[194] Two Arabian idols, the Dusares and Allitta of Herodotus.
[195] Syrian deities.
[196] The guardian of paradise.
[197] In his Treatise on the mystical poetry of the Persians and Hindus: vol. IV. of his Works, p. 232.
§ XV.—Recapitulation of the contents of the Dabistan.
Thus I have indicated the principal contents of the Dabistán. Considering the philosophic opinions touched upon, we may remark that truth, although in different times and places variously colored, veiled, sometimes mutilated, often running into falsehood, is nevertheless widely diffused, inasmuch as it reappears in the concurring declarations of the greatest thinkers of all times. Thus, among the notions of the Asiatics, we find implied the sense of the ἐντελέχεια (entelechia) of Aristotle, this untranslatable word,[198] which however can but signify “some continued and perennial motion,[199] activity, moving force, perfection, principle of things”[200]—we find time and space, the necessary substrata of all our notions, as taught by the Kantians—the want of substantial reality in the objects of senses, maintained by the sceptics in general—the prototypes and ideas of the Pythagoreans and Platonists—the necessary connections of all things of the Stoics—the atomic doctrine of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, Empedocles, etc.—the universality of sensation and life of the Hermetites—the preformation and pre-existence of the soul, alleged by Synesius, Leibnitz, and others—the successive transformation, transmigration, gradual perfection of beings; the periodical renovation of the world professed by many Greek schools—the palingenesis of Bonnet—the one and the all of Parmenides, Plotinus, Synesius, Spinoza, not to omit the refined Egoismus of Fichte, etc., etc. I shall not proceed further in the enumeration of opinions ascribed in the Dabistán to different sects, and reproduced in the doctrine of celebrated ancient and modern philosophers of Europe. Who will realize that criterion of true philosophy indicated by the great Leibnitz, namely, that which would at once collect and explain the fragments of truth scattered through all, and apparently the most incongruous, systems?
This is perhaps the prize to be gained, not by one mortal, but by a series of generations, in a laborious task, so often interrupted and recommenced, but never abandoned. The struggle of the human mind is without term, but not without aim. We see two principal movers of human intellect—PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION. The one employs reason as a sufficient power for the solution of a solvable problem, which comprehends knowledge, morality, and civilisation. The other distrusts reason, and relies upon a supernatural power for the revelation of a secret, or for the word of an enigma, which relates to a destination beyond the bounds of this world. The philosopher, self-confident, is liable to error for various reasons; but always capable of correction and improvement, in the only possible way, that of self-activity, the virtuous exertions of his faculties towards attainable perfection in his whole condition. The religionist is exposed to deception by his gratuitous faith in superhuman guidance, and, if mistaken, is precluded from regress and improvement by his essential virtue, fidelity; that is, the pious surrender of his soul to a spiritual and mystical sovereignty. The Dabistán shows us more religionists than philosophers; it is the school of sects, or rather that of inveterate superstition, with which, in spite of the correctives which human nature affords to its errors, the general character of the Asiatics remains stamped, from time immemorial to the present day.
Although the twelve chapters of the Dabistán bear the titles of as many religions, the author says himself, at the end of his work, that there are only five great religions—those of the Hindus, Persians, Jews, Nazareans, and Muselmans. He no where mentions the Egyptians nor the Chinese, apparently because, in his times and long before, no trace of the Egyptian religion existed, although it certainly had once occupied a great circle of influence, and because the Chinese creed was known to be Buddhism.
The five religions mentioned constitute indeed so many bases, upon which the whole creed of mankind has been, and remains founded. They comprise, in general, polytheism and monotheism. In all times and places, the religion of the “Enlightened” was distinguished from that of the “Vulgar;” the first as interior, being the product of universal reason, was every where nearly uniform; the second, as exterior, being composed of particular and arbitrary rites and ceremonies, varied according to the influence of the climate, and the character, history, and civilisation of a people. But, in the course of time, no religion remained entirely the same, either in principle or form. Polytheism, by mere simplification, tended to monotheism; this itself, in its awful incomprehensibility, was modified according as it originated, or assumed its notions, from anthropomorphism, hylozoism, spiritualism, or pantheism. Nor did any religion remain simple and pure, as proceeding from only one principle; all religious ideas, elemental, sidereal, allegorical, symbolical, mystical, philosophical, and others were mixed, as well as all sorts of worship interwoven. It is now impossible to range in chronological order their rise and transition into different forms. Still the one or the other of these kinds predominated: thus physiolatry, or “the adoration of personified nature,” in India; astrolatry, or “the worship of stars,” in Arabia and Iran; none of the religions entirely disclaimed monotheism, which was positively and exclusively professed in Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammedanism.