Title: The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2
Author: Schlegel, Friedrich, 1772-1829
Language: English
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  THE
  PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY;


  IN A
  COURSE OF LECTURES,
  DELIVERED AT VIENNA,
  BY FREDERICK VON SCHLEGEL.


  TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN,
  WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,
  BY JAMES BURTON ROBERTSON, ESQ.

  IN TWO VOLUMES.
  VOL. I.

  LONDON
  SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.

  MDCCCXXXV.



  B. BENSLEY, PRINTER.



  MEMOIR
  OF THE LITERARY LIFE
  of
  FREDERICK VON 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 productions, 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 metaphysical
systems:--an analysis which is useful, nay almost necessary to the
elucidation of very many passages in the work, to which this memoir is
prefixed. Of the inadequacy 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 admirable translation of his brother's "Lectures on
Dramatic 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 literary
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
obtained 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 literary
labours. He has himself given us the interesting picture 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 Winkelmann'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 enabled, 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 Brühl 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 even exceeded the expectation I had secretly formed;
but it was still more the life--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."[1]
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 curious 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 twenty years afterwards. We are astonished to find in a
youth of twenty-two an erudition 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 arrangement--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 short, the labour of an infant Hercules.

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 Cæsar and Alexander, not
published, however, till twenty-six years afterwards--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 followed 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 was reserved for his manhood and age to achieve. In the
latter and most remarkable of these essays, he examines the respective
merits of Cæsar 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-controul, 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
susceptibility for the beautiful in art. With respect to military
genius, he shows that Cæsar united to the fire and rapidity 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
Cæsar possessed an over-mastering ascendancy over the minds of men--the
talent of guiding their wills, and making them subservient to his own
views and interests--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 genius of state_--the power
to found, or renovate a constitution. To Alexander, on the contrary, he
attributes the plastic genius of legislation--the will and the ability
to diffuse among nations the blessings of civilization--to plant cities,
and establish free, flourishing and permanent communities.

In the year 1797, Schlegel published his first important work,
entitled "the Greeks and the Romans." This work was two or three
years afterwards followed by another, 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. Winkelmann'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 Lessing, 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 them 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 characteristic
of the Orphic poetry--repose that of the Homeric poems." His
observations however on the early 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 preceding, and shews 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 ancient 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 ancient criticism, he proceeds to point out some of the
characteristic features of the Homeric poems. He enquires what is
understood by natural poetry, or the poetry of nature; shews 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 delicacy 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, Æolic, 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 scepticism of Wolf, supported with so much learning and
ability, was then convulsing the German mind; and while the purity
of the Homeric text, and the unity and integrity of the Homeric
poems themselves were so ably contested, Schlegel deemed it a
hazardous task to attempt to draw public attention to any æsthetic
enquiries 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 antiquity. In a word, the author analyzes 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 intellectual 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 region from which they were
brought. For the knowledge 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 civilization. In the
promotion 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
mystic key, which has opened to us so many wonders of the primitive
world. And as a great Christian philosopher of our age[2] 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 learning. A British society was established at Calcutta--whose
object it was to investigate the languages, historical antiquities,
sciences, and religious and philosophical systems 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 history, 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
inquiries, and had so well seized the whole subject of Asiatic
antiquities in its connection 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 civilization to the dull level of its own vulgar conceptions.

Schlegel saw that the moment was critical. He saw 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 philosophy 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, inexhaustible stores of wealth. Here, with the able
assistance of those distinguished orientalists, M. M. de Langlès and
Chézy, 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 Provençal 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 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 extraordinary man with a happy
delivery. From Paris, he wrote a series of articles on the early
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provençal 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 formation 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 publication,
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 æsthetic system seems to
have been formed at a single cast--we might almost say, that from the
head of this intellectual 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 modifications and improvements
in the lapse of years, and never to have been moulded into a form of
perfect symmetry, 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 painting. 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, correspond, 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
represents 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 intelligence--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 Leonardo 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 earnestness and concentrated energy
of Murillo--the deep-toned piety of Velasquez--the profound and
comprehensive understanding which distinguishes his own Dürer, whom he
calls the Shakspeare of painting--the distinctive qualities 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 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 Winkelmann 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 architecture 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 according to the different feelings and
convictions of my readers. By some his conduct will be considered a
blameable apostacy 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 inquiries 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 many monuments of the
arts, the learning, the opulence and political greatness of the middle
age--where the great 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
monuments of Gothic architecture--was solemnized in the person of this
illustrious man, the alliance between the ancient faith and modern
science of Germany--an alliance that has been productive of such
important consequences, 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
shew, 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 deservedly 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, original and profound, that we plainly see it was in
his power to have given to the world a "_systema theologicum_," 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 research, 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 that
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 convulsive
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 revulsion 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
obscurantism, a refuge and security against religious and political
innovations, and denied to science that encouragement 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 intellectual improvement, have at length reached, and
even outstripped, their Protestant brethren in the race.

Three or four years before Schlegel embraced the Catholic faith, the
signal for a return to the ancient church was given by the illustrious
Count Stolberg. The religious impulse, which this great man imparted to
German literature, was simultaneous with that Christian regeneration 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 renovated, if I may so speak, the human
mind itself.[3]

Forty years' ago, the Catholics of Germany, as I said, were in a state
of the most humiliating intellectual inferiority to their Protestant
brethren--they could point to few writers of eminence in their own
body--Protestantism was the lord of the ascendant in every department of
German letters:--and yet so well have the Catholics employed the
intervening time, 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 shew writers of the highest order. To
name but a few of the most distinguished, they have produced 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 Philosophy
of History--divines, like Wiest, Dobmayer, Schwarz, Zimmer, Brenner,
Liebermann, and Moehler, distinguished as they are for various and
extensive learning, and understandings as comprehensive as they are
acute--an ecclesiastical historian pre-eminent for genius, erudition,
and celestial suavity, like Count Stolberg--philosophic archaiologists,
like Hammer and Schlosser--admirable publicists, like Gentz, Adam
Müller, 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 undoubtedly
true that several of the above-named individuals 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 regeneration
of all the sciences--and the effects of their joint labours have been
apparent, not only in the transcendent excellence of individual
productions, but in the new life and energy infused into the learned
corporations--the universities as well as the institutes of science. The
mixed universities, like those of Bonn, Freyburg, and others, are in a
great degree supported by Catholic talent; and the great Catholic
University of Munich, which the present excellent King of Bavaria
founded in 1826, already 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 Germany.[4]

Gratifying as it must have been to Schlegel to see by how many
distinguished spirits his example had been followed, 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 Rationalist--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 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 contributed to infuse a new life
into the study of classical antiquity. Jealous, therefore of his Greeks,
whom he worshipped 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 Brahmins have leagued with
the Jesuits, in order to subvert 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 examination of the etymology and grammatical structure of
the Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, Roman, and German languages, the second
whereof traces the filiation and connection 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 prosody of philosophy.

With respect to etymology, Schlegel points out the number of Sanscrit
words identical in sound and signification with words in the Persian, or
the Greek, or the Latin, or the German, or sometimes even in all those
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, commerce, and religion, introduce into
language. With respect 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 gender and number of
substantives, of changing or modifying the signification of words by
prefixed particles, 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 appellation 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 realized 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 light the physical revolutions
of our globe, and discovered the remains of an extinct world of nature;
many illustrious philologists have at the same time explored the inmost
recesses of language, and, by their profound researches, brought to
light the fossil remains of early history, 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 Christian religion--a Count Stolberg[5] in Germany, and still more,
an abbé de la Mennais[6] in France, treading in the footsteps of the
ancient fathers, and of the abler modern apologists, like Grotius, Huet
and others, have victoriously proved the existence of a primeval
revelation, the diffusion and perpetuity of its doctrines among all the
nations of the world, civilized and barbarous--the compatibility of a
belief 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
promises of "the good things to come," intrusted with the prophetic
records of the life and ministry of that Messiah, 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 primitive revelation;
another class of inquirers (and among these was Schlegel) laboured to
shew the points of divergence 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 Paganism--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 interwoven. Hence the arduous nature
of these researches--hence the difficulties and perils which await the
investigator 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,
however, to observe that the different philosophic errors mentioned 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 presumptuous,
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, and the elegant simplicity 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 surmised, have since
been fully established--and the knowledge of Indian literature and
philosophy has 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 writings 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 it winds through a broader, but not always a deeper,
channel, sullied and disturbed not unfrequently by accidental
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 appearance had
the effect of directing the national energies towards 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 professorship at Oxford--these events are, in a
great degree, attributable 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 the opinion of some, it is Schlegel's masterpiece. It embodied in
a systematic form the views and opinions contained 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 prefixed.

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 contributor
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 commencement of the present century, he edited in
conjunction with Tieck, Novalis and his brother, a literary journal,
entitled the Athenæum; 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," shews 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 direction of some
of whose writings he 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 enthusiastic 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 difference, 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 versification, 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 bloom! In the lines to Corinna, what lofty consolations are
administered to that illustrious woman, under the persecutions she had
to sustain from the Imperial despotism of 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 original 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
department 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 ventured on the composition 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 intellectual Hercules, of the most gigantic
strength and colossal stature.

In 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 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 translation
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 harmonious
whole. By what an easy and natural transition does the author pass
from the Greek to the Roman literature! 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 of India; we now see added a knowledge of
the long buried treasures of the old German and Provençal poetry of
the middle age--the scholastic philosophy--the principal modern
European literatures in their several periods of bloom, maturity and
decay. What a strong light, also, is thrown on some dark passages in
the history of philosophy! Where shall we find a more curious,
graphic, and interesting account of the mystics of the middle age,
and of the German and Italian Platonists of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries! Every page bears the stamp of long and diligent
inquiry, and original investigation. The minute traits--the accurate
drawing--the freshness and vividness of colouring--the truth and
life-like reality in this whole picture of literature, prove that
the artist drew from the original, and not a copy. No better proof
can be adduced of the _accuracy_, as well as 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 received the approbation of such scholars, as made
those several branches of knowledge the special objects of their
study and inquiry. Thus their labours on Greek and Roman 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 Guignault--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 accomplished scholar--the late Mr.
Gifford.

The other and more important characteristics of this work are 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 Winkelmann--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 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
characterization. In a work so full of beauties, it is difficult to make
selections--but, were I called upon to point out specimens of succinct
criticism, which, for justness and delicacy of discrimination--a poetic
soaring of conception--and depth of observation, 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 subject. 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 Mallébranche 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 soaring above his subject--ever
springing from the lower world of art, to those high and aerial regions
of philosophy still more native to his spirit. To him the beautiful was
only the symbol of the divine--hence the tone of earnestness and
solemnity which he carries even into æsthetic dissertations. The style
too, of this "history of literature" leaves little to be desired. To the
lightness, clearness, and elegance of diction which had distinguished
Schlegel's earlier productions, was here united a greater richness and
copiousness of expression, and a more harmonious fulness and roundness
of period. From this time, however, (if an Englishman may presume to
offer an opinion on such a subject,) a decline may, I think, be observed
in his style. His mind, indeed, seemed to gain strength and expansion
with the advance of years--the horizon of his views was perpetually
enlarged--and in vastness of conception, and profundity of observation,
his last philosophical works outshine even those of his early manhood.
Yet to whatever cause we are to attribute the fact--whether it be that
his last works had not received from his hands the same careful
revisal--or whether some men as they advance in life, become as
negligent in their style as in their dress--or whether he at last gave
in to the bad practice so prevalent in Germany, of disregarding the
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.[7] 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 necessary--that he had now only
to leave to time to work out his æsthetic principles in the German
mind--and that 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 important 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 Austrian 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 government. 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 friendship and patronage--and
finally the pension, letters of nobility, 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 admirer of the whole foreign and
domestic policy of Austria. No conception can be more erroneous. As
Secretary to the Archduke Charles, he knew he lent his support to a
government which had shown itself the most honest, vigilant, and
powerful friend of German independence--he knew he fought the battle of
his country against an unholy and execrable tyranny, which, whatever
shape it might assume--whether that of a lawless democracy 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 place, it is not usual even in the representative system, still
less under a government constituted like that of Austria, to exact a
perfect conformity of political sentiments between diplomatic agents and
the heads of administration. Again the pension, title, and dignity which
Schlegel received at the hands of the Emperor of Austria, were the
well-earned recompence of distinguished services, and not the badges of
servility. Lastly with respect to the "Austrian Observer," his motive in
establishing that journal was purely patriotic. To enkindle the warlike
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 illustrious
hand which first set it in motion.

Nothing, in fact, can be more dissimilar than the policy 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 characterized the general
policy of this government? In respect to ecclesiastical matters, we
still see (though the evil was mitigated by the piety of the late
emperor), we still see that government, by a restless, encroaching
spirit of jealousy, hamper the jurisdiction, 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, mechanical
absolutism, where all spontaneity of popular action has been
destroyed--all equilibrium of powers overturned--and where royalty,
by an irregular attraction, has disturbed, 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 mechanical
arts and the physical sciences. In short, no where has the political
materialism of the eighteenth century attained a more systematic
development than in the Austrian 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 relation to the
church, to liberty, and to science, it is needless to observe how
entirely opposed it was to the views of Schlegel. His whole life was
devoted to the cultivation 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 sincere friend to
religious liberty, as well as a good Catholic, he 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 very
exaggerated statements sometimes put forth by party spirit in
England, respecting the state of learning in the Austrian empire.
Without pretending to any personal 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 Protestant 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 organization of its medical
board--the distinguished physicians, theoretical as well as
practical, whom it has produced--the great attention bestowed 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 Jahrbücher)--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
Bæotian dulness of which we sometimes hear them accused, Augustus
William Schlegel (and his testimony is impartial, for he is neither
a native nor resident of Austria,) confesses[10] that he discovered
in them great aptness of intelligence, a keen relish for the
beauties of poetry, and much of the vivacity of the Southern
temperament. 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 age produced some of
the most celebrated Minnesingers, would with free institutions 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 occasioned 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 inestimable service to the Publicist;
and by making him acquainted with the excellencies as well as defects of
existing governments, the obstacles which retard the progress 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 Jahrbücher,) 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 this.[11]

The year 1820 was marked by the simultaneous outbreak of several
revolutions in different countries of Europe, and by symptoms of general
discontent, distrust, and agitation in other parts. The violent, though
transitory volcanic eruptions 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 revolutionary enthusiasm which pervaded a large portion of the
youth--the frenzied joy with which the assassination of Kotzbue had been
hailed--the wide spread of associations 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 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 committed
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
to 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,
independently 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 most
governments--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 Müller, 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 his
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 shall 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
solemnization 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 perpetual 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 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 corporations;
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."[12]

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 corporations; 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 functions 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. I shall now proceed to lay
before the reader the several characteristics which, according to the
author, distinguish the 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
maltreatment, 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 inconsistent
with the dignity of a being made after the likeness of God. This
complete emancipation of the lower 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 primitive
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 in 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 oppression, 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 these have yielded to the
benign spirit of Christianity. The existence of slavery in the Christian
colonies no wise militates against the principle here laid down: for the
slave-trade has ever been condemned by all Christian nations 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 necessary evil. For, as Schlegel observes with his characteristic
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."[13] 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 inconsistency with the
dignity of man, so, for the same reason, it guards with jealous
vigilance, the sanctity and inviolability 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 degradation.[14] 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 prevailed to a licentious extent; but in the modern Mahometan
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 a fine 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 advantage of such a law! In
the corrupt ages of Imperial Rome, divorce, permitted and practised on
the most frivolous pretexts, was productive of more baneful consequences
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 highest 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 guarantees. 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
legislature, by according divorce only after adultery, and by rendering
the obtaining of it a matter of difficulty and expense, has wisely
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
civilisation enjoyed by Christian nations.


§§ II. _Christian justice is founded on a system of equity, and the
Christian state has from its constitution, an essentially 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 regard to adventitious circumstances. Equity, on the other
hand, pays due regard to such circumstances, examines into the peculiar
state of things, and the mutual relations of parties; and forms her
decisions not according 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
applicable to the concerns of men. The maxim, "a thousand years' wrong
cannot constitute an hour's right," if applied 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 eminently 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 vindication of its rights
and interests, whether at home or abroad; and the repression of evil
doers within, or a just 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 revolutionary 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 institutions, new institutions, conceived according to
abstract 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 disorganizing 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 Crusades of a later period, and the
religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are commonly
objected. In the course of the work, to which this memoir is prefixed,
the reader will find these several objections victoriously answered.


§ III. _The Christian state recognizes the legal existence of
Corporations, and depends on their organic co-operation._

The author has before shown that the Christian religion, following the
principle of conciliatory equity, recognizes, 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 have each their several and subordinate
institutions or corporations, which are accidental and transitory by
nature, and consequently vary with time, place, and circumstances.

The Christian state is that which best secures and preserves to those
essential corporations, and all their subordinate 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 developement 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[15] is certainly the least: there then remain only
the representative system, and the constitution of the three estates, or
as the Germans call that mode of government, Stände-verfassung. Schlegel
proceeds 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 constitution of estates is the old, legitimate
constitution of the European states, whether republican or monarchical;
but, in too many countries, this noble institution has been undermined
by despotism, or destroyed by revolution. On the other hand, the
representative system is comparatively modern, and, on the continent,
has, amid the great convulsions 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, and the
states-constitution, both have legislative assemblies--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
legislature 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
parliament, 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 representation.[16] In the states-constitution, 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, correspond to the aristocracy, or the representatives of
fixed property--while the scientific class, representing science, or the
variable and progressive part of intelligence, corresponds to the
Commons, the representatives of moveable property. Hence, Francis
Baader has ingeniously called the clergy the Upper House of
intelligence, and the scientific class, the Lower House.[17]

The last point of difference is that, while in many of the modern
representative systems, municipal corporations 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 municipal
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 preserved so many elements of
the old Christian monarchy, the free, municipal institutions have been
carefully maintained. "The true internal strength and greatness of
England, (says Schlegel) consist, as is now almost universally admitted
by profound political observers, far more in the vigour and freedom of
municipal corporations, better preserved in that country than elsewhere,
than in her admired political constitution itself."[18] Defective as
many parts of that constitution appeared to the author, yet on the
whole, he highly valued the vigorously constituted, but temperate and
mitigated, aristocracy of 1688. He knew that the remnants of the old
Christian constitution were better preserved there than in any of the
great continental monarchies:[19] that the British government possessed
elements of stability as well as of freedom, 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
intelligence--that political predominance of the aristocracy, which,
though rendered necessary by the excessive 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 aristocracy on the
one hand, and the free, municipal organization 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 architecture, 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 enlightened 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
realized. Yet there are many reasons to suppose that a momentous, and
not very distant, futurity will be charged with realizing, 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 political
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 surrounding heaven with the splendour of its light. The illustrious
Goerres, already celebrated for his profound researches in archæology,
and many admirable political writings, published in 1819 his work,
entitled "Germany and the Revolution," which produced so extraordinary a
sensation, and was at the 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 free government of Bavaria, 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 of F. Schlegel--to great boldness of character, and a
style of peculiar force and condensation. While the political 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. Himself 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
Viscount de Bonald in France[20]--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 considerable 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 philosophy
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 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 excited 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 Schelling, the two Schlegels, the poet
Tirek, Novalis, and the celebrated geographer Ritter. This confederacy
was dissolved, when the pantheistical tendency of Schelling's philosophy
became more apparent; and Frederick Schlegel, in particular, became
afterwards the most strenuous and formidable opponent of a philosophic
system which appeared to him, and rightly enough, only a more subtle and
refined Spinozism. On the true nature of this philosophy, however,
opinion was much divided; many religious men among the Protestants
ranged themselves under its banners; even some of the Orthodox entered
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 philosophy of Schelling, which
appears to have undergone 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 its illustrious founder himself, 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.[21]

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
Concordia for 1820, we find an outline of those lectures on the
Philosophy of life, which the author delivered at Vienna, in the year
1827. This work immediately preceded 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 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 perceptions, 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 unlooked 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 may be 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
beings, devoid of a _gross_ 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 supporters in the modern schools of
theology, whether in the Catholic or Protestant churches; but it was
maintained by many of the 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, thou 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 reference to the higher parts of consciousness that
its properties can be made the matter of his investigation. The soul and
the mind form the fit and peculiar subject of his enquiries. To the mind
belong the faculties of will and understanding--to the soul, those of
reason and imagination. 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 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 supplied. On this
subject, Schlegel 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
(Vernunft) the regulative--Understanding (Verstand) 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 passions or natural
impulses, and the outward senses. The memory is the intermediate faculty
between the understanding 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 the
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 perceptions 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 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, without imagination. This assertion may strike us
as strange; but we must remember that Leibnitz declared he was led to
his great mathematical discoveries by the aid of metaphysics; 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 penetrates into the
inward essence of things, and discerns the manifestations of the divine
or human mind in their several revelations and communications.--Thus the
naturalist, 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 direction 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,
proportionably 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 experience 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 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
understanding 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 understanding 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 aversion, 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 we 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 deplorable 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 realization 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 subsidiary or assigned;--Schlegel shews 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 depravity of the will. The conscience is the memory of
the will, as the memory is the conscience of the understanding.

"The natural impulses," says Schlegel, "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."[22] "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 perishable, 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."[23] In the brute, the gratification 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 the last. Those expressions in common parlance, a
good artist-like eye--a fine musical ear--prove the close connexion
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 consciousness 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 unconscious
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."[24]

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 understanding 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 rationalist 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 and decorum can the faculty of imagination be assigned to the
God-head--the very term would shock the understandings, 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 knowledge,
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 accordingly 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 the clue to the history and religion of
the primitive world--nay, it is the true Genesis of all historical
science."[25]

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. Together 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."[26]

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 revelation, indeed, the first man received the highest
intellectual illumination; an illumination 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. When, 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 preparatory to another,
destined to renovate the soul of humanity, 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 observe, 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 divided 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 the origin of the chaos of matter, and
the renovation of the world in the six days of creation_; on the
creation of man, his fall, and the divine ways conducive to his
restoration."[27]

"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 transmitted 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.'"[28]

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 revelation, 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
withdrawn from the knowledge of mankind. It was this acquaintance with
the internal secrets of Nature, derived partly from revelation, and
partly from intuition, which gave the men of the primitive, and
especially the ante-diluvian, 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 enquirer more and more to the knowledge of this important
truth, stamped on all the pages of ancient tradition, and never effaced
from the recollection of mankind, 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 decomposes 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 every where 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 not now make a matter of
investigation; nor now examine the question, whether _these bonds be not
perhaps of a higher kind than naturalists commonly suppose_."

The great apostle of the Gentiles represents all Nature as sighing for
her deliverance from the bondage of death. "Every creature groaneth and
travaileth in pain, even now." Some chapters in the Philosophy of life
may be considered as one luminous commentary on that text. My limits
will permit me to cite but one passage.

"That planetary world of sense, and the soul of the earth imprisoned
therein, is only apparently dead. Nature only sleeps, and may again be
awakened: and sleep is, if not the essence, yet a characteristic mark of
Nature. Every thing in Nature hath this quality of sleep; not the
animals merely, but the plants also sleep; and in the course of the
seasons on the surface of the globe, there is a constant alternation
between waking and slumber."... "That soul, he continues, which
slumbers under the prodigious tomb-stone of outward nature--a soul,
which is not alien, but half akin to us--is divided between the
troubled, painful reminiscence of eternal death, in which it
originated--and the bright flowers of celestial Hope, which grow on the
borders of that dark abyss. For this earthly Nature, as Holy Writ saith,
is indeed subjected to nothingness--yet without its will, and without
its fault: so it looks forward in expectation of Him who hath so
subjected it--it looks forward in the hope that it may one day be
free--one day have a share in the general resurrection and consummate
revelation of God's glory; and for this last great day of future
creation Nature anxiously sighs, and yearns from her inmost soul."[29]

I will now wind up this analysis with the following passage, in which
the distinctive peculiarities of the different parts of ontology are
shortly stated: "The distinctive characteristic of nature is sleep, or
the struggle between life and death; the distinctive characteristic of
man is imagination (for reason is a more negative faculty); the
distinctive characteristic of the intelligences superior to man is
restless, eternal activity, implanted in the very constitution of their
being; and the distinctive characteristic of the Deity, in relation to
his creatures, is infinite condescension."

Such is a brief summary of some of the principal observations in the
psychological and ontological parts of the Philosophy of Life. And in
this summary it has been my intention not so much to give an analysis of
those parts, as to convey to the reader a clue for the better
understanding of many passages in the work I have translated. The
remaining parts of the "Philosophy of Life" are devoted to a variety of
ethical, political, and æsthetic reflections, which it is unnecessary to
enter into here.

Scarce had Germany recovered from the enthusiasm which this work, (the
Philosophy of Life) excited; when its illustrious author delivered, in
the year 1828, the following course of Lectures on the "_Philosophy of
History_," which are now presented to the reader in an English garb.
Defective as may be the medium through which the English reader becomes
acquainted with this work, he will be enabled to form on it a more
impartial, as well as more enlightened, judgment than any the translator
could pronounce; and he will, therefore, only venture to observe that it
has been considered in every respect worthy of its author's high
reputation.

Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden; and
that city, where the torch of his early enthusiasm had been first
kindled, was now to witness its final extinction. He delivered in this
city, before a numerous and distinguished auditory, nine lectures on the
"Philosophy of Language," (Philosophie der Sprache), wherein he
developed and expanded those philosophical views already laid down in
his "Philosophy of Life." This work is even more metaphysical than the
one last named--with untiring wing, the author here sustains his flight
through the sublimest regions of philosophy. This production displays at
times a gigantic vastness of conception which almost appals--we might
almost say, that this mighty intelligence had in his ardent aspirations
after Immortality, burst his earthly fetters--or that Divine Providence,
judging a degenerate world unworthy of hearing such sublime accents, had
called him to continue his hymn in eternity. On Sunday, the 11th of
January, 1829, he was, between ten and eleven o'clock at night,
preparing a lecture, which he was to deliver on the following Wednesday.
He had in his former lectures spoken of Time and Eternity--he had called
Time a distraction of Eternity--he had adverted to those ecstacies of
great Saints, which he called transitions to Eternity. He was now in
this lecture discoursing of the different degrees of knowledge
attainable by man--of the perception--the notion--and the idea. He began
a sentence with these remarkable words:--"Das ganz vollendete und
vollkommne verstehen selbst aber"--"But the consummate and the perfect
knowledge"--when the hand of sickness arrested his pen. That consummate
and perfect knowledge he himself was now destined to attain in another
and a better world; for, at one o'clock on the same night, he breathed
out his pure and harmonious soul to heaven.

His death, though sudden, was not unprovided. He had ever lived up to
his faith--through his writings there runs an under-current of calm,
unostentatious piety; and I know no writer more deeply impressed with a
sense of the loving agency of Providence. A gentleman, well acquainted
with some of his most intimate friends, has assured me that, for some
time prior to his death, he had prosecuted his devotional exercises with
more than ordinary fervour; and that on the morning of that Sunday on
which his last illness seized him, he had been united to his Lord in the
Holy Communion--a presage and an earnest, let us hope, of that intimate
union he was destined to enjoy in the long and cloudless day of
Eternity!

The melancholy news of his death, when conveyed to his distinguished
friend--Adam Müller, then at Vienna, gave such a violent shock to his
feelings, that it brought on a stroke of apoplexy, which terminated his
existence. A chain of the most exalted sympathies had united those souls
in life--what marvel if the electric stroke, which prostrated the one
should have laid low the other!

Frederick Schlegel married early in life the daughter of the celebrated
Jewish philosopher Mendelsohn. This lady followed her husband in his
change of religion. Mrs. Schlegel is one of the most intellectual women
in Germany--she is advantageously known to the literary world by her
German translation of Madame de Stael's Corinne; and report has ascribed
to her elegant pen several of the poems in her husband's collection.[30]

In conclusion, I will endeavour to recapitulate the obligations which
literature and science owe to the great man, whose literary biography I
have attempted to sketch.

To have, in common with his illustrious brother, established a system of
broad, comprehensive, synthetic criticism, by which the principles of
ancient and modern art were unfolded to view--by which we were
introduced into the intellectual laboratories of genius, made to assist
at the birth of her mighty conceptions, and by whose plastic touch the
great works of ancient and modern poetry were in a manner created
anew:--to have unlocked the fountains of the old Germanic minstrelsy,
and refreshed the poetry of his age with a new stream of fictions:--to
have been among the first to do for philology what the Stagyrite had
done for natural history; by classifying languages not according to
their outward form, but their internal organization, not according to a
specious, though often delusive, etymology, but according to grammatical
structure: to have deciphered the mysterious wisdom of old days, and
with admirable tact to have caught the spirit of the primitive world, as
disclosed in its sagas and its symbols, its poetry and its philosophy:
next to have evoked from the dust the better philosophy of ancient
Greece, and presented her venerable form to the renewed love and respect
of mankind, partly by an admirable translation of portions of Plato,[31]
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 philosophical works, where a strong and broad
light is thrown upon the mysteries of psychology, where the most
important questions of ontology are treated with equal boldness 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 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,[32] "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."[33]



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 Philosophy 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 diffused through the world, and through all science--the
term of all Christian hope, and Divine promise, whose fulfilment is
reserved for the last period of consummation--crowns in conclusion the
progress of this restoration.

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 discoveries 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 history, 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 Traditions, 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
Philosophy of Tradition," and which reflects the highest honour on its
anonymous author.[34] 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 discussion, 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
should, in despite of my utmost diligence, have been imperfectly
conceived or represented, yet the main result, I trust, will in no case
be thereby materially impaired.

The following sketch of the subject will shew 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 consequences--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
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 Revolution.

The eighteenth and concluding Lecture turns on the prevailing spirit of
the age, and on the universal regeneration 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 consciousness 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 humanity of the effaced
image of God, according to the gradation 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 circumstances 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._



CONTENTS

OF VOL. I.


  Memoir of the Literary Life of Frederick Von Schlegel.      iii

  Author's Preface.      lxxix

  LECTURE I.

  INTRODUCTION.

  LECTURE II.

  On the dispute in primitive history, and on the division of
  the human race.      40

  LECTURE III.

  Of the Constitution of the Chinese Empire.--The moral
  and political condition of China.--The character of Chinese
  intellect and Chinese science.      86

  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 philosophy.      126

  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.      167

  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.      202

  LECTURE VII.

  General considerations upon the nature of man, regarded
  in a historical point of view, and on the two-fold view
  of history.--Of the ancient Pagan Mysteries.--Of the
  universal Empire of Persia.      245

  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. 281

  LECTURE IX.

  Character of the Romans.--Sketch of their conquests.--On
  strict law, and the law of equity in its application to
  History, and according to the idea of divine justice.--Commencement
  of the Christian dispensation.      318


  ERRATUM.

  At the 7th line from the top of page xxxviii (Life of Schlegel)
  instead of "put forth by party spirit," read "put forth by ignorance
  or party spirit."



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 concerted 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 historical events, from the faithful record and lively narration of
facts--it must be the pure emanation of the great whole--the one
connected whole of history, and for the right understanding of this
connexion a clear arrangement is an essential condition and an important
aid. For although this great edifice of universal history, where the
conclusion at least is still wanting, is in this respect incomplete, and
appears but a mighty fragment of which even particular parts are less
known to us than others;--yet is this edifice sufficiently advanced, and
many of its great wings and members are sufficiently unfolded to our
view, to enable us, by a lucid arrangement of the different periods of
history, to gain a clear insight into the general plan of the whole.

It is thus my intention to render as intelligible as I possibly can the
general results and the connection of all the past transactions in the
history of the human race; to form a true judgment on the particular
portions or sections of history, according 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
perception--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 attention 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 practical point of view they are both affairs of the highest moment;
while the courageous and successful conduct of the one insures the
highest degree of glory, and the solid establishment 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 in a comprehensive and enlarged spirit.
Then the remotest Past, the highest antiquity, is as much entitled to
our attention 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 since 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,
pourtrayed by him in the highest style of eloquence, and unfolded 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 minutest details of an event so widely removed
from us--and such a study is to be regarded and prized as highly useful,
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 analyzed and laid open by the
acute perspicacity and delicate discrimination of a Machiavelli. And
still more, perhaps, when a great system of pacification, like that
which Augustus gave, or promised to give to the whole civilized 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 remoter effects; shewing, as he does, how that
surface, apparently so calm, concealed numberless sources of
disquiet--an abyss of crime and destruction--how that evil principle in
the degenerate government of Rome became more and more apparent, and,
under a succession 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 inestimable
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
nothing else than a war retarded or kept under by human dexterity; 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.

Political events form but one part, and not the whole, of human history.
A knowledge of details, however great and various it may be, constitutes
no science in the philosophic sense of the word, for it is in the right
and comprehensive conception of the whole that science consists.

As the greater part of the nine hundred millions of men on 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 exception--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 civilization, without of themselves
holding any place in the general history of our species, or conducing 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 appears 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 connection of the present life with another world
invisible to us. But our historical science is limited to the department
of man's present existence; and in our historical enquiries we must not
lose sight of this principle.

But the internal development of mind, so far as it is historical,
belongs as much as the external events of politics to the department of
human history, and must by no means be excluded from it. Among these
rare exceptions of historical men, 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 kingdoms 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 accomplished 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 mankind, is to
keep these and every object connected with them steadily in view,
without losing ourselves in the details of special enquiries and
particular facts, for the multitude and variety of these subjects is
absolutely boundless; and on the ocean of historical science the main
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 knowledge. At first indeed it is merely a nomenclature of
celebrated 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 comprehensive knowledge to be obtained in riper
years. Thus this first knowledge stored up in the memory, and necessary
for methodizing and arranging the mass of historical learning to be
afterwards acquired, is more a preparation for the study of history,
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 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 philologist will find a boundless field for enquiry
in special antiquarian researches, particularly now when, in addition to
classical 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 newspapers 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 unprinted 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 particular branch of history; and, in a
science so various, select some special subject for more minute enquiry;
but this can never be done without some decided predilection--some
almost party bias towards the subject. Yet such special enquiries are
only preparatory or auxiliary to the general science or philosophy of
history--but not that science itself. Thus at the outset of my literary
career, I devoted a considerable time to a very minute study of the
Greeks--[35] and subsequently I applied myself to the Hindoo language
and philosophy, at that time more difficult of access than at the
present day.[36] In the struggles of life, and amid the public dangers
of our times, I was alive to 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.[37] 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 down, 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 expressed:--we should not wish to
explain every thing. Historical tradition must never be abandoned in the
philosophy of history--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 ages,
bring with it a full and demonstrative certainty. 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. Extremely hazardous is the
desire to explain every thing, and to supply whatever appears a gap in
history--for in this propensity lies the first cause and germ of all
those violent and arbitrary hypotheses which perplex and pervert the
science of history far more than the open avowal of our ignorance, or
the uncertainty of our knowledge: hypotheses which give an oblique
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 comprehending, 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) touching 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 question now naturally occurs how has this
race of men come hither?--

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 autocthones 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 organization 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,
is still endowed with many and wonderful powers, and still encloses the
hidden light of its celestial origin.--Without, however, entering
further into this enquiry, 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 individual 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, recognized in the beautiful tradition or fiction of
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 historical 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 revelation and faith; for the question can be reached by no
history, 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 experience 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 languages 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 probability 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
unanimously received and acknowledged by those historical enquirers 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 originally savage, or at least
barbarized tribe first arrived hither; and it were a mere waste of
labour to select, among the hundred conceivable or inconceivable
accidents and possibilities 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 disjunction 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 monuments 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 in the county
of Yorkshire in England, filled for the most part with the bones and
skeletons of hyænas, 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 animals, among which were found the remains of the old large deer,
that is not now to be met with in England. The profound 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 shews it to be much
more probable that this cave was the den of a troop of hyænas, which had
dragged thither the bones of the other animals; for this fell and
rapacious animal feeds by preference 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 civilized 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 separates her from those savage times,
when troops of hyænas prowled about the land, together with the other
gigantic animals 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 general 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 animals 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 progressive 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 hypothesis 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 skin, 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 extinguished,
like an oven that becomes cold, or to any other violent hypothesis of
the same kind; for this fact may be sufficiently accounted for by the
last great revolution of Nature--the general deluge, which as may be
assumed with great probability, produced a change in the heretofore much
purer, balmier, and more genial atmosphere. That, towards the equator,
the position of the earth's axis has undergone a change, and that
thereby this great revolution in the earth's climate was occasioned, is
indeed a bare possibility; but until further proof, this must be
regarded as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. But without subscribing to
these fanciful suppositions, and mathematical 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
kindred 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
classifications of geologists, are more immediately akin to them, can be
proved to be of a volcanic nature with as much certainty, as we can
trace, in the horizontal secondary 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 eruptions 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 from 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 immeasurable 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 surface 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 earlier epoch of nature, the same
influence and operation on the earth, as water afterwards 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 in 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 any where 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 so 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 instruments 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, completely at variance with history--one to
which many even physical 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, and absolutely certain
explanation; and that yet we may form a tolerably correct conception of
general facts; though many of the particulars may remain for a time
unexplained, or at least not capable of a full explanation. So on the
other hand, it would be 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 historical 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 happened, and very probably did really happen
simultaneously with, or subsequently, or even previously to the last
general flood.

The irruption of the Black Sea into the Thracian Bosphorus 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 shewn it to be extremely probable, that the Caspian Sea,
and the lake Aral were originally 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
farther 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 primitive
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 appears to be matter of certainty, and to
be even susceptible of scientific demonstration. The northern and
southern extremities of our planet appear at least to be very unlike, if
we 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 every
where perfectly defined; water is the predominant element around the
colder South Pole, towards which even the southernmost point of America,
and the remotest Island of Polynesia--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
no where 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 extremity; 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 firmament 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 colonization 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
Phœnicians 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 to a much
higher degree of productiveness, 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
antiquity 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 Phœnician 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;[38] although the author of this theory, so far from intending to
oppose it to the Mosaic account of the 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
dynamical 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 sprang 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 predominant 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,
necessarily imply a mighty revolution in the earth, and afford
additional proof that the Mosaic history speaks not only of 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 enquirer constantly to the
Caucasian regions, to Asia Minor, to Phœnicia, 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 civilization 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
Adherbijan 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 direction--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 present 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 between the old description of this river's
course, and the present geography of the country.

In another circumstance, also, which has been mostly too little attended
to, this disparity between the Mosaic description and the present
conformation of those regions is particularly 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 no where be found
on the earth; whether it be dried or filled up, or howsoever it has been
removed. In attending to some indications in Scripture, and without
transgressing the due limits of interpretation, may we not be permitted
to conjecture that the first chastisement inflicted on man by expulsion
from his first glorious habitation and primeval home, may have been
accompanied 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 revolutions. Many vestiges of such changes may perhaps be
proved from even geological observation;--thus to cite only one example,
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 hypothesis, but rather as a question
dictated by a love of enquiry, 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 condition 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 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 vertebræ, its toes,
&c. it concedes to man, as his distinguishing quality, not what we 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
exclusively 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 venomous 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 recognize an
unsuccessful and abortive imitation of man. The resemblance of
physiognomy and cast of countenance in the lion, the bull, and the
eagle, to the human face--a resemblance 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.

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 liberalized 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 vice-gerent 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 exercises his empire over creatures
rather by indirect means and mechanical 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 consist, 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
comprehensive definition, if, instead of this, we said: The peculiar
pre-eminence of man consists in this--that to him alone among all other
of earth's creatures, the word has been imparted and communicated. The
word actually delivered and really communicated is not a mere dead
faculty, but an historical reality and occurrence; and for that very
reason, the definition we have given stands much more fitly at the head
of history, than the other more abstract one.

In the idea of the word, considered as the basis of man's dignity and
peculiar destination, the internal light of consciousness 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 characterize 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
principle 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 I.



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 language, 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 pregnant expression borrowed above from the New
Testament, on the mystery and internal nature of God, may with some
variation, and bating, as is evident, the immense distance between the
creature and the Creator, be applied to man and his primitive condition;
and may serve as a superscription or introduction 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 least
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, existence--the latter holding undoubtedly
a very important place;--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 question 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, but
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 speculation 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 communicated 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 a state of trial, and can never be separated from God. We
should, besides, greatly err, if we figured to ourselves the Paradisaic
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 to
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 manner, 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 destiny 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 harmony
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 mankind in general, as of each
individual in particular. And this return--this restoration--this
transformation--all the endeavours 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 individual may learn from his own
interior, his own experience, and a survey of life; since the violent,
disorderly might of passion herself is only a blind power of nature
acting within us. Although this fact is historical, and indeed the first
of all historical facts, yet as it belongs to all mankind, and recurs in
each individual, it may be regarded as a psychological fact and
phenomenon 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 consequences 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 developement of
this principle, was the division of the single race of man into a
plurality of nations, and the consequent 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 connection 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 conflict 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
savage islander of the south sea.--The expression _races_, however,
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 identity 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 which by 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 appeared indeed to be singularly strange, and to
stand at a fearful distance from the rest of mankind; yet the European
writer[39] most deeply conversant with those nations and their languages
has found in their traditions and tongues, and even in their manners and
customs, 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
enquiries, from the negro who, as well from his bodily strength and
agility as from his docile and in general excellent character, is far
from occupying the lowest grade in the scale of humanity, down to the
monstrous Patagonian, the almost imbecile Peshwerais, and the horrible
cannibal of New Zealand, whose very portrait excites a shudder in the
beholder. How, even in the midst of civilization, man may degenerate
into the savage state; 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 culprits, and even, at some
periods, the history of whole nations. In 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 civilized nations to
repress and subdue by the sentiment of honour, by a system of severe
discipline, and by a generous code of warfare, respected alike by all
belligerent parties, that tendency 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 compact, 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, become 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 civilized 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 historical 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. 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
narrative, 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 traditions under various local
colours, and not without some admixture 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 historical 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 enquiries, particularly into ancient and primitive history, we must
not reject as impossible or improbable 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 however will always retain a deep significacy 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 the same time, as I have
before observed, a psychological phenomenon; and while, in this first
section of sacred history, everything 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
circumstances 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; especially 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, consisted
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 smith-craft, 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 hereditary murder,
and progressive evil, under the divine permission. 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
character 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 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.[40]

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 traditions 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 undoubtedly 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
representation 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 wear a fabulous
aspect, until a nearer and more patient investigation 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 characterized 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 unfortunate 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 nations, which history makes mention of, was in fact a
struggle between two religious parties--two hostile sects, though indeed
under far other forms, and in different relations from anything 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.[41]

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 essential 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 abundance, and even the end of
human life was not a real or painful death, but a gentle slumber into
another and higher world 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 instruments 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 cotemporary; and
indeed Seth, the progenitor of the better and nobler race of virtuous
Patriarchs, was much younger than Cain. However, this contradiction 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
warfare:--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 constitution of society, they describe that fierce race of
giants as a degraded caste of warriors; and they even give that
denomination to many nations well known in later history, such 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 Ionians 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
chronological 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 embellishment 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 degeneracy which produced that enormous licentiousness and
wickedness 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 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 humanity 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
Christendom 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 circumstance
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
occasion 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 gigantic forms
of the first men, and their corresponding longevity, far exceeding, as
it did, the present ordinary standard of the duration of human life.
With respect to the latter circumstance, 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 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 Brahminical
caste, more than a hundred years of age, and in the enjoyment of a
robust, and even generative vigour of constitution. In the labouring
class in Russia, whose mode of living is so simple, there are examples
of men living to more than a hundred, 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 principle of second
growth. What, in the present physical degeneracy 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 must 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 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 latter course of the divine goodness is
discernible, and human life in those ages must be regarded as
miraculously and supernaturally prolonged.[42] 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 33 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 primitive race of
men, by the authentic testimony of universal tradition;--a testimony
which it is easy to distinguish from mere poetical embellishment or
exaggeration--it is singular that 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 hippopotamus, 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 counties 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
ante-diluvian remains. Even of animals more familiar to us, bones and
other remains 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, and even five times greater than they
usually are at present. 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 unanimously 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 stature 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 corruption--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--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
disproportionate 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 extraordinary
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
fragments 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 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 knowledge 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 history. We have in the next place
sought to unfold and illustrate 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
characterized 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 undoubtedly, 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 history, and to
the civilization 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 civilized nations, and to observe what peculiar form
the Word, whether innate in man, or communicated to him--the word which
may be considered as the essence of all the high prerogatives 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 traditions, their historical Sagas, their
poetry, art, and science. In the account of ancient nations, we shall
adopt the ethnographical mode of treating history; and it will be only
in modern and more recent times that this method will gradually give
place to the synchronical; and the reasons of this change will be
suggested by the very nature of the subject. In this general survey, we
must confine ourselves to those mighty and celebrated nations who have
attained to a high degree of intellectual excellence; and we shall
select and briefly state remarkable traits or extraordinary historical
facts illustrative of the manners, social institutions, political
refinement, and even political history of every nation, worthy of
occupying a place in this sketch, in order the better to mark the
progress of the intellectual principle in the peculiar culture and modes
of thinking of each. It is only at a later period that political history
becomes the main object of attention, and almost the leading principle
in the progressive march, and even the partial retrogressions 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 acquainted, we should be led into minute and
interminable researches, 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 civilized 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 criticism
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 attained to an equal, or a very
similar, degree of moral and intellectual 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 geographical 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 geographical division, for undoubtedly from the special
nature of this historical enquiry, it must be supposed I shall take a
different point of view in the geographical survey of the earth than
ordinarily occurs in geographical investigations. The geographies 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 mountains, and the course of rivers,
the vallies 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
civilized 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 fertilized 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 civilization. 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 civilized
world. The other coasts of Africa, including its southernmost cape,
furnish points of importance to commerce, navigation, and even some
attempts at colonization; while the interior parts of this continent,
still so little known, possess much to excite the attention and wonder
of the naturalist; 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 territory of Northern
Asia has become known to us, and has 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 civilization, 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 this 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 latter 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 regarded 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 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 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
remarkable 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 civilization.

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 population of a
single great European state, such as either France or Germany, whose
population, indeed, it about equals. Vegetation, 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
comparative 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 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 farther 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
straight, 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 continuity. 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 entangled 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 over the whole surface
of the globe but fifteen historical and important civilized countries of
greater or less extent, which can form the subject, and furnish the
geographical outline 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
civilized 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 civilized 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, Phœnicia, 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, considered in itself, bears so strongly the distinctive
geographical configuration peculiar to the European continent. This
peculiar configuration of Europe, so well adapted to the purposes of
settlement, and to the progress of civilization, consists in 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 commodiously situated Peninsulas, and possesses large,
magnificent, and, in part, very anciently and highly civilized 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 and 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 Mediterranean,
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. 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 civilization, 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 II.



LECTURE III.

     Of 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 previous
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 earth 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 civilization we have drawn
above, it occupies the extreme point of Eastern Asia. The names of East
and West are indeed purely relative; and have not the same permanent and
definite signification as the North or South 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 civilized states,
stretching from the south-east to the north-west in our mightier, more
celebrated, and earlier civilized hemisphere, we might add to the
before-mentioned fifteen ancient and modern countries 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 challenge the attention of
the historical enquirer. 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 American colonies, would exceed all empires in extent. The same may
be said of Russia, with her annexed colonies, and boundless provinces in
the north of Asia. But, great as the population of this Empire may be,
when considered in itself and relatively to the other European states,
it can sustain no comparison 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 population to China. Of the
amount of the Chinese population, which is not with certainty known,
that of India may furnish a criterion for a conjectural and probable
estimate. The British 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 possessed those
exact statistical estimates we have in Europe, it would still be a
matter of doubt how far in such cases we could 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 century, 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 population, even in the most civilized
countries. Thus even the statistical estimates of the Chinese furnish us
with no certain information on this subject. However as this vast region
is every where 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 every where 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 accurate 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 computation, 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 civilization, 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 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 attention to all without distinction. This
would indeed betray an indifference to, or at least ignorance of, the
higher principle 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 civilization 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 civilization,
as the Greeks or the Egyptians; though the territory of Egypt itself is
certainly 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 humanity 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 excessive population is undoubtedly an essential
element of political power in a state; but it is not the only, nor in
any respect, the principal symptom or indication of the civilization of
a country. It is only in regard to civilization that the population of
China deserves our consideration. 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 civilization; 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 connection 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 conquests
and expeditions of the Asiatic nations were considered by these writers
as subjects of the greatest weight and importance. No conquerors have
ever marched from China into Western Asia, like Xerxes, for instance,
who passed from the interior of Persia to Athens; or 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 civilization of the Chinese have evinced their power,
as their Tartar conquerors, in the earliest as in the latest times, have
after a few generations, invariably conformed to the manners and
civilization 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 productions of nature; and unique and, in
their way, excellent products of industry and manufacture; prove the
very high degree of civilization which this people has attained to. And
how should not that people be entitled to a high or one of the highest
places among civilized nations, which had known, many centuries before
Europe, the art of printing, gun-powder, 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 politeness 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.[43] In their present
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
Englishman, 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 indications of unnatural stiffness, childish
vanity, and exaggerated 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 three hundred, not near four hundred, and (according to
the most recent critical investigation,) only 272 monosyllabic primitive
roots without any kind of grammar; 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
fourfold method of accentuation; in the next place, and chiefly by the
written characters, which amount to the prodigious number of eighty
thousand; while the Egyptian hieroglyphs do not exceed the number, of
eight hundred; and this Chinese system of writing is the most artificial
in the whole world. An inference which is not invalidated 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 ciphers; 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 conversation, have
recourse to writing, and by copying down these ciphers are enabled to
divine each other's meaning, and become mutually intelligible. To
comprehend rightly this immeasurable 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
scientific education of a Chinese. Indeed it furnishes labour sufficient
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.--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
construction and elaborateness.

Of the external civilization 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 distribute the fertilizing 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 civilized 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 regulations 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 civilized 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 destructive 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 concerns
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. Together with the imperial canal, the
great Chinese wall, which extends on the Northern frontier of China
proper, to the length of 150 geographical leagues, is another no less
important, and still standing monument of the comparatively high
civilization 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 characteristic, and as it were a symbol of the seclusive
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 itself, to defend China
against foreign conquests, or even against the introduction of foreign
sects. This wall, which was built about two centuries before the
Christian era, is a historical monument, which furnishes far stronger
proof than all the dubious accounts of the old annals that even in
ancient times, and long before the conquest of the Monguls, and the
establishment 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 ages of authentic history in the ancient dynasty of Chow,
eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The first fact of
importance, as regards the moral and intellectual civilization of China,
is that this country was originally divided into many small
principalities, 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 particular mention will be
presently made, as well as the erection of the great wall, are
attributed to the first general Emperor of all China, Chi-ho-angti; in
whose reign, too, Japan became a Chinese colony, or received from China
a political establishment. 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 civilization 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 ascendancy of Chinese
civilization, have, within a short time, invariably adopted the manners,
laws, and even language of China, and thus its institutions have
remained, on the whole, unaltered. But here is a circumstance in Chinese
history 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 government
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 catastrophes. This is proved
by the bare statement of facts, though the official language of the
Imperial 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 four
hundred and sixty followers of Confucius burnt. This act of tyranny
undoubtedly supposes a very violent contest between 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 introduced a new system of writing, which has
led to the greatest confusion, even in subsequent ages. Such an
intellectual revolution is doubtless evident on the introduction of the
Indian religion of Buddha, or Fo (according to the Chinese appellation),
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 confines of Silesia. This conquest produced a re-action,
and a popular revolution, conducted by a common citizen of China, by
name Chow, restored the Empire; this citizen afterwards ascended 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 favourable
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 civilization of
this people. As the constitution and development of the human mind are
in each of those ancient 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 conversation 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 80,000 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 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 surround man while living in the most
simple state of society--such as the sun and 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 uncivilized 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 civilization 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 the 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 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 instance, 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 symbolism of Nature--from those
spiritual emblems in the Egyptian 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 hieroglyphics there
is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbolical inspiration, like
a soul of life--like the breathing of a high in-dwelling spirit,--a
deeply felt significancy--a lofty and beautiful design apparent through
the dead character denoting any particular name or fact.[44]

But independently of this boundless chaos of written-characters, 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 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
remarkable 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. According 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 or 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 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 restoration 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 we 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 phenomena, 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
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;[45] 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 comprehended, 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 combinations." These eight koua are kien or
ether, kui or pure water, li or pure fire, tchin or thunder, siun, 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 religion 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 enquiry. 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 connected; 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 Egyptian doctrines or mediately from the Greek philosophy--this
question I shall not here stop to discuss; for the matter is very
doubtful in itself, and, were it even proved, still all the doctrines
borrowed from the West were invested in a form purely Chinese, 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 introduction of the Indian religion of Buddha or of Fo.
The great revolution which had previously occurred in the old doctrines
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 nations; 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 representation 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 Writ, 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 improvident 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 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 it revered as the will of God, or rather
completely identified with it; and even the most determined 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 theocratic; but if it be so, it is only in its outward form, or
original mould; for it would be difficult to shew 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 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
re-action, 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 reprehensible. Some persons have sought to trace a certain
resemblance 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 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 man 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, 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 worshipped 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 individual, 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 ascendancy, 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
unnatural custom exists.

The writer[46] best versed in the language and writings of the Buddhist
Monguls 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 understood of a mere outward polish, and
superficial refinement of manner; for history does not show the Monguls
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.
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 observers 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 amelioration 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 resembling Christianity,
because its followers have monastic institutions, 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 further 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.[47]

We may thus sum up the result of our enquiries:--among the great nations
of primitive antiquity who stood the nearest, or at least very near, to
the source of sacred tradition--the word of primitive revelation,--the
Chinese hold a very distinguished 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 erroneous, and even
their language partly followed this direction, or at least assumed a
very stiff and artificial character. Descending 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 Asia, reckons a
greater number of followers than any other religion on the earth.


END OF LECTURE III.



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
     philosophy.


When Alexander the Great had attained the object of his most ardent
desires and, realizing 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 followers 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 arrangement of Indian life. But by the Greek
denomination of _Samaneans_ we must certainly understand the Buddhists,
as, among the rude nations of central Asia, and in other countries, the
priests of the religion of Fo bear at this day the name of _Schamans_.
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 superstition. The word itself is pure
Indian, and occurs frequently 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 equanimity which,
according to the Indian philosophy, must precede, 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
Mongul 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 remarkable 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 civilization, in India, in order to be able to form a right
judgment 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 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 religion
itself is divided into three parties, which, though they do not form
precisely separate sects, still are marked by no inconsiderable
differences in their opinions, views, and conduct: according 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, language in the
whole peninsula; in several provinces, as for instance, 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
employed together or alternately with the Sanscrit in the theatrical
pieces of the Indians, signifies a natural and artless speech, 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
is 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 dissimilar 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 provinces tribes of an
origin totally different from that of the Hindoos. This great variety in
the whole life, manners, and political institutions of the Indians,
forms a striking contrast with the absolute unity, and internal
uniformity of the Chinese Empire. 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
Zoroaster, 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 different 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
geographical circumscription.

The historian of India would have principally to speak of the successes
of a long series of foreign conquerors, who, from Alexander the Great to
Nadir Shah, have invaded this country by 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
preserved, and, in 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 realized; 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 overthrowing. 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 investigation 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
constitution 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 abhorence 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 democratic views, or rather from their
doctrine of absolute equality, as this equality itself is ever the
attendant of despotism, produces it, or proceeds from it, and is one of
its most distinctive 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 attention 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 sovereigns of the
country. By this simple, but enlightened principle 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 splendid region.

The scholars of Europe began their Indian researches by the study and
translation of the laws and jurisprudence of the Hindoos, the text as
well as commentaries, and it was only at a later period they extended
their inquiries to other subjects. The Indian jurisprudence is
undoubtedly a standing proof and monument of the comparatively high and
very ancient moral and intellectural 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 particular 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 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 mutual
relations between the external state of society and the internal
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 character, 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 and instructive the closer investigation of those
subjects may be in other respects, 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 enquiries, and which we shall endeavour to place in a nearer and
clearer light. In shewing 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 possessions 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 dependance upon these; but this very caste of
Sudras has its hereditary 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 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
prerogatives 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 mitigate 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
controul, 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 reverence, with
which the character of woman and her domestic relations are invariably
represented. These few examples suffice to show the moral effects of the
Indian division of castes; and while they serve to defend this
institution against a sweeping sentence of condemnation, or the
indiscriminate censure of too partial prejudice, they place the subject
in its true and 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 human 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 condition 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 this enumeration they assign the first rank to the
_Brachmans_, or wise men; and by the artisans, they no doubt understood
the trading 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; who, if they be lawyers, belong to,
and must be taken from, the caste of Brahmins; 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
employment. And when the Greeks make two castes of the agriculturists
and the warriors, they only mean to draw a distinction between the
labourers and the masters, or the real proprietors 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 obligation of military service; so, in the Indian constitution, the
two ideas of property in land, and military service, are indissolubly
connected. Some modern enquirers have attached very great importance to
the undoubtedly wide and remarkable separation 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 physiognomy 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
civilized nation, to whom the three upper castes must 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 several Asiatic, and even European, countries. In the
back-ground of old, mighty and civilized nations we can almost always
trace the primeval inhabitants of the country, who, dispossessed of
their territory, have been either reduced to servitude by their
conquerors, or have gradually been incorporated with them. These
primitive inhabitants, when compared with their later and more civilized
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 circumstances have
occurred in 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 occurrence in India. It has also been conjectured that the caste
of warriors, or the princes and hereditary nobility, possessed
originally greater power and influence; and that it is only by degrees
the race of Brahmins has attained to that great preponderance 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 which represent the deified heroes of India victoriously
defending the wise and pious Brahmins from the attacks of the fierce and
presumptuous Cshatriyas. This account, however, is susceptible of
another 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 warlike 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 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 considered 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 dependents.

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 annexed 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
confederacy between several potentates; and this has really been the
origin of an hereditary landed nobility in many countries.

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 nothing singular in itself, and
appears indeed to contain its own explanation. But it is not easy, or at
least equally so, to account 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 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 historical 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
particularly 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 exploring 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 civilization of the primitive
world, as the art of working and polishing them has ever contributed to
the refinement 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, perhaps, was the medicinal, or rather the
magical, use and influence 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 sacerdotal caste. But though such an
institution did not emanate from the Cainites, it may at least have been
occasioned by them. As I said before, the Mosaic history represents the
vast, boundless, prodigious corruption of the world in the age
immediately 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 supposes 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 establishment 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 unfitting. 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 contemplation, too much bent on giving utterance to the most
effective word, or expressing themselves with the most condensed
brevity, to perplex or trouble themselves with nicer distinctions, and
minor and often superfluous rules.

The providential care of these first Patriarchs for the preservation and
prosperity of their offspring and race is evinced in those Patriarchal
scenes described not only in the Sagas of other primitive nations, but
also in the sacred writings of the Hebrews; and where the hoary
grand-sire imparts and transmits to his sons and grand-sons 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 preferred 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
impending 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 contest, 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 Patriarchs 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 birth-right, all
those prerogatives 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 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 remembrance 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 shew
that, in the increasing degeneracy of man, every thing was soon more and
more disfigured and deranged, and finally became for the most part
undistinguishable, till it was afterwards a problem for the historical
enquirer to reduce to the simple elements of their origin the greatest,
most extraordinary and most remarkable phenomena which still remained,
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 ancient 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 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 as 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 enquiring 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 doctrines; 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
presentiments--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 enthusiastic 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 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 and 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 Pythagoreans, 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
literally and in strict truth, be referred to the Deity. The
all-pervading and self-transforming Vishnoo 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 philosophers; 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 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 life, 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 all 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 primitive
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 sublunary 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 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 existence, 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 historical testimony, is indeed remarkable; and even
in the minutest 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 it 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 own age, out of disgust with modern 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.[48] But among those ancient nations this
doctrine rested on a religious basis, and was connected with a sentiment
purely religious. In this doctrine 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
defective, 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 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 descended 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 accomplish 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 revered 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, regarded 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 conceived 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 Metempsychosis 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 importance, and was carried to a pitch
of refinement, such as we find among no other people; from that careful
and costly consecration of the corpse, which we still regard with wonder
and astonishment in their mummies and other monuments. That all these
solemn preparations, and the religious rites which accompanied them,
that the inscriptions on the tombs and mummies had all a religious
meaning and object, and were intimately connected 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
animate, but only on the entire decay and putrefaction of the corpse? Or
did they wish by their art of embalmment 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
connection between the soul and body. Yet we cannot adopt this
supposition to an unqualified extent, as it would be in contradiction
with those symbolical 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 and guardian
spirit, who employs every resource to procure the deliverance and
acquittal of the soul. Or did the Egyptians think that by all these
rites, as by so many magical expedients, they would 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 philosophy--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 even 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 different systems of
Indian philosophy tend--such is the term of all their enquiries. 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
consciousness 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 possible 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;
and which, transcending as they do all the limits of human nature, far
exceed the bounds of possibility, or what men have in general considered
as such. And the apparently incredible things which the Greeks related
more than two thousand years ago, respecting the recluses 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.



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
opposed, 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 re-union 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
individual 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 characterize them by one word,
the 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 consciousness 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 man, a prey to internal discord, 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
two-fold opposition one to the other, and are, if we may so speak,
dispersed into the four regions of existence. Reason in man is the
regulating 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 understanding, 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
understanding be associated with an unsteady and changeable will, the
individual destitute of character, is entirely without influence.

To prove moreover how all the other faculties of the soul, or the mind,
elsewhere enumerated are but the connecting links--the subordinate
branches[49] of those four primary faculties; how the general
dismemberment of the human consciousness 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
enquirer can observe but those four primary faculties mentioned 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
analyzed 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
systematic methodizer and a moral regulator, or a fertile, inventive
Imagination will be displayed, or a clear, penetrative understanding, 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 nations 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 nations; but in the peculiar form and
direction which the internal word in man--that is to say his higher
consciousness and intellectual life assumed among each. Such an
intellectual opposition evidently exists between those two great
primitive nations already characterized, 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, dialectic 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 includes a
faculty for scientific discoveries, nor did a mind destitute 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 constitutes the basis of the Indian
philosophy, were entirely free from 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 political
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
pre-supposed, 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
attribute to God the faculty of reason, as the faculty of imagination.
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
hostile sects, and at last subverted the old edifice of sacred
Tradition, to re-construct it on a new revolutionary plan.

Equally, and even still more strongly, apparent is the predominance of
the imaginative faculty among the Indians, as is seen even in their
science and in that peculiar tendency to mysticism which this faculty
has imparted to the whole Indian philosophy. 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 poetry, which in the manifold richness of invention is not
inferior 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 connexion resembles the
Egyptian, while in its rich clothing of poetry, 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 Indians, 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 characterizing each nation in regular succession, and with as much
accuracy and fullness as possible; in order by a comparative view of the
four principal nations of remote antiquity, to draw such a general
sketch of the first period of universal history as may serve at once for
a central point in our enquiries, 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 characterize in one word the peculiar bearing and ruling
element of the Egyptian mind; however unsatisfactory 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 mysteries 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
astronomical 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 first elements of their doctrines, or caught at
least the first outline 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 characterize
this people; we shall later have occasion to add many minuter traits to
complete this brief sketch of the Egyptian 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 allotted to
it in high historical destiny, lies rather in the sphere of will, and in
a well-regulated conduct of the will. Moses himself was undoubtedly, as
it is said of him, "versed in all the science of the Egyptians;" 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 country imply, extremely scientific.
Even his name according to the credible testimony of several ancient
writers, was originally Egyptian, and afterwards hebraized; for
_Moyses_,[50] as he is called in the Greek version of the Seventy,
signifies in Egyptian, _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 knowledge from his nation. Many of the
Mosaic precepts indeed, 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 law-givers 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
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 law-giver, 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
law-giver 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, 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 alphabet; 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 concession 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 necessary was that part of the
Mosaic legislation which proscribed all that was connected with the
religious use of images. But wherein consisted the peculiar bent of
mind, the moral and intellectual 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
penetrated 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 resignation, 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,
constantly, 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 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
distinguishing 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 principles, 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
understanding 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 still 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 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
concentration 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[51] 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 advancement which was as indispensable for the
perfection of intellect and knowledge, as of moral life itself. The
whole historical existence 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
key-stone 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 comprised in these books; we
shall find their historical view is turned backward 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 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 indispensably 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 significant
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 tenour of the Mosaic writings, like the existence
of the Hebrew nation, was formed for futurity--and to this were the
views of the Jewish legislator almost exclusively directed. And as all
the sacred writings of the Old Testament, which, by this direction
towards futurity, were even in their _outward form_ so clearly
distinguishable from the sacred books and primitive records of other
ancient nations; as all these sacred writings, I say, from the first
law-giver, 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 resounded 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 contrarieties in the internal
Word, and higher consciousness of each;--to these nations, in order to
complete the instructive 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 conquest; 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 augmented virulence through every age from
generation to generation; 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 regard 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
Phœnicians and Greeks, that no comparison can be instituted between
them and the latter; and no parallel, where the objects are so unlike,
can be productive 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 completely 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 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 no means impairs that strong
historical resemblance we here speak of. A circumstance 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 his 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
emblems 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 different 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
captivating for the feelings. The leading result of the few observations
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 admiration for sideral nature
were alone capable of revealing all the glory of the celestial abodes,
and of the heavenly hosts, of opening 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 eternal 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 is 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 mysteries 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 connecting link between the primitive
revelation and the full development of religion in modern times, and its
last glorious expansion towards the close of ages. They are now the
carriers, and, we may well say, the porters of the designs of
Providence, 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 anti-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 comparative 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 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 comparatively high state of
civilization 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
China, as with many other ancient civilized countries, where in the
back-ground 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 refinement. Such a
race is mentioned by historians as existing in different provinces of
China under the name of Miao--they are precisely characterized as an
earlier, less polished race of inhabitants, and they have indeed been
preserved down to later times. The historical enquirer 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 two-fold 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 civilize and instruct the
Mexicans and other barbarous nations; and as men must always act in
similar cases, if they would wish success to crown their benevolent
endeavours. All researches into the origin of the Chinese nation and
Chinese civilization ever conduct the enquirer 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 civilization 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 civilization from the
northern mountainous range of the Himalaya and the country northwards;
and in support of this tradition, 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 colossal 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 Deccan, in the Isles of Salsette and
Elephanta in the neighbourhood of Bombay, in the island of Ceylon, and
near Mavalipuram 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, occupy 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 almost incredible number of two
millions and a half. Together with the colossal images 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
prominently from the rock, that it would almost seem as if their backs
alone joined the wall. The multitude of figures is exceedingly 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 serpents, 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 Mahometans; 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
tendency in Indian architecture is towards the pyramidal form. On the
other hand, it is observed that the art of vaulting appears to have been
less known, or at least not to have attained great perfection, or been
in frequent use. We find, too, among 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 Ramayana and
the Mahabarata, 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 theological and philosophical purport. The
more modern history of Hindostan, from the first Mahometan conquest at
the commencement 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 mostly fabulous,
or, to characterize 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 mythology 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 epoch; and this, the duration of which is computed at four
thousand years, began about a thousand years before the Christian 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 condition 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 civilized 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 Rama, 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 shew, 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 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, feature in Indian
intellect and Indian literature, so widely remote from the relation
between poetry and philosophy among other nations, particularly the
Greeks. This is the close connection, 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 language, and the captivating interest of the narrative, are
generally imbued with, and pervaded by, the most profound philosophy;
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 philosophical 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 Bhagavatgita,
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 Vedanta 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 remarkable
traits. For the accomplishment of our more immediate object, and in
order rightly to understand the true place which the intellectual
culture of India occupies in primitive history, a general knowledge of
Indian philosophy is far more important 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
characterize according to its various systems, and in its main and
essential features.


END OF LECTURE V.



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 contains 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 Indian
systems which are the most prevalent and the most celebrated, 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
enquiry. 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 Sanchyá 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 principle 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 Sanchyá 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 understanding, 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 Englishman, Mr. Colebrooke, (to whose extracts and notices we
are indebted for our most precise information on this whole branch of
Indian literature)[52] 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 Sanchyá 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 illusion, as a vain and idle
apparition, that 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 somewhat 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 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 Creation, 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 we must make accurate
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 professed by the later sects
of a dialectic Rationalism.

Valuable, undoubtedly, as are such extracts and communications from the
originals in a branch of human science still so little known, yet they
will not alone suffice, and, without a certain philosophic flexibility
of talent in the enquirer, 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 exemplified by the second part of
the Sanchyá system (called the Yoga philosophy), where we find a totally
different principle proclaimed; 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 entirely concentrated on a
single point; and by which, according to the belief of the Indians,
miraculous power and supernatural knowledge are attained,--are held up
in the second part of the Sanchyá system as the highest term of all
mental exertion. The word Yoga signifies the complete union of all our
thoughts and faculties with God--by which alone the soul can be
freed--that is, delivered from the unhappy lot of transmigration; 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 hermit 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, although it has been repeatedly attested by eye-witnesses,
and is a well-ascertained historical fact; I will extract from the drama
of Sacontalá by the poet Calidas, a description of a Yogi, remarkable
for its vivid accuracy, or, to use the expression of the German
commentator, its fearful beauty. King Dushmanta enquires of Indra's
charioteer the sacred abode of him whom he seeks; and to this the
charioteer replies:[53] "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 exaggeration of a poet; the accuracy of
this description is confirmed 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 conduct is by no
means held up by Christian writers as a model of imitation, but is
regarded, at best, as an extraordinary exception 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 wonders, 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 wonderful
flexibility of human organization, and with those marvellous 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 concentrated on a single point: and this
concentration of the mind, when carried to this excess, may lead not
merely to a figurative, but to a real intellectual self-annihilation,
and to the disorder of all thought, even of the brain. While on the one
hand we must remain amazed at the strength of a will so tenaciously 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
Nyayà system, whose founder was Gautama--a personage whom several of the
earlier investigators of Indian literature, particularly Dr. Taylor, in
his Translation of the "Prabodha Chandrodaya,"--(page 116.) have
confounded with, the founder of the Buddhist sect, as both bear the same
name. But a closer enquiry has proved them to be distinct persons; and
Mr. Colebrooke himself finds greater points of coincidence or affinity
between the Sanchyá philosophy and Buddhism, than between the latter and
the Nyayà system. This Nyayà 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
copiousness, as the Greeks. Like the Indians, the learned Englishman,
who has first unlocked to our view this department of Indian literature,
has paid comparatively most attention to this second part of the Nyayà
philosophy. But all this logical philosophy, though it may furnish one
more proof (if such be necessary) 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.
Colebrooke 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
philosophy; 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 evidently 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 metaphysics, which we have before spoken of, may first be
traced to the source of Idealism; though in the progress of that
philosophy, 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 Nyayà 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
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 anti-christian sects--the
Buddhists.

The Indian authorities cited by Colebrooke, impute to the second part of
the Nyayà 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 enquiry even in philosophy, there were besides the six
most prevalent philosophic systems, recognized as generally conformable
to religion, several others in direct opposition to the established
doctrines on the Deity and on religion. Among these the Charvacâ
philosophy, which, according to Mr. Colebrooke, comprises 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 revived 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 Mimansá, 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 harmonize 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 revelation 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 recognized, or at least tolerated,
systems of philosophy may have been purposely thrown into the
back-ground, 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 enquiries of Indian scholars.

This Vedanta philosophy is in its general tendency, a complete 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 integument. But even the Vedas themselves inculcate the
necessity 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 literally
translated by Mr. Colebrooke.[54] "Man must recognise the soul--man must
separate it from nature--then it comes not again--then it comes not
again." These last words signify, 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 obligation 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."

We should scarcely conceive it possible (and it certainly tends to 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, beautiful 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 inexhaustible
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 characterized 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
Æschylus, 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 rhythmical
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
observations on this very remarkable language.

In its grammatical structure the language of India is absolutely 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 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 other, and almost separated by the distance of two quarters of the
globe, and to shew 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 locus,
comprehends the general 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 philosophy, 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 shewn by an interesting comparison of the words which
designate either of these objects 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 German _kuh_, (cow) perfectly coincides, quite agrees with the
Greek word for earth, in the old Doric form of γα: 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 subtilty, 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 history
(and that not the least important), and as the different tongues spread
in such amazing variety over the inhabited globe, are essentially
connected with universal history, and the history 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 languages; but in order to shew 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 belonging to this class
are by far the most considerable in number, and the most widely spread
over the four quarters of the globe; 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 considered 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 nature 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 extension, 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 languages, which are
connected with each other by strong and manifold ties of affinity, are
the Indo-Persic, the Græco-Latin, and the Gothico--Teutonic[55]. 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
grammatical structure. The distinguishing character of these languages
is a very artificial grammar, which enters so completely into the
primary formation of these languages, that the nearer we approach their
original the more regular and systematic do we find their structure. In
their progress these languages are characterized by a poetical fullness
and variety in the forms of narration, and even by a rigid precision in
scientific discussions.

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 pyramid. 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 presentient feeling
implied by that triplicity of roots.[56] In these languages the verb is
the first principle of derivation--the root from which every thing is
deduced, and hence a certain 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 certainly possess that
poetical variety, and that flexible adaptation to scientific purposes,
which characterize the second class of languages. The general
characteristic of the Semitic tongues is their peculiar fitness for
prophetic inspiration and for profound 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 I
shall only add that the character we have here assigned to the Semitic
languages 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 culture. 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 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 language
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 conceive
or imagine. In the same way no one is capable of proving 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 language, I think that a deeper inquiry would
shew 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 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 second. 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 Gælic languages, the
Finnish and other ancient remnants of language, which must not escape
the study of the philologist, whose judgment 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 generally 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 Gælic dialects, or lead the enquirer 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, especially the Hesperian
Peninsula, (a connection 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, belonging to that class which prevails in
the central regions of Asia; but in its grammatical structure it bears
some analogy to the languages of the second class. If, in conclusion I
might be allowed to hazard a conjecture, I should say that nothing 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 philologists, who, in deciphering the hieroglyphics
by the aid of the 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 languages), we
must start from four different quarters, and thread our way not only
through the Sanscrit and 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 countries have been more accurately
surveyed, and more closely investigated. In a remarkable expedition
which occurred in our own times, this strong religious sympathy was
strikingly displayed 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, however, as the resemblance between the two nations
may be, they are still characterized 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 symbol 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 remembered that an 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, 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 this
Fetish worship to consist in the divine adoration of a lifeless,
corporeal object; while they place on higher degrees, 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 different
powers of Nature. However 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 though 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 instruments and
conductors of magical power; and that the religion 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 indications
mentioned in an earlier part of this work. That the Egyptian mind had a
certain 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 unanimous in the assertion.

But if the different religions of Paganism must be classed according to
their _outward rites_ and _outward objects of worship_, 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 according to human feelings, no sacrifice is so filial, so simple,
so appropriate, as that of the first fruits of the earth in returning
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 civilized nations of Pagan antiquity have ever
held the foremost place. Of this kind is the great sacrifice of the
horse[57] 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,[58] 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 representative 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 darkness, 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 existence of human sacrifices, and especially the
sacrifice of children 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
civilized, and, (in many respects) milder era of history. The species of
human sacrifice most widely diffused among all the Phœnician 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 secretly practised
under the Roman domination. These sacrifices 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 civilized 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
up 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[59] 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 supposed, or
at present asserted. Thus, for instance, the 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 civilized 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 progression--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 civilization. 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 character 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 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
their 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 every where 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 in those regions; and
was first a province of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, then became
subject to the Persian monarchs, and 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 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 such an 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 symbolical 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 as it is
neither necessary nor 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 general
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 records of the other Asiatic
nations an historical survey of all the nations on the globe, at once so
clear, luminous, and instructive; 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 immediately
for his own people, and his own Book of the law; and in his account of
the origin of nations, the sacred historian proceeded 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 Phœnicians, 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 undergoes considerable
modifications, and the whole subject is rendered unsusceptible of a
systematic division and arrangement. It often happens that one race
adopts the language of another, without on that account losing its
national identity, or being totally confounded with the other; for, on
the contrary, 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
connection with other nations 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 Phœnicians, 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 determining the
rank which one race should hold above another. By Moses, in particular,
this intellectual character of the different races--their
feelings--modes of thinking--the whole spirit which animated them, in a
word--the chain of sacred tradition, and its transmission and
preservation among the different nations--all these are regarded of
primary importance, 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 corrupt, and by no means entirely barbarous: but which
were debarred from that near and immediate participation in the sacred
Traditions of primitive revelation, enjoyed by the peoples of the
Semitic race in that midland country, whose distinctive character and
high pre-eminence, according to Moses, consisted in this very
participation. To the South, the race of Cham includes 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 Phœnician 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.



LECTURE VII.

     General considerations upon the nature of man, regarded in an
     historical 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 violently strained into an adaptation to all 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. This is that principle laid
down in that revelation, at the commencement of all history, as the one
wherein consists the peculiar 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 history, 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, definite, and consistent views on the subject.
According to one party, man is merely an animal, ennobled and gradually
disciplined into reason, and finally exalted into genius; and therefore
the history of human civilization 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 became in his time a martyr to these principles.[60]

In the contests of opinion, which embrace the general relations of
society, it is far less those dogmas in which each individual 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 religion or irreligion of history, if I may be
allowed the expression. This principle of the endless perfectibility of
man has something in it very accordant with reason; and if this
perfectibility 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 a mass of stubborn
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 history--or if it be susceptible of explanation, it certainly
is not reconcileable 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 even should their course,
like that of the planets of our heaven at stated periods, be in
appearance once retrogressive; the historical enquirer, 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 consist in his likeness to God; and
from this principle proceeds a view of history totally different from
that we have just described; for, according to it, man's history must be
the history of the restoration of the likeness to God, or of the
progress towards that restoration. That this sublime origin of man being
once supposed--the divine image has been much altered, impaired, and
defaced in the inmost recesses of the human breast, both of man in
particular and of mankind in general, is a truth we may learn,
independently of the positive doctrine of religion; for clearly is it
vouched and confirmed by the testimony of our own feelings, our own
experience of life, and a general survey of the world. No man who well
knows that the image of God has been stamped on the human soul,--an
image, whose old, half-obliterated characters are still to be found on
all the pages of primitive history, and whose impress, not utterly
effaced, every reflecting mind may discover in its own interior--can
ever forego the hope, that, much as that divine image may seem, or may
in fact be, impaired, its restoration is still possible. The man who
knows from human life, and from his own experience, how great and
arduous is this work--how many obstacles oppose its accomplishment, and
how easily, even after a partial success, what already appeared won, may
be again lost;--the man understanding this, will not be at a loss to
comprehend any pause or retrogression, real or apparent, in the march of
mankind; he will judge the fact with more equity, and consequently more
accuracy; and will, in every case, confide in the guidance of that
superior Providence, clearly visible in this regeneration of the world.
If, in opposition to the Rationalist theory of man's endless
perfectibility, we were to designate the opposite system of history
founded on man's inborn likeness to his Maker, as the _legitimacy_ of
historical philosophy; this title would not be incorrect, since all
divine and human laws and rights, as they are found in history, depend
in their first basis on the supposition of the high dignity and divine
destination of man. Hence this view of history is the only one which
restores to man the full rights and peculiar prerogatives of his being.
Even to all other truths it restores their full force and rights; and it
alone can do so without detriment to its own principle; for, as this is
the simple truth, it is therefore complete and comprehensive. It must
even acknowledge that man, beside his higher dignity and divine destiny,
is and remains in his outward existence a physical creature--and though
he be such not in an exclusive, but only secondary and subordinate
sense, still, in respect to his external being and external development,
he may be subject to certain natural laws in history. In the same way it
may admit that man endowed with freedom, even when he rejects the
religious principle, is still a being gifted with reason; a being that
consequently on this foundation incessantly works, builds and improves,
in good as in evil, essentially, interminably,--we might almost say,
fearfully progressive. This legitimate philosophy of history, which
proceeds from the high, divine point of view, should be, as far as the
limited capacity of man will permit, a recognition and a just
appreciation of the truth, and thereby become a science of history--that
is to say, of all which under Providence has occurred to the human race.
Thus it must by no means adopt a view of life and of the world,
transcending the true right and the right truth--it must avoid deviating
into _ultraism_--though this term of the present day involves in the
expression of a true idea, some inaccuracy and misconception. On the
contrary, this religious view of history and of life, precisely because
it is such, can never in its historical judgments sanction a spirit of
harsh, precipitate, unqualified censure. For as the Mosaic doctrine of
the divine image stamped on the human soul, forms the real and
distinctively Christian theory of man, and consequently of his history;
so this evidently implies that, among all the laws of human conduct,
emanating from this Christian theory, and from Christianity itself, the
law of love is the first and the greatest:--a law which must retain its
full force and efficacy not only in life, but in science also. Yet love
or charity is by no means incompatible with firmness of principle--the
vacillations of judgment proceed only from indifference to, or the utter
absence of, all principle--the tomb of love, as well as of truth.

This divine image implanted in the human breast is not an isolated
thought--a transient flash of light, like the kindling spark of
Prometheus: nor is it a mere Platonic resemblance to the Deity--an ideal
speculation of the human mind, soaring beyond the range of vulgar
conception. But, as this likeness to God forms the fundamental principle
of human existence, it is interwoven with the internal structure of
human consciousness; and the triple nature of the soul is intimately
connected with the principle of the divine resemblance. In its state of
discord, the human consciousness, in its external operations, pursues
four opposite paths of direction towards reason (vernunft), or
imagination (fantasie), or understanding (verstand), or will (wille), so
long as these faculties remain disunited. But, when consciousness is
restored to its primitive harmony, the internal life of man is
three-fold in mind, soul, and sense; and to expound and demonstrate this
truth, was the purport and object of the Philosophy of Life, which I
treated of in a former course of lectures. And this triple nature of
spiritual life, which, among all creatures, characterizes man alone, is
most closely allied with the triple energy and personality of the one
Divine Being, and constitutes, as far as the immeasurable distance
between the creature and Creator will permit, the wonderful analogy
between weak, mutable man, and the infinite Spirit of eternal Love. But
the original harmony of human consciousness--the triple nature of
spiritual life, can be restored in individual man by the following means
only:--the soul, previously distracted, can regain its unity, or become
again whole, only by a divine illumination;--when this light--the first
ray of hope--is humbly received and imbibed by the soul. Enlightened by
this first incipient ray, the mind, the living mind, no longer now a
cold, dead, abstract understanding, is enabled to embrace with faith the
pure word of truth (which is one with love), and to comprehend this word
aright, and, by this word, to comprehend the world and its
ownself:--while the understanding, in its former isolated and abstract
state, was both internally and externally distracted and divided between
the phantasmata of nature and the endless sophisms of contentious
dialectic. When thus the strong hand of all-guiding love, hath loosed
the Gordian knot which bound the human consciousness in inextricable
folds;--the third fundamental faculty in man--the sense for divine
things--is then awakened and excited. This is now no longer a mere
passive feeling for divine things--a will undetermined, or incapable of
good: but it becomes an energy acting on life--an energy which is itself
life and deed.

But the progressive march of social man which constitutes the subject of
universal history, or, as we term it, the formation and growth of
humanity, are regulated by principles somewhat different from those
which determine the internal life of individual man. Here the different
stages of development cannot be classed according to the three
fundamental faculties of consciousness in individual man; but the
principle of development must be sought for in the divine impulse, as
the same is attested by history, and which, in every stage of social
progress, has been to mankind the source of a new life; though here
again from the very nature of things, three marked degrees of social
advancement occur. Corresponding to the divine image implanted in the
breast of individual man--the main subject of all history--the Word of
divine truth originally communicated to man, and which the sacred
traditions of all nations attest in so many and such various ways, forms
the leading clue of historical investigation and judgment, during the
first stage of the progress of society. But in the second stage of
social development, which most be fixed in that full noon-day period of
refinement, when victorious Power shines forth so conspicuously in the
ascendancy obtained by nations, to whom universal pre-eminence was
accorded--the right notion of this power, or the question how far it
were just and godly, or pernicious in its application--whether it were
inimical to God, or at least of a mixed nature--must constitute the true
standard of historical investigation. In the third or last stage,
however, of this progress, which occurs in the modern period of the
world, the pure truths of Christianity, as they influence science and
life itself, can alone furnish the right clue of historical enquiry, and
can alone afford any indication as to the ulterior advances of society
in future ages. Thus then the _Word_, the _Power_, and the _Light_, form
the three-fold divine principle, or the moral classification of
historical philosophy--a classification which is founded on historical
experience and historical reality.

The existence of a primitive revelation--the establishment of
Christianity, which was the principle and power of a new moral life in
society--and the pre-eminence of modern Europe in civilization, in which
she outshines all other portions of the globe, and even in many respects
most periods of antiquity, are three historical data--three mighty facts
in civilization, which evince the successive stages of human progress
and improvement. And it is our task to appreciate in their full extent
each of those different degrees of social advancement, and to comprehend
and explain them aright in their relative bearings to the whole. That
the Christian nations and states of Europe have received, along with the
light of Divine truth, a high intellectual, moral and political
illumination, no one will deny; and it is equally evident that this
vital principle of modern society is still involved in the crisis of its
development--a crisis which will form the principal subject of
historical enquiry in the latter part of this work.

It is equally undeniable that, in the second period of the world, to
which I now pass, each of those nations that attained to universal
empire at that epoch, displayed a high intellectual or moral energy.
This energy was visible in that strong, deep sense of nature, which
characterized the old ancestral faith and pure manners of the ancient
Persians, and in that high martial enthusiasm, and fervent patriotism,
which it so easily inspired. The power of inventive genius in the
sciences, and in the fine arts, none can deny to the Greeks; none can
dispute their pre-eminence in these; as, on the other hand, the Romans
were equally unrivalled in vigour of character, and in that moral energy
of will, which they exhibited in all their contests with other states.
Here now the question to be asked is, whether that high intellectual and
moral energy accorded to those nations, thus gifted with universal
dominion, were always well employed: whether that power, exalted as it
was, were truly divine, or what were the earthly and pernicious elements
intermixed with it;--whether this power, great and wonderful as it was
in its way, were in itself adequate to the moral and intellectual
regeneration of degraded humanity; or whether a power of another, far
purer and higher nature were requisite to this end. I should think I had
amply solved the problem involved in the history of that first period of
the world, which I have here brought to a close, if, in this brief
historical sketch, I have succeeded in proving the existence of an
original revelation to mankind--the primitive word of divine
truth--whereof we find the clearest indications and scattered traces in
the sacred traditions of all the primitive nations--traces which, when
viewed apart, appear like the broken remnants, the mysterious, and, as
it were, hieroglyphic characters--of a mighty edifice that has been
destroyed. I should think, too, I had fully accomplished my task, if I
have succeeded in proving that, however much amid the growing degeneracy
of mankind, this primal word of revelation may have been falsified by
the admixture of various errors, however much it may have been overlaid
or obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inextricably confused,
and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition; still a profound
enquiry will discover in heathenism many luminous vestiges of primitive
truth.

For the old Heathenism (and we must add this remark as the result of our
enquiries), the old Heathenism had a foundation in truth, and,
thoroughly examined and rightly understood, would serve for a
confirmation of the same; for the profound researches of recent times on
ancient mythology, and its historical sources, though conducted with the
most opposite views, lead us more and more to this great end and result
of all the knowledge of antiquity, or at least very near it. Were it
possible, or could we succeed in separating the pure intuition into
nature and the simple symbols of nature, that constituted the basis of
all Heathenism, from the alloy of error, and the incumbrances of
fiction; those first hieroglyphic traits of the instinctive science of
the first men would not be repugnant to truth and to a true knowledge of
nature, but would offer on the contrary, an instructive image of a
freer, purer, more comprehensive, and more finished philosophy of life.
For, if man, who is the highest and most central object of nature on the
earth, had not possessed in the beginning an instinctive science and
immediate insight into nature, he could never have attained to this
knowledge by the resources of art, and by all the aids of instruments
and machinery, or have acquired thereby a true understanding of nature,
her internal life, and her hidden powers. The symbolical error which has
produced mythology, and which has again emanated from mythology--I mean
the identification of the symbol with the object itself, of which, as
the latter was something higher and more mysterious, the former
originally was, and should have been, nothing more than the mere
explanatory emblem--the symbolical error is comparatively the most
excusable; and, for a being constituted like man, whose soul is divided
between figurative fancy and discursive reason, is almost natural, and
has grown into a psychological habit, and a second nature. This error
would never have arisen, if the confusion of the high and of the low, of
the principal and of the inferior, of God and of Nature, and the
inversion of the due order of each, had not, in a partial degree at
least, previously taken place. The fundamental error of Paganism lay in
the sensual idolatry of nature, by which that inversion of things, and
with them of all moral doctrines, took place; although this destructive
error of materialism is to be found not only in the heathen religion,
but in the atomical philosophy and other false systems of science.
Besides that sensual deification of nature, which was the predominant
principle in the mythology and popular religion of the ancients, there
was another and capital error--magic, which was a dark and abusive
application--an illicit perversion of the high powers of nature, when
these were really understood, and the mind, penetrating through her
sensible and external veil, had caught her true spirit and internal
life. This loftier, and, on that account, more dangerous error was not
so prevalent in the popular and poetical religion of antiquity, but was
chiefly to be found in the secret associations of the Pagan
Mysteries.--Although these Mysteries which, in Greece, as well as in
Egypt, exerted such a mighty influence on public opinion, on science,
and on the whole system of thinking, nay on life itself, disclosed far
graver and profounder doctrines than the vulgar mythology of the poets,
on all the great questions relative to the human soul, its capacity and
original dignity, as well as to the hidden powers of Nature and the
whole invisible world; still we must not imagine that the influence of
these Mysteries was always salutary, or that their internal constitution
and ruling spirit were in their ultimate tendency always entitled to
commendation. We may, in my opinion, ascribe to the Egyptians much
science, especially in physics, more perhaps than the Greeks in general,
and the Pythagoreans in particular, had, as far as we yet know, learned
and borrowed from them; but we must not imagine this Egyptian science to
have been exempt from a gross alloy of error, and the various abuses of
magic. When once the sacred standard and clue of truth are lost, when
the due order of things and of doctrines is once inverted, then the mind
of man often associates the sublime, the mysterious, and the wonderful,
with the mean, the perverse, and the wicked. Amid all those false and
whimsical images of Gods, the mere symbols of Nature, but at least very
equivocal emblems and hieroglyphs, the temple-sleep of the Egyptians
might easily nourish illusions of error and visions of darkness;
especially where a magical spirit prevailed, that is to say, an illicit
purpose in the application of the high powers of nature--and a will
instigated to evil by the arts of the demon. And in all science the
matter of greatest moment, and that which determines its value, is its
relation to the higher and divine truth; that is to say, whether this
science be well employed, or whether, on the contrary, it be converted
to a corrupt and destructive use; whether the due order and
subordination of inferior Nature, and of every thing earthly, towards
God and the things of God, which are the principal, be rightly observed
and maintained. But this fundamental truth being once supposed, all
science, even that which penetrates the deepest into Nature and her most
hidden springs of life, can conduce only to the greater glory of the
mighty author of Nature. All these natural secrets, and their true
explanations, are to be found in various passages, notices, and
allusions in the Old Testament, especially in the books of Moses; they
are, indeed, to be found there, like so many golden grains of science in
full weight, but, scattered and dispersed, they serve at once to adorn
and point out the path that leads to an object, ever regarded as the
most important in Holy Writ--namely, the revealing to man the wonderful
ways of divine Providence in the conduct of the human race--the holy ark
of the covenant of divine mysteries and promises, if I may be allowed
such an expression. Here every thing is subordinate to religion, every
thing ministers to this higher object--and this is the distinctive mark
and stamp of truth, even in the investigations of Nature, and of its
revealed or hidden mysteries.

How a slight deviation from truth may suffice to give birth in time to a
mighty and progressive error, is strongly exemplified in the fundamental
doctrine of the ancient religion of Persia--a doctrine which was at
first nothing more than a simple veneration of Nature, its pure elements
and its primary energies--the sacred fire, and above all, light--the
air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and higher air of
heaven--the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life.
In India, too, this doctrine must have been very prevalent in the
primitive ages; for many and very ancient passages of the Vedas refer to
these elements, while on the other hand, the names of the later Hindoo
divinities appear to have been entirely unknown at that period. This
pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and
was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and Patriarchal
world. In its original conception, it was by no means a deification of
Nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God--it was only at a later
period that the symbol, as it so often happens, was confounded with the
thing itself, and usurped the place of that higher Object which it was
destined originally to represent. And how can we doubt that these pure
elements and primitive essences of created Nature would offer to the
first men, who were still in a close communication with the Deity, not
indeed a likeness or resemblance (for in man alone is that to be found),
nor a mere fanciful image, or a poetical figure, but a natural and true
symbol of divine power;--how can we doubt this, I say, when we see that,
in so many passages of Holy Writ (not to say in every part), the pure
light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and
all-consuming power and omnipotence of God? Not to speak again of those
passages of scripture, which describe the animating breath and
inspiration of God as the first source of life, and speak of the gentle
breath, the light whisper of the breeze that announced to the prophet
the immediate presence of his God, before whom he fell prostrate, and
mantled himself in awe and reverence; and this surely cannot be
understood as a poetical and figurative expression! Undoubtedly the
scriptures often oppose to that natural emblem or veil of divine power,
in the pure elements, an evil, subterraneous and destructive fire--the
false light of the fiends of error--the poisonous breath of moral
contagion. And how could it be otherwise? Nature in its origin was
nought else than a beautiful image--a pure emanation--a wonderful
creation--a sport of omnipotent love; so, when it was severed from its
divine original, internally displaced, and turned against its Maker, it
became vitiated in its substance, and fraught with evil. This alienation
of Nature from God, this inversion of the right order in the relations
between God and Nature, was the peculiar, essential and fundamental
error of ancient Paganism, its false Mysteries, and the abusive
application of the higher powers of Nature in magical rites. On the
other hand, we ought to regard every similar inversion of things and of
ideas, every similar derangement in the divine system, though
established on the basis of Christianity, and by Christian
philosophers--we ought, I say, to regard every such attempt as being in
its essential nature and principle a heathen enterprise--the foundation
of a scientific Paganism, although no altars be erected to Apollo, and
no Mysteries be celebrated in honour of Isis.[61]

The pure symbolism of Nature, and the whole circle of the primitive
symbolical ideas of the Egyptians, several of the Greek writers
attempted to gather out of the mass of idolatrous tenets, natural
emblems, and hieroglyphic signs of speech; but their researches do not
correspond to the importance of the subject itself, nor to the present
demands of science. It is well worthy of remark that the hieroglyphics,
as far as they have yet been deciphered, do not indicate in their
formation that variety of epochs observable in the Chinese system of
writing; but on the contrary they seem to be all of a single cast, and
offer the same circle of ideas and the same style of emblems. And as
images of Gods are to be found in a diminutive form among the other
hieroglyphic signs, we may conclude from this circumstance, that all the
hieroglyphics must have had a simultaneous origin, and have remained
subsequently unchanged; and that their origin must have occurred at a
time when the Egyptian idolatry had already been wrought into a perfect
system.

In the primitive ages, during the first thirty-three centuries of the
world, according to the ordinary computation, the various nations into
which mankind were divided, followed in their development a separate and
secluded course; and two mighty nations, the Indians and the Chinese,
have remained to this day in this isolated and totally sequestered
state. The peculiar character which distinguishes the second from the
first epoch of the world is that, along with the first mighty conquests,
there existed a much closer connection, a mutual influence, an active
commerce, and various intercourse among many nations, nay, among all the
nations of the then civilized world. From this period, when the
intercourse among nations becomes more intimate, History acquires
greater clearness, precision, and critical exactness; and this is only
six, or at most seven centuries before the Christian era. The first
Persian conquerors advanced with rapid strides towards the objects of
their ambition; for after the founder of the Persian empire--Cyrus, had
made himself master of the whole central region of Western Asia, as well
as of the Lesser Asia, his successes were soon followed up by the
conquest of Egypt by the arms of Cambyses; and a little subsequent to
this, by the great expedition of Xerxes into Greece, whose valiant
defenders, however, ruined his hopes of conquest. Egypt, which in its
intellectual character, civilization, and political institutions, had a
much stronger analogy and affinity with those two great primitive
states--India and China, shut out from the rest of the world, was
engaged in political relations with the nations of Western Asia, and
those inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean, such as the Persians,
the Phœnicians, and the Greeks; and hence a short sketch of its
political history, down to the period of the Persian conquest, as far at
least as is necessary for the elucidation of general history, will not
be here inappropriate or misplaced.

The long list of names of kings, belonging to more than twenty dynasties
of the ancient Pharaohs, furnishes indeed matter of little interest or
importance to the philosophic enquirer in his researches on universal
history. It is, however, worthy of remark that many and vast expeditions
appear to have been undertaken in the early ages of Egypt; though, while
mention is made of such conquests, nothing is said of the permanent
possession of the conquered countries. Sesostris, who, in the lifetime
of his father, Amenophis, had seized the whole coast of Arabia, next
vanquished, for the first time, Lybia and Ethiopia, afterwards extended
his conquests to Bactriana, subdued the Scythian nations in the
Caucasian countries, in Colchis, and as far as the Don, and even took
possession of Thrace. The descent of the Colchians from the Egyptians,
or the existence of an Egyptian colony in Colchis, was regarded by the
ancients as an historical fact. The yet more ancient King Osymandas is
said to have undertaken an expedition, attended by an immense army, to
reconquer Bactriana that had revolted against the Egyptian sway; and the
triumphant arms of Osiris stretched on one hand as far as the Ganges,
and on the other as far as the sources of the Danube. Here a question
arises:--did the Egyptians possess heroic poems similar to the Ramayana
and Mahabarata of the Indians, and were these marvellous narratives
extracted from these poems? Or had all these narratives a signification
purely mythic, as we may easily conjecture to be the case in the
expedition of Osiris? In those historical ages which are better known to
us, Egypt was certainly never a conquering power--at least its conquests
were never of a solid and permanent nature; though even in those times
Egypt made some transient conquests, or at least expeditions; and,
guilty of great political encroachments on other states and nations, was
often doomed to experience from these a vigorous resistance to her
attempts. A part of Libya, the coast of Arabia contiguous to the Red
Sea, and the Arabia Petræa, acknowledged for a long time the sceptre of
the Pharaohs, (and this fact indeed, the various monuments covered over
with hieroglyphics, which are found in those countries, would seem to
corroborate): Ethiopia, too, or at least a considerable portion of that
region, was for a long period in the possession of the Egyptian kings.
The construction of the many ancient and vast edifices and monuments
which are crowded together in the province of Thebais must, to all
appearance, have required a greater number of hands than the Proper
Egypt (a country by no means of considerable extent) could have
furnished of itself. As Ethiopia had been conquered by the Egyptians, so
the Ethiopians in their turn invaded Egypt, and founded there a royal
dynasty. The second of these Ethiopian kings, Tirhaka, sought to stretch
his conquests as far as Libya and the Northern coast of Africa, and must
have penetrated as far as the columns of Hercules, or the modern straits
of Gibraltar. On the other hand, there is historical evidence that even
the Carthaginians, at the time when the family of Mago had the
ascendancy in their state, conquered and took possession of the Egyptian
city of Thebes. The king of Egypt, who is known in the historical books
of the Hebrews by the name of Shishak, and who made the transient
conquest of Jerusalem, is called Sheshonk or Sesonchis in the ancient
inscriptions of the Pharaohs.

It is worthy of remark that we find, in the old Egyptian monuments,
pictures of war-scenes representing very strangely-formed, or at least
very remote, nations, as captives of war, and among these, we
distinguish some with red hair and blue eyes, tattooed on the legs,
perfectly corresponding to the descriptions which many ancients have
left us of the Scythian nations. At a much earlier period, a Nomade
tribe of Phœnician, or, most probably, Arabian descent, had taken
possession of the throne of Egypt, and had established in that country
the national dynasty of the Hycsos, that is to say, the Shepherd-kings.
Some have wished to connect these with the Israelites; but in the whole
history of the latter--the hospitable reception of the Hebrew colony
under Joseph--its subsequent oppression--and its final expulsion from
Egypt in the time of Moses, we can find no trace of any such dominion of
a pastoral nation of Hebrews, or of any dynasty founded by them in
Egypt; and even other circumstances agree not at all with such a
supposition. With the neighbouring nations and tribes, Egypt had
manifold and various relations, which, though in some particulars they
might be similar, were far from being identical. If it is proved that
Sesostris ascended the throne immediately after his father had succeeded
in expelling the Hycsos, it may fairly be presumed that as an internal
revolt against a foreign power and a foreign dynasty is wont to enkindle
a spirit of martial enthusiasm, which easily leads to ulterior and more
vigorous undertakings; the expeditions and conquests of Sesostris,
though ever so much exaggerated, are not entirely destitute of
historical foundation. Thus much is certain, that in antiquity there
existed in many places, comparatively remote from Egypt, whole colonies,
especially of a sacerdotal kind, whose origin was undoubtedly Egyptian;
and that the first colonies which carried arts and civilization into
Greece, and the other countries bordering on the Mediterranean; did not
come solely from Phœnicia; for even in Greece, the genealogy of many
royal families and ancient cities, as well as most, if not all, the
Mysteries, particularly the Orphic, pointed to Egypt as their common
parent. And it is very possible that in those early ages, in which these
Egyptian expeditions are said to have been undertaken, armed colonies
may have emigrated from Egypt, not always influenced however by those
commercial views which invariably directed the colonists of Phœnicia;
but animated by those higher motives of religion, which, for example,
had such an evident influence on the first Persian conquests--by a
desire to diffuse the Mysteries, and thereby, while they bound to Egypt
the then still barbarous nations of the West, to raise the latter to the
more exalted scale of Egyptian civilization. Even domestic troubles and
civil discord may have been instrumental in producing those distant
emigrations, which at this distance of time appear to us so mysterious
and unaccountable. Such civil discord indeed existed in Egypt under
various forms. The country itself was often divided into several
kingdoms; and even when united, we observe a great conflict of interests
between the agricultural province of Upper Egypt, and the commercial and
manufacturing province of the Lower; as indeed a similar clashing of
interests is often to be noticed in modern states. In the period
immediately preceding the Persian conquest, the caste of warriors, that
is to say, the whole class of nobility were decidedly opposed to the
monarchs, because they imagined them to promote too much the power of
the priesthood; in the same way as the history of India presents a
similar rivalry or political hostility between the Brahmins and the
caste of the Cshatriyas. In the reign of the Egyptian king Psammetichus,
who had first checked or repelled the Scythian nations whose victorious
arms then menaced the whole of Asia, this disaffection of the native
nobility obliged this prince to take Greek soldiers into his pay; and
thus at length was the defence of Egypt intrusted to an army of foreign
mercenaries. This circumstance, as well as the great commercial
intercourse with the Greeks, and the number of Greek settlements in
Lower Egypt, had made this province half Greek even prior to the Persian
conquest; and had paved the way, and opened the door, to this, as well
as to the later, conquest by the Greeks: for, in general, states and
kingdoms, before they succumb to a foreign conqueror, are, if not
outwardly and visibly, yet secretly and internally undermined.

The classical writers of antiquity begin in general their universal
history by an account of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, which preceded
the Medo-Persian, and the annals of the early mythic ages of this empire
are embellished with the fabulous victories of Semiramis; as similar
fictions indeed are to be found in the primitive Sagas of all the other
Asiatic nations. However, the conquest of Media by Ninus, appears to be
more historical. The simplest, and for that reason, the most correct
view of the subject is this, that in this great central region of
Western Asia, four countries were contiguous, which often formed
separate empires--Babylon and Assyria, Media and Persia; and which, when
united, were governed sometimes by one, sometimes by another province,
according to the country to which the ruling dynasty belonged; while the
different capitals of these four countries, Babylon, Ninive, Ecbatana,
Susa, or Persepolis alternately formed during their flourishing period
the centre of a great empire. This first Assyro-Babylonian universal
monarchy, as it is called, should not be considered as a distinct period
of history, but rather as the most ancient dynasty of a great Asiatic
empire, which was succeeded by a second, the Medo-Persian dynasty; in
the same way as the successors of Alexander the Great founded in this
very country a new Greek kingdom, and as at a later period the
Parthians, whose original seat lay to the North-east, re-established in
this land a native sovereignty, that proved very formidable to the
Romans. This great middle country of Western Asia is the native seat of
conquest; it was hence that emanated the spirit of ambition and
enterprise, which found indeed in the very situation of the country most
extraordinary facilities. And it is here, too, that Holy Writ places the
abode of the first universal conqueror--the cradle of all ambition and
conquest. In the very place where the ancient Babylon stood there are
now immense ruins, to which the inhabitants of the country give the name
of Nimrod's castle, and which involuntarily bring to the modern
traveller's mind the old history of the Tower of Babel; as these ruins
in all probability formed a part of the great temple of Belus, which in
eight lofty stories rose to a prodigious height, and on the pinnacle
whereof stood a colossal idol of the National Divinity--the sun. Even
now the ruins of this temple, piled in immense heaps one upon the other,
and which seem as if glazed by some raging fire, produce a very profound
impression on the mind; and to such a height do they rise that the
clouds rest on their summit above, while lions couch on the walls, or
haunt the caverns below. Here, too, we look for the place where were the
vast terraces, with their hanging or floating gardens, as the ancients
called them, and which in a country by no means abounding in wood, the
Assyrian monarch constructed from affection to his Median spouse. Here
the widely scattered heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the
cuneal characters of Babylon, attest the existence and vast
circumference of the mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European
city, but the Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This
Babylonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-aspiring
edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is sure to be struck
down and scattered afar by the arm of the divine Nemesis; and in Holy
Writ itself, the Babylon giddied by the intoxicating cup of ambition,
drunk with the blood of nations, is a mighty historical emblem,
applicable to every age from the earliest to the latest times, of the
mad, people-destroying career of a Pagan pride. Here did the evil
commence, although the first Assyrian empire had no very extensive
influence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch of
universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the ancient Babylon
contrived to maintain her power, for, as has so often been exemplified
in history, she, by the moral contagion of her voluptuous manners,
conquered her conquerors, who abandoned the gods of their ancestors, to
embrace the sensual nature-worship of the Babylonians. In the new
monarchy founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were
closely united and politically, at least, incorporated with the once
more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were originally very
different, and even at a later period we can still observe some traces
of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty, or the forcible dethronement
of the prince. The institute of the Magi, which Cyrus established in his
new Persian empire, served outwardly at least, to cement this union; for
the Magi were of the Median race, and their sacred zend-books were not
composed in the Persian language, but in two distinct dialects of Media,
if one indeed were not rather Bactrian. The Magi were not so much an
hereditary sacerdotal caste, as an order or association divided into
various and successive ranks and grades, such as existed in the
Mysteries--the grade of apprenticeship--that of mastership--that of
perfect mastership. Foreigners could not easily gain admission into this
sacerdotal order; and it was only at the express solicitation of the
King of Persia, at whose court he resided, that this extraordinary
favour was accorded to Themistocles. Whether the old Persian doctrine
and _system of light_[62] did not undergo material alterations in the
hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster; or whether this doctrine were
preserved in all its purity by the order of the Magi, may well be
questioned. It is certain at least that that primitive veneration of
nature is found completely disfigured and corrupted in the small
existing remnant of the sect of Guebers or fire-worshippers.

On the order of the Magi devolved the important trust of the monarch's
education--a trust which must necessarily have given them great weight
and influence in the state. They were in high credit at the
_Persiangates_--for that was the oriental name given to the capital of
the empire, and the abode of the prince; and they took the most active
part in all the factions that encompassed the throne, or that were
formed in the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the
sacerdotal fraternities and associations of initiated, formed by the
Mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not unimportant,
influence on affairs of state; but in the Persian monarchy they acquired
a complete political ascendency. The next main pillar of the Persian
monarchy was its nobility, or the principal race of the Pasargads, who
immediately surrounded the throne, enjoyed the highest prerogatives, and
formed indeed the flower of the Persian army. The strict moral and
military education which this nobility received, and of which Xenophon
has drawn such a beautiful ideal sketch, constituted the chief strength
of the state. And certainly the neglect of this old Persian system of
education was one of the primary causes of the decline of the empire--a
decline which the progressive relaxation and corruption of public morals
accelerated with a fearful rapidity. After the first mighty impulse, and
that severe moral character which Cyrus had imparted to Persia, had
disappeared, the same fate befel this empire, as has befallen all the
great oriental monarchies. The same evils, which the domination of
provincial Satraps--a government of the Seraglio--invariably bring along
with it--the factions, the conspiracies, the changes of dynasty, and the
other disorders incident to despotism, appear in exactly similar colours
in the Persian annals; and even in the modern kingdom of Persia, we find
many of those characteristic traits or usages of Asiatic government, as
they existed in the ancient empire. Even the army for the most part
consisted of troops levied out of the conquered nations, and the greater
were its numbers, the less internal union did it possess. Hence we can
well conceive that a small army of Greeks, animated by patriotic valour,
and commanded by generals possessed of a true tactical eye and genius,
were able to oppose to the immense hosts of Persia a resistance which in
a numerical point of view, appears almost incredible, and were even
enabled to gain unexpected victories over their enemies. We can conceive
too, how in the time of Alexander the Great, three battles should have
decided the fate of this great empire; for its moral life and energy
were gone, and the pillars of the state were completely decayed.

The Persian empire lasted but for the short period of two hundred and
twenty years, from its foundation by Cyrus to the reign of the last
Darius, whose personal character and fate leave such an affecting and
tragical impression on our minds. The universal conquests of the
Persians, rapid, but transient, acted on the age with all the violence
of the elemental powers of nature. Sudden and rapid, like a wind-storm,
they invaded and subdued all other states and kingdoms;--the expedition
of Xerxes into Greece was a real inundation of nations--and as the
destructive fire, after blazing on high and desolating and consuming all
things around, sinks quickly again--it was so with the Persian empire.
The dominion of the Persians exerted no very permanent influence on
those other nations whose civilization was anterior to their own. Egypt,
in despite of the violent persecution which she sustained under
Cambyses, remained still the ancient Egypt--and with yet greater
fidelity did she cling to her ancient customs, under the milder sway of
the Ptolemies, whose government was so much more congenial to her spirit
and character. Phœnicia, Palestine, and Asia Minor, also remained
essentially unchanged. In an historical point of view, the main result
of the Persian conquests was this--they brought the nations of Western
Asia and of Egypt into a close contact, and a very active and permanent
intercourse with the states of Greece, and those situated on the shores
of the Mediterranean. The Persian dominion, and the contest of that
power with Greece, had indeed a very great, though only indirect,
influence on the latter country, inasmuch as it favoured the growth and
development of Grecian liberty, and at a later period produced the great
re-action under Alexander the Great. This Greek re-action was in its
spirit and character somewhat similar to the previous irruption and
ambitious invasion of the Persians; in Alexander at least, we can
clearly discover an oriental spirit that, not content with the narrow
boundaries of his hereditary kingdom of Macedon, sought to transcend the
sphere of Hellenic civilization, Hellenic doctrines, and Hellenic modes
of thinking. And I call that an Asiatic enthusiasm which, with
resistless impetuosity, bore away the Macedonian to the capital of
Persia, and even beyond the banks of the Indus.


END OF LECTURE VII.



LECTURE VIII.

     Variety of Grecian life and intellect.--State of education and of
     the fine arts among the Greeks.--The origin of their philosophy and
     natural science.--Their political degeneracy.


It would be difficult to point out a more striking difference, a more
decided opposition in the whole circle of the intellectual and moral
character and habits of nations, as far at least as the sphere of known
history extends, than that which exists between the seclusive and
monotonous character of Asiatic intellect--the generally unchangeable
uniformity of oriental manners and oriental society, and the manifold
activity--the varied life of the Greeks, in the first flourishing ages
of their history. This amazing diversity in the moral and intellectual
habits of the Greeks appears not only in their legislation, their forms
of government, their manners, occupations, and usages of life, but in
their various and widely dispersed settlements and colonies, in their
descent, which was composed of so many heterogeneous elements, in the
first seeds of their civilization--as well as their distribution into
hostile tribes and great and petty states, and even in their traditions,
their history, and the arts and forms of art to which those gave
rise--finally in a science, engaged in incessant strife, and marching
from system to system, amid the noise and tumult of opposition. In Asia,
even in those countries such as India, where the poetry, the views of
life, and the systems of philosophy were extremely various, and bore in
this respect an external resemblance to those of Greece; where even the
country in ancient times was never permanently united into one compact
empire; yet the whole way of thinking, the prevalent feeling was
entirely monarchical, proceeding from, and returning again to,
unchangeable unity. On the other hand, in Greece, science, like life
itself, was thoroughly republican--and if we meet with particular
thinkers, who leaned to this Asiatic doctrine of unity, we must regard
this as only an exception--a system adopted from a love of change, or
out of a spirit of opposition to the vulgar and generally received
opinion that all in nature and the world, as well as in man, was in a
state of perpetual movement, constant change, and freedom of life. Even
the fabulous world of Grecian divinities, as it has been painted by
their poets, has a republican cast; for there every thing is in a state
of change, of successive renovation, and of mutual collision in the war
of Nature's elements, in the hostility of old and new deities of the
superior and inferior Gods--of giants and of heroes--presenting, as it
does, a state of poetical anarchy. Hence, even the historical traditions
of the Greeks, and the first accounts of their early seats, settlements,
and the migrations of their different races, present to the eye of the
historical enquirer a dense forest of truth and fiction, of fanciful
conjecture, absolute fable, and ancient and venerable knowledge--a
labyrinth of poetry and of history, in whose various and intricate mazes
it is often difficult for the critic to find the true outlet, and to
hold fast by the guiding clue of Ariadne, when he wishes to adopt a
lucid arrangement, and assign to each part its due place in the system
of the whole. The Greek tribes and nations inhabited not only the proper
Greece, the Peninsula Peloponnesian, the contiguous islands, the
Southern plains of the Continent (on whose Northern frontiers it is
often difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the tribes of
Greek and foreign extraction); and also the Western coasts of Asia
Minor; but they had founded a number of small states and planted many
flourishing colonies in the remotest corners of the Euxine, in the Lower
Egypt, where, long prior to the Persian wars, many Greek settlements
existed--along the Northern shore of Africa, where the flourishing
Cyrene was situated, on the Southern coasts of Spain and Gaul, in
Sicily, and throughout the whole of Southern Italy. Their navigation
extended even to the Baltic, as the voyage of Pytheas evinces; and,
though they did not circumnavigate Africa,--a thing which it is still
doubtful whether the Phœnicians accomplished,--they rather surpassed
than yielded to the latter nation in the activity of their trade, and
the wealth and extent of their Colonies. The stupendous monuments and
edifices of the Egyptians are indeed of more colossal dimensions; yet
the works of Grecian sculpture and architecture, while some of them are
on a very large scale, are incomparably more various, more rich in
ornament, more animated, and beautiful, than those of Egypt. The Greeks
were not a mere sea-faring and commercial people, like the
Phœnicians; nor did they compete with the Egyptians in those proud
monuments of architecture whose erection required such thousands of
human hands; but they were from their earliest period a martial people,
well trained to war. Independently of every feeling of patriotic
enthusiasm and national defence, they looked on war as a trade and a
living, and they loved it accordingly. This is proved by the fact that,
in the age preceding the Persian conquest, and long before the Persians
waged war with Greece, the Kings of Egypt had not only Greek squadrons
in their service, but that the whole Egyptian army was for the most part
composed of Grecian mercenaries. Such, too, was the case in Carthage,
and, at a later period, in Persia, where whole legions and armies of
Greeks were engaged in the service of the great king. This old custom
among the Greeks of enlisting in the military service of foreign states,
may have been indeed an excellent preparation for their great national
wars, though in these the first great exploits were achieved by small
companies of troops from Athens, Sparta, and other free states, as well
as by a select body of free citizens. But this custom could have had no
very favourable influence on national opinions and feelings, and the
mutual relations of the Greek tribes and states.

The Republican form of government mostly prevailed in the various Greek
settlements and Colonies, established round the shores of the
Mediterranean; for it is to this species of government that maritime
nations, commercial cities, and petty states almost always incline, as
long as their territories remain circumscribed. Yet in these states, we
find a great variety of political constitutions; for along with that
multitude of small commercial Republics, there were many, like Sparta
and others, that depended exclusively, or for the most part, on
agriculture and the riches of the soil. In these, the hereditary
nobility, the proprietors of the soil, formed the principal class; for
in general the Greeks attached a very high importance to the noble races
and princely families that deduced their descent from the old heroic
times. The original constitution of many, of almost the greater part of
these small Greek Republics, was a tolerably mild aristocracy, headed by
an hereditary Prince, or chieftain. In some states, as for instance in
Athens, the transition from this old aristocratical government, headed
by an hereditary prince, to a thoroughly democratic constitution, was
but slow and gradual; as the memory of their ancient kings, for example,
of Codrus, who fell in the defence of his country, was ever cherished by
the Athenian people with love and reverence. The popular hatred in
Athens was directed only against those leaders of the state who, like
Pisistratus, after having obtained their power by means of popular
influence, sought to stretch and perpetuate it by force of arms and the
use of foreign mercenaries. Yet even Pisistratus possessed great
qualities, and his sway was in general mild, and conformable to the laws
of Solon;--it cannot be denied, however, that his was an usurped
authority, and one founded on illegitimate force. At a later period, and
when the Athenian state became more and more democratic--as there is not
a more thankless being in all nature than the sovereign people, in its
lawless and capricious rule, the people of Athens, jealous of their
freedom, and too easily deluded by the arts of oratorical sophistry,
pointed their hatred at all the great men and deserving citizens of the
state. The general Miltiades perished in prison; Aristides the just,
Cimon and many others fell the victims of ostracism, and died in exile,
as did the great historians, Herodotus and Thucydides. Themistocles
himself, who had been the liberator of Athens and of Greece, was obliged
to take refuge at the court of the Persian monarch, from whom he
received protection and hospitality. The wisest of the Athenians, the
master of Plato, who had ever proved himself an honest citizen and a
valiant defender of his country, received the cup of poison for his
recompence.

But we no where discover in the early ages of Athens, and of the other
Greek Republics, that hatred to kings and to royalty in general, which
even the primitive history of Rome displays. Nay, in Sparta, amid a
Republican constitution, the kingly power and dignity were preserved
inviolate down to the latest period; while in Macedon a new monarchy
grew up, which at first asserted a sort of Protectorate over the other
states, and at last established a very despotic ascendancy over all
Greece. Even in those states where the constitution was more
democratical, that is to say, where it was founded, not on an hereditary
nobility and the possession of the soil, but chiefly on moveable
property, on trade, and manufactures, we must not look for that sort of
arithmetical freedom and equality which exists in some modern Republics,
for instance, in the United States of America. The number of citizens
really free, eligible, and possessed of the right of suffrage, was
exceedingly small when compared with the bulk of the population--by far
the greater part were not so, and a multitude of bought slaves,
especially in the commercial states, was employed in manufactures, and
in the tillage of the land. This universally prevalent custom--the harsh
treatment and oppression of slaves--forms a very painful contrast in the
ancient Republics, little corresponding to our own ideal of social
happiness, and in itself very degrading to humanity. In the interior and
more aristocratic states, slavery assumed another shape--the remnant of
the original inhabitants of the soil, that had survived the conquest of
their country, such as the Helots of Sparta, and the Penestæ of
Thessaly, were not merely reduced by the conquerors in their
newly-founded governments to the condition of vassals, as we should term
them, or even of serfs; but were degraded to a state of absolute
slavery, and generally treated with great severity. If we except this
one circumstance, the aristocracy, that ruled in most of the ancient
Republics of Greece, was on the whole, tolerably well constituted; a
number of accessory circumstances had tended to soften its sway, and
even, in some instances, it was ennobled by high worth. Ancestral
manners and customs--the very smallness of the states--all tended to
mitigate its rule--a wise legislation, like that of Solon, and of other
law-givers animated by the same spirit, had at once consolidated and
tempered its power; while it was adorned by republican virtues and many
personal qualities in those elder and better times, ere the ancient
simplicity of manners was yet totally corrupted.

In most of the Greek Republics, besides, commerce daily acquired greater
influence and importance, and it was impossible in such a state of
things that any rigidly exclusive aristocracy could have been formed, or
could have long maintained its ascendancy. Even the priesthood in Greece
(for there there was no danger of the political predominance of an
hereditary sacerdotal caste, as in Egypt), even the priesthood, by
maintaining ancient manners, customs and laws, on which indeed their own
existence depended, exerted a mild and beneficial influence in the
state; for they at least formed a counterpoise to a mere selfish
aristocracy, and sometimes opposed the last barrier to democratic
tyranny.

The Mysteries too, in particular, which, although they did not at a
later period, as in their origin, diffuse a sounder morality than the
popular mythology, yet certainly inculcated more serious doctrines, and
more spiritual views of life, exerted, together with the Olympic and
Isthmian games, a gentle, and on the whole, a very beneficial,
influence, and served as a bond of connection between the variously
divided and discordant nations of Greece. Nay these public and gymnastic
games, which were celebrated in the festive poetry of the Greeks, served
to knit more firmly the bond of national union, so exceedingly loose
among this people; and many times, in a moment of danger, has the oracle
of Delphi roused and united all the sons of Hellas. These political
decisions of the oracle were not false, so far at least as in these
critical moments they gave no other counsel to the Greeks, but that of
patriotic courage, prudent firmness, and national concord.

Widely dissimilar as were the Greek tribes and nations in their original
seats and settlements, their occupations and modes of living, their
manners and political institutions, they differed not less in the
primitive elements of their civilization. The Phœnician Cadmus,
according to tradition, brought the alphabet, and with it, undoubtedly,
many other elements of knowledge to the city of Thebes--the Egyptian
Cecrops laid the ground-work of the old Athenian manners and
government--the Thracian Orpheus, though his doctrines had much analogy
to those of Egypt, founded the widely diffused Mysteries that bore his
name, while he sought by song to mitigate the terrors of the lower
world, and to overcome the powers of darkness. To these many other names
might be added; and among them many which did not deduce their descent,
like most indeed, from Phœnicia and Egypt, but are clearly to be
traced, as well as the doctrines and sacred customs they introduced, to
the North; and, though they sprang more immediately from Asiatics on the
northern side of the Caucasus, they were nearly allied to the nations
dwelling further towards the North and West. The profound and concurrent
researches of many modern scholars have adduced such numerous and
repeated proofs from antiquity, of the existence of this Northern
stratum in Greek antiquities, that this branch of Grecian history,
formerly neglected, must no longer pass unobserved. The Greeks were of
very various extraction; and in the different countries of Greece we may
distinguish, along with the Hellenes, two if not more, principal
nations, clearly distinct from the former. These were the Thracians in
the Northern provinces, or at least in those immediately contiguous--a
race for the most part of Northern descent, and, together with the
Indian, the most numerous on the earth according to Herodotus--perhaps
of the same origin with the nations on the banks of the Danube, or even
those further northward. There were, next, the Pelasgi, the real
aborigines of Greece, the authors of those gigantic walls and
constructions, which are known in Italy by the name of Cyclopean, and in
Greece by that of Pelasgic, and some of which still exist, besides
several others that existed in the Peloponnesus, and which are mentioned
by the ancients. These Aborigines, or this primitive race of people,
occur in many countries under the same, or at least very similar,
traits--to them we must ascribe those monuments of architecture we have
just spoken of, a certain knowledge of metals, some rude religious
rites, without any mythology, which was only of later origin, nay
without any names of specific divinities;--human sacrifices--manners and
customs, if not absolutely savage, still very rude and barbarous, and a
constant restlessness and a disposition to roam. Deucalion alone is to
be considered as the ancestor of the Hellenes, as all the noble families
of kings and heroes derived their descent from him, and the later tribes
of Greece, the Æolians, the Dorians, and Ionians, took their names from
his sons. According to every indication, this people would appear to be
a Caucasian race of Asiatics, of Indian, or at least of a cognate,
origin. When these Hellenes, Æolians and Dorians, had taken possession
of Thessaly, of the adjacent countries, and the Peloponnesus, and had
there formed settlements, the Pelasgi were every where dispossessed, or
oppressed, and thrown into the back-ground. But they certainly were not
entirely extirpated, nor did they emigrate in full numbers; and it is
beyond a doubt that various causes contributed to unite the old and new
inhabitants of Greece; for here intermarriages were not entirely
prohibited and rigidly prevented, as in India or Egypt, by the
institution of castes; and the two nations were gradually formed into
one race and one people, according as the circumstances or situation of
one country or the other favoured such an union. And hence we can
understand why Herodotus, for example, should have attributed to the
Ionians in particular much that was Pelasgic, as if under this new
denomination they were in all essential points the ancient Pelasgi, or
had mingled more with the latter, and were not of such a pure Hellenic
race as the Dorians: for in other respects, the Pelasgi and Hellenes are
represented as being originally two perfectly distinct nations. The
people of Thrace, too, although they continued as a separate nation to a
much later period, undoubtedly mingled considerably with the Hellenic
tribes that inhabited the borders of Thrace, or that lived among the
inhabitants of that country.

The primitive inhabitants of Greece were in general extremely rude and
barbarous in their manners and tenets; until the noble race of
Prometheus, the sons of Deucalion, who had come from the regions of
Mount Caucasus, and colonies still more civilized that had emigrated
from Phœnicia, Egypt, and other countries of Asia, exerted their
beneficial influence, and gave by degrees an entirely new form and
fashion to the people of Greece, and even to the country itself. For
that region, which afterwards presented so beautiful an aspect, which
was so richly endowed, and splendidly embellished by the hand of Nature,
was, until it had been well cultivated and fertilized, and until the
power of boisterous elements had been subdued, a complete wilderness,
and the scene of many violent revolutions of nature; which were very
naturally considered as a sort of partial and feeble imitation of the
destructive and universal flood of elder times, when water was the
all-prevailing element on the earth. In Greece there was an old obscure
tradition, of the original existence of a continent called Lectonia,
which occupied a portion of the subsequent Greek sea, and of which the
islands form now the only existing remains; the rest of the continent
having been sunk and destroyed, at the very time when the Black Sea,
which had been originally connected with the Caspian, burst through the
Bosphorus, and precipitated its waves into the Mediterranean. At this
very remote period, all Thessaly was one vast lake, till, in a natural
catastrophe of a similar kind, the river Peneus burst its way through a
defile of rocks, and found an outlet into the sea. The lake Copais in
Bæotia in an inundation overflowed the whole circumjacent flat country
in the time of Ogyges; and thus the name and tradition of Ogyges served
afterwards to designate the epoch of those early floods. At a later
period, and when the civilization of the Greeks was more advanced, in
the true flourishing era of their power and literature, the two
principal races among this people, the Ionians and the Dorians, were
completely opposed to each other in arts and manners, in government,
modes of thinking, and even in philosophy. Athens was at the head of the
Ionic race; Sparta took the lead in the Doric confederacy; and this
internal discord did not a little contribute towards the utter ruin of
Greece, and towards the consummation of that internal and external
anarchy that dragged all things into its abyss.

Now that we enter upon that period when all the great political events
have been sufficiently described, and partly, at least, set forth with
incomparable talent, by the great classical historians of antiquity; by
a multitude of writers that have borrowed from that source, or have
worked upon those lofty models; it would be idle to repeat what is
universally known, and to recount, in long historical detail, how, after
contests and struggles of less importance, the glory of Greece burst
forth in all its lustre in her resistance to Persian might; how, soon
after, she exhausted her best strength in the great Peloponnesian civil
war betwixt Sparta and Athens, and how both those states ruined
themselves in the idle ambition of maintaining the ηγεμονια as
they called it, or the superiority and preponderance in the political
system of Greece;--how, after the short dominion of the Thebans under
their single great man, Epaminondas, the Macedonians became lords of the
ascendant, and ruled for a longer time with despotic sway;--and finally
how Greece obtained an apparent freedom under the generous protection of
Rome, and was soon after reduced to a state of permanent vassalage under
her prefects and her legions. This instructive and, we may well say,
eternal history may be read, studied, and meditated on in all its ample
details and living clearness in the pages of the great classical
historians of antiquity. The knowledge of all these historical facts
must be here pre-supposed, and I must confine myself to a rapid and
lively sketch of the intellectual character and moral life of the
Greeks, in their relation to the rest of mankind, and according to the
place which they occupy in universal history.

In this point of view, all that is universally interesting in the
character, life, and intellect of the Greeks will be best and most
easily classed under three categories. The first is the _divine_ in
their system of art, or the mythology that was so closely interwoven
with their traditions and their fictions, their whole arrangement of
life, their customs, and political institutions; and which so much
excites our astonishment and admiration. The second is their science of
Nature--a science so natural to them, and which embraced all the objects
of Nature and the world, as well as of history, and even man himself,
with the utmost clearness of perception, sagacity of intellect, and
beauty and animation of expression--a science that, from its earliest
infancy down to its complete perfection in the writings of Plato and
Aristotle, has established the lasting glory of the Greeks, and has had
a deep and abiding influence on the human mind, through all succeeding
ages. The third and last category, in this portrait of the Greek
intellect and character, is the political rationalism in Greece's latter
days, founded on those maxims and principles which had finally triumphed
after the most violent contest of parties, and under which the state was
entirely swayed by the arts of eloquence and the power of rhetoric, now
become a real political authority in society. All that can be said truly
to the honour of the ancient Greek states, and their Republican virtues,
has been briefly noticed above. Their decay and general anarchy, and
final subjugation by Rome, may be well accounted for by the decline of
the Greek philosophy, and the consequent corruption of morals and
doctrine--by that dominion of sophists, unparalleled at least in ancient
history, and whose pernicious art of a false rhetoric was the bane of
public life, government, and all national greatness.

The marvellous and living mythology in the glorious old poetry of Greece
justly occupies here the first place, for all arts, even the plastic
arts, had their origin in this first Homeric source. And this fresh
living stream of mythic fictions and heroic traditions which has flowed,
and continues to flow, through all ages and nations in the West, proves
to us, by a mighty historical experience, which determines even the most
difficult problems (and this has been universally acknowledged in
Christian Europe), that all classical education--all high intellectual
refinement, is and should be grounded on poetry--that is to say, on a
poetry which, like the Homeric, springs out of natural feelings, and
embraces the world with a clear, intuitive glance. For there can be no
comprehensive culture of the human mind,--no high and harmonious
development of its powers, and the various faculties of the soul; unless
all those deep feelings of life--that mighty, productive energy of human
nature, the marvellous imagination, be awakened and excited, and by that
excitement and exertion, attain an expansive, noble and beautiful form.
This the experience of all ages has proved, and hence the glory of the
Homeric poems, and of the whole intellectual refinement of the Greeks,
which has thence sprung, has remained imperishable. Were the mental
culture of any people founded solely on a dead, cold, abstract science,
to the exclusion of all poetry; such a mere mathematical people--with
minds thus sharpened and pointed by mathematical discipline, would and
could never possess a rich and various intellectual existence; nor even
probably ever attain to a living science, or a true science of life. The
characteristic excellence of this Homeric poetry, and in general of all
the Greek poetry, is that it observes a wise medium between the gigantic
fictions of oriental imagination, even as the purer creations of Indian
fancy display; and that distinctness of view, that broad knowledge and
observation of the world, which distinguish the ages of prosaic
narrative, when the relations of society become at once more refined and
more complicated. In this poetry, these two opposite, and almost
incompatible, qualities are blended and united--the fresh enthusiasm of
the most living feelings of nature--a blooming, fertile, and captivating
fancy, and a clear intuitive perception of life, are joined with a
delicacy of tact, a purity and harmony of taste, excluding all
exaggeration--all false ornament--and which few nations since the
Greeks, none perhaps in an equal degree, certainly none before them,
have ever possessed to a like extent.

This poetry was most intimately interwoven with the whole public life of
the Greeks--the public spectacles, games, and popular festivals were so
many theatres for poetry: nay music and the gymnastic exercises were the
ground-work, and formed almost the whole scope, of a high, polite, and
liberal education among the Greeks. Both were so in a very wide,
comprehensive and significant sense of the term. The gymnastic
struggles, the peculiar object of the public games, and where the human
frame attained a beautiful form and expansion by every species of
exercise--the gymnastic struggles had a very close connection with, and
may be said to have formed the basis for, the imitative arts, especially
sculpture, which, without that habitual contemplation of the most
exquisite forms afforded by these games, could never have acquired so
bold, free, and animated a representation of the human body. Music, or
the art of the Muses, included not only the art of melody, but the
poetry of song. Still the plan of Grecian education and refinement was
ever of too narrow and too exclusive a character; and when, at a later
period, rhetoric came to form one of its elements, the Greeks considered
it (what indeed it never should be considered) as a sort of gymnastic
exercise for the intellect, a species of public spectacle, where
eloquence, little solicitous about the truth, only sought to display its
art or address in the combat. And in the same way philosophy, when the
Greeks attained a knowledge of it, came to be regarded, according to the
narrow and exclusive principles of their system of education, as nothing
more than a species of intellectual melody, the internal harmony of
thought and mind--the music of the soul; till later, by means of the
sophists and popular sycophants that deluded their age, it sunk into the
all-destructive abyss of false rhetoric, which was the death of true
science and genuine art, and which, in the shape of logic and
metaphysics, had as injurious an influence on the schools as a false
political eloquence had on the state and on public life. That principle
of harmony which formed the leading tenet of the primitive philosophy of
Greece before the introduction of sophistry, was not an ignoble,--it was
even a beautiful, idea, although it might be far from solving the high
problems and questions of philosophy, or satisfying the deeper enquiries
of the human mind.

It was from these public games, popular festivals, and great poetical
exhibitions, which had such a mighty and important influence on the
whole public life of the Greeks, and which served to knit so strongly
the bonds of the Hellenic confederacy, that, by means of the odes,
specifically designed for such occasions, the theatre, and the whole
dramatic art of the Greeks, derived their origin. This poetry, which is
less generally intelligible to other nations and times than the Homeric
poems, because it enters more deeply into the individual life of the
Greeks, does not display less invention, sublimity, and depth of art,
from that ideal beauty which pervades its whole character, and from its
lofty tone of feeling. Even the Doric odes of Pindar, amid their milder
beauties, rise often to the tragic grandeur of the succeeding poets, or
to the comprehensive and epic fulness of the old Mæonian bard.

No nation has as yet been able to equal the charm and amenity of Homer,
the elevation of Æschylus, and the noble beauty of Sophocles; and
perhaps it is wrong even to aspire to their excellence, for true beauty
and true sublimity can never be acquired in the path of imitation.
Euripides, who lived in the times when rhetoric was predominant, is
ranked with the great poets we have named by such critics only, as are
unable to comprehend and appreciate the whole elevation of Grecian
intellect, and to discern its peculiar and characteristic depth. It is
worthy of remark, as it serves to show the general propensity of Grecian
intellect for the boldest contrasts, that these loftiest productions of
tragedy, and which have retained that character of unrivalled excellence
through all succeeding ages, were accompanied by the old popular comedy
which, while its inventive fancy dealt in the boldest fictions of
mythology, and in the humorous exhibitions of the Gods, made it its
peculiar business to fasten on all the follies of ordinary life, and to
exhibit them to public ridicule without the least reserve.

That the sensual worship of Nature, the basis of all Heathenism, and
more particularly so of the Greek idolatry, must have had a very
prejudicial influence on Greek morals; that the want of a solid system
of Ethics, founded on God and divine truth, must have given rise to
great corruption even in a more simple period of society; and that this
already prevalent corruption must have increased to a frightful extent
in the general degradation of the state--is a matter evident of itself;
and it would be no difficult task to draw from the pages of the popular
comedy we have just spoken of, and from other sources, a terrific
picture of the moral habits of the Greeks. Yet I know not whether such a
description would be necessary, or even advantageous, for the purpose of
this Philosophy of History--the more so, as it would not be difficult to
draw from similar sources of immorality, and from the now usual
statistics of vice and crime, a sketch of the moral condition of one or
more Christian nations, that would by no means accord with the
pre-conceived notion of the great moral superiority of modern times. We
may thus the more willingly rest contented with a general acknowledgment
of the great moral depravity of mankind, which exists wherever mighty
powers and strong motives of a superior order do not counteract it, and
which must have broken out more conspicuously there, where, as among the
Greeks, the prevailing religion was a Paganism that promoted and
sanctioned sensuality. In regard to the poetry and plastic arts of the
Greeks, it must even strike us as a matter of astonishment that it is in
comparatively but few passages, and few works, this Pagan sensuality
appears in a manner hurtful to dignity of style and harmony of
expression. It would not at least have surprised us, had this defect
been oftener apparent, when we consider the doctrines and views of life
generally prevalent in antiquity; for it was in most cases, less the
sterner dictates of morality that prevented the recurrence of this
defect than an exquisite sense of propriety, which even in art is the
outward drapery that girds and sets off beauty. Besides, a mere
conventional concealment cannot be imposed as a law on the art of
sculpture; our moral feelings are much less offended by the
representation of nudity in the pure noble style of the best antiques,
than by the disguised sensuality which marks many spurious productions
of modern art. In poetry and in art, at least in the elder and
flourishing period, the Greeks have, for the most part, attained to
internal harmony--in philosophy they were much less fortunate--and least
of all in public life, which was almost always distracted, and at last
utterly jarring, dissonant, and ruinous.

I called the science of the Greeks a _natural_ science, and in this
quality, which it possessed in so eminent a degree, it affords us the
highest instruction, and is of itself extremely interesting; for in its
origin, this science proceeded chiefly, almost exclusively, from
nature--pursued a sequestered and solitary path--a stranger to poetry
and to the mythology which was there predominant, far removed from
public and political life--and often even in an attitude of hostility
towards the state. The physical sciences, and particularly natural
history, were created by the Greeks--so was the science of medicine, in
which Hippocrates is still honoured as the greatest master; and geometry
and the ancient system of astronomy were handed down to posterity,
considerably enlarged and improved by the labours of the Greeks. In the
second place, Grecian science may be denominated a _natural_ science,
because, as it directed its attention successively to the various
objects of the world, of life, and to man himself, it ever took a
thoroughly natural view of all things, and even in self-knowledge, in
practical life, and in history, sought to seize and comprehend the
nature of man, and to unfold the character of his Being, with the utmost
precision of language, and according to conceptions derived exclusively
from life. Thus when Plato and his followers direct their philosophical
enquiries to objects lying beyond, and far exalted above, the sphere of
Nature and real life, we must regard these inquiries as exceptions from
the ordinary practice of Grecian intellect, and from the ruling spirit
of its speculations; in the same way as the expeditions of Alexander the
Great form an exception from the usual routine of Grecian politics.
Lastly, Grecian science may be denominated a _natural_ science, because
philosophy, founded on the old basis of poetry and classical culture,
allied to history, and the language and symbols of tradition, assumed in
general a form clear, beautiful, animated, and eminently conformable to
Nature and the mind of man; and however much this philosophy may at
times have been lost and bewildered in the void of a false dialectic, it
still never perished in the petrifying chill of abstract speculations.
And even Plato, though his philosophy so far transcended the ordinary
sphere of Grecian intellect, had been well nurtured in Hellenic
eloquence, art, and culture--and, in all these, was himself the greatest
master.

With this profound and lofty feeling for Nature, did the early
philosophers of Greece, who were chiefly Ionians, like Thales,
Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, consider respectively water, air, and fire,
as the primary powers of Nature and of all things; and it was only
Anaxagoras, the master of Socrates, who first clearly expounded the
nature of that supreme and divine Intelligence which created nature and
regulates the world. Prior to this philosopher, Heraclitus had asserted
this doctrine, perhaps with greater purity--certainly with more depth
and penetration; but in his obscure writings it is less intelligibly
expressed. With his supreme Intelligence in Nature, Anaxagoras conjoined
the ομοιομερσα, that is to say, not the real atoms of a
lifeless matter, but rather the animated substance of material life.
Thus his doctrine was a simple system of dualism, quite in harmony, it
would seem, with the feelings of those early ages, as we have noticed a
similar system in the history of Indian philosophy. These old Ionian
philosophers in general regarded only the internal life in Nature and
all existence--the constant change and endless vicissitude in the world
and in all things; and hence many of them began to doubt, and at last
finally denied, the existence of anything steadfast and enduring.
According to that law and march of contrast, which Grecian intellect,
whether consciously or unconsciously, invariably pursued, these Ionian
philosophers were now opposed by the school of Parmenides, which
inculcated the doctrine of an all-pervading unity--and taught that this
principle was the first and last, the sole, true, permanent, and eternal
Being. Although this system was at first propounded in verse, it was by
no means, in its essential and ruling spirit, a poetical Pantheism, like
that of the Indians--but more congenial with the intellectual habits of
the Greeks, it was a Pantheism thoroughly dialectic, which at first
regarded all change as an illusion and idle phenomenon, and at last
positively denied the possibility of change. Between these two extreme
schools appeared the great disciple of Socrates, who sought, by a path
of inquiry completely new, completely foreign to the Greeks--by a range
of speculation which soared far above the world of sense, and outward
experience, as well as above mere logic, to return to the supreme
God-head, infinitely exalted above all nature--deriving the notion of
the Deity from immediate intuition, primeval revelation, or profound
internal reminiscence. By this doctrine of reminiscence, which is the
fundamental tenet of the Platonic system, this philosophy has a strong
coincidence or affinity with the Indian doctrine of the Metempsychosis,
by the supposition it involves of the prior existence of the human soul.
To such a notion of the pre-existence of the soul, in the literal sense
of the term, no system of Christian philosophy could easily subscribe.
But if, as there is no reason to prevent us, we should understand this
Platonic notion of reminiscence in a more spiritual sense--as the
awakening or resuscitation of the consciousness of the divine image
implanted in our souls--as the soul's perception of that image; this
theory would then perfectly coincide with the Christian doctrine of the
divine image originally stamped on the human soul, and of the internal
illumination of the soul by the renovation of that image--and hence we
ought in no way to be astonished that this Platonic mode of thinking,
for such it is rather than any exclusive system,--as it is the first
great philosophy of revelation clothed and propounded in an European
form--should have ever appeared so captivating to the profound thinkers
of Christianity. In Plato's time, that host of Sophists who had sprung
out of the dialectic contests of the earlier philosophy, out of its
rejection and disbelief of every thing permanent, immutable and eternal
in Nature, in life, and in knowledge, as well as out of the democratic
spirit of the age, and the ever prevailing immorality--in Plato's time,
that host of Sophists completely bewildered and confused the public
mind, poisoned all principle and morality in their very source, and
accomplished the ruin of society in Greece in general, and in Athens in
particular. And the masterly portrait which Plato has given us of these
Sophists exhibits well this race, and the pernicious influence they
exerted over Grecian intellect, and the whole circle of Grecian states;
and this political influence of the Sophists forms the third epoch in
the history of Greece, which, by means of these popular sycophants,
became daily more and more democratic, till at last it perished in
anarchy.

The more ancient philosophers of Greece lived almost all in a state of
retirement from public life, taking no part in political affairs, or
evincing very evident sentiments of hostility to the governments and
republics of their native country. They were almost all unfriendly to
the prevailing principles of democracy; and the ideal governments, which
they, as well as Plato, have sketched, were all in the spirit of a very
rigid aristocracy of virtue and law--evincing a very marked predilection
for that form of government as it existed, though in a state of great
degeneracy, among the Doric Greeks. Long before Plato, the Pythagoreans
had inculcated doctrines perfectly similar, or at least of a very
kindred nature; and with the view and purpose of introducing their
principles into public life, by which undoubtedly the governments and
the whole frame of society in Greece, as well as the whole system of
Grecian thought, would have assumed a totally new and different shape.
But before the Pythagorean confederacy, which was so widely diffused
through the Greek states of Southern Italy, was able to accomplish its
design, the violent re-action of an opposite party of thinkers destroyed
it, or at least deprived it of all ascendancy and political influence.

The age of Aristotle concurred with that of the Macedonian sway to
terminate anarchy of every kind. To the old evil of a false dialectic,
which had become an inveterate habit, and, as it were, a second nature
to Grecian intellect, he endeavoured to oppose his ample and substantial
logic--and this must be regarded not so much as a wonderful _organum_, a
living and never-failing source of scientific truth, but rather as a
remedy for that disease of a false, sophistical rhetoric, so prevalent
in his own age, and the one immediately preceding--and which had brought
about the ruin of all truths, and an universal anarchy of doctrines,
even in practical life. With a perspicacious, penetrative, and
comprehensive intellect, he has reduced all the philosophic, and all the
historical science of preceding ages and of his own time, to a clear,
well-ordered system, for the ample instruction of posterity:--in both
these sciences, as well as in natural history, he has remained, down to
the latest time, the master-guide. In those parts of his philosophy
which lie between this natural science and the old dialectic contests,
in its primary and fundamental principles, the system of Aristotle, when
rightly understood, contains much that leads to the most dangerous
errors, especially in his notion of God; though we cannot with justice
impute to him the abuse which has been made of his philosophy in
subsequent ages. Notwithstanding the many excellent things which are to
be found in the Ethics of Aristotle, considered merely as an effort of
unassisted reason; yet in all the enquiries after a higher truth--after
the first notion of the divine which, in the elder philosophy of nature,
was so imperfectly understood, and which in the consummate rationalism
of Aristotle was completely misapprehended--in all these important
enquiries, the Stagyrite is far from being such a guide as Plato; and
his philosophy is not like the Platonic, a scientific introduction to
the Christian revelation, and to the knowledge of divine truths. The
later systems of philosophy among the Greeks were, with some slight
variations of form, mere repetitions, often only mere combinations and
compilations, of the ancient philosophy; or they exhibited a thorough
degeneracy of science and intellect, as in the atomical system of
Epicurus, which even on life and morals had an atomical influence.

The Greek states have long since disappeared from the face of the
earth--the republics, as well as the Macedonian kingdoms founded by
Alexander, have long since ceased to exist. Many centuries--near two
thousand years, have elapsed, since not a vestige remains of all that
ancient greatness and transitory power. If the celebrated battles and
other mighty events of those ages are still known to us; if they still
excite in us a lively interest, it is principally because they have been
delineated with such incomparable beauty, such instructive interest, by
the great classical writers. It is not the republican governments of
Greece, nor the brief and fleeting period of Grecian liberty, which was
so soon succeeded by civil war and anarchy--it is not the universal
empire of Macedon, which was but of short duration, and was soon
swallowed up in the Roman or Parthian domination--it is not these that
mark out the place which Greece occupies in the great whole of universal
history, nor the mighty and important part she has had in the
civilization of mankind. The share allotted to her was the light of
science in its most ample extent, and in all the clear brilliance of
exposition which it could derive from art. It is in this intellectual
sphere only that the Greeks have been gifted with extraordinary power,
and have exerted a mighty influence on after-ages. Plato and Aristotle,
far more than Leonidas and Alexander the Great, contain nearly the sum
and essence of all truly permanent and influential, which the Greeks
have bequeathed to posterity. It is evident that I include under these
great names the whole classical culture which formed the basis of this
Greek science--the general refinement of minds--the fine arts, and above
all, the glorious old poetry of Greece. We have to mention another
department of Greek science, wherein from its natural clearness and
liveliness, its profound observation of man, the most eminent success
was attained. And the pre-eminence consists in this--that historical
art, as well as historical research were originated by the Greeks, and
that both have attained a degree of perfection which has been almost
ever unknown to the Asiatic nations, and which even the moderns have
only imitated by degrees upon the great models of antiquity. The father
of history, Herodotus, has not been without reason compared to Homer, on
account of his manifold charms, and the clearness and fulness of his
narrative. We remain in utter astonishment, when we reflect on the depth
and extent of his knowledge, researches, enquiries, and remarks on the
history and antiquities of the various nations of the earth, and of
mankind in general. The deeper and more comprehensive the researches of
the moderns have been on ancient history, the more have their regard and
esteem for Herodotus increased. The later classical historians display
much rhetoric; but this was natural, when we consider what a mighty
influence rhetoric exerted on public life, and that it had become an
all-ruling power in the state. This false rhetoric, that idle pomp of
words, the death of all genuine poetry and higher art--as the endless
strifes of a false dialectic, are the ruin of all sane and legitimate
science, of all precision of intellect, and soundness of judgment--this
false rhetoric, by the exclusively sophistical turn which it gave to the
public mind and public opinion, accelerated the downfall of government,
and of all public virtues in Greece.

The third category or sphere of Grecian intellect and Grecian life which
I designated after that of divine art, and natural science, and the
varied knowledge of man, was _political rationalism_.[63] I have used
that expression, chiefly in reference to the later ages of the Greek
Republics, as it is the quality which eminently distinguished them from
the Asiatic states, and those of modern Europe.

In the later ages of Athens, and of the other democratic states, the
rationalist principles of freedom and equality were the sole prevailing
and recognized maxims of government. Considered in this historical point
of view, the chief difference between the two principal forms of
government consists in this--that the republic is, or at least tends to
be, the government of Reason; while monarchy is founded on the higher
principles of faith and love. But the distinction lies rather in the
ruling spirit--the moral principle which animates these two governments,
than in their mere outward form. Republics which are founded on ancient
laws and customs, on hereditary rights and usages, on faith in the
sanctity of hereditary right, on attachment to ancestral manners (as was
undoubtedly the case with the Greek republics in the early ages of their
history), such states, so far from being opposed to the true spirit of
monarchy, are, to all essential purposes, of a kindred nature with it.
Such, too, are those happy republics which, content with the narrow
limits of their power and existence, at peace with other states, devoid
of ambition, firmly wedded to their ancient rights and customs, figure
but little on the arena of history, and occupy but small space in the
columns of the gazetteer. In a monarchy, attachment to the hereditary
sovereign and to the royal dynasty is the corner-stone and the firmest
pillar of the state--whole provinces may be conquered, and important
battles may be lost; but while this foundation of love remains
unshaken--while this principle is in active operation, the edifice of
the state will stand unmoved.

The next foundation of monarchy is faith in ancient rights--in the
heritage of ancestral customs and privileges, according to the several
relations of the different classes of the state; and we should beware,
in a monarchial government, not to touch or violate with an incautious
hand, or change without necessity, hereditary rights and usages which
time has consecrated, for such heedless changes shake the very
foundations of the social edifice. When a monarchy is founded on a
written contract (whether it be intended as a sort of treaty of peace,
with some party aspiring to dominion in the state, or be only the
successful experiment of some scientific theory of political
rationalism), such a government, though it may preserve the outward
form, has ceased in all essential points, to be a monarchy according to
the old acceptation of the term. An absolute government, whatever shape
it may assume, whether it take the form of republicanism, and adopt the
rationalist principles of freedom and equality--principles which in the
nature of things, and according to the very constitution of human
reason, are almost ever inseparable from a spirit of progressive
encroachment in foreign policy, (as is sufficiently proved by the
inordinate ambition, the insatiable thirst of power which distinguished
the great republics of antiquity, in proportion as they became more
democratic, and more a prey to anarchy,) or whether the absolute
government assume the lawless and illegitimate sway of a military
despotism--such a government may indeed be established in a sort of
equipoise, circumscribed within tolerably reasonable limits, and
preserved at least in its physical existence by means of such a written
compact as we have spoken of above. But the old Christian state--the
state which is founded in faith and love--can be renovated and
re-established; not by the mere dead letter of any theory, though it
should contain nothing but the pure dogmatic truth--but by faith--by
love--by the religious energy of all the great fundamental principles of
moral life.


END OF LECTURE VIII.



LECTURE IX.

     Character of the Romans.--Sketch of their conquests.--On strict
     law, and the law of equity in its application to History, and
     according to the idea of divine justice.--Commencement of the
     Christian dispensation.


Instead of that astonishing variety in the states, the races, the
political constitutions, the manners, styles of art and modes of
intellectual cultivation, which divided from its very origin the social
existence of Greece--a division which gave a more rich and diversified
aspect to Greek civilization--the ancient history of Italy shews us, on
the contrary, how every thing merged more and more in the one, eternal,
imperishable, ever-prosperous, ever-progressive, and at last
all-devouring, city--Rome. The first ages, indeed, of Italy--the
primitive nations that settled that country--such as the Pelasgi, whose
early historical existence is attested by those Cyclopean, or more
properly, Pelasgic walls and constructions still extant there--the
Etruscans, (according to some authors, descended from the more northern
race of Rhœtians) from whom the Romans borrowed so many of their
idolatrous rites and customs--the Sabines and Samnites, the Latins and
the Trojans--lastly the Celts in Northern, and the Greeks in Southern,
Italy--all in their several relations to one another, and in the various
commixture of their origin and progress, open a wide field of intricate
investigation and perplexing research to the historical enquirer. But
from the general point of view taken in universal history, all this
antiquarian learning soon falls into the back-ground, in the presence of
that great central city which quickly absorbs into itself all the
ancient states of Italy, and Italy itself, and which, though originally
composed of many heterogeneous elements--Latin, Sabine and
Etruscan--still was very early moulded into an unity of character--and
whose ulterior growth and progress, slow indeed at first, but soon as
fearfully rapid as it was immeasurably great, principally attracts the
notice of the historical observer. In the later, and still more in the
early, ages of Rome, the national idolatry was less poetically wrought
and adorned than that of the Greeks--it was altogether much simpler,
ruder and more serious than the latter. Even the word _religio_, to take
it in its first signification as a second tie, corresponds to a far more
definite and serious object than can be found in the gay mythology of
the popular religion of the Greeks. Idolatrous rites were closely
interwoven into the whole life of the ancient Romans. As the twins of
Mars, Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by the she-wolf, were called
the founders of the city; so Mars himself was honoured by the Romans as
their real progenitor, and principal national divinity--particularly
under the name of Gradivus, that is to say the swift for battle, or the
strider of the earth. The sacred shields of brass which, on certain
appointed festivals, were borne in the military dances, the Palladium,
the sceptre of the venerable Priam, formed, together with similar relics
of antiquity, the seven holy pledges of the eternal duration and ever
flourishing increase of the seven-hilled city, which was honoured under
three different names; one whereof was ever kept secret--while the other
two referred to its blooming strength and ever enduring power. The
ancient cities of the Greeks, those of the Italian nations, whether akin
to them, or otherwise, possessed indeed their tutelary deities, their
particular sanctuaries, their highly revered Palladium, some ancient
oracles, and certain religious rites and festivals consecrated to their
honour. But it would not be easy to find another example where the
traditionary reverence, we might almost say, the old hereditary
deification of the city, had from the earliest period, taken such deep
root in the minds of men; and where such a formal worship was so
intimately interwoven with manners, customs, and even maxims of state,
as among the Romans. And when an universal monarchy had sprung out from
this single city, it was still that city--it was still eternal Rome that
was ever regarded, not merely as the centre, but as the essence of the
whole--the personified conception of the state--the grand idea of the
empire. The early traditions of the Romans which, though from the
commencement of the city they assume the garb of authentic history, (as
in the pages of Livy for instance,) yet are for a long time to be
regarded mostly as mere traditions,--evince a fact well entitled to our
consideration,--as it serves to show how that strong, inflexible, but
harsh, Roman character, such as the later records of history display,
manifested itself even in the earliest infancy of this people;--it is
this, that among no other nation, did historical recollections even of
the remotest antiquity exert such a powerful influence on life, or
strike so deep a root in the minds of men. Nearly five hundred years had
elapsed since the time of the elder Brutus, when, in the Roman world now
so mightily changed, a citizen appealed to the second Brutus in these
words--"Brutus, thou sleepest"--as if to urge him to that deed which the
first had perpetrated on the proud Tarquin, and by which that celebrated
name had become identified with the idea of a bold deliverer. An ardent
hatred towards all kings, and towards royalty itself, which from that
period remained ever deeply fixed in the Roman mind, characterised this
people even in the most ancient period of their history. Not only in the
remarks and reflections of the later Roman historians on the first ages
of Rome, but in facts themselves, as in the case of Spurius Cassius, we
may trace the natural concomitant of this hatred--a passionate jealousy
of all powerful party-chiefs, and democratic leaders, who were, perhaps
suspected, or probably convicted of aspiring to supreme power in the
state, and aiming at the establishment of tyranny--as if the Romans had
even then a clear presentiment of the inevitable fate that awaited an
empire like theirs, and of the quarter whence their ruin would proceed.
Even in the first ages, the Patricians and Plebeians appear on the
historical arena, not only as separate classes, such as existed in
almost all ancient states, and between whom no matrimonial ties could be
formed originally at Rome; but as political parties, in a state of
mutual hostility, each of which strove to obtain the ascendancy in the
forum and in the state.

The old Romans of these early times were strangers to those various
systems of legislation, those rhetorical treatises of jurisprudence,
conceived mostly on democratic principles, or to those opposite
political theories composed in an aristocratic spirit, which the Greeks
then possessed in such abundance. On the contrary, the Romans manifested
even then, in the primitive period of their existence, a deep,
perspicacious, practical sense, and a mighty political instinct, which
showed itself in their first institutions of state. Even in the first
idea of the Tribunate--as a regular mode of popular representation--an
element of opposition introduced into the very constitution of the
state--there was contained the germ of that mighty political power and
action, which afterwards a man of energetic character, like Tiberius
Gracchus, knew how to exert. This power, had it been kept within due
limits, might have proved most beneficial to the community; and a single
man, endowed with such a character, and animated by the same spirit of a
true patriotic opposition, has often accomplished more at Rome, than
whole parliaments in modern free states. The authority of the Censor,
negative and restrictive in itself, but still not merely judicial--and
which over the conduct of persons was very extensive--the exceptional
institution of the Dictatorship, in the early ages of Rome by no means
so dangerous--were so many just, and practical political discoveries of
the Romans, which evince their statesman-like genius, and which even in
later times, among other nations, and under various forms, have served
as real and effectual elements in the constitution of states.

The interest of those two parties--the Plebeians and the
Patricians--concurred fully but in one point--the desire which both had
of constantly invading the neighbouring nations, and obtaining landed
possessions for themselves, in the conquests they made for the state.
The Plebeians ever and again cherished the hope of being able to obtain
for their profit, and that of the poorer citizens, a sort of
distribution of the state-lands won in war. But as the Patricians were
mostly invested with all the high offices and dignities in war as well
as peace, they knew how to turn all the opportunities of conquest to
their best advantage, however much they might on particular occasions
postpone their private interests as individuals to the general interests
of the state. Although, so long as their ancient principles
remained unchanged, the Romans were distinguished for the utmost
disinterestedness in regard to their country, and for great simplicity
of manners, and even frugality in private life, they were in all their
foreign enterprises, even in the earliest times, exceedingly covetous of
gain, or rather of land; for it was in land, and the produce of the
soil, that their principal, and almost only wealth consisted. The old
Romans were a thoroughly agricultural people; and it was only at a later
period that commerce, trades and arts were introduced among them; and
even then they occupied but a subordinate place. Agriculture was even
highly honoured by the Romans; and while almost all the celebrated, and
in general, most of the proper, names among the Greeks were derived from
gods and heroes, and had a poetical lustre, and glorious significancy,
it is a circumstance characteristic of the Romans, that the names of
many of their most distinguished families, such as Fabius, Lentulus,
Piso, Cicero and many others were taken from agriculture, and from
vegetables; while others again, as Secundus, Quintus, Septimus, and
Octavius, are tolerably prosaic, and are derived from the numbers of the
old popular reckoning. The science of agriculture forms one of the few
subjects on which the Romans produced writers truly original. That of
jurisprudence, in which they were most at home, which they cultivated
with peculiar care, and which they very considerably enlarged, had its
foundation in the written laws of the primitive period of their history;
and in their elder jurisprudence, the Agrarian system very evidently
prevails. As a robust, agricultural people, they were eminently fitted
for military service; and in practised vigour and constancy under every
privation, the Roman infantry with the vigorous masses of its legion,
surpassed all military bodies that have ever been organized.

The Roman state from its origin, and according to its first
constitution, was nothing else than a well organized school of war, a
permanent establishment for conquest. Among other nations, as among the
Persians and Greeks, the desire of military glory and the lust of
conquest was only a temporary enthusiasm, called forth by some special
cause, or some mighty motive--a sudden sally--the thought of a moment.
Among the Romans it is precisely the systematically slow and progressive
march of their first conquests, their inflexible perseverance, their
unremitting activity, the vigilant use of every advantageous
opportunity, which strike the observer, and explain the cause of their
mighty success in after-times. That unshaken constancy under misfortune,
which ever characterised the Romans, they displayed even at this early
period during the conquest of their city by the Gauls; though this
misfortune, like that people itself, was but a transient calamity. In
general, the Romans never evinced greater energy than when they were
overcome, or when they met with an unexpected resistance. Sometimes in a
moment of extreme urgency, their generals, like the Consul Decius Mus,
taking a chosen body of troops, invoked the national Gods, devoted
themselves to death, and rushed on the superior forces of the enemy,
whereby though they fell the victims of their zeal, they saved the army
from the menaced ignominy of defeat, and achieved a signal victory. With
such a character, such unshaken fortitude and perseverance under
misfortune, we can well conceive that in a state so constituted like
theirs, the Romans, by their indefatigable activity in war, should in no
very great space of time have conquered and subdued all the surrounding
nations and states of Italy. It was thus they successively overcame the
kindred and confederated tribes of Latium, and the rude Sabines; that,
after a long and obstinate siege of the Tuscan city of Veii, they became
masters of the Etrurian League, lords of the beautiful Campania, and
vanquished the warlike Samnites on the Apennine range, and on the coast
of the Adriatic. They now cast their eyes on the rich provinces of Magna
Græcia. In the war against Tarentum, which was in alliance with Pyrrhus,
King of Epirus, they came for the first time in contact with the great
extra-Italic Greek powers, and had to encounter, in the ranks of the
enemy, the unwonted spectacle of war-elephants, which were there
employed according to the Asiatic custom. After the loss of the first
battles, they were victorious; and they now added Apulia and Calabria to
their conquests. Each step in the career at victory drew after it new
embarrassments, new occasions, and new matter for future wars. The
inhabitants of Syracuse, who had been for some time governed by tyrants,
formed on the retreat of Pyrrhus, an alliance with the Carthaginians,
then masters of half of Sicily, and sought their protection against the
Romans, who were confederated with their enemies, another party in the
island. This brought on the first Punic war with that Republic, then
mistress of the sea. In this warfare against Pyrrhus and the
Carthaginians, the Romans, who had been hitherto confined within the
secluded circle of the petty states of Italy, appeared for the first
time on the great historical theatre of the then political world. In
that age which was immediately subsequent to the time of Alexander the
Great, the different Macedonian and other Greek powers of importance
formed, together with Egypt and Carthage, a variously connected system
of states, in one respect, not unlike the political system of modern
Europe, at the end of the 17th and during the greater part of the 18th
century. For, according to a principle of the balance of power, each
state sought to strengthen itself by alliances, and to repress an
overwhelming ascendancy, without on that account at all relaxing its
efforts for its own aggrandizement. That on one hand, the fluctuating
condition and internal troubles of those countries, and on the other,
the fresh youthful vigour, the steady perseverance and constancy of the
Roman people, would soon put an end to this system of equilibrium--to
these political oscillations between the different states, and bring
about the complete triumph and decided ascendancy of the Romans, might
indeed have been easily foreseen, and was in the very nature of things.
After the first Punic war, the Romans to the conquest of Sicily added
that of Corsica and Sardinia; and they next subdued the Cisalpine Gauls
in the North of Italy. When even Hannibal, the most formidable enemy the
Roman Republic ever had to encounter, and the one who had the most
deeply studied its true character, and the danger threatening the world
from that quarter; when even he, after the many great victories which,
in a long series of years, he had obtained over the Romans, in the
second Punic war; though he shook the power, was unable to break the
spirit of this people;--when this was the case, one might regard the
great political question of the then civilized world as settled; and it
could no longer be a matter of doubt that that city justly denominated
Strength, and which even from of old had been the idol of her sons, (who
accounted every thing as nought in comparison with her interests); that
that city, I say, was destined to conquer the world, and establish an
empire, the like whereof had never yet been founded by preceding
conquerors. The second Punic war terminated under the elder Scipio
before the walls of Carthage, and it completed the destruction of that
rival of Rome, at least as a political power. The Princes and states
that while it was yet time, should have formed a firm and steadfast
league against the common foe, fell now separately under the sword of
the victors, and the yoke of conquest. In the further progress of their
triumphs, the conquerors knew how to assume a certain character of
generosity, and give a certain colour of magnanimity to their acts, in
the eyes of a gazing and terrified world. Thus, for instance, after the
defeat of Philip, King of Macedon, they declared to deluded Greece that
she was free; and again, Antiochus the Great, whose arrogance had given
offence to many, and whose overthrow was in consequence the subject of
very general joy, was compelled to cede the Lesser Asia as far as Mount
Taurus; and the victors gave away the conquered provinces and kingdoms
to the Princes in their alliance, and affected not to have the intention
of subduing and keeping all for themselves. For it was yet much too soon
to let the unconquered states and nations perceive that all, without
distinction, were destined, one after the other, to become the provinces
of the all-absorbing empire of Rome. Thus now overpassing the limits of
Greece, the Romans had obtained a firm footing in Asia; and this first
step was soon enough to be succeeded by other and still further
advances. Historians have often remarked the decisive moment when Cæsar,
after an instant's reflection and delay, crossed the Rubicon; but we may
ask now, when Rome herself had passed her Rubicon, where was that
historical limit--that last boundary-line of ambition, after passing
which no return, no halt were possible; if now, when all right, all
justice, every human term and limit to ambition were lost sight of, if
now idolized Rome in the fulness of her Pagan pride, and in her rapid
career of destruction, marching from one crime against the world to
another, descending deeper and deeper into the abyss of interminable,
foreign and domestic bloodshed, was, from the summit of her triumphs, to
sink beyond redemption, down to Caligula and Nero?--We might point out,
as an instance of this ever growing and reckless arrogance, the moment
when the last king of Macedon,[64] not more than a century and a half
from the death of Alexander the Great, was led in triumph into the city
of the conquerors, a captive and in chains, to sate the eyes of the
Roman populace. It entered into the high designs of Providence in the
government of the world, during this middle and second period of
universal history, that each of the conquering nations should receive
its full measure of justice from another worse than itself, emerging
suddenly from obscurity, and chosen as the instrument of its
annihilation or subjection. But a still more decisive example of the
spirit of Roman conquests was the cruel destruction of Carthage in the
third Punic war, begun without any assignable motive and from pure
caprice. In this case no other resistance could be expected than the
resistance of despair, which here indeed showed itself in all its
energy. For seventeen days the city was in flames, and the numbers that
were exterminated amounted to seven hundred thousand souls, including
the women and children sold into slavery; so that this scene of horror
served as an early prelude to the later destruction of Jerusalem. The
wiser and more lenient Scipios had been against this war of
extermination, and had had to contend with the self-willed rancour of
the elder Cato; yet a Scipio conducted this war, and was the last
conqueror over the ashes of Carthage. And this was a man universally
accounted to be of a mild character and generous nature; and such he
really was in other respects and in private life. But this reputation
must be apparently estimated by the Roman standard, for whenever Rome
and her interests were at stake, all mankind and the lives of nations
were considered as of no importance. Besides, it is really not in the
power of a General to do away with the cruelty of any received system of
warfare.

The example of the first great re-action of nations, too late aroused,
was set by Greece in the war of the Achaian league. It terminated like
all the preceding wars;--Corinth was consumed, and its destruction
involved that of an infinite number of noble and beautiful works of art,
belonging to the better ages of Greece. Among the nations of the North
and West that lived under a yet free and natural form of government, the
Spaniards distinguished themselves by a peculiar obstinacy of
resistance. Scipio was unable to conquer Numantia; the people who
defended their liberty behind this rampart, set fire to the city, and
the remaining defenders devoted themselves to a voluntary death. In the
public triumph which the Romans celebrated on this occasion, they were
able to exhibit only a few brave Lusitanians of a gigantic size. Now
commenced the civil wars:--the first was occasioned by Tiberius
Gracchus, then leader of the popular party at Rome. To undertake the
complete justification of any one of the leading men in the Roman
parties, would be an arduous, not to say impracticable task; yet we may
positively assert of the elder Gracchus, that he was the best man of his
party; as the same observation will apply to the Scipios in the opposite
party of the Patricians. The proposal of Gracchus was this--that the
rights of Roman citizens should be extended to the rest of Italy. It was
in the very nature of things that such a change, or at least one very
similar, should now take place, as in fact it did somewhat later; for
after the conquest of so many provinces, the disproportion between the
one all-ruling city and the vast regions which it had subdued, was much
too great to continue long. The armed insurrection of all the Italian
nations that occurred soon after, sufficiently proves of what vital
importance this measure was considered. But the pride of the ruling
Patricians was extremely offended at this claim--they regarded it as an
attempt to subvert the ancient constitution of the country--and, in the
revolt that ensued, Tiberius Gracchus lost his life. From that time
forward the principles apparently contended for on both sides were mere
pretexts--whether it were the maintenance of the law, and of the ancient
constitution, as asserted by the Patricians--or the just claims of the
people, and the necessary changes which the altered circumstances of the
times demanded, as alleged by the opposite party. It was now an open
struggle for ascendancy between a few factious leaders and their
partisans--a civil war carried on between fierce and formidable
Oligarchs.

The effusion of blood was still greater in the troubles which the
younger Caius Gracchus occasioned, and which had the same motive and the
same object as the preceding commotions, though conducted with more
animosity, and stained by greater crimes; and in the Patrician party,
the noble Scipio, the hero of the third Punic war, fell a victim of
assassination. Murders and poisoning were now every day more common; and
it became the practice to carry daggers under the mantle. On this
occasion we may cite an observation, made not by any father of the
church, or any Christian moralist; but by a celebrated German historian,
who was in other respects an enthusiastic admirer of the Republican
heroism of the ancients: "Rome, the mistress of the world," says he,
"drunk with the blood of nations, began now to rage in her entrails." Of
Marius and Sylla, on whom next devolved the conduct of the Patrician and
Plebeian parties in the civil war, now conducted on a more extended
scale, it is difficult to decide which of the two surpassed the other in
cruelty and blood-thirstiness. Marius was indeed of a ruder, and more
savage character--but Sylla evinced perhaps a more systematic and
relentless ferocity. Both were great generals; and it was only after
obtaining splendid victories over foreign nations that they could think
of turning their fury against their native city, after having spent
their rage on the rest of mankind. The victories of Marius had delivered
Rome from the mighty danger with which she had been menaced, by the
irruption of the powerful tribes of the Cimbri and Teutones--the first
fore-runner of the Great Northern migration. Danger served but to arouse
the Roman people to more triumphant exertions; and every effort of
hostile resistance, when once overcome, tended only to confirm their
universal dominion. The greatest and most formidable of these efforts of
resistance was made by Mithridates, King of Pontus--it began by the
murder of eighty thousand Romans in his dominions, and the simultaneous
revolt of all the Italian nations against the Roman sway. No enemy of
the Romans, since Hannibal, had formed such a deep-laid plan as
Mithridates, whose intention it was to unite in one armed confederacy
against Rome all the nations of the North, from the regions of Mount
Caucasus, as far as Gaul and the Alps. By his victories over this enemy,
Sylla prepared to return to Rome, torn and convulsed by civil war; and
on his entry into the city, he treated it with all the infuriated
vengeance of a conqueror, proscribed, gave full loose to slaughter, and
perpetrated the most execrable atrocities. We may cite as a strange
instance of the still surviving greatness of the Roman character, the
fact, that Sylla, immediately after all this immense bloodshed, as if
every thing had passed in perfect conformity to law and order, laid down
the Dictatorship, retired peacefully to his estate, and there prepared
to write his own history. In one respect, however, he was a flatterer of
the multitude--he seems to have thoroughly understood the Roman people,
for he was the first to introduce the games of the circus, those bloody
combats of animals, those cruel Gladiatorial fights, which afterwards,
under the Emperors, became like bread, one of the most indispensable
necessaries to the Roman people, and one of the most important objects
of concern to its rulers. For these games, where the Roman eye delighted
to contemplate men devoted to certain death contend and wrestle with the
most savage animals, Pompey on one occasion introduced six hundred lions
on the arena, and Augustus, four hundred panthers. Thus did a thirst for
blood, after having been long the predominant passion of the
party-leaders of this all-ruling people, become an actual craving--a
festive entertainment for the multitude. And yet the Romans of this age,
when we consider their conduct in war--in the battles and victories they
won, or the strength of character they evinced, whether on the tented
field, or on the arena of political contests, displayed an admirable, we
might sometimes say a super-human, energy; so that we are often at a
loss how to reconcile our admiration with the detestation which their
actions unavoidably inspire. It was as if the iron-footed God of war,
Gradivus, so highly revered from of old by the people of Romulus,
actually bestrode the globe, and at every step struck out new torrents
of blood; or as if the dark Pluto had emerged from the abyss of eternal
night, escorted by all the vengeful spirits of the lower world, by all
the Furies of passion and insatiable cupidity, by the blood-thirsty
demons of murder, to establish his visible empire, and erect his throne
for ever on the earth. There can be no doubt that if the Roman history
were divested of its accustomed rhetoric, of all the patriotic maxims
and trite sayings of politicians, and were presented with strict and
minute accuracy in all its living reality, every humane mind would be
deeply shocked at such a picture of tragic truth, and penetrated with
the profoundest detestation and horror. The licentiousness of Roman
manners, too, was really gigantic; so that the moral corruption of the
Greeks appears in comparison a mere infant essay in the school of vice.

The civil wars that next followed had in all essential points the same
character with the first, though the fearful recollection, which still
dwelt in men's minds, of the times of Marius and Sylla, tended to
introduce at first a certain caution in all external proceedings; but in
the course of their progress, these wars resumed the sanguinary
character of the earlier civil contests. The proper circle of the Roman
conquests, whose natural circumference was now marked out by all the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean, was, in the second period of
the civil wars, pretty well filled up by Cæsar and Pompey--by Pompey on
the side of Asia, and by Cæsar on the side of the incomparably more
formidable and more warlike nations of the North-western frontier. The
conquest of Gaul was achieved by an uncommon effusion of human blood,
even according to a Roman estimation; and in the fifty battles related
by Cæsar to have been fought in the Gallic war, in the complete
subjugation of Spain, in the first wars on the Germanic frontiers and in
Britain, as well as in the North of Africa against Juba, and against the
son of Mithridates, the number of men left on the field is computed at
twelve hundred thousand; and it is to be observed that as Cæsar is his
own historian, these estimates have in part been given by himself. Yet
was he praised for his goodness and the mildness of his character; but
this praise must be measured by the Roman standard, and it is so far
true that Cæsar was by no means vindictive, nor in general subject to
passion, nor cruel without a motive. But, whenever his interest required
it, he was careless what blood he spilled. The war between Cæsar and
Pompey extended over all the provinces and regions of the Roman world;
but, when conqueror, Cæsar formed and followed up the plan of completing
and consolidating his victory by a system of lenity and conciliation.
With all his indefatigable activity and consummate wisdom, with all the
equanimity, prudence and energy of his character, he appears to have
been still weak enough to imagine that the laurels he had acquired, in a
way unequalled by any, were insufficient without the diadem--at least he
gave occasion for such a suspicion. And so the second Brutus perpetrated
on his person the act, for which the elder had been so highly commended
by all Roman historians. To relate the subsequent civil war of Brutus
and Cassius, the reconciliation between Antony and Octavius, which
involved the death of Cicero, the new rupture and war between the latter
rivals, would serve only to swell this account of Rome and her
destinies. These contests terminated in the establishment of monarchy,
when the bloody proscriptions and civil wars of preceding times were
forgotten, and Octavius, under the name of Augustus, appeared as the
restorer of general peace, and the first absolute monarch of the Roman
world;--a monarch whose long reign was on the whole very happy, when
compared with previous times, and who during his life was half-deified
by his subjects. Unlimited power was still clothed and half veiled in
the old republican forms and expressions; and the recollection of
Cæsar's fate was too present to the mind of the cautious Augustus, for
him ever to neglect those forms and usages. It would really appear as if
the world were destined to breathe for a time in peace, and to repose
awhile from those earlier wars, before another and a higher peace
descended, and became visible on the earth--and along with that other,
higher and divine peace, a new and spiritual combat, waged not with the
warlike parties of old, nor even with external and earthly power, but
with the secret and internal cause of all those agitations, and all that
injustice in the world.

A golden age of literature and poetry served now to adorn the general
peace, which the mighty Augustus had conferred on the conquered world.
This poetry was however but a late harvest which flourished towards the
autumn of declining Paganism. Plautus and Terence we can regard merely
as tolerably successful imitators of the Greeks. The beautiful diction
and poetry of Virgil and Horace are in a general survey of literature
chiefly valuable, inasmuch as they gave a noble refinement to a language
which, in modern ages, and even still among ourselves, has been
universally current; but all this poetry, including that, which the
richer, more copious, and more inventive fancy of Ovid produced, can be
considered by posterity as only a very thin gleaning after the full
bloom and rich harvest of Grecian poetry and art. The real poetry of the
Roman people lay elsewhere than in those artificial compositions of
Greek scholars. It must be sought for in the festive games of the
circus, which the prudent Augustus never neglected--in those theatrical
combats, where the Gladiator, wrestling with death, knew how to fall and
die with dignity, when he wished to obtain the plaudits of the
multitude--in that circus, in fine, which so often afterwards resounded
with the cry of an infuriated populace;--"Christianos ad leones," "the
Christians to the lions, the Christians to the lions."

In the department of history, the case was very different from what it
was in poetry. There the strong practical sense of the Romans, their
profound political sagacity, the far wider circle of their political
relations, gave them a decided advantage over the Greeks, who can shew
no historian, possessed of the simple grandeur of Cæsar;--a style as
rapid, and as straight-forward, as the exploits of Cæsar himself; or
distinguished, like Tacitus, by that deep insight into the abyss of
human corruption; while to Livy must be assigned a place by the side at
least of the most illustrious Greeks. Among the Romans, political
eloquence and philosophy, by that union of the two, such as prevails in
Cicero's writings, as well as by the greater magnitude and practical
importance of the subjects which both found for discussion, possess a
peculiar charm and value. At this period the study of Greek philosophy
was regarded and prosecuted by the Romans merely as an useful auxiliary
to eloquence; and in the general depravity of morals, and amid the utter
indifference for public misery and universal bloodshed, the philosophy
of Epicurus naturally found the most admirers. It was only at a later
period, when, under the better emperors, some men had undertaken the
task of the moral regeneration of the Roman people and the Roman state,
that those who entertained this great design sought for the last plank
of national safety in the stoical philosophy, which harmonized so well
with the austere gravity of the Roman character. Then this philosophy
obtained numerous followers among the Romans, as in earlier times it had
found favour with many of them, especially among the Jurists.

In the whole circle of human sciences, jurisprudence is that department
of intellect, in which the Romans have thought with the most
originality, and have exerted the greatest influence; and which, by
means of their writers, has obtained at once a very great degree of
refinement, and a very wide diffusion. Cæsar had formed the project of a
general digest of Roman laws; but this great design, like so many others
he had entertained, was left unexecuted; and the age of Augustus at
least was distinguished by two great lawyers of opposite schools. It is
by the scientific jurisprudence which they have bequeathed to posterity,
more than by any thing else, that the Romans have exerted a mighty
influence on after-ages. It must strike us at first sight as singular,
that a nation which, in its external relations, had risen to greatness,
and indeed had founded its greatness, on so fearful an excess of
injustice, should have risen to such eminence in the science of
jurisprudence, as the Romans undoubtedly have. But the injustice of
their conduct towards other states and nations this people well knew how
to conceal under legal forms, and establish on legal titles; and it
often happened that, by the inconsistent conduct of other nations, they
were able to give a colouring of equity to their acts, and shew on their
side the strict letter of law.

In the next place, the Roman jurisprudence regarded more immediately the
relations of private life, and all the artificial forms of civil law;
and we can well conceive that a people like the Romans, distinguished
for so sound a judgment and such strong practical sense, and whose minds
were so exclusively bent on civil life, and its various relations,
should have attained such distinction in the science of civil
jurisprudence, notwithstanding the enormous iniquity of their conduct in
the wider historical department of international law; and here we may
find an explanation of that apparent contradiction between law and
injustice, such as we find frequent examples of in human nature and in
the records of history.

There is also another element of contradiction in the Roman law,
considered both in itself, and in its relation to other codes--a
contradiction which strongly pervaded the whole theory of that
legislation, and may furnish us with a clue to a right judgment on the
Roman jurisprudence, and on the influence it has exercised on posterity.
This is the distinction between strict or absolute law, and the law of
equity, that is to say, the law qualified by historical circumstances.
In the Germanic law, as it is a law of custom and ancient usage, a law
qualified by times and circumstances, the principle of equity is more
predominant; and we have, indeed, reason to regret that this native and
original legislation of the modern European nations should, by the
prevailing influence of the more scientific jurisprudence of ancient
Rome, have been cast into the back-ground, in proportion as those
nations began to mistake the true character of their historical
antiquity. The Roman jurisprudence, as it deals in rigid formulas, and
adheres to the strict letter, inclines more towards rigid and absolute
law; and its spirit has something akin to the stern international policy
of the ancient Romans. But is this strict and absolute law a fit
criterion to apply to earthly concerns, can it be a true standard of
human justice, in its more large and general applications to the great
transactions of universal history, and in its relations to divine
justice? Every thing absolute (and such undoubtedly is _strict law_, in
the relations of private, and still more in those of public life),
everything absolute is sure to provoke its contrary, and if continued,
will occasion successive reactions, that can terminate only in the
mutual destruction of conflicting parties--the inevitable result of all
contests carried to extreme lengths--unless some higher principle of
peace intervene to compose and determine them by a divine law of equity.

But if this conciliating principle do not pronounce its sentence, or if
it be not attended to, extreme injustice only can spring from this rigid
and inflexible application of extreme law; and this is quite in the
spirit of the old saying of the Jurists, which we must here apply in a
more general sense, in order to estimate with truth and accuracy the
nature of the contests which divide the world. "Let justice be done,"
they say (and the word is here used in the juridical sense of strict and
absolute law), "let justice be done, though the world should be ruined."
And we may well say in reply:--Woe to mankind, woe to every individual,
woe to the world, were they doomed to be finally judged according to
this rigid justice, and this rigid justice only, by _Him_ who alone has
the power and the right to dispense such severe justice unto men, and
judge them by its rules. But since such full and inexorable justice
belongs to God only, who is incapable of error; and since all human
justice is but the temporary delegate of the divine; it should
necessarily be mild, indulgent, qualified by circumstances; and should
on the principle of equity be as lenient as possible, and be ever
mindful of its due limits. And this principle is applicable to the most
important as well as the most insignificant relations of life, and is so
thoroughly connected with them all that, according as we adopt the one
or the other principle of strict and absolute law, or of mild equity,
the whole of our conduct, opinions, and views of the world must differ.
The power of the state is only a temporary, and delegated, power,
destined to accomplish the ends of divine justice; and this dignity,
indeed, is sufficiently exalted, and the responsibility attached to it
sufficiently great; but this supreme human justice, unless it disregard
its own limits, as well as those of mankind, is not divine justice, nor
the immediate authority of God, nor God himself.

The old hereditary vice and fundamental error of the Roman government,
and indeed of the Roman people, was that political idolatry of the
state, to which the false theory of strict and absolute law was of
itself calculated to lead. Although the absolute power of Augustus was
still somewhat veiled under the old forms of the Republic, yet even in
his reign commenced the formal deification of the person of the Prince,
and, under the succeeding emperors, it exceeded all bounds, and
descended to the basest forms of adulation. And if even this idolatry
had been paid, not so exclusively to the person of an Augustus or a
Tiberius, as to the idea of the state identified with that person; and
if thus the real object of that Pagan worship had been in the latest, as
in the earliest, times, Rome, the eternally prosperous, the
everlastingly powerful, the world-destroying, and people-devouring,
Rome, to which every thing must fall a sacrifice; still it was not the
less a thorough political idolatry. And as a sensual worship of Nature
eminently characterized the poetical religion of the Greeks--as the
abusive rites of magic were peculiar to the false mysteries of Egypt--so
this third and greatest aberration of Paganism,--political idolatry in
its most frightful shape, formed the distinguishing character and
leading principle of the Roman state, from the earliest to the latest
period of its history.

Under Augustus the Roman empire was well nigh rounded off in extent,
since the geographical situation, as we before observed, of all the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean might be considered a
sufficiently wide natural frontier. The counties on the coast of Africa
were protected by the contiguous deserts; on the Northern side of the
empire, which was more menaced by invasion, the strongly fortified
borders of the Rhine and the Danube formed a secure barrier. Towards the
eastern and Asiatic frontier, the Parthians were indeed a powerful and
formidable enemy, but there was no probability they would ever seek, as
the Persians had once done, to penetrate so far beyond their boundaries;
while, on the other hand, the Romans had no real interest in extending
their conquests further into that region, or into the interior parts of
central Asia, as such a policy would only lead them further from the
centre of their empire and their power, now unalterably fixed in Italy
and the old, eternal city. The thoughts and feelings of all the better
Romans were no longer turned on the aggrandizement of their empire, but
solely and exclusively on a great internal regeneration of public
morals, and as far as was practicable, of the state itself, according to
those ideal conceptions which they formed of old Rome in her better and
more prosperous days. These projects of social regeneration were nearly
in the same spirit and of the same tendency as those which the better
emperors of succeeding ages, a Trajan and a Marcus Aurelius actually
attempted to accomplish. Others again were filled with apprehensions for
the future; and well indeed might they entertain the most alarming
presentiments; for when the licentiousness of public morals was growing
to a more and more fearful height, and a succession of indolent emperors
was hastening the downfall of the state, the strong fortifications of
the Northern frontier could afford little protection, and the nations of
the North must burst in without resistance upon the empire. This event
did really occur, though at a much later period; but all that was to
precede that event--the quarter whence the new principle would rise up
in the world, that was to overcome Rome herself and regenerate
mankind--all this was certainly not anticipated by any Roman of those
times, however generous and exalted might be his sentiments, and
profound and penetrative his understanding. Nay, when this phenomenon
did actually appear, it was but too evident that they were at first
unable to seize and comprehend its meaning and purport. And what was
then that new power, which was to conquer, and did really conquer, the
earthly conquerors of the world? The old universal empire of Persia, and
the subsequent one of Macedon, had long since passed away, and
disappeared from the face of the earth. The oppressive military
despotism of Rome had to fear no rival that would at all equal her in
power. The influence of the Greek Philosophy, which had previously sunk
into great degeneracy, was completely debased under the yoke of Roman
domination, and barely sufficed to adorn and dignify the Roman sway,
still less to work a fundamental change and reform in the Roman
government.

It was the divine power of Love, tried in sufferings, and sacrificing to
high Love itself not only life, but every earthly desire; and from which
proceeded the new words of a new life, a new light of moral and divine
science, that was to unfold new views of the world, introduce a new
organization of society, and give a new form to human existence. And
such was that primitive energy of Christian love, which displayed itself
in the internal harmony, and close union of the Christian church; in the
rapid diffusion of its doctrines through all the countries and among all
the nations of the then known world; in its courageous resistance to all
the assaults of persecution; in the careful preservation of its purity
from all alloy and corruption; in its firmer consolidation and more
manifold development in words, and works and deeds; in writings and in
life; that not many generations, and but a few centuries had passed
away, before Christianity became a ruling power in the world--an
indirect and spiritual power indeed, but more than any other active and
influential.

A passage on Elias in the Old Testament, which we have already had
occasion to cite, may be applied to the imperceptible beginnings of this
great moral revolution, produced in the world by a new effort of God's
power. When the prophet, from the bottom of his soul had sighed after
death, and had journeyed for the space of forty days towards the holy
mountain of Horeb, the splendour and omnipotence of the Deity were
revealed to him, and passed before his mortal eyes. There came a great
and strong wind, which overthrew the mountains and split the rocks; but,
as the scripture saith, God was not in the wind. There came afterwards a
violent earthquake with fire--but God was neither in the earthquake, nor
in the fire. Now there arose the soft breath and gentle whistling of a
tender air: in this, Elias recognized the immediate presence of his God,
and in awe and reverence he veiled his face. Such was the origin of
Christianity, as compared with the all-subduing and world-convulsing
sway of the conquering nations of preceding ages.

In the last years of Augustus, the first deified Emperor--occurs the
birth of our Saviour in the time of Tiberius, the foundation of the
Christian religion;--and in the reign of Nero, the first perfectly
authentic record of that great event in the Roman history. There is
indeed an account which says that, previously, Tiberius, on the report
of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, had received information of the
new religion, and had made a formal proposal to the Senate to place
Christ among the Gods, according to the Roman custom, and to declare him
worthy of divine honours. It is true indeed, that the single testimony
of Tertullian, on which this account rests, is not of such weight and
historical importance as not to be obnoxious to many serious doubts,
which perhaps however, have been carried somewhat too far. It still
remains a clear historical testimony on a matter of fact; and as long as
this is susceptible of a natural explanation, it argues a perverse
spirit of historical criticism, or rather a total absence of all
criticism, to be ever suspecting fabrications, and supposititious
writings. That an account of this great event might, nay must almost
necessarily, have been transmitted to Rome by the Roman Procurator of
the province of Judea, is proved by the narrative of Tacitus, who
connects the name of this governor with the first mention of the
Christians. Such an account may have been easily sent even by the Roman
captains, who were in Palestine, and one of whom we know, as an
eye-witness, gave such a memorable testimony in favour of the Son of
God, who had died upon the cross; for, according to the general
tradition of the church, this man afterwards became a Christian. There
is again in the character of Tiberius nothing at all at variance with
this account; for however dark, and mistrustful, and cruel, and corrupt
might be the character of that Emperor, we cannot deny he was possessed
of a powerful and profound understanding. He was by no means
unsusceptible of religious impressions, nor indifferent on matters of
religion; but he followed therein his own peculiar views and opinions;
and hence it is quite natural that his attention should be easily drawn
to any extraordinary religious event. He detested, and even persecuted
the Egyptian idolatry, and the Jewish worship, and ordered that the
sacerdotal robes and sacred vessels of their priests should be burned.
He had a strong faith in destiny, was somewhat addicted to astrology,
and dreaded signs in the heavens. If his hostility towards the Jews and
his persecution of that nation, be alledged as an objection to the truth
of this narrative, (as if it were absolutely necessary that he should
have confounded the Christians with the Jews); we may reply that this is
a purely arbitrary hypothesis, and that it is far more natural to
conclude that, when Tiberius had received from Pilate, or other Roman
captains, certain intelligence of the life and death of our Saviour, he
was no doubt informed by these eye-witnesses of the hatred and
persecution which our Saviour had sustained from the Jews. The single
fact indeed, that Christianity was so much opposed to the Pagan worship
and the political idolatry of the Romans--as for instance to the
sacrifice before the image of the Emperor--was in all probability not
stated nor clearly explained in this first account, composed by persons
very little acquainted with the true nature of the new Revelation.
Otherwise such an account would have produced on a man imbued with Roman
prejudices no other impression but that of aversion and disgust. The
idea and proposal itself of regarding an extraordinary man endowed with
wonderful and divine power, at God and as worthy of divine honours, has
nothing at all improbable in itself, or at all inconsistent with Roman
rites and usages, of with Roman opinions respecting Gods and deified
men. The only thing really improbable in the whole affair, is that the
Senate of that time should have dared to oppose and contradict Tiberius
in this matter. However, if the Senate, as we may easily imagine, were
hostile to the proposal of Tiberius, it was easy for them to adopt some
evasive form, and indirectly to impede and set aside this matter, which
as it regarded old national rites, fell entirely within their
jurisdiction. But this circumstance, as we said before, is the only
thing which appears at all exaggerated in this account. It is easy to
understand from this how the proposition of Tiberius, which was never
carried into execution should have fallen into complete oblivion, and
should never have come to the knowledge of Tacitus; as we may conclude,
from his account of the Christians, that he would not otherwise have
suffered this circumstance to pass unnoticed. Singular and remarkable as
this fact may be, it is of no importance in itself; it forms only a
single incident in the strange and contradictory impressions which the
new religion produced on the minds of the Romans. A passage of
Suetonius, in his history of Claudius, would show that the Christians
were confounded with the Jews, for, speaking of that Emperor, he says,
"he expelled the Jews from the Capital, for, at the instigation of
_Chrestus_, they were ever exciting troubles in the state." _Chrestus_
in the Greek pronunciation, has the same sound with Christus; and we may
easily conceive that what the Christians said of their invisible Lord
and Master, that he interdicted them such and such Pagan rites, may in a
matter so totally strange and unintelligible to the Romans, have been
easily misunderstood, as applying to a chief and party-leader actually
in existence. In the same way, by the troubles spoken of in the passage
above cited, may be understood the accustomed and just refusal of the
Christians to comply with the illicit demands of the Pagans.

A fuller light is thrown on this subject by the narrative of Tacitus in
his history of Nero; and, however much the Christian religion may be
misrepresented by the Roman historian, his account has still a character
thoroughly historical, and amidst its very misrepresentations, is
perfectly intelligible, if we take care to distinguish the chief
historical traits. When Nero, at the height of his crimes and
presumption had set Rome on fire, in order to have a lively and dramatic
spectacle of the burning of Troy, he afterwards strove to screen himself
from the odium of this misdeed, and to throw the blame entirely upon the
Christians, who must have been then tolerably numerous in Rome. Tacitus
thinks they were not the authors of the conflagration laid to their
charge; and his feelings revolt at the inhuman cruelties which Nero
inflicted upon them; but, he adds, many horrible things were said of
them, and that it was known in particular they were animated by
sentiments of hatred towards the whole human race. That we are to
understand by this hatred towards the human race nothing more than that
rigid rejection by the Christians of all the idolatrous rites, maxims
and doctrines of the Heathen world, is perfectly evident of itself.
Among the horrible things, of which the Christians were accused, we are
in all probability to understand _the repasts of Thyestes_, for their
enemies make use of that very term in their accusations;--accusations
which were received with eager credulity by a populace that held them in
abhorrence. Although this charge was no doubt afterwards the effect of
malicious calumny, and deliberate falsehood, yet it is very possible
that a gross misconception may originally have given rise to it, and
that this accusation, egregiously false as it was, proceeded from an
obscure and confused knowledge of the mystery of the holy sacrifice, and
of the reception of the Sacrament in that divine feast of love
solemnized in the Christian assemblies.

Even in the official report, which the better and well-meaning younger
Pliny transmitted to Trajan in the year 120, while he was governor of
Pontus and Bithynia, we can clearly discern the embarrassment of the
generous Roman, who was at a loss how to consider the new religion, so
perfectly mysterious and totally inexplicable did it appear to him; and
who in consequence was quite undetermined what he was to do, and how he
was to treat the matter. He writes that, according to the confessions
wrung from the Christians by torture, after the Roman custom, they were
found to entertain an excessive, strange, heterogeneous, an very
perverse, faith of superstition; but that in other respects they were
people of irreproachable morals, and who on a certain day of the week,
Sunday, assembled in the morning to sing the praises of their God
Christ, and to engage themselves to the fulfilment of the most important
precepts of virtue, and that they met again in the evening to enjoy a
simple and blameless repast. He adds that their numbers had already
increased to such an extent that the altars of Paganism were nearly
abandoned; and that a great number of women, boys and children belonged
to their sect. He is at a loss to know, with respect to the latter,
whether he should make any difference in the degree of punishment which,
it appears, they have inevitably incurred under the old Roman laws
against all societies and fraternities not sanctioned by the state; and
on this subject he demands further instructions from the emperor, in
this memorable official letter, which is still extant, and contains the
most ancient portrait of the Christians drawn by a Roman hand.

Thus then, in this period of the world, in this decisive crisis between
ancient and modern times, in this great central point of history, stood
two powers opposed to each other:--on one hand, we behold Tiberius,
Caligula and Nero, the earthly gods, and absolute masters of the world,
in all the pomp and splendor of ancient paganism--standing, as it were,
on the very summit and verge of the old world, now tottering to its
ruin:--and, on the other hand, we trace the obscure rise of an almost
imperceptible point of Light, from which the whole modern world was to
spring, and whose further progress and full development, through all
succeeding ages, constitutes the true purport of _modern history_.


END OF VOL. I.



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FOOTNOTES:


[1] Sämmtliche werke, vorrede, p. 8. vol. 6.

[2] Count Maistre.--See his Soirées de St. Petersbourg.

[3] The aristocracy of French literature, and a very 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.

[4] 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
religious at the cost of learning."--See Baader's opening speech in
1826. _Philosophische Schriften_, page 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
sovereign is the most enlightened, as well as munificent, patron of
learning 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.

[5] Geschichte der Religion.--1804-11.

[6] Essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion: 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1823;--a work where learning, eloquence, and philosophy have
laid their richest offerings at the shrine of Christianity.

[7] In the beautiful critique inserted in the Concordia on M. de la
Martine'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 productions 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 commencement of a poetry of hope.[8] 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 counteracted 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:"[9]--an
encomium which Byron's admirers may learn to appreciate, when they
remember who his contemporaries were, and who the critic was, that
pronounced this judgment.

[8] See his History of Literature, vol. 2. New edition in German.

[9] Philosophie des ebens, page 21.

[10] See the Preface to the Lectures on Dramatic Literature, in the
French translation.

[11] See Sämmtliche werke. vol. x. p. 267.

[12] Concordia, page 59.

[13] Concordia, page 363.

[14] See Concordia.

[15] In a number of the Concordia for 1820, Adam Müller 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.

[16] Those political changes which since Schlegel's death have
occurred 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.

[17] Philosophische Schriften. vol. ii.

[18] See Concordia, page 66.

[19] 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.

[20] 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
prejudices in which he 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.

[21] 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 premier ouvrages ne respirent pas encore
entierement l'esprit pur et véritable_, mais soient entachés plus ou
moins de panthéisme ou de naturalisme, comme cela etoit presque
necessaire à une époque encore si profondément enfoncée dans
l'incrédulité et l'orgueil, cependant leurs principes ont eveillé
l'esprit religieux, et donné une base plus profonde aux verités de
cet ordre. C'est dans ce sens qu'on a retravaillé toutes les
sciences, et l'on peut dire que ces hommes ont plus contribué á
conduire vers la religion, que cette multitude de compendium
dogmatiques du siecle dernier. He then adds, "Ou peut se faire une
idée de la direction religieuse de la physique par les écrits de
Steffens, Schubert, Pfaff, et Baader. Cet esprit conduira encore á
de plus grands resultats; et bientot de nouvelles découvertes faites
au ciel etoilé, sur la terre et dans son interieur, aussi bien que
dans l'organisme, affermiront et mettront dans une nouvelle lumière
ces hautes verités connues des anciens, mais que le sens stupide des
modernes rejetait comme des songes et des superstitions." p.p.
165-6. Philosophie de la Tradition, traduite de l'Allemand. Paris.
1834.

[22] Philosophie der Sprache, p. 118-19.

[23] Ibid. p. 121.

[24] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 142. N.B. I have somewhat abridged
the author's words.

[25] Philosophie des Lebens. pp. 86-7.

[26] Ibid, p. 85.

[27] See Philosophie de la Tradition, traduit de l'Allemand, p. 26.
Paris, 1834.

[28] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 126.

[29] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 129.

[30] A complete edition of Frederick Schlegel's works in fifteen
volumes 8vo. was announced in 1822. Of this edition ten volumes
only, as I am informed, have appeared. To these fifteen volumes must
be added the four which were published in the last years of the
author's life, making in all nineteen volumes.

[31] This translation I have not read, nor would I be at all
competent to pronounce any opinion on its merits; but a very able
judge, the Baron d'Eckstein, has declared that in point of grace,
energy, and dignity, it surpasses, as far as it goes, the famous
translation by Schleiermacher.

[32] The Abbé Gerbet.

[33] N. B. The authorities on which the several facts relative to
Schlegel's personal history have been advanced are the following:
1. The Biographic des Vivans. Paris. 2ndly. An article for July, 1829,
in the French Globe (apparently an abridgment of the account of
Schlegel in the German work, Conversations Lexicon). 3. A fuller and
better account of the author in a French work published several
years ago at Paris, entitled, "Memoirs of distinguished Converts."
For the knowledge of some facts, the writer is also indebted to the
interesting journal "Le Catholique," which Schlegel's able friend
and disciple, the Baron d'Eckstein, edited at Paris, from 1826 to
1829.

[34] The author is now known to be Professor MOLITOR. The second
part of this work has just appeared in Germany. TRANS.

[35] Schlegel's first great work was entitled "the Greeks and the
Romans," published in the year 1797.

[36] The result of our author's researches on Hindoo literature and
philosophy was evidenced in his work entitled "The Language and
Wisdom of the Indians," published in 1808.

[37] Schlegel alludes to "The Lectures on Modern History," which he
delivered at Vienna in the year 1810.

[38] The History of Religion by Count Frederick Stolberg;--a noble
monument raised by genius and learning to the honour of
Religion.--_Trans._

[39] Schlegel alludes to Alexander Von Humboldt.--_Trans._

[40] See Ritter's Geography, 1st part, page 548,--1st Edition in
German.

[41] 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
judgment buried the guilty race of men and their infernal knowledge
in the waters of the Deluge. In the race of Cham, however, which
perpetuated 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._

[42] Noah affords another striking example of a wonderful
prolongation or delay of time. The first nine Patriarchs of the
primitive world propagated 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 propagated 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.

[43] Entitled Ju-Kiao-li, or the Cousins.

[44] 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._

[45] The author alludes to Schelling's philosophy, which is called
sometimes the "Philosophy of Nature," and sometimes the "Philosophy
of Identity." M. Cuvier in his masterly introduction to his great
work on Fossile Remains, 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 metaphysical system of Schelling.--_Trans._

[46] M. Abel Remusat.

[47] 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 historical evidence that, up to
two centuries before the Christian era, idolatry had made little
progress among this people. So vivid was their expectation 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 60 years after the
birth of our Saviour, they sent their envoys to hail the expected
Redeemer. These envoys encountered on their way the Missionaries 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 ambassadors.
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
demoniacal intent is very visible.--_Trans._

[48] Schlegel here alludes to the celebrated Lessing, who in his
work entitled "The Education of the Human Race," had maintained the
doctrine of the Metempsychosis, a doctrine doubly 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._

[49] 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._

[50] Μωüσης.

[51] Schlegel here alludes to that sort of intuitive mysticism in
matters of religion, which was the boast of the adherents of
Schelling's philosophy.--_Trans._

[52] 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._

[53] We have transcribed Sir William Jones's own words, as given in
his Translation of Sacontalá.--_Trans._

[54] See Colebrooke's article on the Vedas, in the 8th volume of
Asiatic Researches.

[55] These are usually termed the Indo-Germanic race of
languages--_Trans._

[56] Schlegel here supposes that the triplicity of roots in the
Semitic languages contains a mystic allusion to the Tri-une
God-head, the root and principle of all existence.

[57] The Aswameda.

[58] 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 his _Soirées de
St. Petersbourg_. No where 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._

[59] "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:--Schlegel, I think has furnished an explanation as
solid as it is ingenious. Thus Lamech to whom the introduction of
polygamy is generally ascribed, was probably, also, the founder of
human sacrifices. According to our great poet, lust sits enthroned
hard by hate.--_Trans._

[60] The author alludes to Condorcet.

[61] This is an allusion to the Pantheistic Naturalism of
Schelling.--_Trans._

[62] In the German "_Lichtsage_," or Tradition of light.--_Trans._

[63] In the German _Vernunft-staat_, the government of reason.

[64] Perseus.

------

Transcriber's note:

Hyphenation has been standardised.





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