The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2Schlegel, Friedrich von
Philosophy
The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2
Schlegel, Friedrich von
History; History -- Philosophy
In the Indian Sagas, the two races of the primitive world are
represented in a state of continual or perpetually renewed
warfare:--wicked nations of giants attack one or other of the two
Brahminical races that descend from the virtuous Patriarchs; generous
and divinely inspired heroes come to their assistance, and achieve many
wonderful victories over these formidable foes. Such is the chief
subject of all the great epic poems, and most ancient heroic Sagas of
the Indians. In conformity to their present modes of thinking, and to
their present constitution of society, they describe that fierce race of
giants as a degraded caste of warriors; and they even give that
denomination to many nations well known in later history, such as the
Chinese, who bear the same name with them as with ourselves; the
Pahlavas, who were a tribe of the ancient Medes and Persians,
corresponding to one of the two sacred languages of ancient Persia--the
Pahlavi--and the Ionians or Yavanas according to the Asiatic
denomination of the primitive Greeks. It may even be a matter of doubt,
whether a regular caste of warriors, and an hereditary priesthood,
according to the very ancient system of the hereditary division of
classes, did not exist in the primitive world. However great may be the
chronological confusion evinced in these poems and Sagas, however much,
perhaps, of later history may have been interwoven into their ancient
narratives, and however much of poetical embellishment and gigantic
hyperbole the whole may have received, the leading features of historic
truth may still be distinguished with certainty in the chequered tablet
of tradition. For the hostility of two rival races in the primitive
world, considered in itself, and independently of adventitious
circumstances, must be looked upon as a positive and well authenticated
fact. It might perhaps be proved before the tribunal of the severest
historical criticism that poetry, that is to say, primitive historic
tradition clothed with the ornaments of poetry--is often much nearer the
truth in its representations of the primitive world than a dull Reason,
that draws its estimate of probability from mere vulgar analogies, and
which sees or affects to see every where only stupid and brutish
savages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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