The Philosophy of History. Friedrich von Schlegel
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schools on the triple essence, or the triple Personality of the one God. In this symbol the heads of the three principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, the Gods of creation, preservation and destruction, are united in one figure; and this union undoubtedly indicates the primary energy common to all three. If we examine each in particular, we shall see that the attributes assigned to Brahma, and the expressions usually applied to his person, when divested of their poetical garb, and mythic accompaniments, may often, almost literally and in strict truth, be referred to the Deity. The all-pervading and self-transforming Vishnoo is much more the wonderful Prometheus of nature, than a real and well defined divinity. The third in this divine Triad, the formidable and destructive Siva, has but a very remote analogy with the Deity that judges and chastises the world according to justice. This God of destruction, whose worshippers appear to have been formerly the most numerous in India, as those of Vishnoo are at the present day; this God of destruction, with his serpents and bracelets of human skulls, appears evidently to be that demon of corruption who brought death into all creation, and who here, whimsically and inconsistently enough, has been introduced into the symbol, and made a part of the Deity itself. This union or confusion of Eternal Perfection with the Evil Principle is made in another way by the Indian philosophers; as some of them explain the doctrine of Trimurti, or the divine Triad by reference to the Traigunyan, or the three qualities. These three different regions, or degrees, into which, according to the Indian doctrine, all existence is divided, are the pure world of eternal truth, or of light, the middle region of vain appearance and illusion, and the abyss of darkness. However, it must be observed that the Indians do not express the pure and metaphysical idea of the Supreme Being by either of the names of the two last-mentioned popular divinities; nor do they even denote this idea by the name of Brahma, the first person of their trinity, but by the word Brahm, a neuter noun which signifies the Supreme Being.
As there were now two conflicting elements in the breast of man—the old inheritance or original dowry of truth, which God had imparted to him in the primitive revelation; and error, or the foundation for error in his degraded sense and spirit now turned from God to Nature—how easily must error have sprung up, when the precious gem of divine truth was no longer guarded with jealous care, nor preserved in its pristine purity; how much must truth have been obscured, as error advanced in all its formidable might, and in all its power of seduction; and how soon must not this have happened among a people, like the Indians, with whom imagination and a very deep, but still sensual, feeling for Nature, were so predominant!—It was thus a wild enthusiasm, and a sensual idolatry of Nature, generally superseded the simple worship of Almighty God, and set aside or disfigured the pure belief in the eternal, uncreated Spirit. The great powers and elements of nature, and the vital principle of production and procreation through all generations, then the celestial spirits, or the heavenly host (to speak the language of antiquity), the luminous choir of stars, which the whole ancient world regarded not as mere globes of light or bodies of fire, but as animated substances; next the Genii and tutelar spirits, and even the souls of the dead received now divine worship; and men, instead of honouring the Creator in these, and of regarding these in reference to their Creator, considered them as Gods. Such is, when we have once supposed that man had turned away from God to Nature, such is the natural origin of Polytheism, which in every nation assumed a different form according to the peculiar modes of life, and the prevailing principles of life, in each.
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, and was by its influence on real life, by far the most important. We must in the first place remember, and keep well in our minds, that, among those nations of primitive antiquity, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was not a mere probable hypothesis, which, as with many moderns, needs laborious researches and diffuse argumentations in order to produce conviction on the mind. Nay, we can hardly give the name of faith to this primitive conception; for it was a lively certainty, like the feeling of one's own being, and of what is actually present; and this firm belief in a future existence exerted its influence on all sublunary affairs, and was often the motive of mightier deeds and enterprises than any mere earthly interest could inspire. I said above that the doctrine of the transmigration of souls was not unconnected with the Indian system of castes; for the most honourable appellation of a Brahmin is Tvija, that is to say, a second time born, or regenerated. On one hand this appellation refers to that spiritual renovation and second birth of a life of purity consecrated to God, as in this consists the true calling of a Brahmin, and the special purpose of his caste. On the other hand this term refers to the belief that the soul, after many transmigrations through various forms of animals, and various stages of natural existence, is permitted in certain cases, as a peculiar recompense, when it has gone through its prescribed cycle of migrations to return to the world, and be born in the class of Brahmins. This doctrine of the transmigration of souls through various bodies of animals or other forms of existence, and even through more than one repetition of human life, (whether such migrations were intended as the punishment of souls for their viciousness and impiety, or as trials for their further purification and amendment)—this doctrine which has always been, and is still so prevalent in India, was held likewise by the ancient Egyptians. This accordance in the faith of these two ancient nations, established beyond all doubt by historical testimony, is indeed remarkable; and even in the minutest particulars on the course of migration allotted to souls, and on the stated periods and cycles of that migration, the coincidence is often perfectly exact. How strangely now it this most singular error mixed up, I do not say with truth, but with a feeling that is certainly closely akin to primitive truth! When an individual of our own age, out of disgust with modern and well-known systems, or with the vulgar doctrines, and from a love of paradox, adopted this ancient hypothesis of the transmigration of souls; he merely considered the bare transmutation of earthly forms.[48] But among those ancient nations this doctrine rested on a religious basis, and was connected with a sentiment purely religious. In this doctrine there was a noble element of truth—the feeling that man, since he has gone astray, and wandered so far from his God, must needs exert many efforts, and undergo a long and painful pilgrimage before he can rejoin the Source of all perfection;—the firm conviction and positive certainty that nothing defective, impure, or defiled with earthly stains can enter the pure region of perfect spirits, or be eternally united to God; and that thus, before it can attain to this blissful end, the immortal soul must pass through long trials and many purifications. It may now well be conceived, (and indeed the experience of this life would prove it,) that suffering, which deeply pierces the soul, anguish that convulses all the members of existence, may contribute, or may even be necessary, to the deliverance of the soul from all alloy and pollution, as, to borrow a comparison from natural objects, the generous metal is melted down in fire and purged from its dross. It is certainly true that the greater the degeneracy and the degradation of man, the nearer is his approximation to the brute; and when the transmigration of the immortal soul through the bodies of various animals is merely considered as the punishment of its former transgressions, we can very well understand the opinion which supposes that man who, by his crimes and the abuse of his reason, had descended to the level of the brute, should at last be transformed into the brute itself. But what could have given rise to the opinion that the transmigration of souls through the bodies of beasts was the road or channel of amendment, was destined to draw the soul nearer to infinite perfection, and even to accomplish its total union with the Supreme Being, from whom, in all appearance, it seemed calculated to remove it further? And as regards a return to the present state and existence of man, what thinking person would ever wish to return to a life divided and fluctuating as it is, between desire and disgust, wasted in internal and external strife, and which, though brightened by a few scattered rays of truth, is still encompassed with the dense clouds of error;—even though this return to earthly existence should be accomplished in the Brahminical class so highly revered in India, or in the princely and royal race so highly favoured by fortune? There is in all this a strange mixture and confusion of the ideas of this world with those of the next; and how the latter is separated from the former by an impassable gulf, they seem not to have been sufficiently aware. Both these ancient nations, the Egyptians as well as the Indians, regarded with few exceptions, the Metempsychosis, not as an object of joyful hope, but rather as a calamity impending over the soul; and whether they considered it to be a punishment for earthly transgressions, or a state of probation—a severe