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.