unclouded eye of man.” [Fr. von Schlegel, Philosophy of History p. 91, Bohn's Standard
Library.]
Divine Truth is imagined to have been equally manifest. It is even hinted, though left in some
degree of obscurity, that in this primary condition men were in possession of an indefinitely
extended and already expanded body of religious truths immediately revealed by God. This theory
affirms that all religions had their historical commencement in this primitive knowledge, and that
they polluted and obscured the original Truth by the monstrous creations of error and depravity;
though in all the mythologies invented by Error, traces of that origin and of those primitive true
dogmas are supposed to be present and cognisable. An important interest, therefore accrues to
the investigation of the history of ancient peoples, that, viz., of the endeavour to trace their annals
up to the point where such fragments of the primary revelation are to be met with in greater purity
than lower down.
§ 66
We have to thank this interest for many valuable discoveries in Oriental literature, and for a renewed study of
treasures previously known, in the department of ancient Asiatic Culture, Mythology, Religions, and History.
In Catholic countries, where a refined literary taste prevails, Governments have yielded to the requirements of
speculative inquiry, and have felt the necessity of allying themselves with learning and philosophy. Eloquently
and impressively has the Abbé Lamennais reckoned it among the criteria of the true religion, that it must be
the universal — that is, catholic — and the oldest in date; and the Congregation has laboured zealously and
diligently in France towards rendering such assertions no longer mere pulpit tirades and authoritative dicta,
such as were deemed sufficient formerly. The religion of Buddha — a god man — which has prevailed to such
an enormous extent, has especially attracted attention. The Indian Tim?rtis, as also the Chinese abstraction of
the Trinity, has furnished clearer evidence in point of subject matter. The savants, M. Abel Remusat and M.
Saint Martin, on the one hand, have undertaken the most meritorious investigations in the Chinese literature,
with a view to make this also a base of operations for researches in the Mongolian and, if such were possible,
in the Tibetan; on the other hand, Baron von Eckstein, in his way (i.e., adopting from Germany superficial
physical conceptions and mannerisms, in the style of Fr. v. Schlegel, though with more geniality than the latter)
in his periodical, Le Catholique, — has furthered the cause of that primitive Catholicism generally, and in
particular has gained for the savants of the Congregation the support of the Government; so that it has even
set on foot expeditions to the East, in order to discover there treasures still concealed; (from which further
disclosures have been anticipated, respecting profound theological questions, particularly on the higher
antiquity and sources of Buddhism), and with a view to promote the interest of Catholicism by this circuitous
but scientifically interesting method.
§ 67
We owe to the interest which has occasioned these investigations, very much that is valuable; but
this investigation bears direct testimony against itself for it would seem to be awaiting the issue of
an historical demonstration of that which is presupposed by it as historically established. That
advanced condition of the knowledge of God, and of other scientific, e.g., astronomical
knowledge (such as has been falsely attributed to the Hindus); and the assertion that such a
condition occurred at the very beginning of History, — or that the religions of various nations were
traditionally derived from it, and have developed themselves in degeneracy and depravation (as is
represented in the rudely-conceived so-called “Emanation System,”); — all these are suppositions
which neither have, nor, — if we may contrast with their arbitrary subjective origin, the true
conception of History, — can attain historical confirmation.
§ 68
The only consistent and worthy method which philosophical investigation can adopt, is to take up
History — where Rationality begins to manifest itself in the actual conduct of the World's affairs
(not where it is merely an undeveloped potentiality), — where a condition of things is present in
which it realises itself in consciousness, will and action. The inorganic existence of Spirit — that of
abstract Freedom — unconscious torpidity in respect to good and evil (and consequently to
laws), or, if we please to term it so, “blessed ignorance,” — is itself not a subject of History.
Natural, and at the same time religious morality, is the piety of the family. In this social relation,
morality consists in the members behaving towards each other not as individuals - possessing an
independent will; not as persons. The Family therefore is excluded from that process of
development in which History takes its rise. But when this self-involved spiritual Unity steps
beyond this circle of feeling and natural love, and first attains the consciousness of personality, we
have that dark, dull centre of indifference, in which neither Nature nor Spirit is open and
transparent; and for which Nature and Spirit can become open and transparent only by means of a
further process, — a very lengthened culture of that Will at length become self-conscious.
Consciousness alone is clearness; and is that alone for which God (or any other existence) can be
revealed. In its true form — in absolute universality — nothing can be manifested except to
consciousness made percipient of it. Freedom is nothing but the recognition and adoption of such
universal substantial objects as Right and Law, and the production of a reality that is accordant
with them — the State. Nations may have passed a long life before arriving at this their destination,
and during this period, they may have attained considerable culture in some directions. This
ante-historical period — consistently with what has been said — lies out of our plan; whether a real
history followed it, or the peoples in question never attained a political constitution. — It is a great
discovery in history — as of a new world — which has been made within rather more than the last
twenty years, respecting the Sanskrit and the connection of the European languages with it. In
particular, the connection of the German and Indian peoples has been demonstrated, with as much
certainty as such subjects allow of. Even at the present time we know of peoples which scarcely
form a society, much less a State, but that have been long known as existing; while with regard to
others, which in their advanced condition excite our especial interest, tradition reaches beyond the
record of the founding of the State, and they experienced many changes prior to that epoch. In the
connection just referred to, between the languages of nations so widely separated, we have a
result before us, which proves the diffusion of those nations from Asia as a centre, and the so
dissimilar development of what had been originally related, as an incontestable fact; not as an
inference deduced by that favourite method of combining, and reasoning from, circumstances
grave and trivial, which has already enriched and will continue to enrich history with so many
fictions given out as facts. But that apparently so extensive range of events lies beyond the pale of
history; in fact preceded it. In our language the term History unites the objective with the
subjective side, and denotes quite as much the historia rerum gestarum, as the res gestae
themselves; on the other hand it comprehends not less what has happened, than the narration of
what has happened. This union of the two meanings we must regard as of a higher order than mere
outward accident; we must suppose historical narrations to have appeared contemporaneously
with historical deeds and events. It is an internal vital principle common to both that produces them
synchronously. Family memorials, patriarchal traditions, have an interest confined to the family and
the clan. The uniform course of events which such a condition implies, is no subject of serious
remembrance; though distinct transactions or turns of fortune, may rouse Mnemosyne to form
conceptions of them, — in the same way as love and the religious emotions provoke imagination to
give shape to a previously formless impulse. But it is the State which first presents subject-matter
that is not only adapted to the prose of History, but involves the production of such history in the
very progress of its own being. Instead of merely subjective mandates on the part of government,
— sufficing for the needs of the moment, — a community that is acquiring a stable existence, and
exalting itself into a State, requires formal commands and laws — comprehensive and universally
binding prescriptions; and thus produces a record as well as an interest concerned with intelligent,
definite — and, in their results — lasting transactions and occurrences; on which Mnemosyne, for
the behoof of the perennial object of the formation and constitution of the State, is impelled to
confer perpetuity. Profound sentiments generally, such as that of love, as also religious intuition and
its conceptions, are in themselves complete — constantly present and satisfying; but that outward
existence of a political constitution which is enshrined in its rational laws and customs, is an
imperfect Present; and cannot be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of the past.
§ 69
The periods — whether we suppose them to be centuries or millennia — that were passed by
nations before history was written among them, — and which may have been filled with
revolutions, nomadic wanderings, and the strangest mutations, — are on that very account destitute
of objective history, because they present no subjective history, no annals. We need not suppose
that the records of such periods have accidentally perished; rather, because they were not
possible, do we find them wanting. Only in a State cognisant of Laws, can distinct transactions
take place, accompanied by such a clear consciousness of them as supplies the ability and
suggests the necessity of an enduring record. It strikes every one, in beginning to form an
acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products, and
those of the profoundest order of thought, has no History; and in this respect contrasts most
strongly with China — an empire possessing one so remarkable, one going back to the most
ancient times. India has not only ancient books relating to religion, and splendid poetical
productions, but also ancient codes; the existence of which latter kind of literature has been
mentioned as a condition necessary to the origination of History — and yet History itself is not
found. But in that country the impulse of organisation, in beginning to develop social distinctions,
was immediately petrified in the merely natural classification according to castes; so that although
the laws concern themselves with civil rights, they make even these dependent on natural
distinctions; and are especially occupied with determining the relations (Wrongs rather than Rights)
of those classes towards each other, i.e., the privileges of the higher over the lower. Consequently,
the element of morality is banished from the pomp of Indian life and from its political institutions.
Where that iron bondage of distinctions derived from nature prevails, the connection of society is
nothing but wild arbitrariness, — transient activity, — or rather the play of violent emotion without
any goal of advancement or development. Therefore no intelligent reminiscence, no object for
Mnemosyne presents itself; and imagination — confused though profound — expatiates in a region,
which, to be capable of History, must have had an aim within the domain of Reality, and, at the
same time , of substantial Freedom.
§ 70
Since such are the conditions indispensable to a history, it has happened that the growth of
Families to Clans, of Clans to Peoples, and their local diffusion consequent upon this numerical
increased series of facts which itself suggests so many instances of social complication, war,
revolution, and ruin, — a process which is so rich in interest, and so comprehensive in extent, —
has occurred without giving rise to History: moreover, that the extension and organic growth of the
empire of articulate sounds has itself remained voiceless and dumb, — a stealthy, unnoticed
advance. It is a fact revealed by philological monuments, that languages, during a rude condition of
the nations that have spoken them, have been very highly developed; that the human understanding
occupied this theoretical region with great ingenuity and completeness. For Grammar, in its
extended and consistent form, is the work of thought, which makes its categories distinctly visible
therein. It is, moreover, a fact, that with advancing social and political civilisation, this systematic
completeness of intelligence suffers attrition, and language thereupon becomes poorer and ruder: a
singular phenomenon — that the progress towards a more highly intellectual condition, while
expanding and cultivating rationality, should disregard that intelligent amplitude and expressiveness
— should find it an obstruction and contrive to do without it. Speech is the act of theoretic
intelligence in a special sense; it is its external manifestation. Exercises of memory and imagination
without language, are direct, [non-speculative] manifestations. But this act of theoretic intelligence
itself, as also its subsequent development, and the more concrete class of facts connected with it,
-viz. the spreading of peoples over the earth, their separation from each other, their comings and
wanderings — remain involved in the obscurity of a voiceless past. They are not acts of Will
becoming self-conscious — of Freedom, mirroring itself in a phenomenal form, and creating for
itself a proper reality. Not partaking of this element of substantial, veritable existence, those
nations — notwithstanding the development of language among them — never advanced to the
