it to a just Christian settlement by a peaceful and
amicable arrangement. Then the many existing, though
scattered, rays of true Christian piety, humility, and self-
denial, as well as the new discoveries in science, would have
acquired a more intense and more extended power an event
which was now entirely prevented by a great civil war be-
tween two religious parties, and was not brought to a full
accomplishment till a much later period. But the total re-
jection of the traditions of the past (and here was the capi-
tal vice and error of this Revolution) rendered the evil in-
curable ; and even for biblical learning and philology, now so
highly valued, the true key of interpretation, which sacred
tradition alone can furnish, was irretrievably lost, as the se-
quel has but too well proved. And even if this were not the
case, how could mere learned institutes of biblical philo-
logy, united with popular schools of morality, constitute the
spirit and essence of a religion ? This is no where so fully
understood, and so deeply felt, as in Protestant Germany at
the present day Germany, where lies the root of Protes-
tantism, its mighty centre, its all-ruling spirit, its vital power,
and its life-blood Germany, where to supply the want of
the true spirit of religion, a remedy is sought sometimes in
the external forms of liturgy,* sometimes in the pompous
apparatus of biblical philology and research, destitute of the
true key of interpretation^ sometimes in the empty philoso-
phy of Rationalism, and sometimes in the mazes of a mere
interior Pietism.
Undoubtedly even within the pale of Catholicism we meet
occasionally with individuals who adopt the same, or at least
very similar systems, who either give in to the principle of
* Schlegel here alludes to the Ordinances promulgated a few years ago
by the King of Prussia, for the reform of the Protestant Liturgy.
f The author here refers to that mania for Biblical criticism, long pre-
valent in Protestant Germany, and which, however it may inform our rea-
son, and gratify a laudable curiosity, is in itself no guide to the knowledge
of religious truth. Trans.
HISTORY. 403
Rationalism, or to a false theological illuminism (as in the
recent period of Neology), or like some of the Jansenists,
indulge in the unsafe and illusive suggestions of a sentimen-
tal mysticism. For the contests of two hostile parties will
not always prevent the imitation of defects, and the conta-
gion of errors ; and this is only an additional reason why, in a
work of this kind, we should abstain from entering more
closely and minutely into the nature of these controversies.
In contemplating the first steps of this great Revolution,
in considering the circumstances of that period, we experience
a feeling of regret, that the great problem of that age, the
arduous task which devolved on it, of accomplishing an uni-
versal regeneration and real Reformation of the world, should
have remained unexecuted, from the very revolutionary turn
which affairs took nay, that this task should not even have
been understood or felt by any of the leading characters
of the time. The earlier disputes between the spiritual and
temporal powers had related to the dominion over certain
territories, or over Ecclesiastical property in general, and
especially to the jurisdiction of the state over the latter
species of property. The allurements which the confiscation
of church property held out to cupidity must be ranked
among the main causes which contributed to the diffusion of
Protestantism. Thus, for instance, Prussia, the country of
the Teutonic order, was now converted into a secular
duchy ; and in the interior of Germany, a celebrated
knight,* led away by the spirit of that age of feud, invaded
one of the Ecclesiastical electorates, thinking, no doubt, that
that state, like every other Ecclesiastical domain, was the
lawful booty of the first comer. But independently of these
partial changes and minor transactions, (and in many Pro-
testant countries, such as England and Sweden, church
property remained inviolate, and even episcopacy was re-
tained,) the hostility of the German Reformers to the church
was of a different and more spiritual nature ; and it was
the religious dignity of the priesthood which was more
especially the object of their destructive efforts. And this
is the point where doctrinal controversy enters within the
province of history ; for the priesthood stands or falls
with faith in the sacred mysteries. The rejection of these
* Schlegel here alludes to Prince Albert of Braudeaburgh.
2D2
404 PHILOSOPHY OF
mysteries by one half of the Protestant body in Switzerland,
France, England, and the Netherlands, Luther not only
discountenanced, but strenuously reprobated ; yet it was
only by a subtle distinction he attempted to separate those
mysteries from the functions of the priesthood ; and it was
not difficult to foresee that together with faith in the sacred
mysteries, respect for the clergy must sooner or later be
destroyed, as indeed experience lias sufficiently demonstrated.
For that great mystery of religion, on which the whole
dignity of the Christian priesthood depends, forms the sim-
ple, but very deep internal keystone of all Christian doc-
trines ; and thus the rejection, or even the. infringement of
this dogma, shakes the foundations of religion, and leads to
its total overthrow. The pacific conferences of learned and
well-meaning men of both parties, though often renewed,
were not attended with real and ultimate success; although
sometimes, in looking at the language of such a man as the
mild Melancthon, we are almost perplexed to discover the
few points which do not coincide with the old Catholic
doctrines so nearly akin, and almost identical, do the two
religious systems appear, when we merely consider their
separate parts. Equally fruitless were all those honest at-
tempts at pacification incessantly made by the Emperor
Charles, who sought by his interim to create delay, while
he indulged a secret hope, that the agitated waves of anar-
chy, all that mighty tempest of opinion, would be allayed
by time, and would finally be stilled. But that interim has
been of longer duration than was at first calculated, and
it still awaits the judgment of God for its great day of
termination.
When we consider Luther's original powers of mind, in-
dependently of the use and employment which he made of
those extraordinary powers, (for even the greatest comet,
though it should cover half the heavens with the splendour
of its light, can never possess, or be supposed to possess, the
sun's genial warmth,) when, I say, we consider the intellec-
tual endowments of this extraordinary man solely in them-
selves ; the boldness of his speculations and the vigour of
his eloquence will be found to form an epoch, not only (as
is universally acknowledged) in the history of the German
language, but in the progress of European science and
HISTORY. 405
European culture. After the first period in the intellec-
tual history of Europe, which I denominated the scholastico-
romantic epoch, and after the second, which I termed the
epoch of enthusiasm for Pagan Antiquity, and in which a
Christian simplicity of eloquence and a depth of scientific
inquiry appear as only happy and occasional exceptions, a
third epoch now arose, which, from the general spirit of the
age, and the tone of the writings which exerted a command-
ing influence over the times, cannot be otherwise designated
than as the era of a polemico-barbarous eloquence. This
rude polemic spirit, which had its origin in the Reformation,
and in that concussion of faith, and consequently of all
thought and all science, which Protestantism occasioned,
continued, down to the end of the seventeenth century, to
prevail in the controversial writings and philosophic specula-
tions both of Germany and England. This spirit was not
incompatible with a sort of deep mystical sensibility, and a
certain original boldness of thought and expression, such, for
instance, as Luther's writings display ; yet we cannot at all
regard in a favourable light the general spirit of that intel-
lectual epoch, or consider it as one by any means adapted to
the intellectual exigencies of that age. But with respect to
the language and literature of Germany, so far as these are
of general interest, I should wish to make one observation.
Besides Thomas a Kempis, whom I have already mentioned,
I might cite several other religious writers of the fifteenth
century, and even of an earlier period, who, though less
known, were distinguished by a similar spirit, partly among
those who made use of the Latin language, then universally
current, and partly among those who, like Taulerus, for exam-
ple, made the German the vehicle of their thoughts. And
indeed, were we to compare the gentle simplicity, the charm-
ing clearness of thought and expression, which reign in the
works of these writers, with the productions of the following
age of barbarous polemic strife, we should then be furnished
with the best criterion for duly appreciating the earlier and
the later period.
With respect to those institutes of the church, which
had early devoted themselves to the task of the propaga-
tion of the gospel, or of the defence and support of religion,
and made this spiritual conflict and holy engagement the
406 PHILOSOPHY OF
business of their lives ; it now happened, as it had * often
occurred before, that the proper defenders of the church
arose at that moment, and adopted that course and mode of
defence which the circumstances of the church precisely
required. The powerful prelates of the old Episcopal sees,
who had rendered such high and imperishable services to the
cause of European civilization, though they might not be
unfaithful to the original spirit of their calling, and might be
iio strangers to science, were, however, much too dependent
on government, and mixed up in affairs of state. The more
popular and mendicant orders, from their very nature and
character, and their peculiar habits of life and modes of
speech, were not always calculated to exert due influence on
government and the upper classes of society, while their
ardent zeal, unmindful of times and circumstances, often
transgressed the bounds of moderation. The great want of
the age was a religious order which, established in opposition,
to Protestantism, should not be dependent on the state, but
devoted exclusively to the interests of the church: a reli-
gious order which, well equipped with modern learning,
science, and accomplishment, possessing a knowledge of the
world, acquainted with the spirit of the times, and pursuing
the course which expediency dictated, with prudence and
circumspection, should undertake the defence of the Catholic
religion, and the propagation of the gospel in foreign coun-
tries, and worthily and successfully prosecute this twofold
object. Such an order was the society of the Jesuits in its
first institution ; and that among the founders and first mem-
bers of this order there were men of undoubted piety and
eminent sanctity, men animated by the sublimest principles
of Christian self-denial, possessed of great intellectual endow-
ments, and favoured by God with high preternatural powers,
no unprejudiced historical inquirer will deny. Whether the
reproaches which have been made to many members of this
order, of having exerted an undue political influence, and
displayed a spirit of intrigue and ambition in the history of
this period, be well founded or not, I shall not stop to
inquire ; because such charges at best can affect individuals
only, and not the society, whose very name, indeed, has
become in our times the watchword of party strife and con-
tention. The severest condemnation of the Jesuits proceeds
HISTORY. 407
from a quarter where we clearly discern the most implacable
hostility to Christianity and to all religion ; and this circum-
stance ought to furnish the Jesuits with an additional claim
to our good opinion ; but any judgment on the merits of this
society, as this is a question which more immediately regards
the present age, is quite foreign to the purpose of the present
work. If some members of the order adopted at this period
those absolute maxims and principles of policy and govern-
ment which in general characterized that age ; and if the
writings of others were distinguished by that rnde polemic
tone and spirit spoken of above, and which was equally
characteristic of those times ; it would be unjust to lay to
the charge of the order, or even of particular members,
failings and defects which were common to the age, and a
perfect exemption from which is the most rare of human
excellencies.
A violent insurrection can be put down only by forcible
means ; but every system of terror, of whatsoever nature, is
sure to provoke, sooner or later, a reaction equally terrible.
And if the dangerous disease be checked by means merely
external, and no healing remedy be applied to the root and
principle of the disorder, nor used to renovate the impaired
organs of life if the fire be smothered in its own flames
it will lie concealed beneath the ashes, and will burn in se-
cret, till the first casual and unlucky spark shall kindle it
anew into a fiercer blaze. Such, in my opinion, are the plain
and obvious principles which the historian should bear in.
mind while passing in review periods of revolution like the
one under consideration ; principles which, even now, are
susceptible of no very remote application.
In that first period of ferment which marked the birth of
the Reformation, the revolt of the peasants had been put down
with amazing promptitude and vigour. It was but ten years
later when, in the north of Germany, a new insurrection
broke out, which, from its religious complexion, seemed still
more revolting, whose adherents sought to establish on earth
the invisible empire of God by fire and sword, and whose
new spiritual monarch, John of Leyden, made his triumphant
entry into Munster amid many and dreadful excesses ; till at
last this savage fanaticism was crushed, and, as invariably
happens in similar cases, met with a bloody end.
408 PHILOSOPHY OF
But the most singular phenomenon at this momentous
epoch was Henry VIII. of England a prince who, while he
adhered to the Catholic doctrines, and zealously asserted them
against Luther, yet severed his kingdom from the church,
declared himself its spiritual head, and by that monstrous
and unchristian combination of the two powers, appeared in
the midst of Christendom like the Caliph of England. When,
too, we take into consideration the private life of this prince
his endless series of divorces, and the execution of his
queens his conduct was a greater scandal to his contem-
poraries, and fixes a deeper stain on the history of his age.
than any other earlier example in Italy or elsewhere, several
of which have been already mentioned. The executions on
account of religion which took place under Henry, and which,
as he was opposed to both Catholics and Protestants, aft'ectecl
the two parties alike, were of a peculiarly odious and blood-
thirsty character. On this subject I wish to make one ob-
servation. From the connexion which then subsisted be-
tween church and state, a case might easily arise where a
religious error would become a political crime. When an
insurrection originating in a religious cause breaks out, and
threatens the peace of society, like the religious war of the
Hussites, and the revolt of the German peasants, no other
resource remains but to put down force by force. But when
the first violence has subsided, another, and a better, and a
truly moral remedy should, if possible, be applied to the evil;
and this remedy was not always administered in a right, be-
nign, and truly Christian form. Strange and fanciful have
been, in all times and places, the offsprings of human error.
Thus, even in the most modern times, and in a peaceful and
civilised country, examples still occur, where religious errors
lead their unhappy dupes to violent attempts on their own
lives, or the lives of others ; and a wise legislation and hu-
mane judicature should rather treat these errors as mental
diseases than judge them according to the rigid letter of
criminal law. How much more should not this be the case
when religious error is confined to the sphere of speculation,
and is not attended with any practical consequences. It is
often, perhaps, not easy to draw the line of demarcation be-
tween measures of wise precaution against the assaults of a
dangerous fanaticism, and unchristian modes of punishment.
HISTORY. 409"
But certainly the criminal process of ecclesiastical tribunals
at that period was not only opposed to the spirit of Chris-
tianity, but at utter variance with the express and ancient
canons of the church and urgent admonitions of the Fathers,
that the church should strenuously avoid the shedding of
blood. Men sought to evade this wise and beautiful law by
abandoning all executions to the secular arm ; but except in
the punishment of actual crimes, and in the necessary de-
fence against open insurrection, we must admit that the spirit
of this law was grievously violated. A vindictive criminal
jurisprudence, which was then dictated by the mutual rage
of contending parties, and which was made still more revolt-
ing to Christian feelings by the religious colouring it assumed,
remains a stigma on that age ; for it was the work not of
one, but of both religious parties; or, to speak more properly,
of members of both parties. The commencement, indeed, of
this great disorder of this great departure from the law of
love is to be found in the middle age, during the strife of
exasperated factions; but how small are those beginnings,
when compared with the excesses of subsequent times !
When we hear the middle age called barbarous, we should
remember that that epithet applies with far greater force to
the truly barbarous era of the Reformation, and of the reli-
gious wars which that event produced, and which continued
down to the period when a sort of moral and political paci-
fication was re-established, apparently at least, in society and
in the human mind.
END OF LECTURE XV.
410 PHILOSOPHY OF
LECTURE XVI.
Further development and extension of Protestantism, in the period of the
religious wars, and subsequently thereto. On the different results of
those wars in the principal European countries.
THE true Reformation, loudly demanded in the fifteenth
century as the most urgent want of the times, not only by
the capricious voice of the multitude, but by the first and
most legitimate organs of opinion in church and state, and
the nature of which had been long before clearly stated, and
fully and generally understood, ought to have been a divine
Reformation : then would it have carried with it its own high
sanction it would have proved it by the fact; and at no
time, and under no condition, would it have severed itself
from the sacred centre and venerable basis of Christian tra-
dition, in order reckless of all legitimate decisions, pre-
ceding as well as actual to perpetuate discord, and seek in
negation itself a new and peculiar basis for the edifice of
schismatic opinion. Such a vast, extensive, deep, and ef-
fectual reform, which, while it kept within the limits of an-
cient faith, and steadily adhered to its divine centre, would
at the same time renovate and revivify the Church, was not
then accomplished. The disciplinary canons of the Council
of Trent imdoubtedly contained many wise, excellent, and
wholesome regulations, whose efficacy has been proved by
the experience of the different Catholic countries, and whose
reception has been determined by the local circumstances of
each ; for these regulations, intended for the correction and
removal of abuses, and for the revival of ancient discipline,
were not adopted without modification, nor received to a like
extent, in all Catholic countries. On the other hand, with
respect to the Protestants, the decrees of the Council of
Trent, from the very nature of things, could be only of a
defensive character. Instead of the desired Reformation,
HISTORY. 411
Protestantism early enough announced itself as a new and
peculiar religion, and still more was it constituted as such ;
but the rupture was already consummated tbe evil had be-
come incurable before the remedy was applied. Protestant-
ism was the work of man ; and it appears in no other light
even in the history which its own disciples have drawn of its
origin. The partisans of the Reformation proclaimed, in-
deed, at the outset, that if it were more than a human work,
it would endure, and that its duration would serve as a proof
of its divine origin. But surely no one will consider this an
adequate proof, when he reflects that the great Mohammedan
heresy, which, more than any other, destroys and obliterates
the divine image stamped on the human soul, has stood its
ground for full twelve hundred years ; though this religion,
if it proceed from no worse source, is at best a human,
work. But even as the mere work of man, the Reformation
was unquestionably a mighty, extraordinary, and momentous
revolution, which, when once it had been outwardly esta-
blished in the world (though inwardly it remained in a state
of perpetual agitation), has thenceforward mostly directed
the march of modern times, influenced the legislation and
policy of the European states, and stamped the character of
modern science down to our own days, when, though its in-
fluence has not been so exclusive and undivided as at an
earlier period, it has been still the main and stirring cause of
all the great political changes, and all the new and astonish-
ing events, of our age. We must endeavour to view this
great Revolution with the impartial eye of the historian, and
labour duly to comprehend and judge it in all its manifold
bearings, and in all its remote consequences ; and if we
should feel inclined to lament and deplore the long continu-
ance of this unhappy division in the great European family,
we should remember, that such a feeling of regret, however
innocent and natural in our own bosoms and in our own con-
viction, can furnish no adequate criterion for an historical
decision. At any rate, we should in no case immoderately
repine at such an event, and murmur against Destiny that
is to say, the ruling Providence which permits the occurrence
of such evils. The permission by God of a mere human, un-
sanctioned enterprise, nay, of a mighty, general, protracted,
and incurable division among mankind a system of opposi-
412
PHILOSOPHY OF
tion, with all its unhappy consequences, its moral impedi-
ments, and its political disasters ; such a permission forms,
as I have already observed, the great enigma of history the
wonderful secret of the divine decrees in the conduct of man-
kind, as well as in the conduct of individuals. Perhaps this
great enigma will then only be perfectly unravelled, and the
mystery which hangs over this subject then only be perfectly
dispelled, when this mighty Revolution shall have been ter-
minated and brought to a close. Even now, the experience
we have acquired, however imperfect and limited it may be,
makes one thing evident; namely, that the influence of Pro-
testantism has not been confined to those states and countries
where it became predominant, and where it received a public
and legal establishment. Far greater was the danger, far
more fatal were the consequences, when an open rupture, a
formal separation from the church did net take place, or had,
if a temporary, at least no permanent existence but where
Protestantism, that is to say, the spirit of Protestantism, a
like or a kindred set of opinions, was infused into the moral
system of countries externally Catholic, and secretly instilled
into the veins of the body politic, gradually corroded its
vitals ; till at last, amid a false and apparent repose, the long-
suppressed element of revolutionary innovation infected with
its deadly virus opinion, science, and lastly, government and
society. The conscience in its inquiries after religious truth,
to whatever decision it may come, only looks to the deter-
mination of a point of faith as the sole clue of its investiga-
tions. But in historical inquiries, this rigid intersecting line
of faith forms no adequate rule of judgment. The experi-
ence of our own times, or that of the last generation, has
proved that innovations in faith, politics, and philosophy,
ingrafted on a Catholic nation, are far more fatal to its re-
pose, and that of its neighbours, than a system of Protest-
antism which has settled into a state of permanent peace and
stability. Hence, for instance, the policy and political in-
terests of England, which is a state more than any other es-
sentially Protestant, have often been in perfect accordance
with the political system of an old leading Catholic power.
And, I would ask, has the Atheism of the eighteenth century
been productive of fewer commotions and less convulsion
in the world than Protestantism in the first period of its ex-
HISTORY. 413
istence, or in the era of religious wars? although the infidel
party in the last century by no means constituted a distinct
and separate sect ; but was like a deadly contagion of the
spirit of the times, infecting all beside and around, above
and below it, whithersoever the wind of chance or the breath
of fanatic zeal might carry it.
According to my own personal conviction, the theolo-
gical point of view is to be preferred in historical inquiries
as the best and final rule of investigation. But in these
latter times, when religious opinion is so divided, and where
the juridical view of things, in which each party struggles
to make out a favourable case for itself, leads only to
endless disputes, the historian is compelled to view the
diseased state of society with the eye of a pathologist. In
medicine it is considered far better and more advantageous
that a dangerous disease should be got rid of in a decisive
but happily terminated struggle for life or death, than that
by any sudden check given to the crisis the disorder should
fall on any internal part, and thus attack and corrode the
vital powers. This principle, which the history of parti-
cular countries has shewn to be equally applicable to man's
moral existence, may be applied to the general state of
Europe at that period. If Protestantism had then been
outwardly suppressed and put down, would it not have
raged inwardly, that is to say, would not the most essential
part of Protestantism, the spirit of revolutionary innovation,
the spirit of destructive negation rationalism, in a word
have secretly remained ? And may we not conclude from
the examples of a partial experience, that that secret and
inward working of the disease would have been far more
dangerous and fatal? I should wish that these and other
like expressions before made use of should not be taken as
so many categorical assertions ; for the question of doctrine,
lying as it does beyond the reach of doubt, does not fall
within the limits of my plan, and the perfect reconciliation
of minds is not in the power of man, but can come only
from God. But these expressions are merely meant to
convey a conciliatory view of things in history, and (as is
the proper duty of the philosophic historian) to vindicate
the ways of Providence. Undoubtedly this great religious
contest, this long-protracted struggle, has tended to excite
414 PHILOSOPHY OF
the emulation of both parties in the pursuits of learning and
the labours of science, to stir up a mutual vigilance in the
moral conduct of individuals as well as in the administration
of states, and thus to keep both parties in a state of salutary
watchfulness and activity. Even from the collision of these
two conflicting elements there has sprung up in some coun-
tries a new and third element, which, though not such as
could be desired, nor entirely conformable to Christianity,
has still been productive of important and remarkable con-
sequences. Of the eight or nine countries in which Pro-
testantism has obtained a firm footing, and acquired a per-
manent existence, there are three in particular where it has
been attended with mighty historical effects, and where the
originally destructive conflict of hostile elements has given
birth to three new and momentous phenomena in the history
of mankind. These are, in Germany, the religious pacifi-
cation, which forms the basis of her future prosperity,
stamps the peculiar character of the German nation, and
designates its future moral destiny ; in England, the highly-
valued, or, as it is there called, the glorious Constitution
of 1688, whose mere outward form, or dead letter, has been
an object of desire to so many other nations ; lastly, I in
France, the revolution in philosophy produced by the in-
direct influence of Protestantism, and the combination of
so many Protestant or semi-Protestant elements, and which
gave birth to a frightful political revolution, which, after a
short intervenient period of military despotism, has been
succeeded in its turn by a mighty epoch of moral and social
regeneration a regeneration which indeed has not yet been
consummated, which is still in a state of precarious and
convulsive labour, but is even on that account the more en-
titled to the historian's attention.
Of the countries immediately contiguous to Germany,
the home and cradle of Protestantism, Switzerland was, at
the commencement of the Reformation, the theatre of a
fierce civil war, in which the Swiss reformer fell fighting on
the field of battle. But the strong federal spirit of the
Swiss, the necessity of mutual defence, and the nearly equal
numbers and strength of both religious parties, produced
at an early period a religious pacification. The indirect
Protestant influence which French Switzerland has exerted
HISTORY. 415
over France has continued very great and powerful from
Calvin to Rousseau. After the German treaty of West-
phalia, the Austrian emperors established in Hungary, which
was already half subdued by the Turks, and still more
exposed to their ravages, the principle of religious tolera-
tion a principle that became a received maxim of state,
and was incorporated into the very constitution of the
country. In the last half of the sixteenth century there
penetrated into Poland the sect of Socinus, which professed
tenets distinct from those of the primitive Reformers, and
which, with the usually rapid march of religious innovation
and schismatic dissent, had now rejected, along with the great
mystery of devotion, the fundamental article of Christian
theology, the doctrine of the Trinity. As long as the Soci-
nians formed a distinct and separate body of religionists,
they were not very numerous in Poland or elsewhere ; but
during the prevailing infidelity of the eighteenth century
they acquired many more disciples, and in many countries
have become almost the predominant sect. How Prussia,
the land of the Teutonic order, was transformed into a
secular duchy, which for about a century remained con-
nected with Poland, I have already had occasion to observe.
Into no country of Europe was Christianity introduced so
late as into Lithuania, where the faith was planted only to-
wards the end of the fourteenth century. In the ancient
Russian provinces of Poland, as well as in Hungary and
other neighbouring countries, a large portion of the popu-
lation belonged to the Greek church. In the great struggle
of the following age, and in the perpetual wars which Poland
had to sustain against Turkey, Sweden, and Russia, all
these hostile and heterogeneous elements of which I have
spoken, and to which may be added the real or apparent
attachment of the religious dissenters to Sweden, increased
the general ferment and confusion in the Polish state down
to the final dissolution and dismemberment of the kingdom.
Russia, which, towards the end of the fifteenth century, had
been restored to a high degree of power and splendour by
Wassili Ivanowitch (who entertained the most friendly rela-
tions with the Emperor Maximilian, and who had established
in his empire the German Hanseatic league) Russia still
remained totally separated from the European community,
416 PHILOSOPHY OF
and was exempt from the influence of Protestantism, like
Spain and Italy, at the opposite extremity of Europe. The
Scandinavian countries, at the commencement of the fifteenth
century, had been incorporated into one state, and considered
merely in a geographical point of view, they might have formed
a great and lasting power in the north ; and, under many
vicissitudes, they remained united till the sixteenth century.
Yet the voice and feelings of the two nations were against
the union ; and Gustavus Vasa effected at once the total
and definitive separation of Sweden from Denmark, the
establishment of his own monarchical sway in the former
country, and the introduction of Protestantism, which was
brought into Sweden, not as in other countries, by the
torrent of popular opinion, but by the arm of power by
the authority of a sovereign who knew how to conduct the
enterprise with steady perseverance, and slow, patient, and
consummate skill. In Sweden, however, Episcopacy was
retained. By its situation betwixt Prussia and Poland, and
by the Protestant influence in German}', Sweden became for
a time, in the seventeenth centuiy, a great European power;
and to this political eminence the personal qualities of
Gustavus Adolphus, as well as of several other Swedish
monarchs, principally contributed. In Sweden, Protestantism
did not give rise to any events of a new and peculiar cha-
racter, or of great historical moment, as in England and
Germany. The Reformation was established in Denmark
chiefly, though not exclusively, as in Sweden, by sovereign
power; in Iceland its establishment was almost the work
of violence. In those still regions of the north the real
abuses and scandals existing in the Catholic church "were
neither so great nor numerous as in the southern coun-
tries. There was greater simplicity of manners ; and cor-
ruption was much less diffused, much less generally known,
than even in Germany ; and thus the ancient faith had
struck deeper roots in the minds of men, and could not be
eradicated but with difficulty. To that old revolutionary
spirit of the Swedes which, in their earlier history, had
often displayed itself in the party-contests of their high
aristocracy, a wider field was now opened by the Reforma-
tion introduced by the court ; and, armed in the Protestant
cause, this spirit found fuller scope in the troubles of Poland,
HISTORY. 417
in its connexion with Prussia and other states, and, above
all, in the great religious war of Germany. When at a later
period, and after the Swedish ascendancy in Europe had
passed away, this spirit became compressed within narrower
limits, and was thrown back upon itself, it then broke out
into many violent internal commotions.
It was only under the successor of the despotic Henry
that Protestantism was really introduced into England ; but
it there appeared under two different forms, and with two
parties in a state of mutual and violent hostility. In England
Episcopacy was retained ; but in Scotland, the Puritans, the
Methodists of those days, had the ascendant. But, under
Queen Mary, the wife of Philip II., King of Spain, a Ca-
tholic reaction took place ; and this again was succeeded
by a Protestant reaction under Elizabeth, whose steady and
inflexible policy alone consolidated the establishment of
Protestantism^ a policy at whose shrine the head of the
unhappy Mary Stuart fell a sacrifice. Thus things pro-
ceeded from one extremity to another from the execution
of King Charles I. to the establishment of a Republic, and
the absolute sway of a Protector till amid the various
disputes of the Scotch and English Protestants, and the
various struggles of national rivalry, the court fell back
upon Catholicism. At last King William, from Holland,
a century before the breaking out of the French revolution,
gave the final triumph to Protestantism, and brought to
maturity the glorious constitution of that island, which has
been so repeatedly transplanted, imitated, and modified, on
the continent and in other parts of the world. On this basis
a thorough Protestant policy was established, which affected
even the public and international law of Europe a policy
which has so eminently characterised England in modern
times, particularly during the period of her great power,
and which was followed, or even accompanied, by a Protest-
ant philosophy. I should premise that this Protestantism in
philosophy should not by any means be confounded with,
but should carefully be distinguished from, the revolutionary
philosophy from an unbridled anarchy in science and spe-
culation, though the former, in its corruption, may easily
degenerate into the latter. For the modern Paganism
the avowed Atheism of the eighteenth century acquired
2 E
418 PHILOSOPHY OF
many more partisans, and assumed a far bolder attitude, on
the continent than in the constitutional island, which, even
in philosophy, oscillates in a sort of artificial equipoise
between truth and error.
In the Netherlands, Protestantism was indeed a strong
co-operative cause, but not the only cause of the rupture
with Spain ; for even in earlier times the Burgundian spirit
had been prone to turbulence, and the arbitrary rule of
the Spaniards had excited in other countries also general
dissatisfaction, aversion, and resistance. When the Pro-
testant half of the Netherlands had separated from Spain,
and had established the sovereign and independent state of
Holland, the latter ever exerted a powerful influence on
England in all religious and political matters, in the same
way as Belgium has ever exercised a marked influence
over France. But in Holland, Protestantism did not give
rise, as in Germany and England, to any events of a new
and peculiar character, if we except the general toleration
of religious sects, which was there carried to a further ex-
tent than in any other state.
In her own interior, Spain had an arduous problem to
solve she had to overcome the old energetic resistance
of a whole people, the tolerably numerous descendants of
the former lords and conquerors of the country, who still
adhered to the Arabian manners and language, and even
in part professed the doctrines of Mohammedanism. This
struggle, which commenced under Philip II. by very severe
laws against the Moriscoes, terminated, under Philip the
Third, with the barbarous expulsion of the whole Moorish
population to the coasts of Africa. That from the intimate
and manifold relations which existed between Spain and
Germany under Charles V., the armies of the Emperor may
have introduced into Spain the opinions of the new German
Gospellers to a greater extent perhaps than can be now
stated with certainty, or than is now susceptible of minute
and accurate proof, is by no means improbable ; and this
fact would serve to explain, though not entirely to justify,
many acts of the Spanish government. At any rate, the
Spanish mind and character, in other respects so generous
and upright, so little prone to selfish cunning or fickle frivo-
lity, became, in the long strife and animosities of a fierce
HISTORY. 4-19
religious war, more and more partial and exclusive, arbitrary
and violent. There yet lingered, however, many chivalrous
virtues peculiar to this high-minded nation many extra-
ordinary and lofty effusions of religious genius, such as are
displayed in the wonderful writings of St. Theresa, whose
holy meditations are couched in language of such inimitable
beauty. Among no other people "did the spirit and character
of the middle age, in its most beautiful and dignified form,
so long continue and survive in manners, ways of thinking,
intellectual culture, and works of imagination and poetry,
as among the Spaniards ; and it is not the mere effect of
chance, but it is a very remarkable and characteristic fact,
that in Spain alone the peculiar poetry of the middle age
attained to its utmost perfection, and reached its last ex-
quisite bloom.
In Italy, too, art and poetry flourished in her beautiful
language ; and classical erudition made considerable pro-
gress, and even arrived to a very advanced state, during
that troubled period when the rest of Europe was involved
in religious disputes and civil wars. But the fair and flou-
rishing Italian literature of that age may be compared to a
blooming garden, situated on a volcanic soil. No immediate
danger then threatened Italy, though we are not to estimate
private- opinions by the standard of those which publicly
prevailed ; there were at least no public examples of that
excessive partiality and passionate enthusiasm for Pagan
antiquity, which occurred in that earlier and brilliant period
of moral ferment and false security the fifteenth century.
On the contrary, in some individual instances the real pro-
gress of science was impeded, and on the whole its march
retarded, by a dread of the danger of its abuse ; and hence
the old scholasticism remained longer than was right in
hereditary possession of its exclusive empire, although that
contentious and partly negative Rationalism of the middle
age was ill calculated to supply the place of a truly Christian
philosophy, which the circumstances of the church then so
imperiously demanded. It should then have been borne in
mind, that every new error every new shape which the old
Proteus may assume in the changing spirit of time, requires,
not indeed a new philosophy (for philosophy itself, which is,
as the ancients said, the science of divine and human things,
2 E 2
420 PHILOSOPHY OF
is in the sanctuary of its highest subjects and problems an
edifice unchangeable through all ages, and built on the ever-
lasting foundation of divine truth), but a new form and di-
rection given to philosophy, a new resuscitation of its powers.
Indeed, the venerable bishop and holy man of God, St.
Charles Borromeo, had in his Manual of Religion furnished
an example, in which we *see the utmost profundity of as-
cetic science united with a beautiful lucidness of expres-
sion, and the greatest simplicity and purity of taste. But
the regular philosophy of the schools remained for a long
time yet much too scholastic ; and it was prejudicial, or at
least disadvantageous, to the Catholic cause, that the first
foundations of a better philosophy, of one at least more
faithful to its high vocation, and of an enlarged and im-
proved science, should have been laid by men, like Bacon
and Leibnitz, who belonged to the opposite party.
Protestantism had penetrated into France from French
Switzerland, as the very name of Hugonots indicates. The
religious wars in France broke out much later than in Ger-
many ; and the religious disputes in that country had this
distinctive character; that the princes and noble leaders
of the opposition, the factious among the high aristocracy,
and the contending parties at court, made the Protestants
(who formed, indeed, only the minority among the people,
and still more in the state, but yet a very important and
powerful minority), the tools and instruments of their own
political designs and intrigues. It is this peculiar combina-
tion of circumstances which has stamped the character of the
French religious wars, and which distinguishes them from
those of Germany. The religious wars in the former country
were not 
