The Philosophy of History, Vol. 2 of 2

by Friedrich von Schlegel

The whole foundation of the scholastic philosophy was thoroughly and essentially false; and it had the most prejudicial and injurious influence, not only on theology, but on the whole spirit and modes of thinking of this age. When however the evil appeared nearly incurable,

and the false current of opinion was too strong to be resisted, a mighty service was rendered to mankind, when acute and sagacious theologians, endowed with philosophical talents and discernment, like a St. Thomas Aquinas, adopting the common, but erroneous, basis of this old Aristotelian rationalism, founded on it a system in which they attempted to reconcile this philosophy with the dictates of faith, and thus, in this respect at least, avert from their age the dangerous consequences of this false direction of the human mind. Yet, on the whole, this was but an apparent reconciliation; and the scholastic philosophy, or in other words, the rationalism of the middle age, broke out often afterwards into a haughty and violent opposition to the doctrines of revelation.

This scholastic spirit of the now degenerate middle age exerted its pernicious influence on life itself, and on the sciences more immediately connected with life, particularly jurisprudence. For when the first Ghibelline Frederick, on the plains of Roncaglia, gave his solemn sanction to the Roman law, and to all those absolute rights and prerogatives of the crown which were thence to be deduced, he thereby opened a door to an intricate scholastic jurisprudence, to all the learned subtlety of processes, and the interminable logic of law; and conferred on mankind a boon as little propitious as the Arabic Aristotle, which his descendant, the second Frederick, afterwards brought into Europe. The vast pandects

of Justinian were already the recognized code of laws, under the Eastern Franconian Emperors, long before the German Jurist Irnerius opened his school of civil law in the University of Bologna. Those old Roman Formulas of universal dominion which are occasionally to be found in the Corpus Juris, suited perfectly the spirit and policy of the Ghibelline Emperors, who, in particular cases, alleged them against the Greek Emperors and other Potentates, as clear proofs of the universal monarchy which appertained to them. But it was particularly from the Ghibelline period that the Roman law became a favourite science, and its study a new mania among the European nations, especially on account of the leaning to absolute principles in that system of jurisprudence, whose artificial forms of rigid law were indeed little congenial to the spirit of Christianity, to modern society, and German manners.

The true problem for the legal science of Christian Europe to solve would have been this—to adopt the forms of the old Roman jurisprudence, so highly wrought and finished in its way, and to reform its spirit by the doctrines and principles of Christian justice; and at the same time to employ the many excellent materials to be found in the native laws of European nations, and in all the old Germanic codes. These laws were indeed of a very local nature, adapted mostly to infant communities and the simple manners of warlike tribes, and by no means appropriate

to a more advanced stage of civilization; yet they contained the solid substance of genuine freedom and exalted equity. But this task ought to have been accomplished in that earlier period when Christianity, which had united and harmonized so many discordant elements, had still retained all its influence—an influence which was afterwards wanting. Those ages, however, which were so thoroughly Christian, and on that very account of such political importance, were deficient in science; and hence, as I have already observed, it was not so much deliberate selfishness, or hostile opposition, but the real want of knowledge and foresight which occasioned the civil and political institutions of Christian states to be left imperfect. It is only in very recent times that an attempt has been made to solve the problem which earlier ages had left unexecuted, or to supply this old deficiency of a Christian system of jurisprudence. And if hitherto this task has never been adequately, or completely, accomplished, though all the conditions have long existed for the solution of this necessary problem of European society; it would not be right to defer again the execution of the work, and thus lose once more the seasonable moment.

How, after the struggle of parties had become more general, and an absolute mode of thinking the ruling character of the age, the violent contests between church and state, between the Secular and Ecclesiastical authorities

tended to promote their mutual injury and destruction, I shall now endeavour briefly to state. After the last excommunication pronounced against Frederick II., one anti-emperor had followed another in succession; and German princes, a prince of the royal household of England, and a king of Castile, had filled successively the imperial throne; none were generally and legally recognized, and it was the reign of universal anarchy and savage club-law. It was a dark interregnum in social order, as if the sun of justice and of peace had withdrawn its light from a world of corruption and irreconcilable hate; and for a whole generation this state of wild disorder, and fear of still greater calamities, lasted. The loss of Jerusalem and all the Holy Land to the Christians, which now took place, added to the general gloom of the times.

In vain had St. Lewis in his last Crusade against Egypt, once more exerted all his energies for the deliverance and preservation of the Christian possessions in the East; possessions, which had they been retained, might in the end have formed a rampart and a barrier against the inroads of the Mussulman power into the adjoining provinces of Europe. Still the danger from this quarter was not so imminent; for it was not till a hundred years later that the Turks burst from Asia Minor into Europe, conquered the Northern provinces of the Byzantine Empire, and began to menace the Christian

kingdoms of the West. But there was a nearer and mightier danger rolling on against Europe—the formidable power of the Moguls, which surprised it in this period of the great interregnum. As if the hostile spirit of destruction had anticipated or known that the power of Christendom could be subverted only by internal discord; an old sage or priest of the still Pagan Moguls, had, about a generation before, announced to the youth, who was afterwards called Zingis Khan, (that is to say lord of the world, and who is known by this name in history,) that in a vision, he had seen the Great Spirit, seated on his flaming throne, judge the nations of the earth, and that, by his decision, the dominion of the world had been allotted to the young Khan of the Moguls. Filled with this spirit, Zingis traversed the world with his countless hosts; conquered China, Thibet and Japan, subdued the Mussulman Empire of Carizme, and penetrated as far as the Caspian Sea. The conqueror’s four sons continued the work which he had commenced, and divided the earth into four parts for their task of desolation. The one to whom was assigned the Western portion of the earth invaded Christendom with his innumerable squadrons; the throne of Rurick, the greatest Christian potentate in the North, was overturned; and for several centuries, Russia, incorporated with the government of Kipzak, groaned under the oppressive yoke of the Mogul sway. Poland was overrun by the all-wasting