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 rec 
