The elaborate researches of Mr. Tylor and Sir John Lubbock have
done little more than verify the theories put forward in the
PROMETHEUS BOUND and the DE NATURA RERUM; yet neither AEschylus nor
Lucretias followed in the modern path, but rather attained to truth
by a certain almost mystic power of creative imagination, such as
we now seek to banish from science as a dangerous power, though to
it science seems to owe many of its most splendid generalities. (5)
Leaving then the question of the origin of society as treated by
the ancients, I shall now turn to the other and the more important
question of how far they may he said to have attained to what we
call the philosophy of history.
Now at the outset we must note that, while the conceptions of law
and order have been universally received as the governing
principles of the phenomena of nature in the sphere of physical
science, yet their intrusion into the domain of history and the
life of man has always been met with a strong opposition, on the
ground of the incalculable nature of two great forces acting on
human action, a certain causeless spontaneity which men call free
will, and the extra-natural interference which they attribute as a
constant attribute to God.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59