Why the progress of this restoration in human history, according to the word, the power, and the light of God, as well as the struggle against all that was opposed to this Divine principle in humanity, can be clearly described and pointed out only by a vivid sketch of the different nations, and particular periods of the world; I have alleged the reasons in various passages of the present work. With this view, I have, for the purpose of my present undertaking, availed myself, as far as these discoveries lay within my reach, of the rich acquisitions which the recent historical researches of the last ten years have furnished for the better understanding of the primitive world, its spirit, its languages, and its monuments. Besides the well-known names mentioned with gratitude in the text, of Champollion, Abel Remusat, Colebrooke, my brother, Augustus William Von Schlegel, the two Barons Humboldt; and for what relates to natural history, G. H. Schubert; I have to name with the utmost commendation for the section on China, Windischmann's Philosophy; and for what relates to the Hebrew Traditions, drawn from the esoteric doctrines and other Jewish sources of information, which are here most copiously used, I have been much indebted to a very valuable work which appeared at Frankfort, 1827, entitled "The Philosophy of Tradition," and which reflects the highest honour on its anonymous author.[34] To these I might add the names of Niebuhr, and Raumer; but in the later periods of history, we are not so much concerned about new researches on certain special points as about a right comparison of things already known, and a just conception of the whole. In the Philosophy of History, historical events can and ought to be not so much matter of discussion, as matter for example and illustration; and if on those points, where the researches of the learned into antiquity are as yet incomplete, any historical particulars should, in despite of my utmost diligence, have been imperfectly conceived or represented, yet the main result, I trust, will in no case be thereby materially impaired. The following sketch of the subject will shew the order of the Lectures, and give a general insight into the plan of the work. The first two Lectures embrace, along with the Introduction, the question of man's relation towards the earth, the division of mankind into several nations, and the two-fold condition of humanity in the primitive world.