The Philosophy of History, Vol. 1 of 2

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But I am now approaching a passage in the life of Schlegel, which will be viewed in a different light according to the different feelings and convictions of my readers. By some...

We should, however, form a very inadequate estimate of the services this great writer has rendered to literature, and of the influence he has exerted on his age, were we to conf...

For several years after the peace of 1814, Schlegel was one of the representatives of the Court of Vienna at the diet of Frankfort. These diplomatic functions occasioned a tempo...

The last point of difference is that, while in many of the modern representative systems, municipal corporations are despised and rejected, they form the very key-stone of the s...

"Had the soul," says the author, "not been originally darkened and troubled--had it remained in a clear, luminous repose in its God--then the human consciousness would have been...

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 Divin...

This matter will be best explained by an example that will bring us at once to the subject we propose to treat. Let us imagine some bold Navigators (and what we here suppose by...

I have laid it down as an invariable maxim constantly to follow historical tradition, and to hold fast by that clue, even when many things in the testimony and declarations of t...

The next consequence which, after this internal discord had broken out in the consciousness and life of man, flowed from the developement of this principle, was the division of...

On this important subject we have another observation to make, which refers more properly to an incidental circumstance in primitive history; for our great business is with the...

As the American continent, in other respects so incomplete, is mostly separated from all the others; and its form is more simple and less complex than that of the ancient divisi...

The Chinese are remarkable too for the utmost polish and refinement of manners, and even for a fastidious urbanity and a love of stately ceremonial. In many respects indeed thei...

Perhaps we may find a natural explanation of the true, and not very hidden sense of these signs, by comparing the fundamental doctrines in the elder Greek philosophy and science...

By the manner in which the Greek writers speak of the two religious parties, into which Alexander found the country divided, it can scarcely be doubted that the Buddhists at tha...

We have already had occasion to observe that the Mosaic narrative,--that first monument of all history, (which a very intellectual German writer has called the primitive documen...

Among the Indians this ruling principle of existence was the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which appears indeed to be the most characteristic of all their opinions, a...

Very different was the character of the ancient Hebrews, who, in science as well as in art, can sustain no comparison with those other nations we have spoken of, and to whom we...

The origin of ancient heathenism we must seek among the Indians, and not among the Chinese, for the reason we have before alleged: namely, that, in the primitive ages, the Chine...

The Indian name of Yogi is derived from the same word, which designates this philosophy. The Indian Yogi is a hermit or penitent who, absorbed in this mystic contemplation, rema...

The next degree in this pyramid of speech is occupied by the noble languages of the second class, and this race of languages, which are connected with each other by strong and m...

In conclusion, we must add some observations, referring not so much to the Jewish people and their history, as to their most ancient historical books, and to those general views...

For the old Heathenism (and we must add this remark as the result of our enquiries), the old Heathenism had a foundation in truth, and, thoroughly examined and rightly understoo...

The classical writers of antiquity begin in general their universal history by an account of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, which preceded the Medo-Persian, and the annals of the...

The Mysteries too, in particular, which, although they did not at a later period, as in their origin, diffuse a sounder morality than the popular mythology, yet certainly inculc...

I called the science of the Greeks a _natural_ science, and in this quality, which it possessed in so eminent a degree, it affords us the highest instruction, and is of itself e...

Instead of that astonishing variety in the states, the races, the political constitutions, the manners, styles of art and modes of intellectual cultivation, which divided from i...

The effusion of blood was still greater in the troubles which the younger Caius Gracchus occasioned, and which had the same motive and the same object as the preceding commotion...

A passage on Elias in the Old Testament, which we have already had occasion to cite, may be applied to the imperceptible beginnings of this great moral revolution, produced in t...

[41] We must not suppose that the impiety of the Cainites was of a dogmatic kind. How could those primitive men, living so near the Fountain-head of revelation, conversing with...