[7]O. Spengler, ibid. Leopold von Ranke has expressed a similar idea in the splendid and simple phrase, “Alle Epochen sind unmittelbar zu Gott.”
[8]History, II, 35.
[9]O. Spengler, op. cit., I, 15. Incidentally, this quotation illustrates the very point at issue by emphasizing the almost insuperable difficulty of formulating an alien mode of thought. In transposing the words of a German contemporary I have been obliged to blur his thoughts and lose shades of meaning at almost every step: Seele, eminent historisch veranlagt, urweltliche Leidenschaft, Sorge, derive their overtones and deepest meaning from a world of thought which includes, at the very least, German literature of the romantic period; these terms, therefore, hardly bear translating. It is obvious that the disparity of terms and concepts is immeasurably greater where an ancient civilization is concerned.
[10]See my Ancient Egyptian Religion, New York, 1948, and Kingship and the Gods, Chicago, 1948.
[11]O. Spengler, op. cit., I, 224 f.
[12]Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (New York, 1934), 23-4.
[13]Ibid., 250.
[14]Ibid., 46.
[15]Ibid., 254.
[16]Horizon, Vol. XV, No. 85 (London, January 1947), 25-6.