The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2

by Friedrich von Schlegel

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.